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Appstore Economy
Found this extremely interesting and informative article on what so many of the threads on the forum are turning into. The comment section at the end/bottom is very insightful as well. A lot of great points made on all sides.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11140928/app-store-economy-apple-android-pixite-bankruptcy
Comments
Very interesting.
Wow, this is a fantastic article, and I strongly encourage everyone to read it
Developers: you are my heroes. I know you are not getting rich.
I hope the unique qualities of the music making ecosystem continues to sustain developer interest.
Of course, there are other forces at work. The economy, in general is poor. Software development if ubiquitous. Then, there is the matter that as musicians, it is hard for us to monetize artwork, making it hard to pay for apps and gear.
I does our good fortune to be born in the SF bay area, and stumbled into opportunities that were better than I was. The "an app equals a latte" metaphor works for me. But I totally get how it doesn't work for many people.
How much should apps cost? I'd be willing to pay more for fewer, higher-quality apps, but I don't think that's the direction the market is headed.
I think one thing we can help with is communication with developers. We can be there to discuss ideas and what we really want to pay for.
I for one do my bit by giving my time for free to help test apps.
I do though think we need to be more understanding and work together with Devs even more.
I also think there needs to be more praise given for what we do receive. It is disheartening when we see constant questioning of things like price and instant free upgrades.
Yeah, from two to six employees, how arrogant.
Interesting read. I actually bought Web Albums for all the reasons cited in the article. I also bought and used a competitor called "Best Albums" (I think), and then switched to the Google app when it released last year. Except I think I'm actually switching back to the Pixite app because it has the best functionality of the 3, especially when it comes to upload speed.
But while I hate to say it, I just feel like it should be obvious to these developers that profits off this sort of thing are extremely short-lived and not at all dependable. The lone exception to that would be a Candy Crush model of gaming where people continue to use your app and provide a revenue stream to keep playing it. The initial purchase is a one-shot deal, as are IAP's, though I suppose with some feature-based apps (and music apps), you could stretch out the profits with several IAP releases that would be like small tremors after the "earthquake" sales of the initial release.
I wish that this weren't the case and that people could get rich pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into products selling for $0.99 to $4.99 (in most cases). But the math just isn't there, especially if you are dividing those revenues between more than 1 or 2 people.
They could have definitely made money from me selling more IAPs for Tangent, I asked them on Twitter but they had 'no plans' for new content. I hope they survive somehow, I use their stuff constantly, especially Union.
I propose that apps should have a one-shot lifetime. Manufacturers should release them with no bugs, or at least no significant bugs that can’t be fixed in the near future. Then don’t put any more work into them, don’t make them better, don’t add features, don’t add capabilities, and most importantly of all, if the operating system or the world outside of that app changes, don’t fix the app. Let it die.
By then, the next model will be designed, manufactured and released, which will work and offer exactly what was intended at the time of release. That goes on for as long as it does, and when that stops working through no fault of its own, there’ll be a replacement model.
This is pretty much how real things work. A television bought in the 1950s was not expected to be infinitely upgraded at no extra cost. When standards came out that made it obsolete or deficient, a new model was waiting to be bought all over again, and nobody thought it strange or rude to charge for a new model.
For no evident reason but for some kind of fake deal as "get the new model along with a contract and you'll pay a bit more of the retail price but you don't have to pay it now"
There's also the powerful (it seems) matter of 'this is the newest thing and to remain relevant you must purchase it at your earliest opportunity' etc.
apples & oranges
you can't compare candy crush and Pixite to iPad music software like they are the same thing
music software is a niche market, everyone knows this ...
uh, I really dislike the idea of apps with a lifecycle of 3 weeks,
it would be a waste of time to invest time in the apps to learn to use them
this is a race to the bottom!
and not quality software - it would be throw away software no one cares about
thats not how to do business ...
I would never buy anything from that developer again.
the candy crush model also doesn't work for music software
insert coin to play again,
well that may work for adobe, but not for the rest of us ...
its apple & oranges comparing these
yes its all software, but thats where the similarities end.
