iOS Indies

Brent Simmons with a follow-up to his original piece asking the question: Where are all the iOS independant developers at? (Emphasis mine)

If you want to write your own iOS apps, it appears that either you accept the likelihood of a pretty low income or you have a day job, write Mac apps, or do contracting (or some combination).

I think this is too bad. It seems like the iOS market is so huge that it should be able to support lots of iOS-only indies.

But with how prices have fallen — how people are now accustomed to not paying anything until they’re hopelessly addicted and need the $4.99 packet of imaginary things that will get them to the next level — I can’t recommend to anybody that they quit their job to just write their own iOS apps.

The answer to Brent's question was pretty disappointing - there were 5. And he's right, it does indeed seem like the iOS market is so enormous that there would be all sorts of iOS-only independent developers, but there just aren't. When you see how little some of these great developers are making (see the link in Brent's quote above for the harsh reality), it makes sense. 

It's really a shame - the result of a race to the bottom in paid app prices and very good free apps made possible only by enormous amounts of VC money. We've all been trained that apps are free (or very cheap, but even any cost is too much for some). Just think of what the state of the ecosystem would be right now if the market was such that indies could make a living on the App Store. Imagine the amazing apps they could create.

While you were imagining that, Candy Crush just pulled in another million.