It seems July 2014 may go down as the month when we realized being an indie (iOS) developer is no longer feasible. It’s not that something suddenly happened, rather, we collectively realized the same thing: there’s no way to make a living doing this. Rather than making a living off of developing one or two apps, we need to find another source of income and do this on the side. It’s the only way.
Here are some recent posts by notable developers in the community. They hit on a few different woes, and points. Some implore we approach this whole thing from another direction.
A Candid Look at Unread’s First Year
Trials and Updates are Still Dead
Where are the Indie iOS Developers You Ask?
Another Non-Indie Developer App Story
I fall right in line with many of the experiences expressed in the aforementioned links. In the early days of Pivotal Action, we were starry-eyed at the possibility of creating something great that people liked, with the “reasonable” hopes of being successful. We started off with Completion, and later went on to work on a new project, Pixd, that never shipped (though it was close-ish). By the time we more or less gave up on Pixd, I think we had realized the return on our time investment was unlikely to pay off. Even as the dust was still settling with Completion, we knew we couldn’t quit the consulting side of the business – it was paying the bills.
[UPDATE] I’ve added additional links showing more experiences and perspective on the indie situation