Transmit: Don’t Panic on Pro iPad Apps

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Panic Ceasing Development on Transmit. It’s once again lead to a bunch of gloom and doom about making a living on the App Store and the future of pro apps on the iPad.

Personally, I think this isn’t about the iPad business model - I think it’s about market fit.

I bought Transmit for iOS. I don’t remember the last time I used it. I bought Transmit for macOS, too, but I don’t remember the last time I used it, either (I think I still have the previous version. The next time I actually run it, I’ll likely upgrade).

Anchored to the Bottom: Hypothesizing the Root Cause of Low App Store Pricing

There’s a race to the bottom for prices on the App Store, and many developers (myself included) don’t like it. Some developers wonder if Apple could have stopped it. Others think the free and paid apps are different markets. Despite my respect for Charles, Daniel and Joe (with whom I’ve been arguing about this on twitter) I don’t think so.

The cause (I believe) of the race to the bottom is the existence of so many popular, quality, free apps, built largely with VC money. When users are given, free of charge, quality apps that took hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars to develop, it skews their perceptions of what apps should cost, and that in turn pushes down the price the market will bear.

Fragmented Capital - It Just Got Harder to Be an iOS Indie Developer

With Apple’s announcements yesterday, it just got a lot more expensive to develop for Apple’s ecosystem.

I’ve written before about why it’s important to test your code on as many different devices as you can before you ship. That’s been getting harder and harder over time, but it just got a whole lot worse. Up until now, Apple pretty much only released one new iPhone a year. Yes, they released two last year, but the 5C wasn’t all that different from the 5 for programming purposes, so many of the devs I know skipped it. We couldn’t safely skip the 5S (at least in my opinion), since the processor changed from 32bit->64 bit. That meant that the code that ran on the 5S behaved differently than the ones on the 5/5C, and so (again, in my opinion), we really needed to test both.

Just Because There Was a Bubble Doesn't Mean App Store Developers Are Doomed

Let’s just call it what it was, shall we? We had an App Store Bubble.

It’s deflating now, although (at least with games) there are still remnants.

Take a deep breath. It’s all going to be okay.

When I started working on mobile apps back in 2005 on Palm devices, we had horrible distribution by today’s standards. There were no integrated payments, no integrated stores. People had to buy your app, download it to their PC, and then copy it to their PDA via a serial cable. And yet, even back then, people made a living at it (although, I never managed to do so).

I don’t make my living from my own apps now, either. I’m not an iOS indie, I’m a consultant/freelancer. I’ve tried being an indie, and I’m not good at it (and I’m one of those weird people that actually likes consulting). But it is possible to make a living from iOS app revenue, because many people I know from my consulting practice have and do.

But let’s think for a minute about where we are before we call the App Store a disaster.

New Work In Progress - Million Words: Multiplayer Crossword Game for Parents and Kids that Grades on a Curve

Although I do iOS Contracting to pay my bills (at least to date), I hope one day to earn a living from my own apps, and, although it’s not ready for release, the time has come to unveil my new project.

Million Words is a turn-based crossword game where you’re scored not by what letters you managed to get into your word, but by the grade level of your word, relative to your age. This way my six-year-old daughter could play “HELLO” and I could play “HELICOPTER” and we would get the same number of points (more or less).

My Top 5 factors for iOS Contracting Success

About a year ago now, I was contemplating leaving my day job and becoming an indie* iOS developer. My last day working in a cube farm was June 30th, 2011. Now, as I pack to leave for WWDC in the morning, it occurs to me how much my life has changed since I made that decision.

When examining my finances in preparation for this trip, I determined that in my first year as an indie I’ve made within $1000 of the amount of money I made in salary my last year as an employee, while spending more time with my family and enjoying my work so much more. Personally, I consider that to be a success.

Looking back, I can think of 5 things that I did that I think contributed most to that success, and I wanted to take this opportunity to share them with you all.

Hey, iOS Devs, Nice AppStore. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it…

So, breaking iOS AppStore news this afternoon:  Path uploads your entire iPhone address book to its servers.

This sucks, and I’m pissed off, but not because my data is so precious, but because I’m scared of where this could end up.

360iDev Conference Notes, or How I Spent my September Vacation

This Thursday, I got back home after four days at 360iDev 2011 in Denver. I went last year, which was easy for me because it was in Austin where I live. I was concerned about the extra time and extra money it was going to take to go this year, since it was in Denver. Now that I’m back, I’m so glad I went. I have no hesitation about recommending it to other people, so that’s what I’m about to do. This post is going to be long, because there was a lot going on, so feel free to skim the headlines and skip the things that aren’t relevant to you.

If you want facts, Indie, I've none to give you, at least not yet.

As I’ve written before, I’m very optimistic about the state of iPhone and iPad App development.  I’ve published several apps on the side, and while I’ve worked on several Apps at my day job, Apps was only part of my day job, and I didn’t get a chance to focus on mobile the way I really wanted to.

Well, today, that all changes.

My last day at my day job was the last day of June, I took a long 4th of July weekend off, and now I’m moving into App development full time.  I’m still working on turning my " write iOS Apps from an iOS device" project into a shipping application, and I want to get iCloud-enabled refreshes of some of my existing apps ready for the iOS 5.0 launch this fall.  Hopefully along the way, I’ll find some contract work to help pay the bills.  Please let me know if you run into someone who needs to get an App built.