Apple's App Store Tops 40 Billion Downloads; Generates $7 Billion For Developers

An anonymous reader writes "With the eyes of the tech world fixed on CES this week, Apple this morning conveniently decided to issue a press release announcing that the iTunes App Store has now topped over 40 billion downloads. That's an incredible feat, to be sure, but even more incredible is that nearly half of those downloads occurred in 2012. In December alone, iOS users downloaded over 2 billion applications, setting a monthly record in the process."

Comments

RMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurr durr. Apple hurts developers.

Re:RMS

[homey of my owney]

Mmmmm, indeed. $7 billion worth of hurt.... Ouch.

Re:RMS

[dimeglio]

RMS should be proud. All those developers can now afford to make some kind of contribution to GNU.

Re:RMS

[exomondo]

So, $7 billion made from 40 billion downloads equals $1 for every 5.7 downloads. Ouch indeed.

That downloads figure includes all the free apps as well.

If we divide that 7 Billion over the 5 Million registered developer accounts they have made in the entire time that the store has been running (5 years) they've made $1400 each. That's not even enough to pay for the 5x$99 fees and $1500 for the Mac needed to do development.

That would be pretty disingenuous given developer registration is free and that the app store currently has around 775,000 apps, your numbers make no sense. Even if you made the obviously false assumption that every app was paid or supported by iAds it still works out to an average of around $9000 per app.

Re:RMS

[mjwx]

That downloads figure includes all the free apps as well.

Free application developers still need to pay for the yearly license fee and Mac to develop on.

That would be pretty disingenuous given developer registration is free

And that statement is downright deceitful considering you need to pay the $99 yearly license fee to get you application listed. You still need to pay for the Mac to develop on regardless of if you release anything. A free developer registration only gives you the right to look, not to touch (as in release an application).

I haven't even consider the cost in man hours.

I've said it before, the only way to make money with mobile applications is to be the one the suckers who think they can make money on mobile applications hire to make their crappy apps... Given that work can be farmed off to the 3rd world Asian nation of your choice it's hardly a guaranteed success.

Re:RMS

[exomondo]

And that statement is downright deceitful considering you need to pay the $99 yearly license fee to get you application listed.

Wrong, it isn't deceitful at all, nowhere near 5 million people have listed applications, in fact there aren't even 20% of that number of applications in the app store today, yet you claim 5 million people have been paying $99 a year for the past 5 years, obviously a ridiculous and baseless claim that isn't in any way even close to being conceivably accurate.

You still need to pay for the Mac to develop on regardless of if you release anything.

Not if you already have one, and you certainly don't need one to become a registered developer. Moreover i doubt many people are buying a mac solely for the purpose of iOS development.

A free developer registration only gives you the right to look, not to touch (as in release an application).

Yes and the numbers speak for themselves, the vast majority have not released any application.

Re:RMS

[putaro]

Well, consider this - the App Store is the ONLY market for iPhone software so those numbers are for all software sales for iPhone. That $7B figure that is tossed around is not for 2012, but since the App Store was created. Electronic Arts alone is making $4B a year in revenue. So, obviously, the iPhone is not supporting the kind of software ecosystem that either Windows or even Mac OS supports.

mjwx is right - it's a rube's game to develop for iPhone. It's certainly not something you can design a major company around.

Apple's revenues were $36B in 4th quarter 2012. Even if we take that $7B as for 2012 alone, with the 30% cut for Apple, that means the total sales were $10B and Apple's share was $3B, or less than $1B per quarter. App Store is simply a hobby for them. It's no wonder they treat the developers so poorly.

Here's where I think they're screwing themselves, though. Traditionally, users spent more on software than on hardware. This creates a certain amount of lock-in when you're upgrading hardware because you have to repurchase all of your applications for a different OS. How much has the average user spent on apps for their iPhone? $50? $100? Whatever it is, it's certainly a lot less than they spent for the hardware. Making the switch to Android is a lot easier, at least from the software upgrade point of view.

Re:RMS

[exomondo]

Well, consider this - the App Store is the ONLY market for iPhone software so those numbers are for all software sales for iPhone. That $7B figure that is tossed around is not for 2012, but since the App Store was created.

And the averages work out to - assuming all apps were paid apps (which they certainly aren't) - around $9000 per app.

Electronic Arts alone is making $4B a year in revenue.

So? I'm sure some of that comes from iOS as well as from Android, PC, PS, XBox and Wii.

it's a rube's game to develop for iPhone. It's certainly not something you can design a major company around.

Why would anyone build a company exclusively around iOS apps? Most port to other platforms so the contribution from iOS is only part of their income or do it as a hobby so i'm not sure what your point or complaint is supposed to be. Are you trying to say one shouldn't pin all their hopes on iOS apps? If so i would think that would obvious enough to not even have to state it.

Making the switch to Android is a lot easier, at least from the software upgrade point of view.

Isn't that the case with all platforms? It's nice that switching is easy.

Re:RMS

[macs4all]

So, $7 billion made from 40 billion downloads equals $1 for every 5.7 downloads. Ouch indeed.

That downloads figure includes all the free apps as well.

If we divide that 7 Billion over the 5 Million registered developer accounts they have made in the entire time that the store has been running (5 years) they've made $1400 each. That's not even enough to pay for the 5x$99 fees and $1500 for the Mac needed to do development.

That would be pretty disingenuous given developer registration is free and that the app store currently has around 775,000 apps, your numbers make no sense. Even if you made the obviously false assumption that every app was paid or supported by iAds it still works out to an average of around $9000 per app.

Not to mention the "$1500 Mac" "Requirement" is nearly 300% inflated. Mac minis are great for development, and start at $600. And that doesn't even count the developers that already had an Intel Mac for other development (like all those Linux devs. who have MacBooks, for example).

In other words, the GP needs to stop lying through his teeth.

Seven Beeeel-Yon dollars is a way significant figure, any way you slice it.

Re:RMS

[macs4all]

mjwx is right - it's a rube's game to develop for iPhone. It's certainly not something you can design a major company around.

Maybe not a "major company"; but it can sure put a smile on the face of many small, independent developers. Which, BTW, should fit in nicely with the /. crowd.

Re:RMS

[Anonymous Coward]

7 Billion out of over 40 billion probably closer to 80 or 120 billion in revenue earned for Apple.

Aye, Apple hurts developers - they'd make more selling it through Android where 30+% (using credit card company calcs) isn't skimmed off the top.

Apple hurts their customers more though - wasting cash left and right for inferior products just to be a sheeple.

Re:RMS

[Plumpaquatsch]

Well, consider this - the App Store is the ONLY market for iPhone software so those numbers are for all software sales for iPhone. That $7B figure that is tossed around is not for 2012, but since the App Store was created. Electronic Arts alone is making $4B a year in revenue. So, obviously, the iPhone is not supporting the kind of software ecosystem that either Windows or even Mac OS supports.

mjwx is right - it's a rube's game to develop for iPhone. It's certainly not something you can design a major company around.

So what can you design a major company around? Making big PC games like EA? Or apps for Android?

Unique downloads?

[future assassin]

or all downloads.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference?

Re:Unique downloads?

[samkass]

or all downloads.

They don't count updates or re-downloads in that figure.

Re:Unique downloads?

[ageoffri]

The difference could be substantial. Take a user who got the original iPhone and bought each new version of the iPhone. If they download even one of the same apps that person has contributed multiple times. Or in the case of having problems with an app and uninstalling/re-installing, again the count is inflated. Unique downloads based off of Apple store ID is the number that really matters. Sure someone could have changed apple ID's for some reason but it will be the best way to get an accurate count.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Ars (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/01/apple-40-billion-unique-app-downloads-7-billion-paid-to-developers/), its unique.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see what Apple has to say!

Apple® today announced that customers have downloaded over 40 billion apps* [...]

*40 billion unique downloads excluding re-downloads and updates.

Why the fuck editors wouldn't link to the actual press release, rather than idiotic networkworld clickbait is beyond me. I guess "news" doesn't like primary sources, it's easier to just let networkworld flog their useless "reportage" instead.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Master Moose]

Take a user who got the original iPhone and bought each new version of the iPhone. .

..out the back and shoot him.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Mikkeles]

I guess "news" doesn't like primary sources...

Hey, if it isn't good enough for Wikipaedia, it's not good enough for /.;^)

Re:Unique downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Slashdot is little more than a personal blog. News isn't reported here, it's copied and linked to.

Re:Unique downloads?

[AmiMoJo]

Google provide developers with interesting metrics like the number of people who have your app installed and the number of people who actively use it (i.e. bother to open it semi-regularly). I know a lot of people fill their phones will apps, so I'd love to know what percentage of these downloads are either never touched or were deleted within 5 minutes of installation.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess "news" doesn't like primary sources

Any other company, and you'd probably be deriding the Slashdot editors for linking directly to a company's marketing material -- aka "press releases". It's awfully nice when you can have it both ways.

