[andrewcooke]

Very few apps do make $8,700 (but those that do, often make far more)

is that true? i would have thought it's a power law. in which case it would be more correct to say "Very few apps do make $8,700 (and of those that do, few make far more)" since with a power law distribution, no matter what level you pick, the extremes are still extremes (if you see what i mean - the 1% have their own 1% who are the crazy rich part of the crazy rich...)

so does anyone have any numbers?

[it strikes me that, depressingly, you could summarize this as: no matter how good you are, getting an order of magnitude better is still hard.]

[SwearWord]

Right it's the average a single app makes that matters, the heavy hitters like Rovio can make up for your dime a dozen fart apps.