1. technology and computing
2. consumer electronics
3. telephones
4. mobile phones
5. smart phones

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Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and
anecdotal evidence. Although the author and publisher have made every reasonable
attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this Guide, they assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions. Also, you should use this information as you
see fit, and at your own risk. Your particular situation may not be exactly suited to the
examples illustrated here; in fact, it's likely that they won't be the same, and you
should adjust your use of the information and recommendations accordingly.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to
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Nothing in this Guide is intended to replace common sense, legal, medical or other
professional advice, and is meant to inform and educate the reader. Have fun and
good luck!
Copyright © 2011 Free the Apps! All rights reserved worldwide.
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Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1: Free the Apps .................................................................................................................. 5
The Co-founders ............................................................................................................................ 5
How the Company Started ............................................................................................................. 5
Our Applications ............................................................................................................................ 6
Chapter 2: The Secret to How We Get Things Done ....................................................................... 15
Chapter 3: The New Gold Rush ....................................................................................................... 17
Success Stories of Other Applications .......................................................................................... 19
Chapter 4: Business First ................................................................................................................. 21
A Business Entity: ........................................................................................................................ 21
Types of Businesses and Why They Matter .................................................................................. 24
How to Setup Your Own Business Entity ...................................................................................... 26
Your Business Bank Account ........................................................................................................ 28
DBA ("Doing Business As") ........................................................................................................... 29
Entering the App Store Without a Business .................................................................................. 30
Chapter 5: Getting Started: (Hardware and Developer’s Account)................................................. 31
Hardware: ................................................................................................................................... 31
Software: ..................................................................................................................................... 31
How to Enter The iPhone Developer Program .............................................................................. 32
Registration Completed ............................................................................................................... 35
Chapter 6: Your First Application .................................................................................................... 37
Identify Your Audience ................................................................................................................ 38
Categories ................................................................................................................................... 38
Putting Your Ideas On Paper ........................................................................................................ 40
Chapter 7: How To Outsource Your Application ............................................................................ 44
Where to Find Them .................................................................................................................... 44
Elance.......................................................................................................................................... 44
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Odesk .......................................................................................................................................... 45
Web Searches .............................................................................................................................. 46
How to POST Your First Job Description ....................................................................................... 46
The DETAILED Job Description ..................................................................................................... 52
What to Look For Once You Get Bids for Your Project .................................................................. 54
The Graphic Artist ........................................................................................................................ 59
Communicating with Your Virtual Assistants ................................................................................ 61
Chapter 8: Testing Your New Application ....................................................................................... 66
Ad Hoc File Installation: ............................................................................................................... 66
Source Code File Installation: ....................................................................................................... 68
Installing your application to your device ..................................................................................... 70
Chapter 9: Everything About Pricing your Application-Free or Paid ................................................ 78
Pros & Cons of Paid Applications ................................................................................................. 78
The Best of Both Worlds - Creating a Lite Version ........................................................................ 81
Chapter 10: The Submission Overview Process ............................................................................... 82
Getting your application ready for submission ............................................................................. 82
Submitting Your Application ........................................................................................................ 89
Application Submitted ................................................................................................................. 90
Chapter 11: After Submission ......................................................................................................... 91
Create a Website for Your Application ......................................................................................... 91
Your Social Media Presence ......................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 12: After Your App Is Approved ......................................................................................... 97
Update the Availability Date ........................................................................................................ 97
Utilize Your Promo Codes ............................................................................................................ 98
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 100
3
Introduction
Have you ever noticed, that some of the greatest things in your life seem to begin
with an ordinary moment? Purchasing this manual might have seemed like one of
those ordinary moments. But, we promise you there is the potential, within these
pages, to change your life.
The beauty of technology today, the Internet in particular, is that it allows you access
to anything you could imagine. And with that access comes the capability to network
with others who have skills you lack, individuals who can turn your dreams into
reality. That's what you've done by purchasing this manual. You've connected with
our knowledge and skills. We're about to show you how to connect with the rest of
who and what you need to have success in the iPhone Application realm.
Our 'ordinary moment' occurred in San Diego, CA - Over a round of golf, we
discussed a new application that we had read about on a few blogs. It was "iFart".
"iFart" had made $40,000 over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In many
households, that's a fulltime salary for an entire year! If an app making fart noises
could succeed then why couldn’t we?
We had no idea Apple's App Store had this kind of reach. We had plenty ideas of our
own. "There's an app for that" is a common phrase that we have heard over and over
again in the countless commercials aired on TV. Everyone says, "what if they had an
app for this or what if they had an app for that?" There are millions of ideas and
along with those countless ideas, are countless questions. And, while the marketing
as of late has been, "There's and app for everything" there is still room for your app.
