Phone App devemopment

The Corinthian · 23-03-2014 3:40pm

boreder wrote: »

Out of interest, what kind of app-development business are you in that it makes sense to ignore 45-50% (probably more) of people who use apps?

Software development maybe? For computers you can't always put in your pocket? Oddly enough there's still a fair bit of business in that area and if someone is doing more business for development specific to Windows development than specific to iOS, or even mobile in general, then you probably can see that their priorities might be a wee bit different to other developers who do mobile or iPad development almost exclusively.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup · 23-03-2014 4:18pm

Botulism wrote: »

In my experience, android's documentation is a nightmare compared to MSDN's, because of the fact that half of what you need to know is in Java's documentation and the other in Android's,

huh? all the java is in the docs as well. e.g. http://developer.android.com/reference/java/lang/String.html

Tar.Aldarion · 23-03-2014 6:45pm

boreder wrote: »

Out of interest, what kind of app-development business are you in that it makes sense to ignore 45-50% (probably more) of people who use apps?

I make apps for a company that have no interest in using apple and never will, but what's that matter? Personally would like to make these apps but I wouldn't bother without being supplied the gear

ChRoMe · 23-03-2014 6:49pm

boreder wrote: »

Out of interest, what kind of app-development business are you in that it makes sense to ignore 45-50% (probably more) of people who use apps?

Your post should really read "50% of the consumer market".

The Corinthian · 23-03-2014 9:08pm

ChRoMe wrote: »

Your post should really read "50% of the consumer market".

It also comes down to what market you aim twoards. Not everyone is interested in the consumer market. Lots of enterprise stuff going on out there, where you get to choose what everyone will be using.

awec · 23-03-2014 9:39pm

Personally, if I had an app idea I'd go to Android first and then Windows Phone because I could release on these two platforms for pretty much nothing. Windows Phone probably has the best developer tools etc but Android has the users.

iOS requires mac hardware - for an "indie" dev you'd have to weigh up whether or not your app will help you recover the very high costs. Even if you just buy a mac mini that's still about 700 euro and then 100 for the dev license. No sense spending it if you won't get it back either through payments for the app or advertisements.

Creamy Goodness · 23-03-2014 9:45pm

awec wrote: »

Personally, if I had an app idea I'd go to Android first and then Windows Phone because I could release on these two platforms for pretty much nothing. Windows Phone probably has the best developer tools etc but Android has the users.

iOS requires mac hardware - for an "indie" dev you'd have to weigh up whether or not your app will help you recover the very high costs. Even if you just buy a mac mini that's still about 700 euro and then 100 for the dev license. No sense spending it if you won't get it back either through payments for the app or advertisements.

lets face it, for 'indie developers' it's going to be very hard to make any costs back at all. Doesn't matter if a mac mini is 700 euros, or if a windows laptop is like 400 euros, it's a huge undertaking to make that amount of money from an app on ANY platform.

Generally speaking from my experience:

iOS users - pay for apps if it's of worth to them.
Android users - will find a free alternative or just crack.
Windows users - is there enough of them to actually make a living off?

The Corinthian · 23-03-2014 10:18pm

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

iOS users - pay for apps if it's of worth to them.
Android users - will find a free alternative or just crack.
Windows users - is there enough of them to actually make a living off?

That's soooo 2009...

awec · 23-03-2014 11:35pm

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

lets face it, for 'indie developers' it's going to be very hard to make any costs back at all. Doesn't matter if a mac mini is 700 euros, or if a windows laptop is like 400 euros, it's a huge undertaking to make that amount of money from an app on ANY platform.

Generally speaking from my experience:

iOS users - pay for apps if it's of worth to them.
Android users - will find a free alternative or just crack.
Windows users - is there enough of them to actually make a living off?

Well, in my case I already have the Windows laptop so there's no outlay there. The biggest expenditure to release on Android and WP would be my own time - and I'm not going to charge myself for that.

If I happened to be a mac user and had a mac of some sort I'd certainly release to iOS - I was just talking generally as I'm sure my situation is the one that the majority of people are in.

