It's surprising to me how absolutely awful the mac app store is. It's broken on so many levels in terms of UX, and not in the principles, but the actual implementation. Same issue with itunes
Do a search, and you get absolutely no feedback. Plus the store itself is slow so it takes 5 seconds for absolutely anything to happen.
I can't imagine they can't put a small team to clean up the mac store, surely it would increase sales if it wasn't as awful.
1. How does it get over 500 votes on product hunt? (and so few sales from that traffic)
2. $5 is cheap for desktop software, yet still seems expensive for this problem (not something I would need often, and there are other ways to do it)
3. Considering #2 of apps being more expensive, being at the top of the top paid is less important/impressive etc than top grossing. Cheapest in top 10 grossing is $20, and all but 2 > $50. Selling 60 apps a day at $50 is a lot of money.
4. Now I'll agree that I would expect #8 paid in the MAS to be a bit higher, but I wouldn't have guessed anywhere remotely close to 12k. Maybe $1500. $300 a day is nothing to sneeze at though. $110k a year. I don't know where he peaked in top grossing, but it's at 108 now. 100 apps get to make 6 figures a year, and presumably the top is a decent bit higher. Seems reasonable.
EDIT: 5. Also, ranking in the stores lately is screwy, and at least a little bit meaningless. Not sure whats going on, but there has been a lot of talk about it not correlating that well with sales. Could be part of it.
It's not $300 a day. It's $300 on launch day. Sales always, always drop far below launch day unless you have other factors which keep the app in the news or on a "top 10" chart.
My apps have usually dropped to maybe 10% of the launch peak.
>It's not $300 a day. It's $300 on launch day. Sales always, always drop far below launch day unless you have other factors which keep the app in the news or on a "top 10" chart.
Yes, but those $300 were still made in a day as the 8th top app.
What the parent said is that $300 for each day you're on the "top 8th" is good.
If he can't be on the top 8th for long, that's his problem, and it doesn't mean people should be getting $12K for a single day on the top 10.
It's really amazing how pretty much nobody wants to pay for software anymore. This isn't just true of consumer applications, it's even (or especially) true of infrastructure and other professional components. I'm not sure if this is sad or exciting. My inclination is with sad, until we can figure out some new way to fund meaningful development that actually works.
The more important problem is that the middle class is squeezed -- in the US from what I read, but also in Europe that I know, and nobody CAN really spend as much anymore in the first place.
I don't know many, but I buy a lot. I kind of got addicted after getting some $100 in gift cards for christmas, spending it all eventually and not realizing I was already past $100. After I realized I didn't care I just bought whatever I wanted. I've gotten a lot of bad apps but honestly the best apps on my phone are paid.
I've noticed that too when I recently was able to upgrade from a very old phone (with 3G only!) to a T-Mobile Nexus 6. I never bothered with too many apps before because the phone was just so slow.
Now though every free app is so annoying to use. Trying to not accidentally click an ad. Having to see (and sometimes wait to close) an ad every few game plays or after so much amount of use.
Most paid apps I've used remove the ad annoyance completely and are often more polished or offer features not found in free alternatives.
Plus I get to support the developers for making a quality product and not an ad-infested money grab.
I was asking about computers, not phones (the app in question is on the Mac appstore), but I guess the same question does apply. And I agree, the best apps usually are paid, and worth it.
Maybe—I was under the impression that most purchasers of Office are companies, not people. I was specific about "after you buy the machine", since more people do get new software right when they buy their machines (often, bundled in).
Do you feel that a lot of people purchase MS Office or MS Works for their home machine?
Do a search, and you get absolutely no feedback. Plus the store itself is slow so it takes 5 seconds for absolutely anything to happen.
I can't imagine they can't put a small team to clean up the mac store, surely it would increase sales if it wasn't as awful.