I think the iOS app market is maturing, with the novelty of apps wearing off, and most every need is already covered. I also think that the future of app development is with teams. What I've been seeing over the past 5 years that the App Store has existed is constant change. In the first few years, one person working over a couple of weeks can make a hit. Those days are over.
What I'm seeing when I go to conferences and meetups is that most apps are made by teams at startups or agencies. What I'm seeing in my own apps, which are mostly paid apps, is my revenue has dropped by 30% in the past year. I'm seeing on Twitter that other developers with paid apps reporting similar declines.
The gold rush is over, but people still don't get the memo. Too many people are trying to hop on the App Store gold rush of 5 years ago, and there will still people just getting on the bandwagon years from now. There's a glut of new apps, and even if most of the them are crappy, almost every idea and every need is covered five times over. That means you need to stand out from the crowd in some way, with a better app or better marketing.
Even after the gold rush is over, there's still gold in the hills. It's just harder to make a successful app that gets noticed, and requires teams with the specializations and experience to quickly and efficiently release one, the same way that the remaining gold requires geologists who know the land and heavy machinery to get to it.
It used to be that you needed to know a little bit of everything to make a successful app on the App Store. You had to be a designer, programmer, marketer, and all-around businessperson. Now there are services and agencies which can fill in for design, programming, or marketing. There are now agencies which will do everything for you, for a price. All you need is an idea and money, for which there are many funded startups and corporate brands.
And on a team, you can have specialists as well as generalists. The designers can keep up with the latest UI fashions and quickly make mockups that the programmers, who can focus on just the latest APIs and capabilities of the latest iPhone. And the people overseeing the entire process can look at different ways to make money with the app, whether paid up front, in-app purchase, subscriptions, or something else.
There are still some bright spots for the independent developer. The Mac App Store was never as big as the iOS App Store, and the Mac developers I've talked to say that sales are about the same. I've also talked to iOS developers who make a living from niche areas where you can charge $20 or up for an app. And there are individuals and teams who do contract work to make enough money to work on their own ideas and products at a loss.
I don't know if we'll ever get back to the ideal of being independent and living off of your own products in the App Store, instead of having to pitch your idea to venture capitalists, or to work for some corporate brand. I do know we need to adapt to change. Free with in-app purchase or subscription pricing looks more sustainable than paid apps. We may need to form ourselves into small teams, because being independent doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. I see this as a challenge to figure out what's next.
