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iOS and MacOS / new to ios and have some Q's & concerns...

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SoftMotion3D
AGK Developer
18
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Joined: 24th Aug 2005
Location: Calgary,Alberta
Posted: 5th Feb 2014 03:38
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hey ....as the title says im new to ios.

I'm wondering if the app market is to big to even be bothered to submit games to apple? I currently have 3 projects in particular written with agk that could be deployed to ios... but im basically wondering if it would even be worth it?

Does anyone have any successful projects that did descent on ios that has profited enough money to make it worth while?

For me I have absolutely no apple stuff in my house so id need to buy an apple pc to compile the apps...so this is where I don't know if I should bother or not.

Any suggestions or comments could help sway a decision for me.

Thanks.

The main project of interest for me to build for apple would be:

Mass Conflict
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=209371&b=48

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Naphier
13
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Joined: 2nd Oct 2010
Location: St Petersburg, Florida
Posted: 6th Feb 2014 03:22
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We've only had a small number of Android users purchase the ad-free version of our game whereas we've had quite a few (about 10x) iOS users buy it.

It's only our first month, but those ratios seem to hold true for many other games. We've made back our developer fee already and should recover the cost of the Mac I had to buy in the next month.

I really didn't like having to pay for those things, but for us it wasn't an option to not support both platforms.

All that said, we did release on Google Play quite a few weeks earlier. That gave us a nice chance to work out some unforeseen bugs before releasing on iOS. So there's nothing wrong with making the decision to release on iOS much later. AppGameKit makes it super easy to work on both platforms. I only have maybe 3 different chunks of code that are dependent on the device type.

Hope that info helps.

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Funnell7
12
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Joined: 8th Sep 2011
Location: UK, England
Posted: 6th Feb 2014 17:36
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Quote: " whereas we've had quite a few (about 10x) iOS users buy it"


That generally tends to be the case with iOS, but for me it was completely the opposite We've had about 60k downloads on Google Play vs about 2k on iOS.

I was really excited when we first launched on iOS as I had this exact expectation, but it went down like a lead ballon ha... Not to put a dampner on it, but just thought I'd share my experience too. Having said that we do have an update pending which may turn things around?!? Who knows...
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SoftMotion3D
AGK Developer
18
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Joined: 24th Aug 2005
Location: Calgary,Alberta
Posted: 7th Feb 2014 04:03
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interesting....

for me I mostly just see sales in blackberry and very few on google play.

I may expand to ios in the next coming months if I decide to buy a mac or not.

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Ancient Lady
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20
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Joined: 17th Mar 2004
Location: Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Posted: 7th Feb 2014 16:58
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If get a Mac, I recommend a Mac Mini. It has a very small footprint and you can put any monitor, keyboard and mouse on it that you want.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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xCept
21
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Joined: 15th Dec 2002
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Posted: 7th Feb 2014 22:59
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If FLAPPY BIRD has taught me anything, it's that every indie app still has a shot at making it big. Unfortunately with such a saturated market that often depends on luck and/or a big marketing budget.

The Apple App Store actually has fewer apps in it now than Google Play, so your odds of success are at least as high with that as they are on Android.

Most of my success comes from iOS. I have one very popular app (not made with AGK) that is at least 15x more popular on iOS.

My last AppGameKit app I released on iOS (free w/ IAP) gets around 1500 downloads a month, but only a handful of IAP which actually has limited use in this app and the free one (with ads) is just fine for most uses.

I agree with AL, that is the configuration I have as well. A cheap Mac Mini sitting on my main PC desktop, with a KVM switch so I can easily toggle between the mac and PC using just a single keyboard, mouse and monitor. It's possible to develop and deploy apps using virtualized OSX (i.e., hackintosh) but Apple doesn't approve of that and with the way they continuously update software you'll have much less headache just buying a Mac Mini.
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Naphier
13
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Joined: 2nd Oct 2010
Location: St Petersburg, Florida
Posted: 7th Feb 2014 23:18
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gah Flappy Bird... I'm wondering if Nintendo will pursue for copyright infringement on those pipes...Anyway...

RE: The Mac setup. I have similar to what xCept has - a Mac Mini (cost under $500 on Ebay) and a $30 KVM switch to switch my one monitor over . I use something called Synergy to sync the mouse and keyboard to both machines. It's really neat, I have 2 monitors so I can have the Mac on one and my PC on the other and use them simultaneously without switching the KVM back and forth.
We tried the hackintosh route initially and it wasn't worth the time. Plus we weren't certain that a hackintosh would provide a legitimate key for the certificates you need on iTunes connect. The mini was well worth the money.

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SoftMotion3D
AGK Developer
18
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Joined: 24th Aug 2005
Location: Calgary,Alberta
Posted: 8th Feb 2014 18:24
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thanks for the mac mini suggestion. its too bad that such a thing could not be compiled on an apple ipad mini tablet. but I guess...

I will look around on ebay to see what I can find.

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Ancient Lady
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Joined: 17th Mar 2004
Location: Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Posted: 8th Feb 2014 20:47
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Make sure you get an Intel chip based one. That is important for being able to compile AppGameKit apps correctly (for some reason).

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester and AppGameKit Master
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xCept
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Joined: 15th Dec 2002
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Posted: 9th Feb 2014 00:46
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Quote: "gah Flappy Bird... I'm wondering if Nintendo will pursue for copyright infringement on those pipes...Anyway...
"


Well the developer has said he'll be taking it down tomorrow but claims it isn't for legal reasons just that he "cannot have it up" anymore. But everything in it was so blatantly derived from Mario games.
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