Does anyone believe that the promotion that Apple offers on average is worth two cents?
And what good is a marketplace with some of the worst discovery ever? I mean, there are now hundreds of thousands of apps. Finding high quality apps on the app store is like finding a needle in a Utah sized haystack.
I much rather do my own marketing, have a user download the app off my website or heck, Amazon (which actually has a decent recommendation engine).
And keeping junk out? Have you seen most of the apps? I mean the number of them that haven't been updated in years is staggering. The number that are essentially clones churned out by some make-an-app framework is ridiculous. The signal-to-noise ratio on the app store is awful.
Credit card processing? Not having to do anything is worth 4-5%.
> Does anyone believe that the promotion that Apple offers on average is worth two cents?
I do. I made a couple small and quick apps. They have made several hundred dollars. I attribute that almost entirely to Apple's promotion of them, mostly by having them show up in iTunes search results which Apple promotes. Also having them show up as recent releases.
My promotion consisted of linking them on my websites. If that was all it was -- my website links and nothing else -- I think sales would be near zero.
For better apps, Apple's promotion is even more valuable. Definitely no where near 2 cents.
The value you get from Apple's promotion has a primarily multiplicative, not additive effect on your existing promotion. Charts, features, recommendations, etc.
Apple helps those who help themselves.
Releasing an app with no marketing plan in place, app store or not, is stupid. It's why there's an incredibly long tail on the 300k or so apps.
If you're an indie developer, you have to remember the actual developing is only half the job.
Not sure why you're being voted down. Distribution channels don't just spring out of the ground overnight. Apple's promotion of iTunes and the App Store created a critical mass of users willing and able to spend money, while Apple maintains that by creating mechanisms to satisfy their demand for apps and content.
Because if people are searching for a product, they probably already know about it and it is hard to call that "promotion" unless you squint really hard in which case, Google is offering free promotion to everyone!
> Does anyone believe that the promotion that Apple offers on average is worth two cents?
Ask some of the developers[1] of popular apps how much more money they make when the App Store features their app in front-page promotional material. It's a lot.
[1] I believe Marco Arment mentioned this in a Build & Analyse episode a few weeks ago, re: Instapaper.
Agreed. The problem with the app store is that it's generic. If you're not in the featured list you're just one more anonymous tile in a sea of hundreds of thousands of anonymous apps, many of which are throwaway. Marketing on the web might be more work but at least you have the flexibility to do something distinctive. I do appreciate not having to worry about payments & sales etc but I'm sure I've gotten a lot more mileage out of the work I've put into marketing my apps on forums, mailing lists, Twitter etc than I have out of just being another app in the store.
As a dev whose app has been featured once on the front page under "New and Noteworthy", I'd say that Apple's promotion is unquestionably more valuable than any other kind of promotion.
Being reviewed on some site is nice, but it's a negligible rounding error compared to being featured on any list on the App Store. I'm sure any dev who's ever been featured will agree that App Store placement is the biggest single factor in sales.
And what good is a marketplace with some of the worst discovery ever? I mean, there are now hundreds of thousands of apps. Finding high quality apps on the app store is like finding a needle in a Utah sized haystack.
I much rather do my own marketing, have a user download the app off my website or heck, Amazon (which actually has a decent recommendation engine).
And keeping junk out? Have you seen most of the apps? I mean the number of them that haven't been updated in years is staggering. The number that are essentially clones churned out by some make-an-app framework is ridiculous. The signal-to-noise ratio on the app store is awful.
Credit card processing? Not having to do anything is worth 4-5%.