Designer makes $100k in six days selling icons for iOS 14

AppleInsider

A designer has shared his story of how selling icons for iOS 14 managed to net him a profit of more than $100,000 in under a week.

As it turns out, customizing the iOS 14 Home Screen can be a lucrative endeavor if you've got an eye for design. On September 20, Twitter user and designer Traf tweeted out a set of icons he'd designed for his iOS 14 home screen. The tweet gained instant attention.

Current iOS 14 home screen setup. pic.twitter.com/gtFjRnMkq7

-- Traf (@traf)

September 20, 2020

After noticing the hype, Traf quickly designed a set of icons in his style, packaged them, and then uploaded them for sale. Through a combination of luck and skill, the icons caught on -- 3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days.

Of course, the success was the culmination of cultivating skills over nearly a decade. Traf tells the story of how in 2013, when jailbreaking was considered trendy, he made $17 selling iOS icons online. Through this process, he learned the value of creating something with obvious effort put into it, and selling it at a reasonable price.

The story is a good read, especially if you're interested in digital content creation. If you'd like to score Traf's icons, they're available at his icon page for $28.

In the event that you'd like to try your hand at designing your own icons, we have a guide that shows you how to customize your Home Screen in iOS 14. If you're not planning on selling the icons, we've got some great resources for customizing your Home Screen using ready-made graphics.

sflocal

Absolutely great story!  I love reading how the iOS ecosystem gives people like @traf the ability to generate income that he otherwise would never have had the opportunity with other systems.  Cue the haters and whiners about how Apple is "oppressing" them.

tht

It's the power of instant gratification and near zero latency business transactions combined with an addressable market, worldwide, in the hundreds of millions of potential customers. You'll get a few people who will get flash money. It can also dry up to zero in a flash too.

Wonder how much the Widgetsmith dude is making.

PaulMaultanari

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

loopless

And that 30% is worth every cent. As an app developer , I do not begrudge Apple their 30% in any way, shape or form. The infrastructure, reporting, 'distribution' etc are worth every penny multiple times over.

tht

PaulMaultanari said:

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

His icon graphics weren't sold through the App Store. You can go buy them at his website. It's linked in the article. $28 for designer icons. He'll need to pay the cuts from the services who are providing the transaction services, but this is all done outside the App Store. They are just images.

Beats

Didn't even know you could do this. I don't remember these custom options during WWDC.

PaulMaultanari said:

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

Yeah Apple is totally greedy. Maybe they shouldn't have invented the iPhone. This guy could have been a janitor instead of getting ripped off.

"maybe you haven't heard the news lately."

Yeah this site should refer to tech news sites.

Beats

tht said:

PaulMaultanari said:

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

His icon graphics weren't sold through the App Store. You can go buy them at his website. It's linked in the article. $28 for designer icons. He'll need to pay the cuts from the services who are providing the transaction services, but this is all done outside the App Store. They are just images.

Ok that's how I read it but these custom icons without needing to jailbreak is all news to me.

Should Apple hire this guy?

Hank2.0

Now, somewhere out there, are thousands of wannabes busting their butts to create a myriad of icons in the hope of selling them to Apple. Sad, just sad...

tht

Beats said:

Should Apple hire this guy?

The icons don't look like anything unique or special to me. So, no.

SxyGayjust

tht said:

Wonder how much the Widgetsmith dude is making.

I doubt they are making as much as they could be making given that they seem to be the dominant widget app. All the people I know just use the free version...

SpamSandwich

Why? Why? Why?

Gilliam_Bates

This whole story must be fake, because Apple’s monopolistic behavior effectively stifles all innovation and entrepreneurship. Epic’s Sweeney dude told me that.

sflocal

PaulMaultanari said:

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

Did you do even this mast basic of research before you spouted off? 

This isn’t sold through the App Store Einstein.  It’s from the developer’s own website.  So he gets it all.

And even if he did have to pay 30%, 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.  The developer gets access to countless customers all thanks to Apple’s hard work,

The only greedy person here is you.  

welshdog

How do you use these icons?

Rayz2016

PaulMaultanari said:

3,626 individual sales worked out to a profit of $101,528 in just six days. IT IS ONLY A PROFIT AFTER EXPENSES! Apple takes 30% remember? maybe you haven't heard the news lately. SO, AFTER Apple gets its cut, (a little over $31,000) and other expenses are deducted, that is the PROFIT. I hope this helps 

It's very rare that anyone trips and faceplants this hard on their very first post.



Nicely done. 

tht

welshdog said:

How do you use these icons?

All it's doing is creating the equivalent of a Mac OS 9 alias, unix link, whatever it's called in MS Windows. So for this, users are creating a Shortcut that opens an app of their choice, adding the Shortcut to the home screen, and using a custom icon for the Shortcut. You can do it yourself without buying anything. Just go find some app icon images, put them in your Photos or Files, and create the Shortcuts.

Obviously, getting a nice set of icons and images involves finding images done by artists, else-wise you can get a mish-mash of poor art, some good art, basically a mess, which can be seen on 90% of customized computer screens for decades running.

dysamoria

sflocal said:

Absolutely great story!  I love reading how the iOS ecosystem gives people like @traf the ability to generate income that he otherwise would never have had the opportunity with other systems.  Cue the haters and whiners about how Apple is "oppressing" them.

He got lucky. This article (among other things) will cause a flood of copycat efforts by other designers (and people who suck at design). The market will be quickly flooded and no one will be the central provider for things like this.

As for your “cue the haters” comment... sigh. Stop making tech forums look like a cult.

dysamoria

tht said:

Beats said:

Should Apple hire this guy?

The icons don't look like anything unique or special to me. So, no.

No. They all look the same, from a glance. That’s not actually good design, in the general sense. Even Apple’s currently lame designs have more distinctiveness.

It’s perfectly acceptable for an individual to choose that look if they want it, but this specific product isn’t something that would inspire my confidence in hiring.