I'm also a Mac Developer, my app is Codebug (http://codebugapp.com/) an Xdebug client for Mac. I created this app in 2012 while I was learning Objective-C/Cocoa, and it's been a very cool steady growing since day one.
Specially the increase your price part. I actually added a bunch of new features and increased the price. Guess what ? The sales didn't drop at all, matter of fact they increased. I get a lot more top-quality users and people who actually engage with the app and are prone to spread the word. Also, I'm selling it from my own website, not from App Store. Sorry Apple, I already pay you $99 dollars a year for your dev program. Not going to share 30% of my profits with you :P
iOS or Mobile app doesn't appeal me at all from an indie dev perspective. Everything pretty much has been done, and there's this stigma of not charging your app of what it's really worth. Everyone is doing Free, In-app or 0.99 cents apps. Screw that, I need to put food on the table.
TL;DR: Make a good product, keep improving it, price it right and you will succeed in the long run.
I’m always interested when mac app developers either don’t ever support, or support and then abandon the Mac App Store.
I can understand wanting to minimise overheads as much as possible - I just wonder what the total cost difference is for a 3rd party payment system, hosting the files, handling refunds etc (plus potentially lost sales), vs the 30% cut Apple take..?
Also, I find myself much more likely to purchase an app if I can do so via the Mac App Store. It’s so ridiculously easy to purchase/install and re-install when required; I already trust Apple with my credit card; and I don’t have to worry about whether the store front in question is secure.
The last part in particular is a big issue to me - your site is not available over https, so I have no way to know if the link from your site to FastSpring is the one you intended or if I’m being MITM’d and getting a link to send $60 to some russian hacker, as the destination page is on a completely different domain, bares very little resemblance to your site, and is also not hosted via https. When I tried to access the initial order page over HTTPS I was given a ridiculous message telling me "Secure Connection Not Allowed”.
The “technical infrastructure” page for FastSpring touts “hardware accelerated SSL” - so I can rest assured that the message telling me I can’t use their store front over SSL was encrypted with great efficiency.
The only part of FastSpring that seems to be accessible over SSL is the final order page - but I’ve already followed multiple links and form submissions from non-secure pages, so I could be looking at anything by this stage.
That FastSpring put a big “Norton Secured” badge on the top of their http only initial order page is both ridiculous and dangerous.
All of this makes me wonder how much extra value that 30% cut can give back to the developer...
I'm also a Mac Developer, my app is Codebug (http://codebugapp.com/) an Xdebug client for Mac. I created this app in 2012 while I was learning Objective-C/Cocoa, and it's been a very cool steady growing since day one.
Specially the increase your price part. I actually added a bunch of new features and increased the price. Guess what ? The sales didn't drop at all, matter of fact they increased. I get a lot more top-quality users and people who actually engage with the app and are prone to spread the word. Also, I'm selling it from my own website, not from App Store. Sorry Apple, I already pay you $99 dollars a year for your dev program. Not going to share 30% of my profits with you :P
iOS or Mobile app doesn't appeal me at all from an indie dev perspective. Everything pretty much has been done, and there's this stigma of not charging your app of what it's really worth. Everyone is doing Free, In-app or 0.99 cents apps. Screw that, I need to put food on the table.
TL;DR: Make a good product, keep improving it, price it right and you will succeed in the long run.