I appreciate your transparency about your business model/data, amazing functionality and regular updates of Dash.app, no-bullshit attitude over maintenance of official docsets, and your involvement in the community.
Kudos all around and, while it ain't $2-4k, I hope you appreciate my sincere 'thanks' today.
Off topic, but I never knew that Dash existed. I frequently look up APIs through google, which always involves a few clicks, and Dash is going to make my life so much better! As I went down through the API list, I was amazed how many times I thought, 'adding that will save me some google searches'. I just bought a copy, thanks!
I second the thanks for divulging your numbers...always great to see what's behind the veil here. Perhaps you should contact the OP's author and see if they'll write a followup about you.
And you shouldn't be shy about direct-linking your app (as well as the blog post)...I didn't know about it until now but it looks right up my alley. Thanks!
Did you simply release that app and customers come after?
Or did you have to pay a certain amount to acquire customers (i.e. paid advertising)?
Or did you acquire customers some other way?
The point is that being in the top doesn't mean what it means on iOS. On iOS you will be able to stay in the top purely by being in the top because people use the app store much more frequently.
On the Mac app store you being in the top is more a product of a lot of other things you do.
If you hit a nerve just like you did and I to some degree did you will do well even if you aren't in the top of the app store.
At least that's how I understood it, but perhaps I am putting too much of my own bias into it.
Yeah, but you're forgetting that's because Dash is awesome. I mean, it's really quite a useful app and I feel like it belongs in the top 10 for a very good reason, rather than the vast majority of apps.
I have been lucky and is doing fairly well with Ghostnote on the mac app store. My product is also lucky to be the only one of it's kind as far as I am aware, which means no competitor and plenty of room to grow it.
However I learned the hard way how dysfunctional the Mac App Store is mainly because Apple ignore it compared to the iOs app store and because their Sandboxing is so opaque it's hindering a lot of good innovation resulting in a lot of apps fighting for the same space.
I was top 10 in paid apps for a while and top 5 in productivity apps. On iOS it would normally be pretty good but that meant nothing for my mac sales as such.
I realized that the mac app store is purely a distribution channel. It's my product but it's their store and so I am now thinking about them as a Wall Mart with no specific importance as such.
I found Google ranking to be much more important plus the ability to sell your product a lot of other places.
And so this week we are going to start selling directly from the website with a 14 day trial. We are using paddle.com for that an amazingly good service.
I am planning to do a writeup about all this as soon as I have some more numbers.
Also as a side note. I would like to see Apple undergo the same scrutiny that we treat our politicians with. When you say you create so and so many jobs you really need to be talking actual jobs that people can live off for that to have any meaning.
>> "I realized that the mac app store is purely a distribution channel. It's my product but it's their store and so I am now thinking about them as a Wall Mart with no specific importance as such."
Totally agree - the MAS needs to be seen as a single distribution channel. I think the broader problem is that devs rely solely on the Mac App Store to drive sales for them, which is a risky approach. There are a bunch of different ways to drive app sales; it's just a matter of putting in the work.
Glad to have you on board with Ghostnote, and looking forward to that write-up too! :-)
You should post back tomorrow how high you climb based on this post. I never heard of Ghostnote, but I just bought it after watching your video online.
Mobile purchasing is ruled by iOS in the states, at least. Desktop purchasing, especially in regards to productivity, is ruled by Windows. Those fancy macs you see everywhere are little more than dedicated facebook machines. Those people are interested in your product, generally. Or if they are, it'll be for their work computer and paid for by the IT department. Do you have a windows version and a relationship with a VAR or two and enterprise friendly pricing/terms?
I don't see how Apple can help you. You're selling running shoes to people in wheelchairs. Find where the runners are.
Great, you're #8 on the App Store for an app that allows you to blur photos... you're so excited that you're going to get rich... Leaves me thinking: Who cares what rank you are on the App Store, making an app that does basically very little (though useful) should NOT make you rich.
I just think of something like Monument Valley - not a throwaway - tons of work - and it DID make them rich. Rightfully so. I guess I'd like to see at least SOME mention of that aspect of it.