Creamy Goodness · 23-03-2014 11:55pm

awec wrote: »

Well, in my case I already have the Windows laptop so there's no outlay there. The biggest expenditure to release on Android and WP would be my own time - and I'm not going to charge myself for that.

If I happened to be a mac user and had a mac of some sort I'd certainly release to iOS - I was just talking generally as I'm sure my situation is the one that the majority of people are in.

yes there may be no outlay in your case but i just think it's unfair to include the expense of a macbook/mac mini into the cost of an iOS app if you're not going to include the cost of a windows pc/laptop for an android app or windows phone app or anything non iOS based. This isn't pointed solely at you btw just in general.

Tar.Aldarion · 24-03-2014 12:18am

Not really failr but it's just a more realistic thing in my experience, take any of my family, or friends, or work colleagues, we all have windows/linux machines by default as entertainment or working devices. It's just something people already have more often when they are not developing apps already.

ressem · 24-03-2014 12:47am

skulltown wrote: »

Hey,

Guys I was thinking of designing and app for my phone nothing special just want to try something with GPS tracking. I have some experience in Java, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. I just need a starting point. As in development software, Books, Technology's.

Thanks

As a starting point, it might be valuable just to see how much you can accomplish with a HTML5 page.
http://diveintohtml5.info/geolocation.html
and the code that you're familiar with.

The Corinthian · 24-03-2014 8:21am

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

yes there may be no outlay in your case but i just think it's unfair to include the expense of a macbook/mac mini into the cost of an iOS app if you're not going to include the cost of a windows pc/laptop for an android app or windows phone app or anything non iOS based. This isn't pointed solely at you btw just in general.

Why is it unfair not to include the cost of a windows pc/laptop?

From both an economic and accounting point of view, the PC has already been paid for. It's not only used as a machine for developing Android apps, but likely other kinds of software development, for email and administration and even as a personal machine for entertainment purposes.

So when you look at adding a piece of hardware to your stock, what is the marginal utility of that hardware?

Pretty much any use for a computer is already covered, bar iOS development. And what is the value of that development, and does it justify the investment for a device that serves only one use? Of course, if you land a contract for a client to build an iOS app, and the budget makes buying such a machine worthwhile, then happy days, but if we're talking speculative "move into iOS development and see if it pays for itself", then it becomes a far more dubious proposition.

The only valid argument for doing so I can think of is if one decided to migrate to Apple; that is where their work machine becomes one for developing Android apps, but also other kinds of software development, for email and administration and even as a personal machine for entertainment purposes, and is migrated to an Apple machine. If you're an inde developer who specilizes in the consumer app market, then it's a no-brainer to do this.

So this can be viable, and I've already suggested to scenarios where it is, but generally comes with two caveats. The first is that any such migration comes not simply with the financial cost of buying the machine, but the cost in time and materials of the migration; replacing PC software for equivalent iOS software, converting documents, the time spent setting it all up and learning how to optimally use a new system, and so on.

Even if you're willing to do that, the deal-breaker (at least for me) can be where you need a Windows machine for some or most of your work. Sure, you can use Mono for dotNet development, but it's not quite the same thing as MS Visual Studio. Or you could be developing executables, such as fat clients, for Win32 - where are you going to develop and test them?

As you can see, you can quickly end up in a situation where migrating becomes impractical or frankly not worth the effort and unless the cost of buying a one-trick-pony dev machine is covered; the financial outlay becomes an indulgence.

It's important to point out that none of the above implies that iOS is any better or worse than a Windows PC. Or Linux powered computer. Or Solaris. Or FreeBSD. Which is why it pissed me off so much that the moment I dared to suggest this, people had to chime in how wonderful iOS machines are. I don't care how wonderful they are - it's not the reason why getting one doesn't make sense for me and others and this knee-jerk need to run to their defence is just tedious noise.

Linux enthusiasts used to do the same thing. At least they grew out of it.

moycullen14 · 24-03-2014 10:00am

The Corinthian wrote: »

Why is it unfair not to include the cost of a windows pc/laptop?

