I think the blogger is rather delusional about what effect the app store has had. But first, regarding cleaners, the time a cleaner is required is dependent upon the area. A large company would have a cleaner for more hours per week because they have a larger area to clean. A small company might only have a cleaner for a couple of hours a week. I think that there may not actually be much difference in hours per area per week when aggregated. Now to the great delusion: the profitability of the app store. There is no boubt that the app store is very profitable for Apple as they earn money from every app sold. However, a developer has to break even. The average return to a developer from the app store to date is $2,000,000,000 / 500,000 = $4,000. Well if every app develop got that, it is certainly a nice bonus, but I wouldn't call it a career, and certainly wouldn't quit their day job over it. They certainly are not going to hire a cleaner! But the reality is not that simple. There are some runaway app hits that really skew the averages and the great majority are never going to earn anywhere near $4K back from the time and money they pour into initially making the app and ongoing improvements. In fact I would hazard a guess that it is probably easier to win lotto than make money on a mobile app. Certainly would get a lot more family time with one lotto ticket than spending hours per day for weeks on end to build an app that more than your family would be interested in. The app market really works for those businesses that use it to augment an already profitable line of business. For example, mobile banking, and the Woolworths Australia app (iOS and Android) that lets you make a shopping list by scanning stuff in your pantry and then lists them by aisle number. These apps are free, but the last one might have cost them a $M with all the inventory backend changes they would have to have done, let alone making sure their stores were laid out properly. The smartphone market is getting bigger, but some of the most profitable phone revenue sources are fairly low tech. American Idol made multi-millions on the voting using SMS to premium numbers. Apple has earned great kudos for their app store and brag about the $2B than has ben handed out, but it is at the expense of a lot of time and money of those who got to keep very lettle of the payout. As for apps on Win Mobile, the market was always open, well before Apple got into phones. I pity anyone who believed anything written in the blog as it is lacking in logic and reality.

It's fabulous that so many new jobs have been created around the world based on the new App Economy. Yet that report is tempered by the fact that those apps are run on hardware built in working conditions that - by a range of sources - are inhumane. It's not an either or situation: the app economy jobs don't depend on subjecting workers to working conditions that none of us writing here would consider acceptable. Can't we have have a strong app economy AND good working conditions for workers building the hardware that run that apps?

This is so true, I am example of how app economy has helped me to leave my full time job and set up my own company. I have hired 10 people who work in programming, UI design, marketing and office management. And this is just the begining.

Great article. Awesome comment discussion. Thanks Trevor. PandoDaily FTW. Oh and now I see why Sarah hired you (:

Hmm, good point, but I don't agree with "Following Apple’s lead with the App Store, companies like Google, HP, RIM and Microsoft all opened up their mobile platforms to independent developers". I had third party apps on my BlackBerry years before the iPhone even existed. And remember, Apple at first did not allow third party apps on the iPhone - which is why people started jailbreaking them. The app economy is a great thing, but it was not invented by Apple. But like Apple did with mp3 music, they took an existing idea and made it more accessible and succesful.

[...] years. For those that don’t know, the app economy includes the people who develop the a…Via pandodaily.com Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. By RJ Marmol • Posted in [...]

Excellent article. Thank you Trevor Gilbert for sharing. It provides a balance to all the other noise in the Apple story. This article comes on the same day I received an email encouraging me to sign a petition on Change.org demanding that Apple exert its influence on its suppliers to improve working conditions for the factory workers that make iPhones, iPads and other Apple products. The language used in the email is emotive. The source is quoted as being the New York Times article. The details appear to be lacking, and therefore so is the credibility. I'm not saying that the $3bn Apple has thus far payed out to the app economy excuses abuse of workers' rights in FoxConn factories, if indeed that's what is still happening. What I am saying is that Apple is apparently a target for activists who, as is often the case, choose to ignore the inconvenient facts, such as the fact that FoxConn manufacture products for many other companies, including: Acer Inc. Amazon.com Apple Inc. ASRock Asus Barnes & Noble Cisco Dell EVGA Corporation Hewlett-Packard Intel IBM Lenovo Microsoft MSI Motorola Netgear Nintendo Nokia Panasonic Samsung Sharp Sony Sony Vizio Yet we only hear about Apple... Familiarity breeds contempt. Success breeds envy.

My thanks to the author for writing this article. The amount of wealth that Apple and companies like Apple have created is almost incalculable. Not only have they created a thriving App industry, but many of their apps have silently, but powerfully, increased the productivity of an untold number of end users as well. This is simply the story of a free market economy. Jobs aren't static. They go where they are needed. When there is upheaval in an economy, it is easy to identify what has been lost but it is often very difficult to identify what has been gained. The telegraph destroyed the Pony Express, Edison destroyed the candle industry, Ford destroyed the buggy whip industry. In the long run we all gained better communications, better lighting and power, greater mobility. But that didn't help the Pony Express rider, the candle stick maker or the buggy whip manufacturer. Their jobs were lost forever. But in the long run, in the wider view, that was a good thing. A very good thing.

Sure...but they're not mutually exclusive, among other things.

The demand for technical skills and higher education is greater than ever.

Great observation, thanks for making it.

What about the jobs developing apps for desktops? Those apps sell for a lot more than mobile apps, and generate more revenue and create higher paying jobs. They have been displaced to some extent. I'm also questioning whether the individuals who develop low cost apps that aren't blockbusters actually earn enough revenue to hire cleaning staff, or whether they even care about things like that.