Anyone else reluctant to buy through the Mac App store because of the perceived lack of uptake? For example, I've been a longtime owner of a Transmit license...it's worked for years now. If I don't keep up with OS X releases, I can still download past binaries and use the key (within a limit...for example, Transmit 3 owners were required to upgrade to 4.x). But what if the developer decides that it's not worth maintaining the binary on Transmit? Do you get a license key for the App store purchase? From my perception, once you buy into the App store, you're bound to its limited upgrade routine. This has bitten me plenty of times on iOS, where the developer doesn't feel like keeping up with iOS upgrades, leaving you with broken apps with no ability to get them working again. I'm not talking about fly-by-night developers, but AAA developers like Capcom.
Other publishers have done the same thing. (with regard to upgrade pricing, usually, but I'd assume a similar approach to avoid backlash if they left the MAS) However, your concern still stands, as not everyone will do that.
nah, I figure it's not going anywhere, and a lot of the software I bought using homegrown licensing schemes I ended up not using, since it's just too much of a pain in the ass to try to hunt up the licenses and restore everything on a new computer.
edit: i do wish apple would relax the sandbox strictness a bit and other editor review criteria so it was a more attractive alternative to self-publishing.
1) It talks about an app that reached #8 in "Top Paid". The more interesting list would be "Top Grossing"
2) It talks about a trivial app that was created with very little effort. While gimmick apps might work on iOS, people prefer to buy actually useful software on the Mac.
The title is still somewhat true: It's unlikely you will become very rich by selling Mac Apps. But you can make a decent living; I currently make around 6000€/month (gross revenue) from two Mac Apps.
As a user, I'm glad it's there as an easy updating mechanism for Apple apps and a store for handy utility apps, but there's not much of a place for a centralized app store on the desktop. Steam poaches the most lucrative category and makers of prominent professional apps don't need any help with digital distribution... what's left? I'd imagine that this hollowing out makes it advantageous for software that might benefit from an app store (say, a $50 nichey app) to avoid it, conditioning/encouraging users to use Google and letting them keep all of the profit.
I could hypothesize about ways for Apple to turn the ship around... but I doubt they care. Apple's happy to have something conceptually coherent with iOS - an Apple Store employee can show a college freshman to "just update apps like on your iPhone". They decided long ago not to chase gaming. It's a pretty updating app.
I couldn't agree less. The MacOS app store has made it so much easier for me as a user. Apple might not be perfect, but to compare them to Steam? Just last week I had a problem with a Steam app and getting it resolved was farcical. Not to mention that literally every other time I launch Steam, it fails to see the network (even though all my other network apps are working just fine), and I have to quit and restart it. And when it does restart, just as I'm about to click "Play" on a game, a huge honking ad pops up in front of it. And never once has the ad been of any interest to me. Such a horrible user experience.
At this point I will avoid buying any more games from Steam if possible and just get them from the app store because it's so much easier and just works.
Back when I sold my own software, getting it noticed was nearly impossible. There were about 10 different websites you could submit it to that had lists of new apps (Version Tracker, Download.com, etc.), and eventually they all got more and more spammy until the point where users just stopped using them altogether. Something like an app store would have been a godsend!
> Apps that stay at the top for weeks on end make lots of money -- up to several millions per year.
Paid Mac apps, no. The article is about the Mac App Store, not iOS. Even among iOS, however, the most successful apps are free ones with a viral incentive to do in-app purchases.
Most of the top apps have an external influence. 4 of the top 10 come out of Apple. Look at top games on Mac - most of them are major publishers. Even "independent" apps had a following outside of the Mac App Store, like 1Password.
I think it's taking a long time for the Mac App Store to catch on-but I think it'll get there. When I find an app I want to buy I've gotten in the habit of checking the MAS to see if I can buy it there-I'd rather buy through the MAS and let Apple handle my credit card details and tracking of purchased software.
Users are slow to change, and buying your software through a portal on your computer is a big change.
