Develop Your Own App. Presented at Closing the Gap October 16, Mark Larson Marblesoft

Transcription

1 Develop Your Own App Presented at Closing the Gap October 16, 2015 Mark Larson Marblesoft

2 Got a bright idea for a great app? The next App Store hit? Something to sell to businesses? A tool for your own business? A personal tool?

3 Four development models to consider Each has its own benefits, which we ll discuss briefly: Do all the work yourself Develop the concept and resources and turn over the technical development (programming) to someone else Develop the concept and hire out all the work Sell your idea to a developer

4 This presentation uses examples specific to ios development for the Apple itunes Store, but it applies equally to enterprise development and development for non-apple mobile devices and Web applications. The session will cover the three basic phases of app development: 1. Design phase Develop the idea from a concept and figure out how much it will cost. Decide how the product will pay for itself. Determine the team of people you will need to assemble, how much of the work you will do yourself, and how much you will hire out.

5 2. Development phase Gather the assets you will need like images, videos, sound effects and databases. Code the program, whether you do it yourself or hire it out. Prepare the app for distribution. Begin the testing process where you get user feedback and squash all the bugs. 3. Deployment phase Submit the app to the itunes Store or Google Play store, or distribute it thoughout the enterprise.

6 I. The Design Phase

7 A. The idea Develop the basic idea for the app. 1. Concept What does the app do? Be as specific as you can be. Make a wish list of everything you would like to see in the app, even features that might not necessarily be in the first version. The more time you spend developing the concept, the less time and money you ll spend on the actual development of the app, especially if you re paying someone to figure it out.

8 What devices does it run on? Even if the first version will only run on a single platform, knowing whether it will need to run on other platforms in the future will save development time long term. Who are the users of the app?

9 2. Story board Begin by drawing examples of what each screen will look like. Drawing ability or style does not matter. The important thing is to document as much of the look and feel of the app as possible. Create a simple flow chart of how the app works, showing the connections between the screens and the effects of user actions. The more time you spend on this the better you ll be able to estimate your costs. A developer will be able to precisely estimate labor costs for you without having to build in time to cover the unknowns.

10 3. What can I do myself? Make a fair assessment of your abilities and how much of the project you want to do yourself. How much of my time will it take? Do you already have the skills to do the job? Can you learn in a reasonable amount of time? Can/will I put in the effort? If you have the skills, it can be very rewarding to do the work yourself! Don t worry about the time it takes to learn a new skill. That s an education that you ll be able to put to use for the rest of your life.

11 4. What do I need to hire? The jobs you can t do yourself will need to be hired out. What will it cost? Professional writers, illustrators and programmers don t come cheaply. You may want to consider interns and students who can do some of the work for experience. Offshore development may be practical in some cases where low cost is the primary factor. You get what you pay for.

12 How long will it take? When you re not doing the work yourself, there s a direct correlation between the time required and the cost. Labor costs aside, you also need to know how long it will take the developer to actually complete the project. Your project may not be the only project they are working on.

13 B. Return on Investment 1. Target market 2. App Store or enterprise? 3. Price Paid app Free/freemium In-app purchasing

14 4. Penetration 5. Total sales 6. Costs 7. Bottom line 8. Other factors

15 C. The Team 1. Author/creator Usually you, but you could be developing a product based on someone else s work. 2. Graphic designer The person responsible for developing the visual appearance of the app. Could be you. Requirements vary greatly according to the nature of the app. 3. Illustrator? Does the project need an illustrator? Can the needed illustration be purchased from an existing source?

16 4. Sound engineer? 5. Animator? Even simple animation takes an incredibly long time. If you can t do it yourself, bring a boatload of cash. 6. Programmer Rewarding if you can do it yourself, but be prepared for a big learning curve. The pros can do it quickly.

17 7. Project manager Responsible for hiring all the people needed, scheduling and overseeing development and testing. Usually a developer you hire, but you can do it yourself, too. 8. Other 9. Finding a developer Hourly Flat rate Partnership

18 Local, remote or overseas? Upwork, etc. Meetups

19 II. Development Phase

20 A. Assets 1. Illustration Proprietary Library Shutterstock, etc. Poser, etc. html

21 2. Sound effects/music Proprietary Library SmartSound, etc Animation

22 4. Tools Photoshop Elements photoshop-elements.html Sound Studio itunes Convert sound files to.mp3

23 B. Programming 1. Platforms/devices ios Android Windows tablet Web app Windows 8 Macintosh OS X

24 2. IOS XCode Helper apps Training Meetups

25 3. Cross-platform Development Pros Cons Tools LiveCode - Corona - products/corona-sdk/ PhoneGap -

26 4. Other tools Parse Heroku

27 C. Preparation for deployment A brief overview of the process of preparing an app for the itunes app store. Other deployment methods would be similar. 1. DUNS number 2. Apple Developer Program Device IDs Security certificates App IDs Provisioning profiles

28 Code signing Archiving D. Testing 1. Testers You must find outside testers - people who have not been involved in the development process. 2. TestFlight 3. Revisions

29 III. Deployment

30 A. itunes Connect A brief overview of setting up an app on the itunes store. Other deployment methods would be similar. Warning: itunes Connect is designed to make Apple s life easier - not yours. 1. The App Metadata Name, description, keywords, etc.

31 Pricing tiers Allows prices to be presented in any currency in ways familiar to the customer. For example: United States Canada Australia United Kingdom Europe Mexico Japan 4.99 USD 4.99 CAD 5.49 AUD 2.99 GBP 4.49 EUR MXN 500 JPY Apple takes 30% of all App Store sales. Apple does not charge anything for hosting free apps!

32 Which stores? Educational discount 50% off on quantities of 20 or more Icons Screen shots In-app purchases Test users

33 B. Submission 1. Upload binary 2. The wait 5 to 12 days, depending on Apple s whim Any problem moves you to the end of the queue 3. Approval Release immediately, on pre-scheduled date or at the time of your choosing

34 C. Sales reports 1. itunes Connect. Review sales by day, week, month, quarter or year. Review by unit, sales or proceeds. In-app purchases listed separately.

35 D. Financial reports 1. Total sales are reported in the month following the sale 2. Payments are made in the month following the sales report Customer pays Apple on Dec 10 Apple reports sales in January Apple pays you in early February

36 3. No product totals are given No kidding. Multiply each line item by the exchange rate for that currency on the day Apple paid. Don t forget to subtract the Japanese sales tax before multiplying. Add up the line items for each product to determine sales in each currency. Add up all of them to determine the sales of that product. Add up all products to check your math against Apple s payment. No kidding.

37 IV. Conclusion

38 This presentation downloads/develop_your_own_app.pdf How to create an application specification downloads/creating_an_app_spec.pdf