[tannerc]

Edit: being down voted because of an opinion?

Hey, I want to middle school with Caleb!

On a more related note: It's exciting to see others realize how simple and painless Apple has made iOS dev. It still takes logical chops and a keen eye to make something worthwhile, but the bridge between non-developer and developer is getting shorter and shorter.

The new iOS 8 kits will shorten that gap even more.

Still, as a developer myself with some successful projects behind me, I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive. Or, I guess, developers who can stick out the rough times as well as the good ones. How new developers fit into that landscape is still uncertain.

As I haven't done any Android development, can anyone shed light on how similar the two processes are (iOS dev vs. Android)?

[cageface]

As I haven't done any Android development, can anyone shed light on how similar the two processes are (iOS dev vs. Android)?

For the typical mobile app, which is really just a few listviews pulling data and images from some kind of web service, Android is significantly easier, IMO. Particularly now that Apple is pushing responsive design and the misery that is auto layout. Java is also easier to deal with than Objective-C. Swift may tip the balance back in Apple's favor but it's not really ready for prime time yet.

However, for anything that really has to push the hardware or interact in an intimate way with the camera or GPU or audio, iOS has much more mature and robust APIs for this and, of course, much less hardware fragmentation.

So essentially it depends a lot on what kind of app you're trying to write.

[calebhicks]

Hey hey Tanner. Long time no talk. I've seen some of the stuff you've been putting out lately, great stuff.

Apple has definitely made great tools in helping newbies learn. There's still room to improve, and iOS 8 tools are a huge help.

I agree with you. The iOS market is maturing. It's no longer a gold-rush of simple one-off apps. The quality needs to be there. So whether that means putting in years as an indie, or working in teams to build high-quality stuff faster, that's what it's going to require to be successful now.

[mgkimsal]

"I'm a student of thought that the marketplace is becoming so saturated it will only be very high-caliber apps that survive"

I may be bucking the 'everything will be mobile first/mobile only' mindset, but I see the 'successful' apps as those that fit in a larger ecosystem of functionality. For many users, the primary/only point of contact with a system may be the mobile app, but there will be other endpoints of the system with more traditional web interfaces or even other endpoints which will provide other value to other parties.

Yes, the instagrams and yo and such are 'successful', but ultimately, they tend to prove the exception to the rule, I think. Outside of gaming, I'd expect most apps to have other functionality that can be processed and accessed with in other ways beyond solely a mobile interface.

To that end, the mobile app experience doesn't necessarily have to be 'high-caliber' over and above all the other competition, as long as the rest of the supporting functionality provides enough value.

I may entirely wrong though...

[potatolicious]

I don't think it's about the supporting functionality. The caliber your app must be is a function of competition and commoditization.

Just like in the old desktop-PC software days, if you solve a problem important to your customers, and you're the only one around doing it, your software can be as bad and low quality as you want. You're the only game in town for people who need this particular problem solved.

If you however are providing a commodity product in a market filled with competitors, the "quality" of your app (in all the ways we measure quality: stability, responsiveness, design, aesthetics) matters a great deal.

So yeah, if you can own a niche you can get away with some pretty low-caliber development (see: Grubhub's app), but this tends to be temporary. Profitable niches find competitors quickly (see: Seamless, whose mobile app makes Grubhub's look like a child's crayon drawings, and who in the end won and bought Grubhub).

[jkhowland]

I think you are exactly right. The indie devs speaking out are largely Game developers.

The funny thing about the Unread story is that if he keeps on releasing new paid versions (like Tweetie 2 or Tweetbot 2) and then charges for them, he'll just have that much larger of a base to launch on, and will make more money.

I believe it's not just about the caliber of apps, it's about the caliber of business that releases the apps. They need to consider marketing, pricing, launch strategies, and app store optimization. They need to maintain a relationship with their customers, and constantly ask what the customer wants. There is a lot more to a mobile company than the app, and I think the best companies (and their apps) are the ones that will survive.

[calebhicks]

I love what Ben Thompson at Stratechery wrote on this.

Pleco: Building a Business, Not an App http://stratechery.com/2014/pleco-building-business-just-app...

[tannerc]

I'm intrigued by your belief that simply releasing new paid versions of an app leads to more profit. Do you have any evidence that such an approach works?

[jkhowland]

It's a common method for indie Mac developers. Look at anything Panic does, or even someone like Daniel Jalkut with Mars Edit.

[jkhowland]

I just remembered that Tower is releasing a V2 now as well.

I wish I had numbers on the effect of those V2 and V3 and even V4 releases.

[pseudometa]

It's really awesome how many people are able to pick up the tools to learn app development. The fact that people of all ages can have an idea and easily pick up the tools to build it is astonishing given the state cell phones were in just 8 years ago.

While Apple has built such easy to use tools that anyone can build apps, the app store has been turning into a quagmire of crap. I really hope the structure of App stores go through a dramatic change soon.