What does it take to Develop Mobile Apps?

Great concepts to hold dear.

I’ll put it this way, the last company I worked for prototyped an iphone app that was essentially similar to #1. The developer who built the prototype was one I would call a super freak (he rewrote portions of one of the linux shells for fun), and was well versed in OOP concepts. He worked full-time (40+hrs/wk) for a month, getting the tools installed and configured, learning the tools and objective-c syntax, then developing the app Subsequent prototypes and apps took less time, but it was still a good two weeks per app.

So a lot will depend on how quickly you learn concepts and how much time you can devote to the project. wwb’s estimate starts with three weeks for experienced developers, and my experience (over 20 yrs of software development) tells me a newbie will take close to double that.

You’re being too generous!

If I could create either of the apps I described in 4-6 months I think I’d be doing pretty good!! (Of course, I don’t really know OOP or any OOP languages, so I think that is my biggest hurdle…)

BTW, have you ever done any Mobile App development, David?

If so, what did you build, and how long did it take?

Debbie

Unfortunately, no. That shop was small, and I was siloed over a completely different product (.net and sql server and classic asp). That, and the requirement that you have to have a mac to build an ipod/iphone/ipad app meant the budget and time wasn’t there…

I honestly haven’t found an app I need to build that can’t be handled just as easily with a responsive site build. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to - just haven’t been able to justify the effort at the moment…

Okay, thanks for all of the information, guys!

I think this gives me a decent idea of what is involved and if I have what it takes to tackle my own Mobile App.

Thanks,

Debbie

I realize this thread is a bit old, but I’m surprised no one mentioned other app options. For example, there are “web apps”, which are made out of HTML and CSS (and often JS, too) that can be wrapped into a mobile app form through services like Phone Gap and Sencha. They can’t access as much of the mobile device as a native app can, but often you don’t need a lot of access anyway; and their advantage is that you can built the app once and use it on multiple devices.

And then there are some cheap or free online services that make it easy to produce an app of sorts … maybe not the best, but often good enough for a small business needing something simple.

Here are some random links I’ve gathered over time:

http://www.theappbuilder.com/index.aspx

http://www.phonegap.com/
http://jquerymobile.com/
http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/
http://dojotoolkit.org/
http://www.appcelerator.com/
http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/
http://www.recoilapp.com/

You can go three ways to develop apps: Native, Hybrid, and Web App. I explained these three options here with, I hope, helpful links:

Those are nice and all but you typically end up with a clunky mobile app that feels like a website trying to be an app rather than the sorts of rich experiences people are getting used to.

You haven’t seen my hybrid apps! :slight_smile:

Developing mobile app is not a rocket since but making it unique and unbeatable is really a challenging task. It should have unique features to stand out from the rest