[grayprog]

As some who started similarly as an indie developer (albeit mostly for macOS) back in 2005 and still doing it (on the side now), it's a dream and lifestyle that are very desirable for me since (similarly to the OP) I've learned that people made a living this way in the Mac world.

I left a well-paying engineering day job in 2009 while earning only $500/month on my indie apps in the hope of growing the business. The Mac/iOS developer conferences scene was great at that time ( NSConference, anyone) and I made a lot of connections and dev friends with whom I'm in contact still many years later. The dev community is still pretty good and helping.

Marketing apps has become a real hard problem these days, though, because most of the press doesn't care about apps anymore, unless they are from the big corp, or they just focus on Apple's own news and rumours.

Still, it's very fulfilling to see people who use your apps and recommend them.