Turkey (Türkçe)
Worldwide (English)
While I had the opportunity to meet with Esther Hare within the scope of WWDC, I asked questions on different topics from milestones in the journey to this huge market, suggestions to software developers and their support in particular to female software developers.
The WWDC week, which we started with live blogging, continues at full speed. At WWDC, which continued with the participation of software developers in one-on-one sessions and workshops, I met with Esther Hare, the Global Marketing Director for Application Developers at Apple. Working at Apple for more than 16 years, Hare has been looking at communication with the software world since day one. Reaching another point with the iPhone, the relationship between Apple and the software world is now at a completely different point. The importance of software and the value it adds to companies by the trained human resources in this field are only on the agenda of Apple's other big technology companies. In fact, we see that people with such competence are selected for CEO appointments, it will be enough to look at the recent appointments in large companies in our country without going too far.
If we go back to the relationship between Apple and developers, creating an ecosystem where both sides grow in a mutual win-win model, Apple has paid $ 643 billion to developers so far. Moreover, despite being a figure of this size, it continues to grow in double digits every year. One of the figures that caught my attention in the ecosystem, which is the addressee of 643 billion dollars, is 90 percent of the developers who earn less than 1 million US dollars and whose applications have less than 1 million downloads.
It is very important that anyone who develops an application that focuses on solving a problem or having fun from anywhere in the world can get paid. The opportunity lies in two points: More than a quarter of small developers selling digital products and services on the App Store have increased their revenues by at least 25 percent on average in the past five years. Close to 80 percent of junior developers in the App Store are active in stores in more than one country and, on average, generate revenue from users in more than 40 countries.
While talking about the 90 percent, it is impossible not to mention the rest. The success of gaming initiatives in Turkey is on everyone's lips. Apart from this, the number of successful startups in the mobile world is increasing day by day. Of course, although there are criticisms against Apple in this huge market, the point we are looking at is a large market and this market is growing day by day.
While I had the opportunity to meet with Esther Hare within the scope of WWDC, I asked questions on different topics from milestones in the journey to this huge market, suggestions to software developers and their support in particular to female software developers. He shared that they provided a few important tools and 50 thousand APIs in this process, but this point was important: the birth of the App Store. It would be correct to say that it is the fastest way to reach any person in any country in the world with a product. With regard to the App Store, which was launched in 2008 and operated from the iTunes Store at that time, Hare emphasized that a software developer should be able to reach everyone. Apart from that, after mentioning the issue of everyone's access, the steps taken by the consumer in terms of privacy and AR, ML, and Xcode, which we shared for this period. One of the points shared by Hare escaped my attention while watching the WWDC keynote: With Shareplay, applications would be able to address a wider universe. It is possible to achieve sustainable growth, even if the Facebook Farmville effect of a period is not.
On the software side, there is also a "More users
What would you recommend to mobile developers who want to get involved? I asked. It started out as a platform where you can receive payments from 170 countries beyond reaching millions of users. Although it is sometimes criticized for its commission rates, it should be underlined that it is an end-to-end service for any mobile software developer at the beginning stage. Noting that 50 percent of the apps in the App Store are downloaded outside the country where the developer is located, he listed the suggestions as follows:
Master the details of the application
Know the benefit you offer
Know the cultural codes for your international customers
Pay attention to localization
While talking about the software developers, I also asked about the participation of new software developers and women software developers. Referring to the Swift Student Competition, which we know very well from Turkey, Hare talked about the Swift Playgrounds, which was introduced the other day and came to the iPad, and shared the importance of offering tools accessible to everyone in this direction. Emphasizing the importance of quality rather than quantity at points such as student competitions, he talked about TurkishKit founder Emirhan, whom we shared with you recently. It is very pleasing to know a person from Turkey by name. Hare, who said that 7 people won here this year, underlined that at the end of this program, the willing young people came to another point. Another important point he shares in this regard is the sharing of information. Indeed, when I look at Swift Playgrounds, I see that Turkish content is welcome. It is already possible to develop children in this direction with free content and application. Learning can be one of the most valuable interactive activities while at home.
It is also worth mentioning that even if you are not a programmer in the future, writing code enables you to acquire new ways of thinking. We may not limit it to just kids :)
We have no doubt how much more people learning software and more software developers will improve the world. In this regard, besides children, another party that needs to be supported is women. As Webrazzi, we dedicate every Monday to women and shed light on their problems and try to show how success comes. I asked if Apple had any support for more female software developers. Stating that environmental factors, one of the biggest obstacles in raising more software developers, decreased during the pandemic period, Hare shared the increase in female software developers at WWDC. Let's also share that Apple's program in this direction is the Entrepreneur Camp.
