I posted some info on the first 10 days of downloads for MineSweeper over at http://codeatuts.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/interlude-12-minesweeper-sales.html
It reveals some interesting things (and some not so interesting)!
probably not 
but I think it is possible to make enough money to fund your coding habit.
I haven’t worked out whether most people, if doing it full time, could use App sales as a primary wage. It obviously depends on how much you need to live on. I know a couple of people that have managed it (e.g. the kiwi dude that wrote chop lifter) but that is a pretty small sample size.
.@Reefwing @Jmv38 I agree with the fact that you could make enough money to fund your coding habit. I just released my first app and I already made $8. It’s definitely not a lot but it’s fun to see how far away you are from reaching your game. My first app experience taught me a lot of things. One being, that people love free games and would love to try before they buy. That’s why im making a free version with ads and less levels and a paid version with everything plus a multiplayer mode.
Thanks for sharing, @Reefwing. I think that’s a great result for your launch.
To add to this: We can’t do this full time either, and have separate full time jobs while we work on Codea and other projects.
Thanks for the info. It is quite interesting to see how this all works.
I know this will not be all that lucrative for myself financially speaking but it will be a great experience nonetheless. I only hope to one day cover the cost of the Apple Developer License or whatever it is and the cost of a used Mac Mini to send it to them with.
On a side note, I’m not too business savvy so was wondering what was needed to set up an account for profits and such? I suppose this is according to the country in which you reside but I am totally unaware how this aspect works.
Also, how hard is it to be able to update an app in the store? Does the SDK make this somewhat intuitive?
Thanks for sharing. Clear warning for us: don’t expect to become a milionaire in a couple weeks!
Thanks @Simeon - I suspected that would be the case. One day…
@Keebo - I did this 3 years or so ago so things may have changed, but at the time setting up an account for profits was pretty simple you just need to tell Apple which bank account to deposit the money in. I have a separate company account and for tax reasons wanted to capture the profits in that so I registered as a company. This was a bit more work but nothing too tricky. From memory it involved supplying the ABN and filling out some form which said I didn’t pay tax in the US and so they shouldn’t tax me.
I recently registered as an iBooks publisher - this is simple apart from:
- You can’t use your existing App Developer ID (so you have to create a new one with a different email address); and
- You need to get an EIN number from the US IRS. If you are an American you can do this online but a quick google will demonstrate that there are a lot of confused non-Americans trying to jump through this hoop. The answer is to call them and they can do it over the phone. Once again doing it as a company is a bit trickier than as an individual. They have never heard of a Pty Ltd (Australian) company. Hint if you are a Pty Ltd company then register as a corporation not a limited liability company (LLC). It also takes a week for your EIN number to make it through the IRS system.
An update to the App store is pretty much the same process as submitting an App for the first time - you just don’t have to create a new App ID or provisioning profile. All the metadata is already filled in so you can keep that the same and just fill in the “What’s new in this version” section. You then upload the binary and wait for Apple to approve (or not). I wouldn’t call anything about the App submission process “intuitive”.
ReefWing – thanks very much for sharing this info. Very interesting.