The growth of the Apple App Store has helped the company double their payouts to developers and has created more than 80,000 new jobs directly related to building software for Apple devices.
AppleInsider say “Apple first highlighted the economic impact of its iOS platform one year ago, citing figures that noted the creation and support of 514,000 jobs.
Of those, 210,000 were directly attributed to the “iOS App Economy” among developers who were building apps specifically for iPhone and iPad.
The remaining 304,000 included Apple's own workforce of 47,000, as well as its American component suppliers in engineering, manufacturing and transportation jobs including those put to work shipping the company's products around the country.
One year later, Apple's total jobs creation figure has grown to 598,500. Of those, Apple itself reported having hired 3,250 new employees within the U.S.”
It isn't all positive however. Many say Apple have been focusing on the growth aspect of their App Store business after they received negative press for manufacturing the products in China under what many class as slave labour conditions. This wasn't helped by suicides at Foxconn factories, due to horrific working conditions and low pay. Foxconn build most of the Apple products for the rest of the world.
Appleinsider add “A survey of 252 independent iOS developers by Streaming Color Studios found that a quarter of them reported making essentially nothing, while another quarter reported earning more than $30,000.
The remaining half were somewhere in between, while a small number, 4 percent (about ten people in the survey), had earned over $1 million from their App Store efforts.”
Kitguru says: Getting rich from making App software doesn't happen that often, but the media tend to focus on those stories.