App Store Insider: Ask An iPhone App Developer - Week 1
August 21, 2009
Today marks the beginning of a new piece we will be running on a weekly basis called Ask An iPhone App Developer. Basically, the idea will be to help you fine folks get clear and concise answers regarding your questions about anything and everything Apple iPhone apps. You will be allowed to submit your questions via the comments section below or via email. An extremely helpful and gracious iPhone developer, Cameron Banga from CollegeKidApp, will hopefully answer those questions to the best of his ability. I will be relegated to introducing each week's topics and addressing anything else left unanswered from the previous week.
This week we had Cameron ask himself some easy questions just to get the ball rolling, but from now on we really, really want your input. Since we're not sure how many questions will be submitted, we can't promise that all of them will be answered. This is the first week, so we will just have to wait and see how this turns out. All questions must be submitted via email or via a comment below by the following Tuesday at 11:59 PM PT. Whatever questions don't make it in by this deadline will be held over for the next week. If your question is chosen to be answered, your name and question will appear in this column. If you want a specific name displayed, please make a note of it.
Now let me introduce you to Cameron Banga. If the name sounds extremely familiar, it's for good reason. A while back when CollegeKidApp was first starting out I did an interview with Cameron. Why you ask? Well, just because he is a charming guy. Nah, he's charming but not THAT charming. Actually, we first spoke because Cameron and his two friends from college set out to create an iPhone app, but what made their story unique is that they decided to document their entire journey. As it turns out, they were able to actually get an app placed in the App Store. Battery Go! was their first app and it turned out to be quite successful, breaking into the top 100 apps within the first few days. Now that Cameron is an established iPhone app developer, we wanted to put his knowledge to good use.
Q: How did you get into developing iPhone apps? Is it difficult, and is it possible to make an app myself?
A: When people hear that we make apps for the iPhone, they always want to know how difficult the process is. It seems like everyone and their grandparents have great ideas for iPhone apps and want to make them in their basement. Apple provides great learning material and resources to help put together any application, but it definitely isn't as easy as many believe.
As a quick example, it took us about 5 weeks for us to program and submit our first app to the store. We didn't have any extensive programming or development experience when we started either, but all three of us did do this as a full time job for about 60 hours a week during those first 5 weeks. To put it super simply, it's possible for anyone to make an app but not necessarily easy, especially if you don't have any experience coding in C or Objective-C.
If you're looking for resources, try registering for Apple's Developer Program, as they have tons of documentation and sample code that you can play around with. And if you can make an app, that's not to say that the money will start to flow in and you'll be rich either. Making money on the platform may be an even larger obstacle.
Q: You've made an app, so you're retiring early now, right? Everyone who publishes an app makes a million like Koi Pond did, don't they?
A: I wish haha. It's not to say that there isn't money to be made in developing iPhone apps, but it's just not as glorious as many would believe.
I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret here, one which I'm sure will surprise a few of you. Our first release, Battery Go!, was a top 100 paid application less than 48 hours after it launched. It stayed there for quite a while and has seen sales success which I would argue has been better than 99% of all applications. We should be making big cash, right? Well, I'd say that I'll earn about the same amount this summer making iPhone apps as I would have working a typical $6/hour job. Yeah, it's a lot more glamorous than flipping burgers and it's been a LOT of fun. However, it hasn't been the cash cow many would have expected.
Obviously, we've only released one paid application and we're not nearly as efficient as many big app publishers who have been doing this for years. We have seen a significant amount of success though, yet I'm not sure we could entirely run a company based purely off iPhone app development. If you're looking to become a millionaire through app development, you might be in for a slight disappointment. But, if you're looking for a neat hobby and something to do on the weekends, app development might give you a fun way to make some extra cash.
Q: Why can't I get a promo code? I e-mailed the developer of my favorite app and they wouldn't send me a code.
A: We may stand in the minority here, but we wish we could give out more codes at times. We don't necessarily mind handing out free copies of our app since we truly believe that our app is good enough that if we give you a free copy, you'll tell some of your friends about it.
That being said, we're limited to only 50 codes per update release. We typically save a good 20-30 or so of these for Apple blogs/websites which we have worked with before, give a couple away to friends or family, release some through Twitter or Facebook, and then maybe have a handful of other codes leftover. After we released Battery Go!, I probably received about 30 e-mails in our first week asking for a promo code from people who produce YouTube reviews, blog reviews, etc, so you can see that it's often hard to stretch those extra handful of promo codes around.
If you're really interested in free codes, I would suggest that you e-mail developers before they release an app to let them know who you are and why you'd like a promo code. If we know who you are, we'll be much more likely to give you out a code when our app releases.
Q: Will you listen to my app idea? It's going to make a million dollars, I'm sure of it.
A: Long answer, yes. Short answer, no. I don't know if every app developer is in the same boat we are, but we typically received about 20 unsolicited app ideas per week. People either e-mail us ideas, call us with their thoughts, maybe pitch an idea when they see us at lunch, or send text messages full of "knock-out" app ideas. We really can't take a bunch of time out of our day to talk to people about these ideas, because they're often misguided in the app process and have no actual idea on why their idea isn't nearly as good as they think.
However, if you have an idea that you'd like to see made by an iPhone app developer, I suggest the following tips when contacting someone like myself. First, really be sure as to if you're idea is great and original. We don't want to do marketing research into your app, so search the iTunes Store for similar apps, get an idea as to how many downloads you really think the idea could see, and send all this information to us when you propose the idea. Second, if you want an NDA or to keep your idea a secret, write up your own and have what you're going to require ready. Again, we're busy doing other things and don't want to go up writing pages upon pages of NDAs for something we're not really that interested in anyways. Third, have some capital available and be willing to pay something for app development. We're not going to be interested in developing an app for you just to "share the profits" unless your idea is unbelievably great and a guaranteed million seller. We may not require a whole lot of money to get the app developed, but we're going to want something to help pay for our time, even if you are willing to share possible profits in the future.
If you think you can provide great answers to those three questions, then send an e-mail to a developer about your app idea.
So that's basically how this Ask An iPhone App Developer thing is going to work out. To be clear, we would like you to submit questions that you want answered by an iPhone app developer. We don't want anything like, "What's your favorite sport?" or "How do you feel about the current state of the health care system?" However, don't take this too seriously, let's have some fun while learning... if that's even possible?
Have a question for our iPhone app developer? Send it to: tyler [at] appadvice [dot] com with the subject line "Ask An iPhone App Developer" OR just leave a comment below.
It's possible that some things may not have been covered, so if you still have questions about how all of this is going to work, just leave a comment below with the rest of the questions. We will see you again next week!
