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Comment by stevenwei | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, but this really, really does not compute:

    In March, with the apps bringing in only about $20 a day, they
    cashed in Mr. Grimes’s 401(k), which yielded $30,000 after taxes
    and penalties. They had already spent the severance from his job at Legg Mason.

    ...

    One thing they never scrimped on was technology, especially Apple
    technology. At one point they owned a 24-inch iMac, a Mac Mini, a 24-inch
    cinema display screen, two 13-inch MacBook Airs, a 15-inch MacBook Pro, two
    iPad 2s, two Apple TVs, two iPhone 4s and an iPhone 3GS. “We justify buying
    new models by saying we need them to test out the apps,” Mr. Grimes said.

WTF? I've been doing this full time for 2 years now and even I don't have half as much gear.

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The gear is completely irrelevant. They blew two hundred thousand dollars. How much of that went on gear, a tenth? That's down in the noise. Forget about it. The real expense was the other nine tenths, which presumably went on living expenses, representing the value of time. (Underrepresenting at that. You can always replace money. You can't replace time.)

The real lesson here is: time is precious. Don't blow it in large quantities unless there's going to be something a lot more worthwhile than "apps" to show for it.

I'm going to assume that the $200k number mentioned in the article refers to lost opportunity cost (compared to having a normal software job), and not that they actually spent $200k in a two year timespan when they had no other income.

You are correct. From the article:

"Shawn and Stephanie Grimes’s efforts have cost $200,000 in lost income and savings"

To me, it sounds like a description of an addiction, completely irrational and willing to sacrifice life necessities just to have another fix.

Hardly, there would be plenty of couples out there who don't directly need iOS devices for their job that have just as much if not more.

After you take out 2 phones you would have anyway, 2 laptops and maybe an iPad and an Apple TV there isn't that much more.

To me, it's not about how many devices they have and whether that makes sense, it's about the fact that they had spent $200,000, which then generated $5,000 (this year only, don't know how long they've been at it), they had to move to a smaller flat, the guy had to get another job, and then they just had to buy two new iPhone 5s (which are mentioned later on in the article). Why? Can you justify spending that if your income from iOS development is $5,000 a year? That what gives me the feeling it's an addiction.

Now, I assume the new iPhone 5 is so different to the ones before it (screen size) that you have to test for it separately. If I was down $195,000 in a year (or two) and I felt this, I'd buy a new generation iPod touch instead. Or two, if they really can't share the device.

I also look at the picture and I question if they really need 5 computers between them if they only work on the two laptops.

Anyway, my point is not that having X amount of devices (Apple or others) per person is an addiction, if you can afford it, go for it and enjoy yourself. My point is that this couple seem to be struggling financially and cannot stop themselves from buying more devices. I'm trying not to be judgemental, but to me it sounds like an addiction.

The article says it cost $200,000 "in lost income". That's not quite the same as spending $200K, they're factoring in opportunity cost to make it sound more dramatic. It's also possible that some of the equipment (eg laptops & displays) was purchased before they started iPhone work.

Definitely agree about iPod touches & cutting costs, though.

The 5th gen iPod Touch is not the same as the iPhone 5 - it is more like the iPhone 4S, as far as I can tell, but obviously with the larger screen.

Buying two certainly sounds like an extravagance. A better distribution of devices would be 1 x iPhone 5, 1 x 5th gen iPod Touch, 1 x 4th gen iPod Touch, which would cost about the same as 2 iPhone 5s and also give you a reasonable idea of performance on iPhone 4S (roughly equivalent to 5th gen iPod Touch) and iPhone 4 (equivalent to 4th gen iPod Touch).

That assumes your program is OpenGL- or CPU-heavy. If not, you can probably do fine with whatever you've got, plus the simulator :)

Opportunity cost is real! $200,000 in lost income is $200,000 in lost income - there are no two ways about it...

I feel their pain. I just paid $750 for an iphone 5. Right now to submit an app for iPhone 5 you have to have a retina display with correct dimensions for screenshots.

You can just use iPhone simulator to make retina screenshot and/or do bigger screen testing.

Exactly Command+S has started to work again, so you easily save screenshots. Just as you can develop iPad apps as well, without owning an iPad. All you really need is a mac, although having a device really helps testing.

Yeh, you guys are right. As a practical matter, I feel like you need either an iPhone 5 or a retina display on your mac. When I use the iPhone (Retina 4-inch) simulator on my (non-retina) MBP, I can't see the whole thing on the screen.

You can scroll the display same way like you scroll any other window.

An iPod touch 5th gen has the same 1136 x 640 screen resolution as an iPhone 5. It's $299 + tax.

This is what happens when people with bad business sense jump into the arena. First and foremost, you need good business sense, no matter what you're doing.

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