Indies/App Store Responses

There have been some good reactions/responses to Rene Ritchie’s article about independent developers and the App Store. Here are a few that I enjoyed:

Brent Simmons: Indies and the App Store

But my experience since then tells me that writing Mac apps is the best economic bet for indies. (Particularly if you sell the app yourself, so you can have a trial version and upgrade pricing.)

I would love to see more people take up Mac app development, and I would love to write Mac apps myself (except that I’m just starting to get the hang of iOS, and learning whole new frameworks sounds really daunting).

Chuq Von Rospach: Fixing the Apple App Store

It’s not Apple’s job to guarantee your app to be successful. Most apps won’t be, and if you look through the App Stores, most of them don’t deserve to be.

BOOM! And also,

First, I’d remove apps that haven’t been updated in three years. Honestly, if you aren’t doing some kind of even minimal bug fixing when Apple releases each new version of the OS, you aren’t really trying and the app is likely abandoned.

To these I say: amen!

Daniel Jalkut: Make Wooden Toys

Although the market is dominated by cheap plastic, there is real money for thoughtful, careful developers in the market that favors charming, slightly overpriced throwbacks to another era. Make wooden toys.

For Daniel, the glass is indeed half-full, and I appreciate that. :)