Comment by bko

I built a free calculator for iOS because I found the free calculators (for iPad) were super spammy and ugly. There was (and still is?) literally video ads that play between calculations. And since Apple didn't (doesn't?) offer a calculator app that came bundled with iPad, it was a huge market.

But I was naive and thought I could just create an obviously superior app and it would find some users. Why hadn't anyone thought of this before? But the app market is so saturated and poorly managed that there's practically no chance you can find users. Or at least I didn't care enough because.. you know.. its a free app. How much can I invest to get you to have a decent experience.

And the other point which was really the death blow to my app, is the ridiculous $100+ a year fee to app store to even host a free app. So after a few years and very few users, I decided to kill it.

1. The search sucks and prioritizes "popular" spammy apps.