Curiously it seems Yahoo is suggesting here "Mobile Application Developers" make up too $115,000 annually... [Not likely] "Mobile Applications Developer Salary for top earners: $115,000 Projected job growth: 131 percent this year alone Additional training required: Programming experience in mobile platforms is necessary, but depending on your background, you can fine-tune your knowledge with a DIY approach or perhaps an online certificate program that typically takes one year to complete. Developing and building applications for smartphones, iPads, and other tablets and notebook PCs is one of the most in-demand jobs in the world right now. So enticing is the revenue from mobile apps -- Gartner estimates that worldwide revenue could top $15 billion this year -- that Google recently announced it's hiring dozens of mobile developers in an attempt to counter Apple. Reality check: This isn't a field for dilettantes: it requires serious programming and IT skills, but the growth potential is huge." Edit: I just realized General Game Discussion may not be the best forum for this... mods, please move as you wish... sorry.
Now about the Gold Rush? It is definitely realistic with the demand and job growth to make $115,000 per year developing these apps working a job. How about developing apps and selling them in the iPhone store yourself. The iPhone app store will love you building and developing iPhone apps to sell from their store. They make money and you make money. If you make an app and sell 2000 copies in the iPhone app store for $1 to the millions and millions of potential users, you make $2000. But little did you know it is still selling and making you money month after month. Lets say you make a new game or app a certain population loves and you sell 10,000 copies for $1.99 and it continues selling month after month.
Yeh and then you get a game that usually if its good and gets featured for a week will sell about 100,000 copies.
The sheer amount of games makes this tough. If you are one of the lucky ones to stand out then it is a gold mine.