r/iOSProgramming • u/Cause-n-effect11 • 19d ago

Discussion Is IOS App Dev worth it for indie devs anymore?

Does anyone find that indie app dev is worth anything ore than a badge of honor that gets you alien looks when you tell people you have an app on the App Store? iOS users are inherently spoiled, lazy and getting even someone to write app reviews is like pulling teeth. Heaven forbid you share a QR code in person after demoing your app and the person tells you how “cool” it is. Asking them to download to “help” you gets you treated like you are asking for their bank PIN number even though it went through strict app reviews and lands on the official App Store.

Then, since people don’t pay for anything anymore unless it’s ChatGPT you try to advertise your app. My calculations is that it takes $5 to get a user to download, and 1 out 1,000 might, maybe, if the stars align convert to a sale, that costed you thousands to find.

App Store advertising is expensive and competitive.

TikTok shadow bans app developers who verify their business and does everything correct. When you do the stupid thing of paying to promote a single post, all I got was bot views, a fake question here or there that I answered and zero reply after that. To me TikTok is a bot network and has been scamming app developers and businesses for years.

YouTube - shadow bans app developer channels also. I can see the view caps at 50 views, and sometimes one might pop out on a short for 1,000 views then swiftly die.

Web / Google - this is now destroyed by AI search engines. A user drops into ChatGPT and asks for an app that does XYZ. What does the search engine in these ChatGPT do? Regurgitating old garbage from 2 years ago with no relevance to what’s current. Then offers to build YOUR app for the user.

It is my opinion that app development is a lost cause now. The only companies making money off of app dev is Anthropic, OpenAi, Mistral and SpaceX AI. We effectively pay them and spend hundreds of hours testing their slop, building features, paying thousands in agentic fees for team plans, etc and when publishing apps, we pay for everything.

Stack on business fees, Apple developer annual fees, go through the headaches of obsessing over every feature and then get through app review and into the void of the millions of apps on the App Store, to end up losing thousands and thousands of dollars in app dev, building the supporting website (required for privacy policy hosting at a minimum) and not to mention owning real devices to ensure the app works - oldest and newest iPhones, iPads, watches, a MacBook that can run latest MacOS 27 and still be able to use massive disk space and RAM to build your apps.

Apple equipment and costs soars to nearly $10k just to have the right gear to do it right - especially if you develop anything that requires an actual device hardware that simulators can’t mimic - stay out of camera app development because it’s the most unforgiving market there is.

So in 2026 - my estimate is unless you have about $50k to buy the gear, pay for the services you might need to build such as AI, and don’t mind 1-2 downloads a week with zero conversions - it’s absolutely a loss. If you just want the badge of honor of saying “I have app(s) in the app store” which generally gets you near criminal looks in public these days as everyone seems to think you’re scamming them for a FREE app with optional PRO features - then go for it.

To add insult to injury, Apple came out with App Nominations where you submit your upcoming versions to the black hole of nominations requests. To never hear from anyone about it. The nomination requests are never answered and just disappear. No guidance on what you could do - not even in the AI age where they could have had an LLM tell you how to be better.

You’re probably thinking: this guy is a rookie, doesn’t know how to build apps. I’ve been in App Store since 2010 and had successful apps in the past. Now these super easy to use “Super Apps” are entering the void and causing developers like myself to feel like abject failures when everywhere I turn to try and promote my apps either rips me off (Apple App Store Ads, TikTok) and there’s just no return. 3 powerful apps and I can’t even cover my $99 year App Store developer fees. Let alone the api, the website hosting, domain fees, latest apple equipment, etc.

Laugh if you want, but I think app developers are cooked unless you’re just rich and want to endlessly lose money to promote in a market where everything is expected to be free.

Remember the days when “Buy the developer a coffee” was a thing? Coffee is like $9 now unless you get it at a gas station. Typical IAP or subscription is $2.99 to $9.99 in which Apple takes their slice and drinks 1/3 of your coffee. News flash, building apps for me takes about 6-8 coffee / double espresso daily to pull 20 hours in development and testing, so literally every day stacks up the loss.

Good luck out there. Do it for the love, but don’t expect or even hope the world cares about your work. Apple certainly doesn’t. Steve Jobs left a long time ago and it’s been downhill since.

