I suspect it's greatly increased, but even with similar numbers of phones out, I also suspect iOS devs pull in more money
The majority of iOS devs make little to nothing, documented countless times. Of course when you hear the rare success story it is presented as a norm, which paradoxically leads to a gold rush that really ensures that no one gets rich (and quick!).
And the same is entirely true for Android. While the user base has grown dramatically, the number of applications have exploded as well so there's significantly more competition.
The overwhelming majority of iOS devs make little to
nothing, documented countless times
Not true. The majority of iOS devs I know make a decent revenue stream that involves making apps for the like of Fortune 500 companies and startups. Since they walk the company through the whole process of becoming a registered Apple iOS developer, you would never know the app was ghost-coded.
In almost every case, the apps are funded by the marketing budget and are always free apps to promote the organization or company's brand. It is in essence another marketing channel. There are also cases where a non-profit gets corporate sponsorship.
The majority of iOS devs make little to nothing, documented countless times.
That's not really what he said though. Even if 0.1% of the iPhone developers and 0.1% of the Android developers are making money, the iPhone devs could still be making more.
Now if this were a bell curve half the developers would be getting less than that. But this is not a bell curve (it's one of them thar hockey stick things) so the large majority of apps will be earning less than that.
For the purposes of handwaving, lets say 90% of apps make less than the average.
Now lets say that the average app is pulling its income in mainly over the last twelve months... that equates to ~$250 per month.
So... if 90% of the apps on the app store are making less than $250 per month ... this means kreci is actually doing pretty good on Android compared to iPhone.
I think from looking at kreci's article that he is more than comfortable with 'showing a little leg' in order to get some ad impressions (4 of 5 sources of revenue are ads or referrals). Now my impression (from a great distance) of the Android market compared to the iPhone market is that the Android one is much more dominated by ads. Also, this aligns better with Google's corporate goals (to plaster advertising over everything in sight).
So, in conclusion, I would say that kreci is doing pretty good, and that he has a good match of business models to the environment he is in.
The majority of iOS devs make little to nothing, documented countless times. Of course when you hear the rare success story it is presented as a norm, which paradoxically leads to a gold rush that really ensures that no one gets rich (and quick!).
And the same is entirely true for Android. While the user base has grown dramatically, the number of applications have exploded as well so there's significantly more competition.