Hi all,
I looked around on BHW but couldn't find a proper thread on mobile app developments. (In case I missed any, i'd appreciate if you could guide me to the appropriate thread). This post is specifically for those who have experience in building or managing mobile apps.
Anyways, for the year ahead i'm looking at trying out building some mobile apps. I have the idea in place and targeting a very niche market.
Can you guide me to the following:
1. Is there a guide/pdf or a forum thread that I can start off with to learn more about app development
2. What are the start up costs for a mobile app (ex. for websites we know that there are domain/hosting/design costs, etc.) I know that iTunes and Android require some fees, but are there other monthly costs
3. How does advertising work with mobile apps? Is it similar to adsense? What about apple apps that serve ads? Any criteria for signing up for the apps? How are payments made?
4. What is the average cost of getting an app developed?
5. Is there a list of what to do and what not to do when building a mobile app?
6. When I ask for quotes from a developer, what things should I consider? Just developing the app? Do they also do a thorough testing to detect any bugs?
Thanks a lot in advance and once again sorry that I couldn't find the info myself.
Hi!
I am glad you bring up the App development subject because I couldn't find almost anything about that!
All my experience comes from trial and error from having developed over 100+ apps in different niches, trying different monetization techniques, with some cons and pros.
1. Is there a guide/pdf or a forum thread that I can start off with to learn more about app development
I would recommend to follow these steps in order to create an app:
- Think about what you want to do - what is the main purpose of the app ?
- Research market
- What are the main functionalities that will have ?
- Wireframes
Let's suppose I want to create a
SIMPLE CALCULATOR APP. Maybe because I have seen a gap that I could fulfil somehow (for example, maybe some old phones didn't have a calculator app in Android 1.0) so I think it's going to be a good idea, or maybe because the ones that there are in the market are too complicated or provide something different (maybe something like an elemental school calculator, with just the functionalities needed).
Once you have your idea, before doing anything else you should check the different app markets to see if the app that you want to make is saturated, your idea is special enough or if you need to pivot to create something else. Maybe your app idea is not so unique as you though. Maybe somebody else is crushing it with your idea! Maybe nobody has tried your idea before! You can always try to check the
APP GRAVEYARD if you are out of ideas. Anyway, for the good of the example let's suppose that the market research has been good or you are providing something really special / unique / differential trait in your app that can make people use it.
Let's now think about the functionalities that this app will most likely have - we want our users to
ADD /
SUBTRACT /
MULTIPLY /
DIVIDE a number. The result will be displayed once we press the
RESULT ("=") button and we will reset all operations and numbers on
CLEAR.
So far we should write down that we have 6 main functionalities. We want to write down how the app works for two main reasons : we want to keep it as logical and simple as possible for other people to understand how it should work and to prevent future arguments with the programmers (if you're coding it yourself, you can ignore this second motive).
We want to write down also a small flow of how the app should go - a use case. In the simple calculator app example could be something like :
- User opens the app and sees the keyboard with the prompt screen
- Users enters first number
- User enters operation
- User enters second number
- User presses the result key.
Why is it important? You need to check the flow of how your app will work to both verify that there are no inconsistency and no circular redundancies.
Once you have all your ideas clear and seems that everything is solid, you should start wireframing your whole concept, that is getting a notebook and start drawing how you are imaging your app - what would the user see as soon as you open the app, and when pressing every button. Using arrows and notes is the way to go!
I personally always go with designing everything on paper and then if I need to hire anyone or communicate my idea I translate my idea to a mockup software (although some people uses powerpoints or .doc files) so I can send it to whoever needs to see the design.
2. What are the start up costs for a mobile app (ex. for websites we know that there are domain/hosting/design costs, etc.) I know that iTunes and Android require some fees, but are there other monthly costs
Depends entirely of how your app is going to be! For example, if you create a standalone app with no database connection (all the information is in the app itself) you won't need to rent hosting, neither domain. An Apple Developer account costs like 99USD / year and an Android Developer costs like 25USD / lifetime.
Depending on your app needs you might need to get a different kind of server, but in my case, I have all my connected apps in a shared hosting, which costs me like 120 USD / year and I have 3 main .com domains for that ( each ~ 13 USD / year) so as far as I make my own websites and I have no design cost for that I spend in my app maintenance about 159 USD / year, which is not that much.
3. How does advertising work with mobile apps? Is it similar to adsense? What about apple apps that serve ads? Any criteria for signing up for the apps? How are payments made?
I have used only two main ad networks with my mobile apps - one being admob and the other being mobfox (which I used for monetize adult themed app, before they banned all them from the store! ). Signing up in both of them is easy and there was no problem. You can use most of these ad networks to serve both iOS and Android. Payments on Admob used to be through PayPal but now I can only receive them in my bank account, maybe it's something that only happens in Europe and in the US you can still receive your payments through PayPal.
4. What is the average cost of getting an app developed?
That's a tricky question. How much does a car costs? If you go to get a car at a Porsche car deal store it will cost a lot more than if you go to get a Seat. That's one of the reasons writing all the functionalities is so important, so the developer can get an appropriate quotation and estimate the timmings that the whole project will take to complete. Some things that I would considerer here too is how many different operating systems are you targeting, if you want the code to be done in a native language or in a hybrid language, and so on.
5. Is there a list of what to do and what not to do when building a mobile app?
You should always check the terms of use of each store. I have had many apps banned over time for targeting niches that they didn't considered in the beginning. Checking the design guidelines will also save you a lot of time. For example, I have had an app removed once from the App Store because it had an "Exit" button, which doesn't complies with Apple guidelines as they want iOS to close the program by itself (when an App is inactive for X minutes). Other than that I would say that the Sky is the limit. If you can imagine it, it can be done!
6. When I ask for quotes from a developer, what things should I consider? Just developing the app? Do they also do a thorough testing to detect any bugs?
I normally get asked to do one of these three main things when I'm asked to create an app:
- Create everything from Scratch - given an idea, develop all functionalities, wireframes, designs and coding til the release
- Code - The idea is done and the designs are done so they give me the design assets and I structure and program everything the way it should go
- Hack - Given a program, create new functionalities and code tweaks to change the behaviour of how things are working.
If you are going to outsource the creation of the app, even if the person in charge of creating everything offers you to do the TESTING, as a product owner you should ALWAYS check that everything is being coded as it should, and that the feeling of the interface and the general looks of the app is nice. The more complicated a program is, the more bugs are most likely to appear, it is your job to try to detect them as soon as possible and communicate them to your developer, otherwise if you have finished your deal, they might charge you for fixing the bugs in the future.
I hope this helps you a little!
Cheers!
. Just make sure that your shared hosting plan don't have a bandwidth limit or a limited amount of data for you to transfer monthly.