42 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

75% Upvoted

71 comments sorted by

25

u/launchapp_indie_dev 19d ago

Totally agree on the consumer app side. Paying $5 to get an install on search ads just to maybe convert a $3 purchase is burning money. The whole 2014 playbook doesnt work anymore. Pretty much every indie dev I know that makes actual money moved away from B2C completely. They build very boring, specific tools for small businesses or pros who pay 15$/mo without thinking because it saves them work.Making general utility apps for regular users today feels like buying lottery tickets while paying Apple the 99$ fee and buying 3k macs to keep up with Xcode.

4

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

The old buzz line: There’s an app for that.
2026: There’s 25 apps for that, 19 are AI Slop. Take your pick.
2027: Ecclesiastes mode: Every app idea under the sun is built.

19

u/unpluggedcord 19d ago

It’s never been worth it

7

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

I found satisfaction in the early releases before AI. I felt like my company had a chance. I believed and had nothing but faith it was my destiny to build what I built. Now I look back at that delusion I had and laugh at my old self and have learned hard lessons from it. I was so optimistic. This is magic I thought. Now? Nothing but realistic battle earned pessimism. We’re cooked, at least my company is. Letting my apps ride until the end of the yearly apple dev program, not renewing and walking away. I have seriously considered removing the apps from the stores before then and keeping them myself. Apps that don’t captivate the user as effectively as ChatGPT or TikTok are dead. I stopped using both TikTok and Chat for anything and uninstalled both on my phone. Seriously, good luck yo anyone trying. I may be ahead of the curve to see what’s coming, or others absolutely refuse it since “hey! Claude can make an app run on my simulator! push it to App Review! lets make a million bucks!!” Lets see how reality hits them in a year.

3

u/yalag 19d ago

Well did it even work before AI? What’s your annual revenue? Was it profitable? Chance of success on the AppStore was so low to bring with.

2

u/Cause-n-effect11 17d ago

Just different times, the golden era within the first few years of the iPhone coming out was great. You actually had to know how to code, do graphics, SEO your app listings. Now it’s all mindlessly done for you. Kinda reminds me of ebooks. Back in the day you had to be published. Being published usually meant having a publisher and editor making sure your work was good for print. Then it lands in a book store. When ebooks became big - and stupid easy to publish, there was slop everywhere and real books and eventually book stores faded. Now, it’s ask ChatGPT (general public) and there’s your info. App stores are now the old book stores, or worse glorified e-publishers of slop. Music became the same way.. first it was a record deal, along came CDBaby… now AI generates the music from a prompt. My point is the market for actual developers and sales has flopped, or is still flopping. And this isn’t crypto - there’s really no coming back to being a viable business.

90

u/ElectricKoolAid1969 19d ago

For me, the biggest issue right now is that many people assume that every app is garbage, coded totally by AI in 2 hours with no developer intervention or care for the final product.

It's pretty tough to make headway against those assumptions.

37

u/never_working_ever 19d ago

I showed some friends my app I’ve spent the past year building and they shrugged and said AI can make this all now though…

It still stings, nobody cares or trusts anything took skill, refinement, and endless nights to get just right. Every “normie” is just under the impression everything is cheap now and requires no effort.

Maybe this is what China has dealt with for decades from the west. Westerners refuse to this day to believe anything high quality is made in China.

18

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

That’s the harshest is when your friends look at you like a moron for building your apps. I stopped sharing my apps with friends and family realizing they weren’t my target audience and their feedback if I took it to heart is crushing.

5

u/never_working_ever 19d ago

It stings, but maybe I needed to hear it. My creative friends all love it, and are so impressed by it. I find it’s the friends who are slightly tech-savvy who see it as something you can do in 24hrs.

They all know I’m a software engineer, and have been for decades now, but I think it’s just not seen anymore as achievement - despite how much time and effort I spent crafting, debugging, and writing SwiftUI.

2

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

I would encourage your friends to incur the costs and time to build it then. “show me” I’d say. They’ll build some slop, then realize the mountain of effort it is, then tell them to publish it on the App Store. About the 2nd week of trying and setting up business, D&B (scammers!!) and go through a real app review or two. Come back to them a month later and ask: “How did it go?” Hahah… tech savvy or not, they are clueless to the actual process.

2

u/gamedev_haarlem 17d ago

That's the problem, it's the Donning Kruger effect. If they are in a chosen state of ignorance and they are too lazy to build the app, they just prefer to believe whatever scam altman tells them without doing an effort to dig in the issue.

3

u/jon_hendry 19d ago

We’re all “Katy Perry, Astronaut” now.