@lala, 99 percent of the apps on the App Store are throw away software. Always have been. The number 1 app the first year was a virtual koi pond?
It's a good article, but not news. We have hired a few people into our shop who had their own small dev shops like these guys. The opportunity to build the first calculator or shopping list app or better notepad were there for a very short while. And when the prices are so low, only the large will survive.
Most folks are not interested in much beyond Facebook and a few other social apps. This crew is one of the weird ones - we actually use our hardware for something interesting. Most iPads are used for web browsing, email, and playing games. But look at our market - how many drum sequencers can survive? How many are languishing? How many synths are there? The low hanging fruit is gone, and it's a hard way to make a buck.
Selling sophisticated software for the price of a bunch of bananas was never a good long term strategy. One time purchases really should be sold at a higher price with the ability to offer paid upgrades ... which for some reason Apple has not allowed. The current situation has been great for us hobbyists wanting to greatly expand our studios on the cheap but it probably won't last forever.
I have all the apps fo Pixite from day one, but Assembly thta i bought it too. It feels like a fraud, it wasnt looks like a Pixite app with increasing the price every 2 weeks of the full iap pack , but now i undertsand why, they are having financial problems.
I love apps. I love music. I love this community. I know these developers need to put food on the table. Content wise, I don't see an issue. What I see is a lack of effective marketing. Not just the particular apps, but in the case of the iPhone, apps in general. I reckon a marketing budget is last in the list of most apps. But I run into people all the time with iPhones who are still using it as just a phone, people with iPads who use it just as a music player/internet browser. Among the mAinstream there seems to be a lack of awareness of the fact that these are serious tools that can be used to great effect whatever your mission is. This may be an Apple issue. However, I believe the problem will sort itself out over the years. Desktops/laptops will be gone eventually. It's obvious to me. Why buy a desktop or laptop which don't have a touchscreen when you're tablet or phone will do and do it quicker because of the easier interfaces made possible by touch screen. We may be in the infancy stages right now, struggling. But the future is bright. I would encourage app developers to keep following their passion, look to the future, and think outside the box. Shit is going to get weird, in a good way.
One more thing. What happened to "there's an app for that?" Not seeing much of that sentiment at large lately.
I think the problem is with the "consumers". The trend of "not willing to pay (at all)" has grown into every aspect of life, as I see it. Yesterday I had an encounter with a person who really likes this female singer from the nineties and would love to have ALL her songs with him on his upcoming vacation. I wasn't even aware that respective singer did still make new albums, so this guy really is into her, but the idea of bying her albums doesn't even faintly exist for him. Instead, he is looking to find someone to "download" EVERYTHING SHE EVER RECORDED for him to listen to , for free. This way, it seems to me, there is NO sustainable business anywhere, software-related... . I mean, even the musicians I know, would surely like to cash in on their creations, but download everything they like to listen to, for free (because it's possible...?). That's weird, I think. But maybe I'm a dinosaur creature from the olden days of appreciation...
Well, part of the idea of the 99p app was to make piracy not even dignified by pointing to the high cost of applications as a reason (which in the case of, er, people I knew, nobody could afford what Adobe and Quark for example were charging for Illustrator Photoshop and QuarkXpress, yet how is one supposed to learn it fluently enough to then be able to earn a living?). The ease and inconsequential cost of apps in the new ‘app store’ model sidestepped piracy not only operationally, but psychologically. Why bother wanting to pirate something that only cost 99p?
Having said that, my view is that the app store has done its job and is already so obsolete that it is starting to do harm. Plus, I had no idea that apple took 30% of everything. That is outright serfdom. On the other hand, if app manufacturers moved over to android, there’d be less money there (assuming the hardware and OS could somehow make music apps work in the desired way, at the moment they can’t easily interoperate).
