Once you're sure that you've cut down on excess costs ('liking' your hosting provider is a luxury you can no longer afford if you want this thing to be sustainable), you need to try and find a way to support the site which is in keeping with the editorial standards. To my mind - Fusion/Carbon/The Deck are all tasteful networks of ads which I think fit with your audience nicely, again - feeling that ads are anachronistic is a luxury you can't afford unless you have a better idea.
Here's one thing I know: Hiring iOS developers is hard work, and it costs a shit-load of money. You have a loyal, captive audience of mobile designers & developers - access to whom companies hiring these folks would likely be very willing to pay.
You could go about this a couple of ways:
A jobs board: You charge per post, or you come up with a creative referral system through which candidates successful hired via your site earn you a nice little bump (You could easily cover your costs here with one successful candidate per month - find out what a recruiter earns per candidate in this field, it'll blow your mind).
You approach companies you respect and ask if they'd like to be a 'featured employer'. If you have good traffic, good users and good content - employers will pay to be featured. Give them a month featured prominently on the site, sticking to the pttrns way of displaying apps, but with an inside-line from the company that uses the product to outline why a designer would want to go and work for them. The only stumbling block here is 'companies you respect', because being picky is a luxury you can't afford if you want this thing to be sustainable.
That's my spiel - employment is the angle, you can skin that any way you like, I think it has potential to pay your bills and then some if you get it right.
Once you're sure that you've cut down on excess costs ('liking' your hosting provider is a luxury you can no longer afford if you want this thing to be sustainable), you need to try and find a way to support the site which is in keeping with the editorial standards. To my mind - Fusion/Carbon/The Deck are all tasteful networks of ads which I think fit with your audience nicely, again - feeling that ads are anachronistic is a luxury you can't afford unless you have a better idea.
Here's one thing I know: Hiring iOS developers is hard work, and it costs a shit-load of money. You have a loyal, captive audience of mobile designers & developers - access to whom companies hiring these folks would likely be very willing to pay.
You could go about this a couple of ways:
A jobs board: You charge per post, or you come up with a creative referral system through which candidates successful hired via your site earn you a nice little bump (You could easily cover your costs here with one successful candidate per month - find out what a recruiter earns per candidate in this field, it'll blow your mind).
You approach companies you respect and ask if they'd like to be a 'featured employer'. If you have good traffic, good users and good content - employers will pay to be featured. Give them a month featured prominently on the site, sticking to the pttrns way of displaying apps, but with an inside-line from the company that uses the product to outline why a designer would want to go and work for them. The only stumbling block here is 'companies you respect', because being picky is a luxury you can't afford if you want this thing to be sustainable.
That's my spiel - employment is the angle, you can skin that any way you like, I think it has potential to pay your bills and then some if you get it right.