Ive spent the last two years as an IOS developer and found that paid apps rarely sell, but any decent free app will probably get at least a 100 downloads. My best is close to a thousand, and using iad I've made a few bucks off it. So do you think that the future of iOS apps is free from indies and paid from bigger studios?
Even the big studios are doing freemium now because they know it gets downloads and it's a viable way to still make money.
I don't think paid is a realistically viable model for either indies or big studios. If you look at what is successful there, for the most part it is only paid games that are getting featuring that seem to be generating sustainable amounts of revenue. And you can't guarantee featuring. Ads are a great option for ensuring all your players are monetized rather than just a fraction, and they make a valuable safety need if your IAP monetization is geared wrong early on. At least if you have success in the number of downloads, you'll be earning some revenue and getting the opportunity to tweak your IAP strategy. But ads really only work when you are able to generate a critical mass of downloads too. And that is no easy feat either. The combination of strong promotion and a quality game are usually necessary for that. If you don't have the former, hopefully the quality is high enough to capture the eye of Apple.