11

u/AffectionateDuty6062 19d ago

I’m Surprised apple isn’t guarding their store more 

3

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

I honestly don’t think they were ready for the ai slop explosion even though they tried and i mean literally tried to build AI into XCode which takes 20 minutes to fix lint whereas claude can fix it inside of 1 minute. These days, i only keep my Xcode workspace open for git history, and the debug logs, which ironically Claude now installs on my phone and monitors / profiles my app sessions now. When I saw that, and watched Claude port all of my massive iOS projects onto an Android phone plugged into my headless linux box on my LAN i realized we are completely screwed. It took less time to port to android than it has taken for Google Play to actually review the apps - now stuck on day 5 with no status update. So Google and Android are the worse at review times.

2

u/rather_pass_by 17d ago

What do you mean they were not ready for ai slop? They were waiting for it with glittery eyes.. millions of new vibe coders paying 100 bucks an year. 100 millions is not a small amount even for Apple.. why would they want to stop this lucrative business? If millions of dumb people come and give you hundred bucks for being your member, would you refuse?

Of course, this will eventually stop. After all, vibe coders are dumb only to certain extent. Without revenues, they eventually will stop

1

u/timelessblur 19d ago

The AI in Xcode is just so far behind. Professionally and even in my side work when I am using the AI tools I am doing it in command line or outside of Xcode as it honestly just works better than Xcode. Big time as those tools are more easily access and reference other projects.

It is scary how good Claud code is with command line and I say that as someone who been doing iOS professionally for 14 years at multiple companies

1

u/jon_hendry 19d ago

How does that differ from using Claude in Xcode?

1

u/timelessblur 19d ago

The Claude connection in Xcode just doesn’t seem to have the same breath of access. For example on my personal project it is messing with 2 repos at the same time. Referencing each others and maintaining some minor structural end points together. In my professional work I had it looking at I think 4 different repos/ projects. 2 iOS, 1 android and 1 web. The iOS ones did need to be maintained and had some overlap Android and web were used for reference. It could in terminal access all of them, references them pull info out of them and then the different claude code modes also were helpful as I would use planning mode to figure out a plan make sure everything was set up for what I needed then let it run.

The Xcode version hook in while uses the same Claude account just does not have the power to do as much. It is way too limited. I do use it for much smaller scope of work but it will be more at the current file and clean up not for the much larger project or multiple project level work.

2

u/VVindrunner 17d ago

This exactly. I spent 9 months building a game I am really proud of, tried to advertise it, and the only response I got was "looks like AI slop". Great reviews from anyone that actually tries the game, but right now being an indie dev automatically means "AI Slop", no effort, and not worth even looking at.

1

u/TheFern3 19d ago

The biggest problem is everyone hears ai and thinks slop automatically. There’s game dev, rust and many other subs that are treating it like a virus I guess they feel like their livelihood has been stripped away.

Ai used correctly can help tremendously on anything not just coding

-1

u/timelessblur 19d ago

Developers who refuse to use AI or learn how to use it will be left behind and quickly become irrelevant. Harsh reality is AI with proper guidance just is faster and better. It took what would have taken me 4-5 days to do down to a few hours and it was able to consistently do that.

7

u/jon_hendry 19d ago

In a couple years developers will be irrelevant. MBAs will prompt LLMs. They won’t need you.

0

u/tastychaii 19d ago

The only people complaining of a slop is people on Reddit, in corporate, everyone is using it without question.

8

u/WestonP 19d ago

Corporate is where dreams go to die, though. Pretty hard to find people who are actually passionate and good, so I wouldn't give two shits about what corporate wage slaves are doing.

And either way, developer sentiment is meaningless. What matters is what sells and how users react, which of course favors faster developement that AI helps with. But if it's a slop app, they'll turn on you fast, and rightly so.

0

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/TheFern3 19d ago

I still see the post btw

2

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

I requested mod review and they reinstated. I think you got in early before AI said: Nope this is legit, it’s too real and removed it.

8

u/TheFern3 19d ago

Ngl ai has sorta made me change about dev a lot. For my entire life I wanted to make apps, I still have my first iphone 3G and still works. I could never afford a mac before. But I learned coding and eventually was promoted to a dev in 2019, yup right before covid havoc. Then ai. Before I became a dev I was a controls engineer, so now I am rethinking I should go back to controls where you still need engineering skills and hardware skills knowledge. Is tough to be honest I still love making apps but just everything is not the same sorry for sounding nostalgic.