Re:Unique downloads?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Google provide developers with interesting metrics like the number of people who have your app installed and the number of people who actively use it (i.e. bother to open it semi-regularly).

Fuck, that's creepy. I seriously doubt Apple checks how often you open apps.

Re:Unique downloads?

[BevanFindlay]

Why? I would almost be more surprised if they *didn't* check that kind of data. After all, in the information age, knowing what works and what doesn't is really key to success. Considering that places like this can find information on things like crashes, when people uninstall apps, etc (yes, they are using a specific piece of software for that), then I'd almost expect Apple themselves to be doing it. It would certainly make sense for their own apps at least - promote the ones that people use, drop the ones that don't get used (though the same metric applies to promoting things on their App Store, too).

Re:Unique downloads?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Why? I would almost be more surprised if they *didn't* check that kind of data.

If they did, the press would be al over it - not to mention the Apple haters.

Re:Unique downloads?

[BevanFindlay]

Good point. But, it's the sort of thing that could quite possibly be buried in the depths of a EULA somewhere and done quietly in the background. Has anyone bothered to trawl through Apple's user agreements looking for such?

How many developers?

[future assassin]

2 Billion $ devided by 1000's of developers is not much income per dev. I'd rather see an average breakdown per dev or full breakdown.

Re:How many developers?

[ernest.cunningham]

7 Billion dollars.....
What you have to realise is that is just payout form Apple.

Many developers (including myself) make a living developing custom applications for businesses. So that figure is just for those who sell their wares.

Re:How many developers?

[twistofsin]

Averages are useless since some (many?) devs aren't worth shit and are just trying to hop onto the iOS bandwagon.

Re:How many developers?

[alen]

Most if the money is made by the top dev houses

Just like in the play store and in hardware sales

Re:How many developers?

[NatasRevol]

$7 billion spread across 10 thousand developers is still $700,000 per developer.

If that's 'not much income' for you, you're selling drugs on the side.

Re:How many developers?

[miroku000]

2 Billion $ devided by 1000's of developers is not much income per dev. I'd rather see an average breakdown per dev or full breakdown.

That is an average of 7000000000/775000 or $9032.25 per app. It is pretty hard to compare Android earnings because they are mostly from third parties via advertising. For example, out of the $100,000 or so I have made on Android apps, about $200 came from the Android market itself.

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 275,000 registered developers in the USA alone (source: Apple). Even with an unrealistic 300K world-wide estimation, the average is less than $7000. Of course, your average developer won't even come close to that figure, as a few key players such as Rovio, EA, or Gameloft would grab a massive part of the pie for themselves.

In other words, the gold rush is dead. There is still the occasional success story (Apple likes those stories and routinely puts some indie title in a featured space) but there are a vast, vast number of mostly fine apps and games that will never recover the development costs.

It is still very possible to make money in the app store, but the rules are now similar to any other market: expend wisely your arm and your leg in marketing, and pray you acquisition cost per user is justified by the returns. In other words, you need to be a publisher with big pockets or be prepared to give your soul to one. And be wary of publishers in mobile. In a brick-and-mortar world, shelf space is limited and publishers don't like to release a title that sells nothing, so at least they'll make some marketing effort most of the time. Not necessarily the case in mobile.

Re:How many developers?

[Missing.Matter]

A straight up average is inappropriate, as there are some massive outliers. Take a look at the top paid apps: http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/paid-apps/

It's overwhelmingly games. And of these top 100 apps, developers like Rovio and EA are overrepresented. Meaning if your app isn't a game and your company isn't Rovio, you're probably not making much at all. Rovio and EA on the other hand are probably making well over $700,000.

Re:How many developers?

[exomondo]

Not to mention non-iAds revenue.

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, great to be one of those 10000. Sucks to be one of other 265000 ("275,000 registered iOS developers in the U.S." sez Apple's site), though.

Re:How many developers?

[NatasRevol]

No idea, but do paid apps count if they're free, but with in-app purchases?

That would well skew things.

Re:How many developers?

[NatasRevol]

Many of whom have not released an app.

I'm a registered iOS developer, it's free.
Nice to be able to take a look around at what is possible.

Re:How many developers?

[SomePgmr]

The part that's relevant to most of us is that while Google Play is poised to surpass iTunes in catalog size, it brings in 1/4 the revenue.

Not the sort of stat that puts a smile on my face.

Re:How many developers?

[Missing.Matter]

At the same time, that revenue figure is only a measurement of the paid apps revenue. The unknown figure for both platforms is how much developers are making from ad revenue. This could potentially be much higher on Android.

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I made about $30k last year writing iOS apps in my spare time, about 5 hours per week on average. Comes out to over $100 per hour. My apps are not games, and I do a revenue split with the content owners.

Re:How many developers?

[narcc]

It's about 6-months old, but here you go:

Breakdown of VisionMobile study

Re:How many developers?

[kondor6c]

Yes, becoming a developer is free, you get access to documentation and some videos (which require you to be on OS X and Safari). However if you want to push applications to the AppStore, it requires a fee of $99 per year, and to use Xcode 4 you need to have an Apple device.

Re:How many developers?

[NatasRevol]

That was kind of my point.

LOTS of people aren't going to put out $100 just try out an app on the AppStore

Re:How many developers?

[BasilBrush]

That is an average of 7000000000/775000 or $9032.25 per app.

76% of apps are on the app store are free, and thus don't expect any income, at least from downloads. Some of them will have in game purchases though.

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're retarded. >95% of iOS developers don't get any of the 7Billion. iOS development is a fool's lottery designed to suck time and resources away from morons like you... in fact most app store devs are in this boat and don't even know it.

Re:How many developers?

[putaro]

It's not much money for a company. It's great if you can make that for an app that you made in your spare time but that doesn't happen that often.

Re:How many developers?

[Plumpaquatsch]

At the same time, that revenue figure is only a measurement of the paid apps revenue. The unknown figure for both platforms is how much developers are making from ad revenue. This could potentially be much higher on Android.

Ahh, yes. Android developers make their money with adds, while Android users block ads.

Re:How many developers?

[coinreturn]

You're retarded. >95% of iOS developers don't get any of the 7Billion. iOS development is a fool's lottery designed to suck time and resources away from morons like you... in fact most app store devs are in this boat and don't even know it.

[Citation needed]

Re:How many developers?

[macs4all]

2 Billion $ devided by 1000's of developers is not much income per dev. I'd rather see an average breakdown per dev or full breakdown.

But, what ever the figure, it's more money than they would have had otherwise.

Re:How many developers?

[macs4all]

you need to be a publisher with big pockets

Why?

As a developer for the App Store, you don't have to pay for:

Hosting and Bandwidth

Advertising

Marketing

Placement in a wildly successful "one-stop-shopping" online "store", with a frickin' BUTTON to said store on EVERY iOS device, creating a somewhat "captive" audience of millions and millions of users, the vast majority of which WHO WILL BE LOOKING EXACTLY ONE PLACE FOR APPS.

Credit Card Processing

Payment Collection

Distribution

BEFORE you even have the first sale.

In every other business model, you have already had to shell-out of your pockets for those costs, and the costs keep on comin' regardless of whether you sell zero copies, or a million copies, of your application.

So, it looks like it is the "conventional" software distribution model that requires "big pockets" going in.

Re:How many developers?

[Phisbut]

The part that's relevant to most of us is that while Google Play is poised to surpass iTunes in catalog size, it brings in 1/4 the revenue.

Not the sort of stat that puts a smile on my face.

You're comparing apples and oranges. The Apple app store and the Google Play store will never have a vaild comparison for revenue generated, because some decisions are not up to neither Apple nor Google. An earlier post mentionned how Rovio and EA were overrepresented in the top sellers, and they are probably responsible for most of the revenue generated in the Apple app store. Heck, just Angry Birds, including all its remakes, probably makes a significant share of that revenue.

Rovio is itself responsible for a huge part of the difference between the revenues on Apple app store and Google Play. Why? Angry Birds, priced at $0.99 on the Apple app store, is free on Google Play. The exact same game, being downloaded millions upon millions of times on both platforms, generate infinitely more revenue on the Apple app store for the simple reason that they're giving away the game for free on Google Play.

They probably have good reasons to do that. They might have considered that people on Android are cheapstakes and wouldn't pay a dollar for a game and they prefer to be ad-based. Or maybe they figured they'd make more from in-game ads on Android than with an ad-free purchase, while on iOS the game is different. Either way, we can't compare $$$ from the Apple app store and Google Play, because they are not the same, and often times, the same company will sell the same game very differently on both stores.

Re:How many developers?

[SomePgmr]

Absolutely I'd certainly concede that differences like those exist, and can badly skew comparison. I'd love to see cumulative figures without the outliers.

