Saturday, August 7, 2010

How to write a program for the iPhone (Part 1, Philosophical).

Today the iPhone - not just a popular device, but a real living legend. Legends of the walk and those who managed to earn astronomical programs for him, according to Belarusian standards, the sums of money. Where to start, so you got your piece of cake under the name iPhone/iPad?


Success stories

Starting without inspiration is not worth it, because programming is like art - even if you write a program solely to earn money with the help of money, not to self-realization, best of all it will be released in the case when she is called, " is the soul". Perhaps the best way in this case can motivate the history of those who have already achieved success on the field to build applications for "apple" devices.

How to write a program for the iPhone?So, here is the first of the success stories. Was working as a programmer at Sun Microsystems Ethan Nicholas, in a difficult financial situation because of the birth of her son, decided to try his luck and make money by selling their own games for "apple" communicator. In his own words, after the decision on her writing, within six weeks, he rocked his son with one hand while the other wrote the code on a completely unfamiliar language (this language will be discussed shortly). But as it turned out later, suffering Etana were not in vain: literally the first day after the publication of the game iShoot brought its creator two thousand dollars. Then, of course, selling "sagged", but after the release of stripped-down free version again risen to more than a decent level. And by the time the game moved into first place in popularity among iPhone-application and began to bring $37 thousand a day, Ethan, Nicholas managed to escape from Sun Microsystems and hire a nurse to his son.

However, this example, frankly, have not the most impressive, because the game for mobile platforms have always been in demand by users. iPhone opened this era entirely useless, but wildly successful mobile applications, which impressed with his success even journalists publications such as Forbes. Most, perhaps, a bright example of such a product - a program iSteam, which helps to create an imitation zaindeveniya screen device. The user blows into the microphone - depending on intensity of the resulting "wind" screen misted in many ways, and the resulting "frost" finger you can draw different patterns. What do you think, how much you can earn on such an application? It turns out that for the first month of sales of its creator Costas Eleftheria managed to get from users about $50 thousand, with the price of one copy at $0.99. Not a bit more useful and the other has become extremely popular among users of a program called iFart - although, perhaps, to entertain its user, it can be much better than iSteam. It is also iFart just one dollar, and for the money the user is a versatile tool to publish obscene sounds: burping, blowing your nose, farting... In her words are spelled Joel Comma, he was shocked when, after the publication of the program in AppStore catalog for the first ten days as it bought more than thirteen thousand people.

It inspires you? Well, we assume that the first step in creating applications for the iPhone we're done. Now let's talk about where to profiteer idea for creating a successful application.


In search of ideas

In fact, of course, to guess what kind of idea of "shoot", it is very difficult. Not the fact that today the same iFart and iSteam "gone" would be just as good as when they were written. At the same time, often you can guess what it will be interesting to users in the near future. A striking example of this would be another success story, which will help to understand what makes sense to align the development of iPhone/iPad-applications.

As you know, in America is very popular sport is baseball. This is obviously guess, and software vendors for "apple" device: during the American Association Baseball Championship, MLB has released an application MLB.com At Bat 2009, allowing fans to watch matches statistics, excerpts broadcast, etc. through their phones. The application cost $10 was purchased almost 130 thousand times, bringing the association over a million dollars net profit.

Attached to any widely publicized sports events or other types of events - a good enough strategy, but it is important to remember that competition in this niche is very high. In general, to give an idea about the tastes of users and trends in this area can monitor popular applications in the AppStore for some time. It is not worth while to rush immediately to write what is on Top - better track the program, which quickly rise from bottom to top, and try to write something along the same lines as the user preferences - a thing quite unstable, and while you're write their applications, those who were at the peak of popularity, may be already worthless.

And, of course, if you have an idea, which arose from the use of PDA, then it makes sense to implement it in the first place - as the experience of thousands of programmers who managed to make good money own mind, it is an application whose ideas were "the suffering" authors from the beginning to the finish, usually become the most popular and successful.


Do yourself iPhone?

A very important question that arises from beginner iPhone-developer, is whether there is a need for the phone itself. Needless to say, the question is not idle. Cost iPhone involuntarily raises a simple programmer, not yet earned his million dollars on the calendar baseball games or the regular variation on the theme of "Tetris", especially if the programmer has not yet left the college. Shall I take a loan and buy all the same device in the calculation of future profits? Or is it better to try to do an emulator, because not every Tetris makes its creator a wealthy man?

Of course, other things being equal, with "iPhones" in the hands of the development will more fun and better than without it. Because no matter how well was not an emulator, it still will not show you all the subtleties of movement of fingers across the screen, that is, an interface is not as good as the design with the use of the device. Again, no one has repealed and the usual inherent in the development of any software mysticism - especially the mystical "not working", although the idea does not work simply can not by definition. Needless to say, that even just to learn about the problems when they occur (if the device itself is absent), will from end users. Well, frankly, would force them to treat you not as good as we would like. Again, in the process of using the communicator may have some ideas about creating applications for it, which is also an unequivocal "yes" in favor of the acquisition iPhone.

However, if the iPhone really is too heavy for you to purchase, then, in principle, can try their luck and with the emulator. Another thing that happened today nxa market is the fourth generation of these devices, and it is quite possible to do what is called a "horse course" and buy a used camera of one of the earlier generations, which will cost significantly cheaper than the store. You can go even further and do not buy the communicator, and player iPod Touch, which has the same soft stuffing, like the iPhone, but without the "phone" functions and is somewhat cheaper "apple phone".

It must be said that the purchase of iPhone application development under it is justified even for the reason that, in essence, the developer put in enough greenhouse conditions - it is invited, in fact, a single device from one manufacturer with known hardware and software filling . Once designed interface (which, incidentally, will perform at the level of "guidance from the designers of Apple), a developer can forget about its testing on the screens of dozens of different devices - different in size and brightness, the touch-sensitive user ... In fact, developing applications for iOS (namely the so-now called the operating system used in portable devices, Apple), a developer is not confronted and a half of all the difficulties that await those who write software for other popular mobile system - Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android... Of course, if the application is "shot" on AppStore, it will make sense to think about writing a version for these mobile platforms, but it is down to a distant prospect. On the difficulties of porting iPhone-application to other systems, will need to think when there is a real threat facing them face to face.

So if you really develop applications for the "iphone", it still makes sense to buy some devays with iOS, the more so now able to do so, even with limited budget is not too little.

Well, this "philosophical" part of the conversation about creating applications for iPhone is finished - the next time we pass to the technical part.

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