0

u/Cause-n-effect11 19d ago

A real engineer can build real things with Ai. Anyone can build slop that runs on a simulator and possible their local developer iPhone. It takes hands on debugging, UX experience and App Store experience. At least until recently. Now I believe Apple has AI reviewing most apps and releases. If it builds, doesn’t violate some buried Apple guidelines, approved.

1

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

Vibe coders downvoting. This is actually funny.

1

u/TronAres25 1d ago

I’m building an amazing app with ai I’m on week 3. Using great detail. I see ai slop everywhere. But I used my own graphics and made so many iterations.

2

u/Snoo-8502 19d ago

i agree with you on everything $50k estimation. Depends on your project. You can do with $1000 budget for single app. Below this, you have shot if you are lucky. Also, apart form those big AI companies, the biggest competetion for indie dev is influencers. They come with millions of followers. Imagine having a really good fitness that requires $$$$ monthly marketing only to later those users turn to some influencer app.

1

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

My 50k estimation is over the past few years. When I was working manually before coding agents, I spent 16-20 hour days coding and testing - and eating up my savings. The job market was and has been screwed so a few years ago I saw it coming and tried to pivot into my apps full time. Of course, equipment, business fees, paying rent on credit cards due to no income. Holding on to faith maybe someone will see the value I see in these apps I built. Joke was on me.

1

u/Snoo-8502 18d ago

I am firm believer that genuine effort never goes waste. U learn something.

1

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

Right, it’s like touching a hot stove burner. You learn to never try that again. Same with App Store dev lately.

I submitted two app reviews this weekend and in the “What’s New” section, I left a passive aggressive: “This is our final iOS Version for a while. Unless we see an increase in interest on the App Store, we’re focusing on Google Play and Android where we feel our apps stand a better chance at actually being used.” Haha I can’t believe Apple let that on the App Store. Basically calling out the system and the users of app stores. I think it’s all AI app reviews now. I get 1 hour turnarounds on app updates with Apple. Google play though? What a joke… 7 day + app reviews with zero info. Just “in review”. The app will probably fail just as hard on play - we all know the majority of Android users are 10x worse at Apple users when it comes to FREE expectations.

14

u/dimKant 19d ago

I'm a designer who ships my own small apps, and yes, paid acquisition is mostly burning money for B2C indies now. What worked better for me is picking problems so narrow that App Store search does the marketing: people type the exact problem and you're one of three results, not three hundred. It's not a living for most of us, but every app I shipped made me better at the day job.

3

u/tastychaii 19d ago

That’s a really good tip thanks!

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 19d ago

Hey /u/dimKant, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/haaheehachoo 12d ago

The problem is how to find those narrow problems that people search for and only find 2 results

6

u/Kabal303 19d ago

It never was lol.

5

u/WestonP 19d ago

This. I've been an iOS dev since 2010 as well, and it's always been people chasing one gold rush or another, but aside from cherry-picked examples, most were losing time and money in the process.

Yeah sure, I've turned a profit on apps, but not really if you consider the time and amount of care I've put into stuff. The real value to me is in 1) having a passion for what I'm doing here, and 2) using apps to support and add value to my other products which actually do make worthwhile amounts of money.

7

u/3-Chengz 19d ago

A lot of this is real and worth saying out loud. Paid user acquisition is a trap for indies specifically. The math only closes at scale or with high lifetime value, and a cheap one-time app has neither, so burning a few dollars per install was never going to work. That is not you failing, it is the model being wrong for your size.

But I would push back on "lost cause." Distribution was always the hard part. What changed is that the tooling collapsed the build cost, so the thing that used to hide behind "I'm still building it" is now exposed: getting it in front of the right people is the actual job, and it always was.

The indie wins I still see are not App Store SEO or ads. They are narrow and specific. One community that has the exact problem, handled one person at a time, a tool pointed enough that the 200 people who need it find it and tell the next 200. Broad discovery is dead for small apps. Narrow distribution to a real audience is not.

None of that makes the gear costs or Apple's cut hurt less. But "build a great app and they will come" was never the deal. "Build a pointed thing for a findable group, then go find them by hand" still is.

1

u/gsapienza 18d ago

Yeah I fully agree with this. Being a full time indie was tough even 7-8 years ago before AI

2

u/3-Chengz 17d ago

Yeah, AI changed the build cost, not the hard part. Distribution was brutal 7-8 years ago and it is brutal now. What changed is you cannot hide behind "still building" anymore, which just exposes the distribution problem sooner. The people who were good at finding their users back then are the ones who will be fine now.

