More on Demand for iPhone Developers

John Gruber points to this great piece Turning Ideas Into iPhone Applications - Inside iPhone Blog

The demand for iPhone developers exceeds the supply and I don't see that changing anytime soon. The going rate for iPhone developers, at least the developers I know and trust, is $125/hour and up. I have some friends who are booked out at $200/hour for the next few months, although $125/hour seems to be the going rate in my network. At that rate, a full-time contract iPhone developer costs $5,000/week and it may take four to six weeks for an application to be developed. Sometimes it will take less and sometimes it will take more. Add to development the other costs - project management, design, QA, and marketing, to name a few. It's not uncommon to spend $30,000 and up on an iPhone development project. iPhone applications are not cheap.

I am someone who is highly motivated by ideas. So, it pains me to say that the value of an iPhone application idea right now is pretty much zero. A great idea isn't worth anything under these conditions. There is no shortage of great iPhone ideas, just a shortage of talent to bring these ideas to market. Many people in my network have stopped doing contract work altogether, focusing instead on self-publishing on the App Store and making a living from software sales. The few examples we've had of App Store millionaires has been an inspiration to many to drop out of the contract market.

Do you hear that kids - a shortage of talent to bring these ideas to market!

Read earlier iPhone programming related posts.