The media’s been making a huge hype of the iPhone apps. It seems that anyone with basic programming skills can write an iPhone app and get rich, if the app becomes popular. The BBC touts these get-rich stories, saying how individuals are making thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Newsweek believes that “there’s gold in them iPhones,” saying, “Some kid in his bedroom can make a million bucks just by writing a little application for the Apple phone.”

The Washington Times is even saying that preschoolers are starting to use the iPhone apps. Wired Magazine recently covered a “digital gold rush” at Stanford University where students take a course to learn how to write the best iPhone apps.

If you’re still not convinced to quite your day job by now, then you’re at the right place at TheTechnologyBeat.com. Just like any dramatic plot, there is the peak, and then the downfall. Here’s the information the media is leaving out in their iPhone “gold rush” stories:

With more than 40,000 apps in the app store, your app is going to have to be very distinctive to get people’s attention.

Developing an app requires lots of time and investment. A guitar lesson app for the iPhone, for example, took a programmer more than six months and $30,000 to develop. After all of this effort, that app will sell for $2. Apple also takes 30 percent of your earnings as commission. How’s that for venture capital?

You’ll also have to compete with major companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, which are also developing iPhone apps.  

Plus, you’ll have to compete with free apps in every category. The ratio of free apps to paid apps is 10 to 1. But even the freebies are struggling. According to AppleInsider, less than 5 percent of the downloaded free apps remain in use after one month, and only 20 percent of the downloaded free apps actually get used.

And if you believe that thinking outside the box can get you a breakthrough app, then you ought to watch out for the app store censors. A storyline containing a single profanity was banned from the app store. A music app that contains explicit lyrics was initially rejected by Apple (interesting to note that the iTunes store already has plenty of explicit content). Apple changed its mind later after pressure from the app’s creators. Such limitations have also created friction and internal politics between developers and Apple.

The lesson of this story is that the people who strike it rich are those who come up with the best and brightest pioneering ideas. Yes, it’s possible, but it definitely is no easy thing. Getting rich with apps is starting to look like getting famous on YouTube. We’ve all heard stories of YouTube celebrities, but behind them are millions of people who’ve tried, tired, and tried again but still have not made it rich or famous.

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify Your email address will not be visible to others.
Website:
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."