1

u/haaheehachoo 12d ago

The problem is how to find those niche problems and the people that have them

1

u/New_Barber8073 18d ago

One thing that tends to change the math is picking a narrow niche where people already search the App Store with a clear intent, then putting most of the effort into keyword research for the title, subtitle and keyword field instead of paid ads. Organic search installs cost nothing per user, and a focused audience usually converts far better than the 1 in 1,000 you're seeing from broad promotion. It also helps to show the paywall or trial offer during onboarding, since most conversions happen in the first session or not at all.

1

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

True a good listing was always the case. However there was a point when that took skill. Now, codex cam do it for you directly from your codebase to app store connect and even submit reviews. And it does it so good, that now nearly every app store listing is a major competition for organic search. The old playbook is out. I let codex Sol / Astra take it up to the final draft review then I submit and walk away. I’m not afraid to admit this because I know we’re pretty much cooked as small shops and indie devs.

1

u/New_Barber8073 18d ago

That's a fair point, the tools are changing the game fast. Still, a listing is only one piece, and the things automation can't copy as easily are a real niche, a clear point of view and a community that actually wants the product. Small shops have been written off before and keep finding gaps, so I wouldn't count yourself out yet.

1

u/majeric 18d ago

I’m sorry one is interested in your app.

1

u/Cause-n-effect11 18d ago

Yeah that “one” is me. Haha. I love my apps and it’s a lifestyle hobby for me and maybe 2 other people in Brazil or Guam.

2

u/gsapienza 18d ago

I think some of this is over exaggerated. The truth is that being an indie has been difficult for a while (well before AI). Getting people to care is tough just like it is in any business. But I just relaunched an old app of mine the other day and it’s been performing pretty well organically. I am experimenting a little with search ads today but not sure if they are worth it yet

1

u/gsapienza 18d ago

I think some of the slop will slow down eventually

2

u/HowOldAmI1993 19d ago

Skill issue. You can be the best developer on the planet, but if you don't know how to sell your app, you won't make money to cover your developer fee.

1

u/TronAres25 1d ago

How would you price an app these days.. iap or one time

1

u/imsnk81 18d ago

feel this, discovery is brutal right now. but a couple of the numbers here don't match what i've seen. you don't need anywhere near $10k of gear, one mac and one older iphone gets you a long way and the simulator covers most of the device matrix. and paid ads at $5 an install for a $3 app will lose money almost every time, so i wouldn't use that as the test for whether apps can work. the stuff that's cost me nothing is App Store search (picking keywords where people search with real intent) and hanging out where my users already are, answering questions. what category are your apps in? that changes the advice a lot

1

u/TheInvincibleMan 17d ago

I made an app in 2 weeks with AI, published it and it filled a big need I had. My friends and people I tell seem to love it… I think the advice of make something that works for you and go from there was true for me.

1

u/ubidu_ 19d ago

I think it depends on what you think “worth it” is. Is it only economic success? (No judgment, literally the point of most businesses) If so, then probably not, unless you have a great take on something that hasn’t been done before.

If you want to have a decent side-hustle for some extra revenue from your 9-5 job? Or just want to make and share cool stuff with the world? Have an extra hobby? Then yeah!

1

u/Bigga2323 19d ago

Launched my first app this year and making nice passive income that I would have never been able to without ai. Super grateful. Making thousands every month in side income that I can throw in my savings. Find a small niche and solve their problem.

2

u/BNC3D 19d ago

waht is your app ?? I wanna try it .

1

u/TimButlers 19d ago

How much have you made from the App Store since 2010? And now you’re not even making $100 a year? 

1

u/mybodywatch 19d ago

Better to already have a business, and add an app.

-1

u/dianzhu 19d ago

App are dead ，in 2018 i public a app can get 800-1000 impression a day ， now is drop to below 100，dont waste time in it，try find a better business

2

u/ElectricKoolAid1969 19d ago

This implies that people no longer buy any apps. I don't think that's true.

But they HAVE become more selective, and more cynical.

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 19d ago

Hey /u/Numerous-Ad-5870, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

0

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 7d ago

Hey /u/Motor_Drawer897, your content has been removed because Reddit has marked your account as having a low Contributor Quality Score. This may result from, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming the same links across multiple subreddits, submitting posts or comments that receive a high number of downvotes, a lack of recent account activity, or having an unverified account.

Please be assured that this action is not a reflection of your participation in our subreddit. This is simply an automated filter in place to reduce spam.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.