It's not just a matter of time and resistance to change. Two things that would need to change because they break the expectations of how software has always worked:
In many cases, you can't go back and forth (bought on website, bought v. 2 on MAS), so you're expecting people to understand that it's a "different" version - imagine if you had to explain that because you bought the Best Buy XBox One, you can't play games purchased at Wal-Mart.
2) Sandboxing. If users are going to pay anything near full price for something they expect full functionality.
Due to these headaches, publishers are abandoning the App Store:
As long as Apple continues to take 30% I'm not so sure thats true. Mobile devs put up with it because it's that or nothing but as long as Apple allows you to side load programs on Mac I can't imagine it'll ever make economic sense.
I tend to do the opposite. If I find something on the MAS, I usually check for a direct purchase so that the developer gets that additional 30%, I'm eligible for upgrade pricing, and I don't have to wait a week for bug fix updates.
On the other hand, the Mac App store isn't as cluttered, and Mac users are much more willing to pay $19.99 or $29.99 for a Mac App. Who would pay $29.99 for an iPhone App?
I had a video editing app in the Mac App store since the MAS launched. It made high five figures for the first two years and then trailed off, mostly due to me neglecting it for more lucrative (and time consuming) consulting work. Also, it was heavily based on the deprecated QuickTime API, so it had a definite shelf life and upgrading it for each new iteration of OS X was fraught with all sorts of woes. Not to mention being trapped in 32-bits due to QuickTime being a 32-bit only framework (not QTKit).
But, in its hey day, it did really well. It even beat iMovie for a few weeks. Though now I am sitting here almost five years later and I have no idea who my customers are, beyond the handful that went out of their way to contact me.
I had some down time this past spring, so I rewrote the entire thing from the ground up using AVFoundation. I haven't launched this new version yet because I'm waiting to finish the iOS version to launch both within the same time frame. However, I won't be putting the OS X version on the Mac App Store for a few reasons:
- I want to know who my customers are
- I want to be able to contact my customers
- Sandboxing restrictions are workable, but not a good customer experience imho.
- Lack of paid upgrades isn't viable for an app not everyone needs
- MAS seems way neglected
So now I'm going to be going with Paddle (http://paddle.com) since it sort of replicates that experience really well and the guys there are super responsive. Maybe I'll change my mind down the road, but not likely.
deliver their developers $10 billion in annual revenue... Apple, which declined to comment for this story, said in January that annual revenue from its mobile apps rose 50 percent last year and helped create 627,000 U.S. jobs.
That distills down to about $15,000 per US job if the $10 billion doesn't go anywhere else in the world and before business expenses such as the $99.00 developer fee.
The bit I found most interesting about this whole Redacted app story, but haven't seen mentioned anywhere, is that the app also happened to be at #1 on Product Hunt for a good portion of that same day.
The thing I've found most interesting is this guy has found success by whining about how little he's selling. This has to be the third or fourth separate news source where I've seen this story run.
This explains why they merged iOS dev accounts and Mac accounts at WWDC. I wonder if this will help - I've been an iOS dev for a while and have always been curious to run some open source OS X apps like mpv on my Mac but was restricted.
[+] [-] kapeli|10 years ago|reply
There's a huge difference between climbing to the top and then instantly failing and actually staying at the top.
A full day in Top Grossing on the Mac App Store gives you something like this:
Ranks #10 to #20: at least $2-4k per day. Ranks #30 to #80: around $800-1k per day. Ranks #80 to #150: around $500-$800 per day.
All sums are after Apple's cut. They fluctuate a bit depending on the day of the week.
I make more than the mentioned $454 per day at ranks of around #200.
My revenue report from last year can be found here: https://blog.kapeli.com/my-year-in-review-2014.
[+] [-] synthmeat|10 years ago|reply
Kudos all around and, while it ain't $2-4k, I hope you appreciate my sincere 'thanks' today.
[+] [-] ttcbj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|10 years ago|reply
And you shouldn't be shy about direct-linking your app (as well as the blog post)...I didn't know about it until now but it looks right up my alley. Thanks!
