Is it worth nowadays (2014 q4) publishing to Apple Store for indie developers?

keszegh

so it seems some of the members (@jdbc, @ar2rsawseen) came to the conclusion that ios is less (or completely not) profitable nowadays than android (and other options - html5, what else?). can you tell us more about this?

jdbc

I think iOS takes a lot of effort to build on Xcode and to comply with the review process that is not worth to spent that time. The curve learning of iOS is too high and earnings are quite low if you are not a big company.

There are some links about you need just lucky to make money with Apple Store:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/ios-app-success-is-a-lottery-and-60-of-developers-dont-break-even/

Anyway you can try it, I did but no success.

ar2rsawseen

Here are my reasons:
1) IOS provide only one market, while Android provides lots of them (Google Play, Amazon, SlideME, Ouya, etc)
2) For myself I do ads only games, and last year the earnings ratio was 7 to 10 on android providing more earnings, this year ios earnings diminished earning less than a half of what Android provides (well honestly, ios earnings did not diminish, but rather android earnings increased, still ratio is in Androids favor)
3) Apple account costs 100$ per year while android markets cost nothing. So in reality you should compare IOS earnings - 100$ against Androis earnings, making them close to nothing
4) And the worst one is breaking compatibility and thus providing such pain with every update they have

jdbc

I have also developed ads only games, may be this is the point. I will upload my Jewel of Persia (http://giderosmobile.com/apps/jewel-of-persia) game on iOS four days ago with in-app purchases included trying to change my luck. May be iOS users expect to download games with internal purchases in mind.

I recommend do not use iAd advertise, I will try another options due to low fill rate and low ecpm and related problems with the first submit.

boriskey

i actually have a totally different experience with iOS. I hate iOS, I hate xcode and objective C. I hate macs and i-devices and I think Apple is an evil company But...iOS makes me x4 times more money (mostly ads) and I get x2 more downloads and for some reason users can find my apps easier than on google play.

I do love Android, I love java and Google is one the corporations I respect and like - but I feel like Google is still learning how to make business properly. And they clearly changes something in the past year or two because it is very difficult now for new apps to rank. Maybe not intentionally but they force you to but installs, reviews etc. - if you do not do that, you app will never rank and people won't even find your app.

As for alternative Android markets and Amazon, I did not have much luck there so at some point I concentrated on google play and ios only.

So as much as I want to stick to Android, dropping iOS would not be a very wise move for me and I would not even consider it.

I do agree with you guys, that the time when you could make a game and publish it to a market and sit back and wait for downloads is gone. Big corporations are major players there and with their funds they can throw on marketing, it is impossible to compete.

ar2rsawseen

@boriskey that is very interesting info, so there is some sort of a game categories that do well on ios. Or maybe you have not reached your maximal potential on Android?