But it's not as if this difference hasn't been demonstrated at more atomic levels by individual sellers as well. Make an app for both, list it in both, you'll make a lot more money through Apple. I can't even remember an exception to this, though perhaps one exists.

I won't speculate on the why's ("cheapskates", lesser devices, etc), but it's just a reality that isn't quite what many of us would like to see.

Re:How many developers?

[robertinventor]

There are 204,784 active developers right now, so that's $34,182 average per developer. Since most developers are probably earning next to nothing, some must be earning serious amounts of money from the App store.

You can also divide by the total number of apps, 1,039,518 apps so that makes an average income of $6,733 per app.. Again a serious amount of money.

It would be interesting to know what happens to those averages if you remove, say, the top 100,000 apps and the top 10,000 developers from the list, to give a better idea of what it is like for most developers.

You can get the up to date figures here (may be changed by the time you read it)
http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/

Re:How many developers?

[scot4875]

Hosting and Bandwidth

Doesn't cost shit to begin with, and scales very cheaply and easily if you actually do end up with something that ends up being popular enough to need it.

Advertising, Marketing

Yeah, because Apple (or Google, or whoever) handles that ALL for you. Because all someone needs to do is know the name of your app and search for it on the app store -- advertising is completely unnecessary!

And if you're concerned about out-of-pocket costs, you should clearly prefer Android. 1-time $25 fee to register vs $99 annual fee. Android SDK will work with *any* environment you're likely to be using for a workstation, as opposed to *requiring* overpriced hardware from a specific company.

--Jeremy

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well hey i've made a significant amount of cash from the iOS app store (slightly more than i have on the Android market), so obviously i don't care about your opinion but the fact that you're on here whining about how Apple is overcharging and overpriced is clearly just lamenting your own inability to make any money out of this yourself. I'm hardly going to quit my day job but my hobby development has paid for a good chunk of my new merc.

Re:How many developers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rovio is itself responsible for a huge part of the difference between the revenues on Apple app store and Google Play. Why? Angry Birds, priced at $0.99 on the Apple app store, is free on Google Play. The exact same game, being downloaded millions upon millions of times on both platforms, generate infinitely more revenue on the Apple app store for the simple reason that they're giving away the game for free on Google Play.

It's messier than that. Rovio makes both "free" (ad-supported) and $0.99 no-ad versions of its games available on Apple's store.

Doesn't pay much

[Anonymous Coward]

So on average one dollar for every six download.

Re:Doesn't pay much

[Celarent Darii]

Since Apple is paying for the infrastructure, it's actually quite good. You try paying for your own servers and bandwidth - you won't be making anything after 6 downloads.

Re:Doesn't pay much

[alexander_686]

You have to factor in free downloads.

I would assume that the free, gimped, holiday version of angry birds is one download (remember kids, the first taste of crack is always free) and the full version would be another.

By the way, does the 7b included ”in app” ad revenue and purchases?

Re:Doesn't pay much

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not 1999 anymore, there are a gazillion infrastructure-as-a-service companies out there with the most prominent being Amazon. You can host a static site and downloads from S3 for twelve cents a gig. Servers are available by the hour from dozens of vendors and monthly from dozens more for prices similar to what people pay for their personal phone service. With proper automation (Chef/Puppet/CFEngine/etc...) you can spin things up in minutes. If you don't want to DIY you can go anywhere from AppEngine/Heroku style hosting all the way to vendors that will take care of everything. All for a lot less than Apple no-competition gouging.

Re:Doesn't pay much

[macs4all]

It's not 1999 anymore, there are a gazillion infrastructure-as-a-service companies out there with the most prominent being Amazon. You can host a static site and downloads from S3 for twelve cents a gig. Servers are available by the hour from dozens of vendors and monthly from dozens more for prices similar to what people pay for their personal phone service. With proper automation (Chef/Puppet/CFEngine/etc...) you can spin things up in minutes. If you don't want to DIY you can go anywhere from AppEngine/Heroku style hosting all the way to vendors that will take care of everything. All for a lot less than Apple no-competition gouging.

And how, pray tell, is anyone going to even know you exist? The internet is big. Really big.

You really are an idiot. The App Store (with its "captive" audience) is the greatest software marketing tool since, well, forever.

Wow

[jbolden]

That is an insane level of growth. One of the things that doesn't get discussed a lot here was Verizon, AT&Ts and Sprint's sales numbers for postpay (around 70%) marketshare. I don't know however how large the global cellphone software market is x-USA.

The other data I'd love to know is how much cloud based solutions like Dropbox and Evernote that owe a lot of their revenue to mobile app are getting.

And Apple's cut...

[GumphMaster]

Generates $7 Billion For Developers

and $3 billion for Apple at 30cents out of every dollar. Quite a tidy sum for the gatekeeper, is it any wonder that Microsoft would like to wall their own garden?

Re:And Apple's cut...

[davester666]

Compare that 30% with the system in place by the phone companies. You were lucky if you got 30%.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[vux984]

And suggests ~$10 billion in revenue; assuming $1 per download, that suggests 1 out of 4 downloads was paid. Even at $5 per download that suggests 1 in 20 downloads was paid. I find even that hard to beleive.

Especially given how many people I know that spend a large amount of their free time downloading free apps, messing with them for 10 minutes, and then deleting them.

Hell, that's even how I approach mobile apps. For example I bought my son a "toy guitar" for christmas; it pretty much needs constant tuning. so I went through 7 or 8 different free guitar tuning apps before finding one I liked.

I'd have thought that sort of thing would have been the largest portion of downloads. Alongside the big ones ... twitter, facebook, instagram, does groupon have an app (?), netflix, etc, etc... and that stuff is also all free.

I've got to believe that they are including in app purchases and so on to get up to those final totals.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[TrancePhreak]

Microsoft also drops to only taking 20% after a certain sales figure. (I think it was $50K).

Re:And Apple's cut...

[NatasRevol]

Seems like a reasonable cost for running something on the scale that they do.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Anonymous Coward]

They also handle the bandwidth for downloads, electricity and expenses for servers, and cost of performing credit card transactions. I suspect that $3 billion in revenue doesn't go very far after accounting for all of the expenses.

As for why Microsoft wants one, it's probably because Balmer has no clue what he's doing and sees that everyone else has an app store now, so Microsoft must also clearly have one.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[jopsen]

Bandwidth, etc. doesn't cost anything...
But credit card transactions is a big expenditure here... Try finding a payment provider that takes less than 30% or 30 cent?
Maybe you can get it cheaper if you are a big player like Apple, but when both Google, Amazon and Paypal are priced at 30% or 30 cent, I imagine that VISA and MASTER card prices are pretty much up there...

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Paul Slocum]

Apple doesn't make a significant amount of money off the app store. Having lots of software and games available sells hardware.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[MachineShedFred]

The payment card industry negotiates rates based on many things, including what your card handling practices are, if your entire network and organization is PCI compliant, volume, average transaction size, etc.

For example, I work for a company that does about $100B in retail revenue annually. Our holy IT mantra is to not do anything that even remotely would run afoul of the PCI audit, because losing certified compliance would cause the transaction fees to go up, which is literally a billion dollar mistake.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bandwidth doesn't cost anything"?? What planet do you live on?

Perhaps you mean it's relatively inexpensive when you're talking about $7B of revenue, but I can assure you that the bandwidth and infrastructure (whether Apple owns it or they're paying a CDN) costs quite a bit.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[paulpach]

I am a game developer, and I have my game in apple store, it is called Block Story.

I have my app in the apple store and google play. There is nothing compelling me to use google play for example, I could sell the game from my own web site but I would be crazy to do this. I still voluntarily pay that 30% to have the app in google play and apple store.

Why do I do it? well, you really can't dismiss all the work they do for you (both stores), consider:

• * They market your app, putting them in "most recent" list, as well as in the "people who bought this also bought" list of other apps. This marketing alone is well worth the cost.
• * They handle international payments. I don't have to worry about the dollar conversion, I get to focus in what I am good at: game development.
• * I don't have to deal with PCI compliance, which I would have to do with my own store
• * I don't have to deal with refunds, they take care of it.
• * I don't have to deal with credit card processing. Huge nightmare
• * I don't have to deal with bandwidth. When my free app is downloaded 300K times, this is an issue.
• * I don't have to deal with updates. I publish my update, and they take care of notifying users, and installing the updates

They charge 30%? you know what, they earned it.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[BasilBrush]

And suggests ~$10 billion in revenue; assuming $1 per download, that suggests 1 out of 4 downloads was paid. Even at $5 per download that suggests 1 in 20 downloads was paid. I find even that hard to believe.

Apple's users don't mind paying for getting something with better quality. That's the major reason why, despite the larger numbers of Android phones, developers prefer the iOS platform.