My phone is android and I can honestly say that I’ve never once paid for an android app. It doesn’t feel correct for the spending of money to be involved in the getting of an android app. Any apps that have prices on are viewed as trap for the unwary, to be cognitively skipped over. Nobody I know has ever actually bought anything with the Play store — that’d be stupid.
Also, I understand that the Mac OS X app store is dwindling. It’s certainly not what the iOS app store is (but neither of those are as bad as the tvOS app store is`— that’s already dead in the water).
Same here. An iPhone is ludicrously expensive and always has been. Especially for a phone. I only make a phone call about once every few weeks, and possibly receive a phone call about the same. Why would I need an iPhone for that? These days people buy their smartphone outright and find a cheap sim-only contract or more commonly use payg (which I’d argue most people should be on). Nobody but an utter moron should still be on a 24-month high priced contract that “gives you a free phone”. It never works out as well as getting your own phone, looking after it carefully for many years, and finding a good sim-only bargain or a good payg sim (or keep buying and throwing £5 loaded payg sims for 99p, which is commonplace). My android phone is actually so good that I’ve never seriously considered replacing it with a new model, I bought it new in 2013, but unlike any of its predecessors, it actually has no deficiencies that would be relieved by upgrading to a newer model each year. For once, it’s perfectly fine, it does the job, and does it well. I’ve even got my older Sony Ericsson W800i from 2005 in good condition still here on the table (with a giffgaff sim in it) and I think a lot of people in 2016 are looking back to those older smaller non-wifi non-3g non-distracting phones that actually made phone calls properly and didn’t need charging twice a day.
I think one of the problems that Apple will have is that iPads are so good there’s little to be gained in upgrading one, but a lot of expense.
Take the example of “other people” who don’t use specialist synth/sequencing/production apps, and only really use it as a consuming machine for viewing and prodding websites, viewing youtube, listening to music, etc. There’s literally nothing my iPad 2 can’t do in that respect, and nor my wife’s iPad 2. We’ve had them since new, and they’re still going well, so thanks Apple, we’ll never buy another Apple product from you again — the ones we already bought seem to last forever!
Actually, my suggestion to Apple is to bring out something that is as much an iPad as it is a Macbook. They’re clearly clueless regarding what’s supposed to come next. It’s like toothbrush manufacturers — none of them really have the slightest idea what constitutes a proper toothbrush, instead, they’re all trying their own ridiculous and ludicrous extreme pseudoscientific variations with credibility thrown out of the window. The market is filled with so many diverse species of toothbrush that their only hope is to see which one of that random variety of nonsensical designs sells the most, and therefore that’s the ‘correct’ design for a toothbrush, and all others die out. For a while.
I can't wrap my mind around this. Outside of free apps (without ads) for services I pay for separately like Netflix or Evernote, or things from big hitters like Google+, I don't have a single app on my Android phone that I haven't paid for. (ES File Explorer Pro, Nova Launcher, JotterPad, Painter, Photo Studio Pro, Podcast Addict, Quoda, VivaVideo Pro, Wolfram Alpha, all my games (no freemium rule)). I want these developers to keep doing what they're doing. Are you and your friends just going with "free" ad-laden alternatives?
I loathe Apple in many ways, but encouraging a culture where customers actually pay developers is one area they shine. How are any small development houses supposed to stay in business on a platform where folks think paying for apps is stupid?
My iphone 5 is four years old , lasts over a day in charge , and I paid off the contract three years ago so I pay just £11 a month for unlimited texts and 500 minutes calls
) and still as good as new lol
Very happy user of Caustic, Nanoloop and Sunvox on Android here.
Going back to Pixite, their new coloring app I noticed is initially free and then charges a monthly subscription for new content. From what I've seen in app store reviews and also in a somewhat gut-feeling way, I really don't think people are nearly as willing to pay a monthly subscription as they are to just buy apps outright. I hope this subscription setup doesnt become the default method cuz I am so pathetic and impovershed that I can never guarantee I'll have even $5 in my account at any given time. But then maybe the subscription model is a workaround since Apple won't allow charging for updates.
