I've been publishing to the store since Nov. 08 (started in Aug 08). We've had marginal success but it's certainly a very challenging road. There are a number of pains that bother me but that's to be expected, Apple did a HUGE thing breaking down the mobile software barrier and opening the doors to international sales. We would not being doing as well if we relied solely on app sales, fortunately we're building an app for a Comedy Central show and it's compensating us well.

There are a few things to be aware of regarding iFart apps, and it starts by looking at the top charts in Movies and Music. Take a peek — it's all pop culture likely driven by returning customers between the ages of 12-26. Why would the AppStore be any different? It's not. The second thing to be aware of are the big boys. For the first few months it was mostly an indie market but that has long past. Third issue are spammers but I'm not going to go into details, everyone is familiar with them.

When you combine those three issues, along with poor search functionality, Top 100 Charts (out of the entire store) is extremely difficult to hit for 95%+ of the developers. This is where the big-money buying activity occurs. But here's the good news that keeps me optimistic about the future, and hopefully more stable/predictable revenue:

With the recent changes in iTunes 9, I'm most excited about the Top Earners chart. Currently the Top Earners chart is only available based on the entire store, but with a quick hack to the URL you can view Top Earners by category. Top Earners are correlated to app revenue (price), not simply volume which is how the Top Paid charts function (ie: pressure to .99)

Link to Top Earners in Social Networking: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?id...

We're still in Top 100 Earners by category whereas in Top Paid we're nowhere to be seen. My hope is that sooner or later Apple will make this information accessible to all customers on a per-category basis... and your affluent shoppers, who are avoiding AppStore unless by referral, will be able to find the real gems a little bit easier. If nothing else, improve the margins of "niche" apps because $.99 is simply not sustainable.