And yes, the figure will include in-app purchases. It's the "paid out to developers" figure, so is not just downloads.

For example I bought my son a "toy guitar" for christmas; it pretty much needs constant tuning. so I went through 7 or 8 different free guitar tuning apps before finding one I liked.

Sure, and there will be other people like you. And then there will be people who are not like you. People tend to overestimate the number of people that are similar to themselves.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[BasilBrush]

80% of zero is zero.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you find just somebody else to do your credit card processing, and negotiate both sides. CC clearing houses, T-SYS, are greedy, and they don't want to lose a Billion $ in recurring revenue.

You'll notice that Sony didn't actually suffer great harm after their multiple cluster F*s

Re:And Apple's cut...

[mjwx]

For example I bought my son a "toy guitar" for christmas; it pretty much needs constant tuning. so I went through 7 or 8 different free guitar tuning apps before finding one I liked.

Erm, most of those cheap guitars come with electronic tuners. You must have really cheaped out to get a "toy" guitar without a tuner. Besides, a decent chromatic tuner is about $30 in Australia (so it's probably cheaper where you live). If you wasted more than 1 hour of your time on free apps, you lost money.

Beyond this, you wont find a decent tuner application on a phone because the microphone on a phone is made for the frequency range of the human voice which is 85Hz to 225Hz, a six string in normal tuning has a frequency between 82Hz (E2) and 1318Hz (E6). Even hitting an open top E (E4 = 329Hz) is beyond what the hardware is meant for. To properly tune a guitar you need test both the open and 12th fret, so on the top E string that's E4 at 330Hz and E5 at 659Hz.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[mjwx]

I have my app in the apple store and google play. There is nothing compelling me to use google play for example

Just to be a pendant,

There is something compelling you to use Google Play, the services and advantages you listed in your post. What you mean is there is nothing forcing you to use Google Play.

They charge 30%? you know what, they earned it.

This is a commission, standard procedure really. They're handling the store front, you're making the merchandise. It's worked well this way for centuries. This I have no issue with.

My problems with the Apple App store are:
1. They double dip. First you have to pay a yearly fee, then 30% of the income.
2. They total editorial control over what I can sell. If Google Play refuse to sell my application, I can go elsewhere (other app stores or sell it myself) with Apple, you're SOL and the reasons Apple reject your application seem whimsical and random.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[paulpach]

Sorry, compelling was the wrong word, I meant coercing. English is my second language ;)

The fee apple charges is really nothing, I got 2 times that amount on day 1. Calling that double dipping is stretching it. It is obviously just a token to make sure people don't open accounts for the heck of it. That if you open an account is because you actually want to release an app.
Besides, they do not deceive you in any way, you know well in advance what the fee is and that they charge 30%. If you decide to do business with them, you know exactly what you have to pay, and it is up to you to decide if the fee + 30% is worth it for you or not. If you say yes, it is because you think their service is worth more than that cost, in which case you have nothing to complaint about. If you say no, then you simply develop for android and go to the competition, in which case what apple charges makes no difference to you, it is not like they have a monopoly.

Getting your app rejected is indeed obnoxious, and can drive your costs up. I would prefer some relaxing on these rules, though I can understand why they do it: They want their customers to have a good impression of their devices, and they want to ensure customers don't feel scammed in their store. So they try to make sure apps have certain quality. I agree some reasons appear to be very arbitrary. It would be a lot better if the rules were crystal clear from the get go.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Algae_94]

Credit card processors usually have a percentage fee plus a small per transaction fee. For example, PayPal (not my first choice, but they can be used for payment processing) takes 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. They claim that you can get down to 2.2% with larger volume, but the 30cents is firm. If you are making transactions for $1 at a time, the 30 cents will eat you alive. At those rates the Apple cut is a good deal just for payment processing.

If you are selling a $5 app, that 30 cents just became a much smaller percentage of your costs. Payment processing would now be in the realm of 9%. The rest of the 21% Apple cut is probably fair for the distibution, servers, etc. Not too bad a deal.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[mjwx]

Sorry, compelling was the wrong word, I meant coercing. English is my second language ;)

No problems, I was just being a pendant.

1. Calling that double dipping is stretching it.

Not really, They aren't charging a once off fee for a developer license. They are charging it yearly. Don't pay the fee and they take down your application.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[vux984]

You must have really cheaped out to get a "toy" guitar without a tuner.

He's 8. We'll see if he has any interest in learning a musical instrument or not before buying something decent.

Besides, a decent chromatic tuner is about $30 in Australia (so it's probably cheaper where you live). If you wasted more than 1 hour of your time on free apps, you lost money.

Not sure where you would go to buy a guitar tuner on Christmas morning, and I value staying away from the mall on boxing day at more than $30... and really... I probably spent close to an hour tuning the guitar the first time, including trying the apps, and the fact that it was WAY out of tune, while the follow up tuning has mostly been comparatively minor adjustments. 1/4 to 1/2 turn rather than 5 turns...

Beyond this, you wont find a decent tuner application on a phone because the microphone on a phone is made for the frequency range of the human voice

Thanks that's quite interesting really and the limits of the mic make sense. But I was actually able to get more than passable results from the free apps.

The fact that you can easily validate tuning of a given string relative to the other strings by ear helps. So once one or two strings are right, it gets pretty easy.

To properly tune a guitar you need test both the open and 12th fret, so on the top E string that's E4 at 330Hz and E5 at 659Hz.

Like I said he's 8. If his interest in guitars and music is not long forgotten by his birthday we'll consider investing in a better product, and even professional lessons instead of what I can remember of guitar from high school, and the piano I took as a kid myself. :)

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Anonymous Coward]

PayPal is 5% + $0.05 if you're selling a $1 app. That's ten cents, a third of what Apple is charging. If your app is $20 then its 2.5% + $0.30, which is eighty cents. Compare that to the six dollars Apple will gouge you for. If this is what PayPal is offering to anyone with a bank account then I'm sure you can get a better deal if you look for it.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Chuck Chunder]

Just to be a pendant,

Slashdot would be so much better without your kind hanging around.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[The Raven]

5% - Humble Store. They do barely better than break even, but the point is they *do* break even. 30% is 25% profit.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Solandri]

* They market your app, putting them in "most recent" list, as well as in the "people who bought this also bought" list of other apps. This marketing alone is well worth the cost.
* They handle international payments. I don't have to worry about the dollar conversion, I get to focus in what I am good at: game development.
* I don't have to deal with PCI compliance, which I would have to do with my own store
* I don't have to deal with refunds, they take care of it.
* I don't have to deal with credit card processing. Huge nightmare
* I don't have to deal with bandwidth. When my free app is downloaded 300K times, this is an issue.
* I don't have to deal with updates. I publish my update, and they take care of notifying users, and installing the updates

They charge 30%? you know what, they earned it.

Most of this is stuff that can be automated and thus while it adds value, doesn't really cost much to provide. Long-term, competition will drive its price down closer to what it costs to provide (just a few percent). Unless there's a monopoly or industry collusion like has happened in banking/credit cards.

Right now though, I agree it's worth it. You have to compare to what a physical publisher would charge you. Typically 60%-75% of published software's retail price went to the publisher/marketer/store, the developer was lucky to get more than 25%. So compared to that, 70% is a veritable fortune. It'll just take the market a while to adjust to the huge disruption online sales have created.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[coinreturn]

People tend to overestimate the number of people that are similar to themselves.

Most insightful comment on slashdot ever.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[coinreturn]

Don't pay the fee and they take down your application.

Citation needed. I believe they just don't allow you to upload new apps or updates. Also, for that $99 fee you get two developer support events. That means Apple engineers are looking at your code and helping you.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[paulpach]

Wether they can automate the whole thing or not, does not make an iota of difference to me. Heck I would actually prefer if they automate it because it means less human error. What matters to me is the value that this service has. What matters to me is that this service is worth much more to me than the $99/year + 30%. What matters to me is that the alternative: doing it myself, would cost me much more, and it would have much worse sales.

If they could automate all of this and do it at a cost of a couple cents, then I congratulate them, it would be an amazing feat, and they deserve all that profit.

But as someone else pointed out, it does cost quite a bit of money for apple to do this, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/23/app-store-1-of-apples-gross-profit/ And they are not even factoring in the labor involved (they manually review apps).

Re:And Apple's cut...

[macs4all]

Generates $7 Billion For Developers

and $3 billion for Apple at 30cents out of every dollar. Quite a tidy sum for the gatekeeper, is it any wonder that Microsoft would like to wall their own garden?

That "gatekeeper" is also providing:

Hosting and Bandwidth

Advertising

Marketing

Placement in a wildly successful "one-stop-shopping" online "store", with a frickin' BUTTON to said store on EVERY iOS device, creating a somewhat "captive" audience of millions and millions of users, the vast majority of which WHO WILL BE LOOKING EXACTLY ONE PLACE FOR APPS.

