Why did Flappy Bird become a flappy Icarus, crashing after flying too close to the sun, and not a new Rovio? In truth, Nguyen and Rovio represent very different groups of developers. Their motivations are not at all alike, and so neither is their behavior.

Mobile apps have enabled some developers to reach unprecedented scale in an incredibly short time. The companies that do this best have hundreds of millions of users and are typically valued at billions of dollars. The winners in this battle for mass market attention and appeal are either backed with millions of dollars in venture […]

Welcome to the brand new Developer Economics report! Now in its fourth year and 6th edition, the latest Developer Economics survey reached over 7,000+ developers across 127 countries, setting new standards in developer research. Get your free copy here and read about the movers and shakers in the app economy. Dive deep into our rich […]

With over one million apps in the Apple and Google stores, you‘d think that app development has become business as usual. As we enter 2014, the making of apps is a sought-after commodity. But [tweetable]the marketing of apps remains part art, part science[/tweetable]. App marketing and advertising took off early in the history of the […]

According to Distimo’s latest report, apps with “freemium” business models, i.e. free apps monetized by in-app purchases (IAP), have dominated revenue charts in 2013. This spurred me to take a deeper look at the “economics of free” and explore new opportunities for innovation in these business models. The Economics of Free Let’s begin by taking […]

Revenues from Android apps saw tremendous growth in 2013. If you look at the headline global figures then revenues from Android apps on Google Play are rapidly closing on those from iOS apps on the App Store. It looks extremely likely that 2014 is the year that Android will overtake iOS in total app revenues. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll find the distribution of revenues, both geographically and across apps is rather different. If you’re planning your platform strategy for this year then a dive into the details might prove invaluable.

Over the last decade, application testing has continually proved itself to be an important concern. When done well, testing can drastically reduce the number of bugs that make it into your release code (and thus actually affect your users). In addition, good testing approaches will help your team catch bugs earlier in the development lifecycle […]

In an earlier post we showed how enterprise app developers make 4 times the revenue of those developing consumer apps on average. Targeting enterprises with apps can be very different from building consumer apps and not all developers prioritise revenue, so it’s not for everyone.

Do you want the indie developer lifestyle, or to build a company? What sort of contact do you want to have with your customers? Do you like consulting work or do you prefer to build your own products full time? Do you have a strong development platform preference? Depending on your answers to these questions you might find one of the 4 reasons below keeps you focussed on consumer apps for the foreseeable future.

Consumer apps are the focus for all the excitement and media attention in the industry. Enterprise software is dull and boring, right? Not if you care about making money! Besides, what’s so dreary about reinventing the way people work in a mobile and connected world?

“Wait”, I hear you cry, “what about BYOD and the consumerization of IT? Surely the future is all about selling computing tools directly to professionals?” Well the data from our last Developer Economics survey says that future isn’t here yet. In any case, if you’re going to collaborate with colleagues then you all need to be using the same tools, so most of the time the company still has to choose and buy them.

We asked developers which type of customer they primarily targeted from a selection of Consumers, Professionals, Enterprises, Other and Not Sure. Using this data we can compare the fortunes of developers serving each of those audiences.

Deciding on a cross-platform tool (CPT) when developing mobile applications is really only the first step of a larger journey. When you choose a web-based CPT (PhoneGap, for example), you’re typically faced with the decision of what UI framework to choose as well. The good news is that there are number of powerful options available. […]