[+] [-] Bamafan|10 years ago|reply
Did you simply release that app and customers come after? Or did you have to pay a certain amount to acquire customers (i.e. paid advertising)? Or did you acquire customers some other way?
[+] [-] ThomPete|10 years ago|reply
The point is that being in the top doesn't mean what it means on iOS. On iOS you will be able to stay in the top purely by being in the top because people use the app store much more frequently.
On the Mac app store you being in the top is more a product of a lot of other things you do.
If you hit a nerve just like you did and I to some degree did you will do well even if you aren't in the top of the app store.
At least that's how I understood it, but perhaps I am putting too much of my own bias into it.
[+] [-] Poiesis|10 years ago|reply
Since you're here: have you considered adding Kickstart file syntax? RHEL's pages tend to be pretty bad (the CentOS ones are better I know).
[+] [-] hderms|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73v3r|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomPete|10 years ago|reply
However I learned the hard way how dysfunctional the Mac App Store is mainly because Apple ignore it compared to the iOs app store and because their Sandboxing is so opaque it's hindering a lot of good innovation resulting in a lot of apps fighting for the same space.
I was top 10 in paid apps for a while and top 5 in productivity apps. On iOS it would normally be pretty good but that meant nothing for my mac sales as such.
I realized that the mac app store is purely a distribution channel. It's my product but it's their store and so I am now thinking about them as a Wall Mart with no specific importance as such.
I found Google ranking to be much more important plus the ability to sell your product a lot of other places.
And so this week we are going to start selling directly from the website with a 14 day trial. We are using paddle.com for that an amazingly good service.
I am planning to do a writeup about all this as soon as I have some more numbers.
Also as a side note. I would like to see Apple undergo the same scrutiny that we treat our politicians with. When you say you create so and so many jobs you really need to be talking actual jobs that people can live off for that to have any meaning.
[+] [-] outworlder|10 years ago|reply
Didn't the sandbox give you trouble, though? I thought it wouldn't be possible for a sandboxed app to get the user's context like that.
[+] [-] fabiovirgi|10 years ago|reply
Totally agree - the MAS needs to be seen as a single distribution channel. I think the broader problem is that devs rely solely on the Mac App Store to drive sales for them, which is a risky approach. There are a bunch of different ways to drive app sales; it's just a matter of putting in the work.
Glad to have you on board with Ghostnote, and looking forward to that write-up too! :-)
Fabio @ Paddle.com
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|10 years ago|reply
Mobile purchasing is ruled by iOS in the states, at least. Desktop purchasing, especially in regards to productivity, is ruled by Windows. Those fancy macs you see everywhere are little more than dedicated facebook machines. Those people are interested in your product, generally. Or if they are, it'll be for their work computer and paid for by the IT department. Do you have a windows version and a relationship with a VAR or two and enterprise friendly pricing/terms?
I don't see how Apple can help you. You're selling running shoes to people in wheelchairs. Find where the runners are.
[+] [-] mickanio|10 years ago|reply
I just think of something like Monument Valley - not a throwaway - tons of work - and it DID make them rich. Rightfully so. I guess I'd like to see at least SOME mention of that aspect of it.
[+] [-] danso|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|10 years ago|reply
http://www.panic.com/blog/introducing-coda-2-5/
Other publishers have done the same thing. (with regard to upgrade pricing, usually, but I'd assume a similar approach to avoid backlash if they left the MAS) However, your concern still stands, as not everyone will do that.
[+] [-] dilap|10 years ago|reply
edit: i do wish apple would relax the sandbox strictness a bit and other editor review criteria so it was a more attractive alternative to self-publishing.
[+] [-] jakobegger|10 years ago|reply
1) It talks about an app that reached #8 in "Top Paid". The more interesting list would be "Top Grossing"
2) It talks about a trivial app that was created with very little effort. While gimmick apps might work on iOS, people prefer to buy actually useful software on the Mac.