Credit Card Processing

Payment Collection

Distribution

Re:And Apple's cut...

[jbenwell]

No problems, I was just being a pendant.

Nice.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[macs4all]

the microphone on a phone is made for the frequency range of the human voice which is 85Hz to 225Hz,

You're an idiot. Go back to school.

The fundamental frequency of the human voice (in speech) may very well only extend to 225 Hz (that figure is for a female speaking voice, IIRC, the male "fundamental" is about 125 Hz, typically), but the harmonics and other "consonant" sounds extend up over 3 kHz. The microphone in the iPhone/iPad goes well above that. Otherwise, you couldn't understand the speech in a phone conversation, because all the other side would hear would be "vowel sounds".

And, it's easily proven: Just take your typical cellphone and record some music with the microphone. Do you understand the lyrics? 3 kHz upper limit. Do you hear the cymbals? 20 kHz+ upper limit (although the phone probably tops out at about 10 kHz or so).

As a (I suppose) musician, you should be well aware that the condenser microphones that are used in most inexpensive phones and other devices have an excellent frequency response, particularly in the upper regions. That's why condenser mics. are the favorite for mic-ing snare drums, drum kit "overheads", and acoustic guitar.

I can't stand technically-ignorant musicians, who then spout their (non)-wisdom as if they were some sort of "expert", just because they can play a Pentatonic scale and some "Power Chords" with some fluency.

I sure hope your sound man is smarter than you, or I pity your audiences...

Re:And Apple's cut...

[macs4all]

PayPal is 5% + $0.05 if you're selling a $1 app. That's ten cents, a third of what Apple is charging. If your app is $20 then its 2.5% + $0.30, which is eighty cents. Compare that to the six dollars Apple will gouge you for. If this is what PayPal is offering to anyone with a bank account then I'm sure you can get a better deal if you look for it.

You're either a con or a liar, or both.

All PayPal is doing for their "cut" is providing only one of the services that Apple provides with the App Store. And they make money on every single transaction. When a user downloads a FREE App, Apple's costs aren't "free" for that transaction. They hosted the app, provided marketing, product placement, distribution, and other services, but they didn't make a dime off the download.

PayPal (and every other "payment processor") doesn't have to contend with any of that.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[pr0fessor]

to properly set a bridge and truss rod you have to check the open string and 12th fret this is called setting intonation and shouldn't need to be done when tuning the guitar. If the intonation is off then the interval between frets is not even E to E is no longer an octave. The problem is that some bridges come with finger screws for this (they adjust the string length between the bridge and nut) and the sales people call them tuners when selling the guitar to a beginner. You shouldn't have to set the intonation more than once a year so long as the guitar doesn't experience large altitude and humidity changes remember most of them are still made of wood. So take the nut lock off throw it away and stop trying to tune with the bridge screws.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, you didn't listen to your doctors warning about not consistently taking your meds.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[MachineShedFred]

That's a wonderful idea. Too bad that our cash registers in our stores still have to traverse our network to get to the credit card processor. Thus, we might as well do the transaction ourselves and save a few cents each on a couple billion credit card swipes.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[theCoder]

That's an interesting ilnk, since it says that the credit card companies are half of Apple's share of the apps, and the overwhelming majority of their costs.

Of course what you really mean to say is "Apple doesn't make a significant amount of money [on the app store, compared to the rest of their revenues]." Which may be realistic, but even the $1.5 billion they get as profit (based on the costs in the link) is not really insignificant. If they don't want it, I'll take it :)

Re:And Apple's cut...

[macs4all]

Obviously, you didn't listen to your doctors warning about not consistently taking your meds.

Huh, huh.

Huh, huh huh.

Ha ha ha ha.

Haaaaaaaa HaaaaaaHaaaaaaHaaaaHaaa.

Hee heeeeeee haaaahaaahoooooooo....

Re:And Apple's cut...

[vux984]

Apple's users don't mind paying for getting something with better quality.

What is that supposed to mean? I am an apple user. The people I'm drawing for data points are all apple users. They aren't paying for apps.

That's the major reason why, despite the larger numbers of Android phones, developers prefer the iOS platform.

The major reason its preferred is that it has a large install base and there is really only all of one model of phone to target "the new one"; and its probably the phone the developer owns too. That makes it easy.

despite the larger numbers of Android phones,

There are androids and then there are androids. The "total number" of androids is pretty meaningless when comparing the two market places, except as a starting point to identify what percentage of androids are upmarket.

Meanwhile, last years iphones are free on contracts; so they are being picked up by more downmarket users whose pricepoint is "free" as well; although these are still users in contracts which are generally more spendy then the pay-as-you go group.

Sure, and there will be other people like you. And then there will be people who are not like you. People tend to overestimate the number of people that are similar to themselves.

True enough, but I know a LOT of iphone users -- one of the companies I work with is a cell phone dealer -- and no one I know of has more than one or two paid apps. Most have none at all. They all have a few free apps... many of them have downloaded dozens of free apps.

As an aside, i read today that over 50% of the developer revenue goes to just 25 developers.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[BasilBrush]

True enough, but I know a LOT of iphone users -- one of the companies I work with is a cell phone dealer

You're still overestimating the people that are similar to you. Because the people surrounding you, in your circles of work and socialising, will tend to be a bit like you. But you're not accounting for the people in entirely different kinds of work, of radically different ages, working in countries other than your own, with different wealth and different values.

People do, always, think there are more people with similar views to themselves than is actually the case.

When a statistic comes along, it's OK to be sceptical. To go and research other stats for comparison. But disbelieving a stat because it doesn't match your own experience is wrong-headed. It's mistaking anecdote for data.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[vux984]

Because the people surrounding you, in your circles of work and socialising, will tend to be a bit like you.

Which is why i mentioned an industry I'm in: cellular. I see and work with a lot people. The client base is from all walks of life.

But you're not accounting for the people in entirely different kinds of work, of radically different ages,

I repeat myself: The client base I'm drawing my observation from is all walks of life. Plumbers. Retired people. Young families. Real estate agents. Firefighters. Fishermen. Asians, East Indians, Iranians, Joe Sixpack, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

working in countries other than your own

Most of Apple's sales and profits are in the States, so the fact that my observations aren't reflecting what people in Uganda do with iphones isn't really relevant to THIS particular conversation.

But disbelieving a stat because it doesn't match your own experience is wrong-headed.

Thank you captain obvious. I never said anywhere that I don't beleive apples total revenues are 10$Billion, nor have i said that I don't beleive that they have hit 40$billion downloads. I said that i didn't beleive 1 in 4 downloads was paid, and was skeptical that even 1 in 20 downloads was paid.

But nobody ever provided any data suggesting that those were in fact the rates. I merely speculated on some average app prices for paid apps, did the math, and noted that the numbers did not jive with my experience.

But while the conclusion did not line up with my expectations, no one had ever asserted that the conclusion was in fact true, so disbelieving is hardly irrationally refuting a "properly researched study".

That said my followup digging around confirms that yes, that $10Billion revenue includes in app purchases, and that in-app purchases are in the billions, and are claimed by some to be more profitable than paid apps.

That lets us model things a bit differently and brings the ratio of paid apps to free apps in those download statistics far lower, if half the revenue is accounted by in-app purchases.

That could bring us to the ballpark of as few as 1 in 50 apps downloaded being paid apps, which is a lot more plausible.

It's mistaking anecdote for data.

In this case no mistake of that kind was made.

Re:And Apple's cut...

[jopsen]

The payment card industry negotiates rates based on many things...

Agree... But as an indie developer, credit card payment will cost you around 3% + 30 cent (using Google Checkout, Paypal or Amazon...).
Surely, 30% is more... depending on the app price... But for apps around 1 USD it's hard to do cheaper on your own.
Unless, you're a big company.

Comparisons

[Missing.Matter]

Apple's last announcements on these figures were in September and October. In September, they quoted 700,000 total iOS apps, and in October they quoted 275,000 iPad apps. That's an average rate 641 total iOS apps per day, and 427 iPad specific apps per day. (Source: Apple)

The numbers on Android are a little hard to find. Does anyone have a figure for how many Android tablet apps are available?

It seems the Google Play store is growing faster, with 833 apps per day on average between September and October... but based on Google's previous announcements they seem to approve apps in fits and starts, with some periods approving thousands of apps per day, and other periods where the approval rate drops to 1/3 of that. (Source: Google)

On the Windows side, the Windows 8/RT store is growing at the same rate as the iPad app catalog, with an average 584 apps per day (before the Holidays). And the Windows Phone store is growing at about 300 apps per day over the past 6 months. I don't know how to combine these figures to compare to Android or iOS, since it's not clear how iOS counts apps for iPhone and iPad (is that 1 app or 2 apps) (Source: http://metrostore.preweb.sk/ and http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/)

Anyone else have other figures available?

