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We’ve heard the woes of app developers waiting for payments, but at least there were payments. Newsweek claims in a sensational trend piece that the App Store goldmine has dried out and some developers are barely getting by.

I’d seen the “Look at the happy developers!” propaganda videos Apple produces, and I have to confess that I bought into them. Everyone just looks so happy and successful in Apple Land! But my feelings about iPhone app developers and Apple changed greatly over the past while: I went from being envious of the supposed overnight millionaires to realizing that perhaps some or even most may not be actually well off.

Newsweek interviewed a handful of those developers, some of whom were in fact featured in the videos I so attentively watched, and they’re saying the money’s run out.

It certainly starts out nicely enough: a developer might make $45,000 in revenue in less than three months, some might even make several hundred thousand over similar periods of time. But perhaps the market for apps is maturing and as the number of competing programs increases, it becomes much harder than in the past to develop and sell a run away hit.

Of course, like any trend story, you have no idea if the subjects were chosen to enhance sensationalism, or if the majority of app developers really are suffering. Either way, the app buying market chooses the best apps, and developers should set their prices knowing their costs. In the end, developers thinking of quitting the day job to develop apps should beware of fairytale stories of iTunes riches. [Newsweek]

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