I have had a successful run on the App Store. I've had two apps featured by Apple and one app selected as a staff favorite by Apple.
In June, when Apple changed their search algorithm, my sales dropped by 70%. The decline continued until it stabilized at around $700 a month. I went from $5,000 a month of steady app sales for over two years to $700 a month.
Free apps that are completely unrelated to education now show up in search above my apps.
When IOS6 is released to the public, I expect my sales to fall even more. I may not even hit $300 a month when IOS6 comes out.
The App Store in IOS6 is broken. You can only browse one app at a time when you search. Throw in a broken search algorithm and app discovery becomes very difficult.
Current search results favor free apps with a lot of downloads. The new App Store also does not have a newly released section. So it will be very hard for new paid apps to gain traction.
I tried external marketing. I tried blog reviews. I tried mobile ads. Nothing helped. If your apps can't be found, nothing external is going to help. If I give a customer my app's name and tell them to download it on the app store, they will most likely end up downloading someone else's free app because they could not find my app.
As a comparison to this, my gadget & tech site has been earning a steady $60/day for seven years.
I'm not sure what Apple's play is at this point. But I do know that this has been a painful summer for a number of IOS developers. And by the look of things, it's only going to get worse.
I am fortunate enough to have another online income stream that keeps me comfortable. However, I know that many developers rely solely on Apple for their income.
In June, when Apple changed their search algorithm, my sales dropped by 70%. The decline continued until it stabilized at around $700 a month. I went from $5,000 a month of steady app sales for over two years to $700 a month.
Free apps that are completely unrelated to education now show up in search above my apps.
When IOS6 is released to the public, I expect my sales to fall even more. I may not even hit $300 a month when IOS6 comes out.
The App Store in IOS6 is broken. You can only browse one app at a time when you search. Throw in a broken search algorithm and app discovery becomes very difficult.
Current search results favor free apps with a lot of downloads. The new App Store also does not have a newly released section. So it will be very hard for new paid apps to gain traction.
I tried external marketing. I tried blog reviews. I tried mobile ads. Nothing helped. If your apps can't be found, nothing external is going to help. If I give a customer my app's name and tell them to download it on the app store, they will most likely end up downloading someone else's free app because they could not find my app.
As a comparison to this, my gadget & tech site has been earning a steady $60/day for seven years.
I'm not sure what Apple's play is at this point. But I do know that this has been a painful summer for a number of IOS developers. And by the look of things, it's only going to get worse.
I am fortunate enough to have another online income stream that keeps me comfortable. However, I know that many developers rely solely on Apple for their income.
All this is really disheartening.