Re:Comparisons

[miroku000]

Android has 611,161 apps in the Android Market. In December, around 37,500 apps were released in the Android Market. http://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-apps Of course, this does not include apps released in other market places. For example, of my 30 or so Android apps, only 3 are released in the Android Market due to their limitations on content.

Re:Comparisons

[Missing.Matter]

I based my figures from those presented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play

Google's most recent figure was 700,000 apps in the Google Play store. That's a discrepancy of almost 100,000 apps, probably more since the 700,000 figure is from October. Any ideas why the figures are so different? I'm assuming this App Brain site is crawling the Google Play store for its statistics. They have a nice set of stats, but disappointingly not the one I'm interested in: the number of tablet specific/optimised apps.

Indicator of mobile device usage

[devforhire]

I think this is more just an indicator of mobile device usage. Apple's tooting their own horn, but I'm sure the android numbers are respectable which could mean closer to 65+ billion app downloads and growing at 2 billion+ a/month. The developer number is meaningless but makes Apple look charitable.

Re:Indicator of mobile device usage

[BasilBrush]

Charity? Where?

It's business. On both sides.

Citation?

[DarthVain]

Wiki tells me that 250 Million iPhones have been sold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone

Apple tells us 40 Billion downloads. (Unique Purchaces)

40B/250M = 160

So the AVERAGE iPhone downloads 160 Applications?

#Fishy

Re:Citation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of their new-fangled device called an iPod?

Re:Citation?

[NatasRevol]

There's more than 500 million iOS devices.

Some of which have been resold/wiped/reimaged, and thus count as new downloads after wiping/new account.

Re:Citation?

[AHuxley]

Factor in 82 million iPod Touch, 100 million iPads and its near say 117?
I have 29 "apps" on my Mac via Mac App Store. Consider apps like the Mac shareware of the 1980-90's - the app does a few tasks well or like a hypercard stack and 'sells' information for a few $ or $10.

Re:Citation?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's more than 500 million iOS devices.

[Citation needed]

Some of which have been resold/wiped/reimaged, and thus count as new downloads after wiping/new account.

And some of them probably broke, lost in the ocean and what not... So let's not count them...

That said, 160 downloads per device is not an unlikely average, kids these days...

Re:Citation?

[NatasRevol]

Citation:
http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2012/07/24/ios-device-sales-leapfrog-android-with-410-million-devices-sold/

+ 50M iOS devices a quarter = 500M iOS devices.

Re:Citation?

[Anubis IV]

Fishy? Not really. Your facts are just poorly aggregated.

For instance, you only accounted for iPhone sales, but Apple also sells the iPad, iPad mini, and iPod Touch, all of which are also iOS devices that can download and run these apps. Through March 2012 they had announced 365M iOS device sales, and by the end of the next quarter (i.e. the quarter when iPhone sales were winding down before the iPhone 5 and iPad mini rumors were rampant, thus slowing sales) they still managed to sell 35M units, bringing them to over 400M iOS devices by the end of June. So, already we can tell that you're off by 150M units at a minimum, and that still leaves the following six months of sales unaccounted for.

Going forward past June, Apple has since then released the iPhone 5, a new iPod Touch, the iPad mini, and the 4th gen iPad. Whether the mini is cannibalizing larger iPad sales or not will be revealed soon, since Apple is set to do their earnings announcement for the holiday quarter in about two weeks. Even if it is, however, its sales are estimated to be in the 8-10M range. Meanwhile, the iPhone 5 represented over 50% of smartphone sales as we got towards the end of the year, so it's safe to say that it's been selling well so far. Not to mention that iPad and iPod sales have traditionally picked up during the holiday season since they're not tied to contracts.

As such, 450-500M is a perfectly reasonable expectation for where they are today, given that it's six months since their last announced numbers and they've updated every single product line that's relevant right before the biggest sales time of the year.

And if we assume just 450M devices, then that would mean 40B/450M, which is around 89 apps on average, which is extremely reasonable, given that they're doubtless including all of those apps that people download, check out for five minutes, and then delete because they aren't what they're looking for. I did a quick sanity check, and I have 84 third-party apps currently installed on my smartphone, not to mention a few more on my tablet, and that doesn't include the dozens I've installed and deleted over the years. I wouldn't even classify myself as a heavy user; I actually think my usage is pretty close to typical for most users, since I don't use it as a geek tool or like a power user would.

and how many of those...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are Fart noise generators, knockoff WiFi detectors, or sme other useless piece of garbage

Re:and how many of those...

[beelsebob]

Near 0 –apple reject apps with "little or no utility".

Re:and how many of those...

[Algae_94]

I am appalled that you can not see the utility of a fart app.

iPad

[DarthVain]

Hmmm forgot about the iPad... another 100M there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad

Still 40B/350M = 114

Still 114 is a pretty big number.

Re:iPad

[exomondo]

And iPod Touch?

Re:iPad

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't even compile the extremely limited list of iOS devices, inside the space of 2 posts, and you expect people to take you seriously?

Re:iPad

[macs4all]

Hmmm forgot about the iPad... another 100M there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad

Still 40B/350M = 114

Still 114 is a pretty big number.

Actually, it's about right.

I remember that SJ (IIRC) said in a WWDC keynote that the average iOS User has about 100 Apps on their device.

Apple's Goods and Bads

[girlinatrainingbra]

I am of two different minds about the Apple "App Store", so here's my list of Apple's Goods and Bads:
-- "App Store" is a walled garden designed to keep you in
-- "App Store" is well maintained and crapware/spamware does not sneak in that often
-- "App Store" has an opaque process for allowing or denying, whether you are a singleton programmer or a 8-kiloton-Grrrilla like google. You don't get to know why you got stymied or what you need to do to fix it.
-- It provides a good "storefront" for developers to sell their wares at a decent pricepoint with low overhead (30% is low, right?) added on to it
-- It makes it impossible to be an independent software developer and sell software that can be installed by the enduser so you could set up your own infrastructure and sell direct to the customer and keep more profits
-- Their awful awful policy makes it impossible to package and distribute any GPL code through their ecosystem. Das ist verboten.
:>(
That last entry alone is enough to make the sumof(Goods+Bads)=Bad. That's my two centimes!

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[Anonymous Coward]

>Their awful awful policy makes it impossible to package and distribute any GPL code through their ecosystem. Das ist verboten.

Actually no. It's the GPL that makes that sort of problems (as always). Ask VLC that was released on the AppStore just to be sabotaged by one (1) pissed dev payed by Nokia. There are a number of GPL licensed apps on the AppStore. Apple has no problems with them as long as the devs agree to the AppStore terms.

Lesson to be learned : either use LGPL or better a BSD style license. (if any free software license is required). OR convince your own devs not to shoot themselves in the foot.

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[beelsebob]

Their awful awful policy makes it impossible to package and distribute any GPL code through their ecosystem.

This can also be phrased as "The GPL bans distribution through systems like the app store". Of course, neither of these reflects the truth, both are in equal part the problem.

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[Anonymous Coward]

Or simply inform somewhere in the app where the source ca be found. The App store is nbot designed for code distribution, and it interests only few of its users.
The VLC case is a perfect example of an "holier than the pope" kind of attitude.

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[tlhIngan]

-- Their awful awful policy makes it impossible to package and distribute any GPL code through their ecosystem. Das ist verboten. :>(
  That last entry alone is enough to make the sumof(Goods+Bads)=Bad. That's my two centimes!

No, it's just not allowed to package GPLv3 apps. All app stores have this problem, at least the ones with DRM (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, MAYBE Google Play, since DRM was introduced as part of Jelly Bean).

GPLv2 apps can be distributed just fine. GPLv2+ as well, as long as nothing makes it GPLv3+. (GPLv2 and v3/v3+ code CANNOT be combined - only v2+).

Heck, I'm not sure, but if a dev is classy enough, they could ship the source code into the IPA file too, so source code is right there with the binary.

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[girlinatrainingbra]

re GPLv3, not GPLv2
Thanks for the clarification. I did not know that fine point!

Re:Apple's Goods and Bads

[theCoder]

That's a ridiculous phrasing, since every Linux distribution out there has had an "app store" via its package manager long before the iPhone even existed. Just because Apple is anti-GPL is no reason to say that app stores in general and the GPL are incompatible.

There might be some problems with GPL3 and app signing, but that has little to do with the app store and more to do with what the system will actually allow to execute.
 

What's with the weird attitude?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple this morning conveniently decided to issue a press release announcing that

What's with this? Why not say "Apple this morning issued a press release..."? What is the aim of this editorializing in the summary?

Countries with no paid apps

[tepples]

The unknown figure for both platforms is how much developers are making from ad revenue. This could potentially be much higher on Android.

