Learning about App Annie (via TechCrunch and Flappy Bird)

This past week, TechCrunch had an article about the Flappy Bird developer removing his app from the App Store.  As a game developer, the whole Flappy Bird app story was very interesting.  It was a simple-in-concept game that was very difficult to play.  Apparently, people found this very addicting and it became the #1 free game in the App Store.  It did have ads in it, and supposedly, at one point it was generating $50,000 of ad revenue a day.  But the developer found that it was a lot of pressure to deal with the popularity, so he took it down, and a bunch of clones appeared in its place.

But anyway..... the article referred to some statistics found on a site called App Annie.  I'd never heard of the site, but it compiles statistics about iOS applications.  It does that for free for every app, including Monster Cache.  It seems it can also do the same for the Play Store, but only if you sign up for an account and then tell them your Google Developer Console password.  I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that, but I did already learn some interesting things from the free data about the iOS version.

At one point, the iOS version of Monster Cache was in the top 500 grossing Adventure and Family apps in the United States.  And more recently, it was in the top 500 overall Adventure and Family app downloads in Ireland and the Czech Republic.  Based on the dates, the United States grossing ranking came after we got the good response from the Kansas geocaching club, even though that was only about $60.  The Ireland and Czech Republic rankings came after our international Facebook ad.  (That ad cost $100 and brought in about 100 new users, so it cost about $1 / new user). I don't know where App Annie gets this ranking data, since gross revenue and specific # of downloads aren't publicly displayed in the App Store.  But since TechCrunch references them,  I'll believe it.

(Current # players on Legends Board: 202)

High cost of developing for Apple

You could say that I am biased because I do all my daily development work on a Windows machine and use a lot of Google tools.  But I've been very frustrated by how much money it costs to develop a phone app for Apple platforms.

First of all, you HAVE to have an Apple computer to develop for the Apple platform.  The converse is not true for Android, you can develop for Android using a Mac.  But Apple forces you to have an Apple computer in order to produce a testing profile through their development environment, XCode.  So when I wanted to develop Monster Cache for iOS, I had to go buy an Apple computer that ran a certain version of  XCode, which translated to needing OS X 10.7 (Lion).  So I got a used iMac for about $400.

Next cost is the fee for a developer account.  For a Google Play developer account, there is a one-time fee of $25.  For Apple, its a YEARLY fee of $100.  I just had to pay for my second year.

After paying for both of those, I was able to develop Monster Cache for iOS and make updates for a little over a year.  Then iOS 7 came out.  Developing for iOS 7 requires the latest version of XCode, XCode 5.  XCode 5 requires that your Mac's operating system be at least OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion).  Apple no longer distributes version 10.8, so if you want to upgrade through the App Store, then you have to upgrade to OS X 10.9 (Mavericks).  Of course, my older iMac does not support 10.9.  So I will have to buy another Mac, which means another few hundred dollars.

The last Apple-specific cost I've been seeing is far less significant, and may not even be Apple's fault exactly, but its just a little salt in the wound.  When people make In App Purchases, Google and Apple transfer the money to my bank account at the end of the month.  Apparently, Google's transfer is a domestic one, but Apple's is an international transfer.  My bank charges me $3.50 for each monthly transfer that Apple makes to my account.