From both an economic and accounting point of view, the PC has already been paid for. It's not only used as a machine for developing Android apps, but likely other kinds of software development, for email and administration and even as a personal machine for entertainment purposes.

So when you look at adding a piece of hardware to your stock, what is the marginal utility of that hardware?

Pretty much any use for a computer is already covered, bar iOS development. And what is the value of that development, and does it justify the investment for a device that serves only one use? Of course, if you land a contract for a client to build an iOS app, and the budget makes buying such a machine worthwhile, then happy days, but if we're talking speculative "move into iOS development and see if it pays for itself", then it becomes a far more dubious proposition.

The only valid argument for doing so I can think of is if one decided to migrate to Apple; that is where their work machine becomes one for developing Android apps, but also other kinds of software development, for email and administration and even as a personal machine for entertainment purposes, and is migrated to an Apple machine. If you're an inde developer who specilizes in the consumer app market, then it's a no-brainer to do this.

So this can be viable, and I've already suggested to scenarios where it is, but generally comes with two caveats. The first is that any such migration comes not simply with the financial cost of buying the machine, but the cost in time and materials of the migration; replacing PC software for equivalent iOS software, converting documents, the time spent setting it all up and learning how to optimally use a new system, and so on.

Even if you're willing to do that, the deal-breaker (at least for me) can be where you need a Windows machine for some or most of your work. Sure, you can use Mono for dotNet development, but it's not quite the same thing as MS Visual Studio. Or you could be developing executables, such as fat clients, for Win32 - where are you going to develop and test them?

As you can see, you can quickly end up in a situation where migrating becomes impractical or frankly not worth the effort and unless the cost of buying a one-trick-pony dev machine is covered; the financial outlay becomes an indulgence.

It's important to point out that none of the above implies that iOS is any better or worse than a Windows PC. Or Linux powered computer. Or Solaris. Or FreeBSD. Which is why it pissed me off so much that the moment I dared to suggest this, people had to chime in how wonderful iOS machines are. I don't care how wonderful they are - it's not the reason why getting one doesn't make sense for me and others and this knee-jerk need to run to their defence is just tedious noise.

Linux enthusiasts used to do the same thing. At least they grew out of it.

You really don't see that what you are doing is denigrating one platform ('one trick pony', etc) and complaining about other people evangelising it (which, on the whole, they weren't). In certain scenarios, the mac ecosystem is 'worth' it, in others it isn't. Simple as that. Although it is hard to see how anyone serious about mobile development (enterprise or consumer) can 'ignore' iOS. Leave it at that.

The Corinthian · 24-03-2014 10:21am

moycullen14 wrote: »

You really don't see that what you are doing is denigrating one platform ('one trick pony', etc) and complaining about other people evangelising it (which, on the whole, they weren't).

To begin with I am not denigrating one platform, I am assessing the value of one platform in a particular scenario. If you're buying one platform solely for one purpose, then it is a one trick pony - if you were on iOS and had to buy a Windows PC only because you wanted to produce Win32 executables, that too would be a one-trick-pony scenario. So it's really got nothing to do with the platform itself, just the utility of any platform given circumstances and business needs.

And what do you mean people "on the whole" were not evangelising? So you're accepting that they were a little bit? That ultimately those contributions were OT and superfluous?

In certain scenarios, the mac ecosystem is 'worth' it, in others it isn't. Simple as that.

Which I've said several times - of course, when someone block quotes you, it tends to be a give-away that they've not read your post properly, so I'm not hugely surprised you missed it.

Although it is hard to see how anyone serious about mobile development (enterprise or consumer) can 'ignore' iOS. Leave it at that.

Firstly, no one said anything about ignoring it. It can make far more sense to out-or-near-source any iOS version development, especially if it involves multi-platform framework, rather than native, code.

Secondly, you've clearly not done much enterprise mobile work. Any I've done, has specified a platform for rollout. In some cases, even the device model, some of which were custom designed, were pinned down.

And finally, you confuse "serious" with exclusive; which is another point I covered and you've not bothered to read.

Seriously, just stop. It's embarrassing.

Phone App devemopment

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