I'd imagine that this is the case because when Android phones first came out, paid applications weren't available on Android Market in all countries. So developers had to price their applications at zero to reach users in those countries.

Well and truly

[PopeRatzo]

Let's see 40billion downloads generate $7billion for developers.

So each download puts about 17 cents into the pockets of a developer.

An excellent business model for Apple.

Re:Well and truly

[Andy Prough]

Rock stars with their iTunes income must be laughing their asses off at iOS developers and their $0.17 per app download.

Re:Well and truly

[BasilBrush]

iTunes is 30% exactly the same as the App Store is.

And the concept of a few stars getting the majority of the income is the same too.

Re:Well and truly

[Andy Prough]

And they are getting paid on a hell of a lot more than 1-in-6 downloads.

Re:Well and truly

[BasilBrush]

There are plenty of people giving free music away. They just aren't given the option to do it via iTunes.

You don't have a rational point.

Re:Well and truly

[grouchomarxist]

A high % of the apps on the store are free.

Re:Well and truly

[Anonymous Coward]

How does generating $3 billion in revenue over 40 billion downloads equate to an excellent business model? That's less than 8 cents per download to Apple, before costs of running the store.

Put another way, the minimum sales price is $0.99. Every sale nets a developer at least $0.69. That means that at a minimum, 30 billion of the 40 billion downloads were for free apps. It may be quite a bit more than that. The fact that the cost of serving those free apps seems to be covered in that 30% cut is actually an impressive feat.

Re:Well and truly

[macs4all]

And they are getting paid on a hell of a lot more than 1-in-6 downloads.

With your obvious tenuous grasp on the business world, it's actually frightening that you tout yourself as being a "Certified Fraud Examiner".

But from what I understand from a friend of mine that took the course and has the cert. herself, that whole "certification" is a joke, and nothing more than a fraudulent, money-making scam itself.

Re:Well and truly

[PopeRatzo]

A high % of the apps on the store are free.

That's an even better business model for Apple.

Re:Well and truly

[PopeRatzo]

That's less than 8 cents per download to Apple, before costs of running the store.

Those costs are much less than 1 of those 8 cents, by the way.

It's all gravy for Apple. Not so much for the devs.

That means that at a minimum, 30 billion of the 40 billion downloads were for free apps.

Yes, that's my point. iOS developers are mainly working for free.

Re:Well and truly

[Anonymous Coward]

Those costs are much less than 1 of those 8 cents, by the way.

Says who?

iOS developers are mainly working for free.

Then so is the App Store.

Re:Well and truly

[Anonymous Coward]

Those costs are much less than 1 of those 8 cents, by the way.

I don't think so.

Simple example: if the average app download is 20MB (ABI says the average game--the most popular category of app--is 60MB), that's a total data transfer of 157 million gigabytes. At 5 cents per GB (a reasonable rate for a large provider), that's about $32 million in transfer costs. That doesn't include the costs of hosting the store at Apple (at least a few million dollars a year more) and the bandwidth consumed by the storefront. Even if that total cost is only $10 million, the running total is $42 million. Staff to support app review, customer service, and development--even if it's a tiny crack team of 50 low-paid positions ($75k/ea salary+benefits), that's another $3.75 million. Then there's lost revenue due to refunds and chargebacks, which as far as I know Apple absorbs, not developers. Even if that only costs $1 million, it's not nothing. Then there's marketing--maybe only $5 million is dedicated to the App Store, but again, it's not nothing. We're in the $50 million ballpark for the leanest possible operating costs.

But that's chump change compared to the big part: transaction fees.

Transaction fees are at least 25 cents apiece. With 10 billion paid transactions, that's already $2.5 billion paid out to their processors.

Put together, at least $2.55 billion in costs on $3 billion in revenue, they're making at most $450 million on 40 billion downloads, or about 1.1 cents per download, tops. $450 million on 10 billion in revenue is less than 0.5% profit, which tracks with their financial disclosures about not generating meaningful profit from the iTunes and App stores.

Again, I ask, how does that translate to an excellent business model?

Re:Well and truly

[PopeRatzo]

Put together, at least $2.55 billion in costs on $3 billion in revenue, they're making at most $450 million on 40 billion downloads, or about 1.1 cents per download, tops. $450 million on 10 billion in revenue is less than 0.5% profit,

Where did you get "$10billion in revenue"? The app store gets $3billion in revenue, for which $450million is a very nice profit margin, considering, it's not even your main profit center, which is the iPhone (represents 2/3 of all Apple profits).

Again, an "excellent business model" for Apple.

Re:Well and truly

[Plumpaquatsch]

Put together, at least $2.55 billion in costs on $3 billion in revenue, they're making at most $450 million on 40 billion downloads, or about 1.1 cents per download, tops. $450 million on 10 billion in revenue is less than 0.5% profit,

Where did you get "$10billion in revenue"? The app store gets $3billion in revenue, for which $450million is a very nice profit margin, considering, it's not even your main profit center, which is the iPhone (represents 2/3 of all Apple profits).

Again, an "excellent business model" for Apple.

You don't know what "revenue" means, don't you? It's all the money that comes in. You can't just declare away the 70% that Apple pays to the developers because you hate Apple.

Again, an "excellent business model" for people who know jack shit about business.

Re:Well and truly

[Anonymous Coward]

If developers earned $7 billion on their 70% share of sales, then the total revenue is $10 billion, of which $9.55 billion goes out the door before Apple gets to count anything as "profit".

It's clear that you are religiously devoted to your argument even though it makes no sense at all. If 1.1 cents per download is an excellent business model, then the 17 cents per download that a developer gets must be the best business model in the history of commerce.

Only on weekends

[Frankie70]

So the AVERAGE iPhone downloads 160 Applications?

Not on all days.

$7bn not the only revenue stream + 30% cut != bank

[ernest.cunningham]

$7bn is a very tidy sum for developers of paid apps.

That sum doesn't not include iAd revenue, or more significantly, all the money developers make creating custom made applications for businesses. So developers can make decent bank developing on iOS.

Others on here are arguing about the 30% cut Apple are taking.

For that 30%, they are paying for all the infrastructure, credit card transaction fees, iTunes card costs. If a super market charges $20 for a iTunes voucher, at least here in NZ, they would have made some money, plus GST of 15% is included in that price.

So $20 credit probably brakes down to something like:

15% GST = $2.69
SuperMarket cut = $2
Apple = $15.39
Developer payout = $14

Leaves Apple with $1.39

Now not all transactions will cost Apple that much, such as when iTunes credit is purchased via credit card, then GST is still factored within that $20 plus credit card transaction fees would leave Apple with about ~$3.20.

The point is, after you take away POS costs, infrastructure costs (data centres, human phone support etc), they do not make as much money as you think they do from their 30% cut.

There are probably a dozen things I have missed but I am sure /. will point them out to me :P

Ya as a comparison

[Sycraft-fu]

That is the kind of sales that one Call of Duty game can do.

Now that's fine, I'm not saying everything should (or can) be a massive billion dollar hit but let's have a little perspective. What do developers tend to make?

This would particularly be interesting if you take off the outliers. Remove Angry Birds, and any other really big hit apps and then see what it looks like for the masses of developers.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Some guy here linked to this survey

The only real lesson I got from there is "don't quit your day job". 34% of Apple dev's and 44% of Android devs make less than $500 per app per month, and 95% make $2-3k per app per month on average (and, if general distribution didn't change much since 2011, the profits distribution is reeeeeeeal skewed towards the top) with $22-27k to make it, so if you're lucky you'll break even in 7-8 months.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[BasilBrush]

This would particularly be interesting if you take off the outliers. Remove Angry Birds, and any other really big hit apps and then see what it looks like for the masses of developers.

The "masses of developers" haven't put the work in to developing their app that the Angry Birds programmers did.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[macs4all]

Some guy here linked to this survey

The only real lesson I got from there is "don't quit your day job". 34% of Apple dev's and 44% of Android devs make less than $500 per app per month, and 95% make $2-3k per app per month on average (and, if general distribution didn't change much since 2011, the profits distribution is reeeeeeeal skewed towards the top) with $22-27k to make it, so if you're lucky you'll break even in 7-8 months.

I don't know about you, but even $500 extra per month is not "nothing". And if you're the typical iOS developer, that is doing this in their "spare time", there is not really a concept of "breaking even", unless you "pay yourself" for sitting around watching TV, playing games, etc.

So, although most iOS devs. won't be able to "quit their day job", I wonder how many would argue that it hasn't contributed significantly to their personal "bottom line"?

Re:Ya as a comparison

[macs4all]

This would particularly be interesting if you take off the outliers. Remove Angry Birds, and any other really big hit apps and then see what it looks like for the masses of developers.

The "masses of developers" haven't put the work in to developing their app that the Angry Birds programmers did.

OMG!