The title is still somewhat true: It's unlikely you will become very rich by selling Mac Apps. But you can make a decent living; I currently make around 6000€/month (gross revenue) from two Mac Apps.
[+] [-] saturdaysaint|10 years ago|reply
I could hypothesize about ways for Apple to turn the ship around... but I doubt they care. Apple's happy to have something conceptually coherent with iOS - an Apple Store employee can show a college freshman to "just update apps like on your iPhone". They decided long ago not to chase gaming. It's a pretty updating app.
[+] [-] vitd|10 years ago|reply
At this point I will avoid buying any more games from Steam if possible and just get them from the app store because it's so much easier and just works.
Back when I sold my own software, getting it noticed was nearly impossible. There were about 10 different websites you could submit it to that had lists of new apps (Version Tracker, Download.com, etc.), and eventually they all got more and more spammy until the point where users just stopped using them altogether. Something like an app store would have been a godsend!
[+] [-] coldtea|10 years ago|reply
Apps that stay at the top for weeks on end make lots of money -- up to several millions per year.
As for the App Store, just like ANY OTHER marketplace, it won't make you rich in itself, just for appearing there and "putting the work"...
[+] [-] bdcravens|10 years ago|reply
Paid Mac apps, no. The article is about the Mac App Store, not iOS. Even among iOS, however, the most successful apps are free ones with a viral incentive to do in-app purchases.
Most of the top apps have an external influence. 4 of the top 10 come out of Apple. Look at top games on Mac - most of them are major publishers. Even "independent" apps had a following outside of the Mac App Store, like 1Password.
[+] [-] chx|10 years ago|reply
The article claims the Mac App Store sales is measured in thousands for the top apps. Care to point to your sources which claim three magnitudes more?
[+] [-] usaphp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b0sk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a2tech|10 years ago|reply
Users are slow to change, and buying your software through a portal on your computer is a big change.
[+] [-] bdcravens|10 years ago|reply
1) Upgrade pricing. At best you'll get convoluted instructions on how you can obtain an upgraded version: http://www.barebones.com/store/bbedit_MAS_upgrade.html https://support.omnigroup.com/omnifocus-2-upgrades/
In many cases, you can't go back and forth (bought on website, bought v. 2 on MAS), so you're expecting people to understand that it's a "different" version - imagine if you had to explain that because you bought the Best Buy XBox One, you can't play games purchased at Wal-Mart.
2) Sandboxing. If users are going to pay anything near full price for something they expect full functionality.
Due to these headaches, publishers are abandoning the App Store:
http://www.panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/
Personally I wish the MAS was a better solution for the reasons you described (I have purchased a good amount of software there)
[+] [-] emgeee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbritton|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jawngee|10 years ago|reply
But, in its hey day, it did really well. It even beat iMovie for a few weeks. Though now I am sitting here almost five years later and I have no idea who my customers are, beyond the handful that went out of their way to contact me.
I had some down time this past spring, so I rewrote the entire thing from the ground up using AVFoundation. I haven't launched this new version yet because I'm waiting to finish the iOS version to launch both within the same time frame. However, I won't be putting the OS X version on the Mac App Store for a few reasons:
- I want to know who my customers are
- I want to be able to contact my customers
- Sandboxing restrictions are workable, but not a good customer experience imho.
- Lack of paid upgrades isn't viable for an app not everyone needs
- MAS seems way neglected
So now I'm going to be going with Paddle (http://paddle.com) since it sort of replicates that experience really well and the guys there are super responsive. Maybe I'll change my mind down the road, but not likely.
[+] [-] fabiovirgi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|10 years ago|reply
That distills down to about $15,000 per US job if the $10 billion doesn't go anywhere else in the world and before business expenses such as the $99.00 developer fee.
[+] [-] outworlder|10 years ago|reply
A high profile example of that is: https://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2012/02/16/abandoning-the-mac...
[+] [-] bdcravens|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xienze|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] navait|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_dev|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droidist2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulhauggis|10 years ago|reply
Business owners should think of an app as an extra benefit to a paid service or product rather than the product itself.