I can't see the subscription model becoming widespread, because consumers will simply avoid it. You would end up with a dozen or more monthly subscriptions and you would just cancel all but the most essential. I think you would have to be out of your mind to pay a subscription for a colouring-book app, let alone a proper music-making app.
Agree. I have nearly 250 music making apps on my iPad. If everything went subscription, I would have to bin most of them.
I just love switching and changing apps to see what I can come up with. Some small apps may just be the ticket for something to make a new sound, then I may not use it again for 2 months.
If they want to make iOS use the sub model then they better make iOS music apps as big and supported as many PC / MAC apps. Also they better give iPad a shed load more storage, a different file system and probably more oomph.
Then pretty much they will be turning my lovely quirky iOS instrument into a hot fan blasted cumbersome PC, with large bloat ware apps...no no.....I like my iOS machine to be full of insta fun and touchy goodness with no heat overload and fan noise.
I like small creative Devs to be able to produce quirky apps that make me laugh and smile, even if I only use them once in a blue moon
Even if I really don't want subscriptions, and I really don't, I am more than happy to pay for upgrades. That one change, if Apple would ever allow it, would probably make a big difference to the sustainability of the app store.
Yep and gives the choice if you want to upgrade or not. I can see a day when I will upgrade my Air2 no more and get another iPad to go with it.
If all apps had lifetimes and you bought the new one when the old one became obsolete or broken, people would accept that (as they’d accept subscriptions), but it’d have to be a unilateral disarmament situation. Each side would have to back down together — no fighting in the war room. If it became the norm, or always was, nobody would think it bad.
However, rather than buy Photoshop and Illustrator (and I even wrote chapters of a book on advanced photoshop and illustrator, once) I’ve, like everyone else, rejected the subscription model and chosen to buy Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo instead. So, do as I say, but not as I do.
The other thing that could work well is that if all apps were exactly like Candy crush. That seems to be successful, therefore that’s what an exemplar app should be like. Gone should be this stupid noble aim that apps can be professional enablers, just put more fruit or jewels or bubbles and pandas in. Imagine if each of our synths were also gamified to the extent that it somehow encouraged you to continue onward in exploring it.
Think about it. People buy a synth or sequencer app and prod it about for a few minutes or hours, either revelling in the preset lushness (most synths) or facing an immediate wall of incomprehensibility (most sequencers) and then try and do something themselves with it and fail to make it work the way imagined (everything) and then put it away and go and find something more gratifying for the next ten minutes.
People don’t have that kind of problem progressing with candy crush or the like. People don’t start playing on the train or the bus and just give up and throw up their hands after ten minutes and decide to read a book or get back to studying their homework or do some knitting instead. People have no problem playing such games, yet people have problems doing their homework or learning new things or mastering their tool.
I propose that new synths and sequencers must have more bobbles and fruit and jewels and pandas and suchlike.
@u0421793
'Think about it. People buy a synth or sequencer app and prod it about for a few minutes or hours, either revelling in the preset lushness (most synths) or facing an immediate wall of incomprehensibility (most sequencers) and then try and do something themselves with it and fail to make it work the way imagined (everything) and then put it away and go and find something more gratifying for the next ten minutes.'
Haha this is sooo true
I was going to quote and respond to some comments on here, but, damn..... Lot's of good things said. Very interesting reading all yer posts.
My wife and I are still using flip/slider phones, and under my moms contract. Each paying 20.00 a m onth. no data or any fancy stuff. I used to buy an ipod touch every couple of years. Now that I bought an ipad I can't see going back to ipod for music.
I did just buy an iphone from my Supervisor at work, Two year old model, for $60.00. To upgrade my 5 year old ipod. Two years from now, I told her I'd do the same. For my kids to have something to play around on mostly.
Lots of good points above, paid upgrades would be a good way to go, I think we've seen a few apps go the whole new version route, because paid upgrade isn't an option.