If Angry Birds took more than a month to code, something is seriously wrong. It looks like a frickin' Flash game, fercrissakes.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[BasilBrush]

It takes far more than coding to make a game. The graphics need drawing, backgrounds and objects. The sounds need creating. The levels need designing. They all need testing and refining.

Angry Birds is far more sophisticated than you imagine. There ARE similar flash games available on line, such as one with a castles theme. But they aren't as enjoyable. They spent time to perfectly balance the mechanics and level design in Angry Birds. Angry Birds success wasn't a fluke. They didn't just market it well so that lots of people bought it... people played it incessantly, which shows how well it had been crafted.

I've created clones of 1980s games in less than a month. But an original game like Angry Birds, no that's far more work than that.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[macs4all]

It takes far more than coding to make a game. The graphics need drawing, backgrounds and objects. The sounds need creating. The levels need designing. They all need testing and refining.

Angry Birds is far more sophisticated than you imagine. There ARE similar flash games available on line, such as one with a castles theme. But they aren't as enjoyable. They spent time to perfectly balance the mechanics and level design in Angry Birds. Angry Birds success wasn't a fluke. They didn't just market it well so that lots of people bought it... people played it incessantly, which shows how well it had been crafted.

I've created clones of 1980s games in less than a month. But an original game like Angry Birds, no that's far more work than that.

While I agree that there is more to creating an enjoyable game, please don't try to compare Angry Birds' development efforts for some of the major-motion-picture efforts of your typical FPS.

Angry Birds was successful because it was "accessible" to anyone. Not because it was particularly a "good" game. And certainly not because of massive development efforts.

Re:Ya as a comparison

[BasilBrush]

please don't try to compare Angry Birds' development efforts for some of the major-motion-picture efforts of your typical FPS.

I didn't and I wouldn't. Angry Birds is a 99c game. "major-motion-picture efforts of your typical FPS" cost anything up to $60.

I'm saying that, compared to other 99c app developers, who may be making little money, Rovio put in the work. They deserve their success.

Not because it was particularly a "good" game. And certainly not because of massive development efforts.

Here's the similar Flash game I mentioned. People spent weeks playing Angry Birds. I doubt many would spend more than minutes playing this.
http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle

Angry Birds may not be to your taste, But judged by the amount of time people spent on it, and how many sequels people bought, it is indeed an excellent game. And you don't create an excellent game without putting the work in.

P.S. Are you a games developer?

Re:Ya as a comparison

[scot4875]

I don't know about you, but even $500 extra per month is not "nothing".

LESS THAN $500 per month. That includes everything down to $0.

--Jeremy

Re:Ya as a comparison

[macs4all]

I don't know about you, but even $500 extra per month is not "nothing".

LESS THAN $500 per month. That includes everything down to $0.

--Jeremy

Your point being...?

Horrible ROI.

[Andy Prough]

So on average one dollar for every six download.

iTunes music and video sales must be a freaking goldmine compared to that - 6 app downloads just to make a buck??? If it weren't for ad revenue, this model wouldn't work at all. Might as well not even bother.

Re:Horrible ROI.

[BasilBrush]

That's 1 paid download against 5 free downloads. The 5 free downloads were never expected to get any money from downloading.

If it weren't for ad revenue, this model wouldn't work at all. Might as well not even bother.

Have you considered telling Google their business model is flawed, and they might as well give up?

So - only $14 in app sales per device??

[Andy Prough]

Those numbers are hideous. Compare that to a Windows PC, where the average user probably buys $200 or more in software.

Re:So - only $14 in app sales per device??

[NatasRevol]

Wait, are you comparing the majority/monopoly of the entirety of the computing platform to a small mobile, hardware specific OS?

No.

[Andy Prough]

I was comparing a phone to a device that costs about half as much - a Windows laptop.

Wait.

[Andy Prough]

You just said "they just aren't given the option to do it via iTunes". Which means the artists get paid for every download. Which is exactly my point - musicians get paid for every download, app devs get paid for 1-in-6. Big difference there.

Re:Wait.

[BasilBrush]

Which is exactly my point - musicians get paid for every download, app devs get paid for 1-in-6. Big difference there.

Your point is that developers who chose to set their app price at zero get zero income from the download.

Clearly your specialist subject is the bleeding obvious.

Re:Wait.

[BasilBrush]

I see you're a Linux fan. How much do Linux developers earn per download?

Not a fan of any. User/maintainer of Windows,

[Andy Prough]

Mac and Linux systems. I hear that some folks make a ton of money for Linux stuff they develop. IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, etc etc etc. And I highly doubt they have to have 6 customers download something to make a single dollar.

Re:Not a fan of any. User/maintainer of Windows,

[BasilBrush]

I hear that some folks make a ton of money for Linux stuff they develop. IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, etc etc etc. And I highly doubt they have to have 6 customers download something to make a single dollar.

You're kidding. There's more like 10,000 people download Red Hat Linux for every one that pays.

And of course, once again, no App Store developer who puts a price on his apps has anyone downloading apps for free.

If you haven't realised by now the illogicality of your statement, you must have an IQ problem.

Re:Not a fan of any. User/maintainer of Windows,

[Andy Prough]

You're kidding. There's more like 10,000 people download Red Hat Linux for every one that pays.

Obviously a lot of their community software is free, like Fedora. But they charge a lot more than a buck to their paying customers for subscription maintenance service.

Re:Not a fan of any. User/maintainer of Windows,

[Plumpaquatsch]

You're kidding. There's more like 10,000 people download Red Hat Linux for every one that pays.

Obviously a lot of their community software is free, like Fedora. But they charge a lot more than a buck to their paying customers for subscription maintenance service.

Sure - but how much do they pay out to the developers? Time to move your picket line to Red Hat HQ.

Exactly.

[Andy Prough]

I wouldn't be surprised if they are losing money hand over fist from the app store. Maybe they are running it as a loss leader to get more sign-ups onto long term contracts with the cell companies.

CFE qualifications.

[Andy Prough]

Actually, obtaining a CFE certification is extremely difficult despite your highly suspect statements to the contrary. The requirements include: A bachelor's degree in accounting or criminal justice plus 2 years of professional fraud investigation experience as a prerequisite; Recommendations from other established CFE's; Twenty units of CPE required annually; Passage of a comprehensive exam on issues related to Law, Criminology, Investigations, and Accounting. Most applicants study for about a year to prep for the exam. CFE is one of the most recognized and respected international credentials for professional fraud analysts in the world, with official recognition of the certification in over 100 countries. For more info, the website of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is www.acfe.com.

Re:CFE qualifications.

[macs4all]

Actually, obtaining a CFE certification is extremely difficult despite your highly suspect statements to the contrary. The requirements include: A bachelor's degree in accounting or criminal justice plus 2 years of professional fraud investigation experience as a prerequisite; Recommendations from other established CFE's; Twenty units of CPE required annually; Passage of a comprehensive exam on issues related to Law, Criminology, Investigations, and Accounting. Most applicants study for about a year to prep for the exam. CFE is one of the most recognized and respected international credentials for professional fraud analysts in the world, with official recognition of the certification in over 100 countries. For more info, the website of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is www.acfe.com.

Well, assessing your list of requirements, other than the "reccomendations" (which I assume she got), I personally know she has had all of that and more for several years (she's sixty, and also plays a mean guitar...).

It was HER assessment that the CFE cert. was (if I understand her correctly) kinda like being a MENSA member. Not really much of a "guarantee" that the CFE was actually good at spotting FRAUD, which can take sooooo many different forms...

As I said, her words, not mine. I know she can walk the walk. I personally can barely balance my own checkbook (not really, but...). Actually, I write ERP software for a living right now. It has "accounting" stuff in it, but it doesn't take too long before I feel a little uncomfortable, hoping I've got that part perfectly right for all scenarios...

Re:CFE qualifications.

[Andy Prough]

Fraud comes in many, many forms. No one can be assured of spotting all types - your friend is right about that. All the CFE designation does is indicate to employers and team members that you've got an above average education and specialization in the field. Same as a lot of other certifications in that way. Most fraud examiners specialize in certain types of fraud (health insurance, banking, government benefits fraud, etc), and then within that specialty a person would normally be ultra-specialized - such as fraud examiners who only work on Medicaid dental fraud cases, or who only work on residential mortgage fraud cases. Each sub-specialty has its own specialized tools and training. Many of our chief government investigators in the US are CFE's - for example, Daniel Levinson, head of Medicare/Medicaid fraud investigations for the US government for the past 9 years (his title is Health and Human Services Inspector General) is a CFE. Once again, www.acfe.com is the website to go to for more information. I invite any interested parties to contact me for information on how to become a CFE if you have a degree in accounting or criminal justice and have fraud investigation experience - you can reach me through the Austin ACFE website: austinacfe.com. I am the President of the local chapter.