Everything that has a beginning, has an end.

 

2009-2024 is a long time, but I had fun. I have made some 47 apps that was released in the app store during that time. I'd say, in the beginning, the Apple's App Store was a cool place for individual software developers with any ideas. Some crazy ideas, some noble and outstanding ideas, and even stupid ideas, could sell.

In my final blog post as an iOS Indie Developer, I will reminisce my experience as the solo iOS developer through out the 15 years.

In 2009, I have just quit a steady job of 8 years at a prestigious audio-video electronics product manufacturing company as an R&D Engineer. The company unfortunately has been suffering financially for a few years, due to the transitioning state of technology.

People no longer are buying Hi-Fis. They no longer appreciate sound quality but instead they are more interested in quality visuals such as LCD and Plasma. As for sound, as long as you have speaker, that's good enough.

So after I quit the job I tried to find other jobs but to no avail. There are bills to pay and family to feed. Then a friend of mine shared a newspaper clip about a boy in Singapore that sold thousands copies of iOS app. I was intrigued and immediately bought a second hand Macbook White to try and develop apps.

At that time, coding resources are not abundant like today. It was a bit hard to learn anything. Back in 2009, I only knew Lazarus/Pascal and simple Bash script. So to learn Objective-C to develop iOS app was a challenge.

Nevertheless, stackoverflow helped and of course THE iOS developer forum back then, the iPhoneDevSDK.com. A lot of us hanging out there were indie developers, and we helped each other where we can. Of course, it was still a competition, so coding help can be a little restricted because we don't want to teach others to be our own app's competitor lol.

The best thing about iOS dev back then in 2009 is the simplicity of XCode. Steve Jobs is a genius for this reason. He made tools that are so easy to use. Install XCode and you're all set to create your first app. There are no dependencies to install, no frequent updates, and simulator works fast and flawlessly.

My first app was iTronixPal. This app is a simple app for Electronics enthusiasts. Things like Resistor color code decoder is useful for people working in the electronics industry, or even for a hobbyist.

I tried to make it as nice as possible of course, because in iOS, aesthetics is very important. iOS users love pretty things. Back then I used Paint Shop Pro and I didn't know about vector graphics yet. But it works well because iPhones and iPod only have a single form factor.

Then I made a second app that change everything, it was iQuikSplash. iQuikSplash is a clone of the Color Splash app. Basically it just highlights a part of a photo and turns the rest to black and white. While the Color Splash app require you to manually draw using your finger the area that you want to leave in color, iQuiksplash did it by auto selection of a color.

So, by sheer luck, the Apple's App Reviewer (aka the App Store app curator) thought this was brilliant and my app was featured in the US App Store as New & Noteworthy. The downside was, the app was free and I was scared that if I change the app to Paid, i'd get removed from the New & Noteworthy section. That was a big facepalm by me, otherwise I could have earned a lot of money.

All the while the app was in New & Noteworthy, I left it as free, furthermore I even have the "FREE" word on the icon. Back then, Apple was so strict, one bad move by developer, your app could be rejected and removed from Sale, so that came into play why I left it as free.

While the free app was getting about 120,000 downloads a day and reaching No.2 spot in the Top Free Photography, I created another app - iQuiksplash Pro and later add the Link to Pro version in the Lite version and that translated to some good profits. I then created more camera apps like AppliFX. A photo app with many filters to apply to your photos.

The app gained quite a good downloads as well and it was a paid app. But, it crashes a lot because I was developing on SIMULATOR!! I made the mistake of taking the photos as is and processing the pixels in memory, and in large photos, the phone became out of memory and crashes the app. Then, I had no choice but to buy an iPod Touch. I get to fix most of the issues and the sales continue on.

I was getting good sales for these apps, as I created more apps, then Steve Jobs died. If you remember, this was the time iOS became ugly as f-ck! iOS5 and below, that was awesome, but iOS6 with its fugly flat design make me wanna puke! Then sometime in 2012, Apple acquired Chomp, a search engine company, to be implemented into App Store. That was when I noticed a considerable drop in my app discovery and sales. It focuses on App Title, Description and Ratings, and not just keywords. I tried to search my own app name "iQuikSplash" and it did not come up top anymore. So how are people who read about my app elsewhere could find my app?

That was the time where fake ratings and fake review started to show on my apps. You can click on a rating and see what other apps the user rate, and it is so obvious that a person rates 1 stars for all Photo apps, but only 1 app is getting 5 stars. Such scam turns the App Store into a savage, dog eat dog marketing world.

It was heartbreaking. As the years go by, more and more established and big corporations joined in the App Store in publishing even more professional apps, and not only that, they can also afford super expensive marketing campaign, that in turn, bury most of us indie developers, who only make enough for a living.

I tried to hang on from 2012 to 2015, sold some assets to keep afloat, and by end of 2015 I realized the Indie Dream is dead. So I started to find a day job as iOS developer in a company. It was ok but it was no longer fun making apps for other people. I quit that too and now I work in Industrial IT sector which I find is rewarding. Occasionally I get to code too, so that's a plus.

So that's all I have to share about my experience as an Indie iOS developer. I think Apple needed Steve Jobs, but as he dies, so does Apple. Since then I no longer see the confidence in their products. Stupid decisions are made, like charging port of Magic Mouse placed at the bottom, and latest, power button of Mac Mini placed at the bottom as well. I know Jobs will never allow that to happen.

Well, as Agent Smith said, Everything that has a beginning, has an end. 

Finally, shout out to fellow indie devs who helped and just by being there over in the iPhoneDevSdk forum. 

Adios.