Throughout our experience, we have learned invaluable lessons and have made
plenty of mistakes. We realized people of all skill levels are capable of translating
their ideas into working applications. Anyone from your everyday eBay shopper to a
blogger, can learn how to create iPhone applications without any experience of
programming.
In two months, we have grossed over $100,000. With all of our hard work, we can
now reap the benefits of passive income. Once your app is up and running, there is
little to no maintenance. You will be reaching hundreds of millions of users 24/7.
That's the beauty of the app store.
4
Chapter 1: Free the Apps
The Co-founders
We, Quoc Bui and Michael Moon, are the co-founders of Free the Apps!, Moon
Apps, Pici Apps, Hipposoft, and Thinking Drone LLC. As San Diego natives and
childhood friends, we started our entrepreneurial ventures together with a couple of
simple ideas.
Apps range from simple, short, and sweet to complex and
complicated. You only have to be creative enough to come up with an idea. This
manual will show you how to do the rest.
Our success has provided us with the luxury of passive income and freed up more
time to enjoy the things we love. Our most successful application up to date
(1/20/10) has reached a high of rank #3 in the entire app store out of 145,603 total
applications. We started by outsourcing one application and have used the profits
from that application to start many more. We currently have over 20 live applications
that are earning us passive income in the Apple iTunes App Store.
How the Company Started
One of the objectives in our first application was to keep it simple, but useful. (We
will go into detail about "why?" later).
Being avid iPhone users and fans of many photography applications, we began
creating apps in this category and branched out to other categories later on. From
this, "Free the Apps!" was born. We noticed that the iPhone lacked the ability to crop
photos, so we decided to create an application to do this and only this for free. It was
very simple. The application allowed the user to select a photo and then crop it.
That's it. Nothing else. No bells and whistles.
We wanted to offer the application for free, but we still needed a way to monetize it
to cover our costs. We decided to use Admob and put an unobtrusive banner on the
top of our app. "Crop for Free" was a hit and became the #1 photography application
in the Apple App Store for a few months. It was even mentioned in the article
"Bringing Big Smiles to iPhone Shutterbugs" from the New York Times.
5
Crop for Free #1 Top Free
Photography
HDR for Free #2 Top Free
Photography (Aug 21, 2009)
Crop for Free is the icon for
Photography (Aug 21, 2009)
Our Applications
Thinking Drone LLC currently has 35 applications on the Apple iTunes App store
with over 30 million downloads (statistics as of 3/16/11). We have reached the #1
spot in Photography and the #1 spot in Utilities a number of times. The highest
ranking we have hit was #3 overall in the entire Apple iTunes App Store. The
following are some numbers for three of our applications (two free applications and
one paid).
6
Flash for Free (statistics as of 3/16/11):
 Highest downloads in a single day: 78,752
 Total Downloads All time: 3,522,634
 Highest rank reached: #7 Overall, #1 Top Free Utilities
Flash for Free #13 Top Free
Overall (Aug 21, 2009)
7
Green Screen Studio (statistics as of 3/16/11):
 Highest downloads in a single day: 242 (at $2.99)
 Total Downloads All time: 25,514
 Highest rank reached: #13 Top Paid Photography
8
Convert for Free (statistics as of 3/16/11):
 Highest downloads in a single day: 101,443
 Total Downloads All time: 8,697,785
 Highest rank reached: #3 Overall, #1 Top Free Utilities
Convert for Free #3 Top Free
Overall (Nov 23, 2009)
Convert for Free is the icon for
Utilities (Nov 23, 2009)
9
Panorama Free (statistics as of 3/16/2011)
 Highest downloads in a single day: 57,774
 Total Downloads All time: 584,613
 Highest rank reached: #21 Top Free Overall, #1 Top Free Photography
Panorama Free #21 Top Free
Overall (Jan 15, 2011)
10
Earnings
We know you are interested in the revenue involved in the iPhone application
market. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this book. Let's face it! You want to
know if you can make enough money for this venture to be 'worth it'. So let's look at
some numbers. Note that in November, we began transitioning our ads over to
Google Adsense.
November 2009:
Free the Apps!
Google Adsense: $15,873.57
Admob: $5,600.72
Moon Apps
Apple: $4,720.45
Admob: $1,151.21
Hipposoft
Apple: $3,435.41
Total Earnings: $30,781.36
December 2009:
Free the Apps!
Google Adsense: $54,657.95
Admob: $1,020.74
Moon Apps
Apple: $3,627.36
Admob: $688
Hipposoft
Apple: $9,851.81
Total Earnings: $69,845.86
January 2009:
Free the Apps!
Google Adsense: $51,884.56
Admob: $121.68
Moon Apps
Apple: $4,769.93
Admob: $301
Hipposoft
Apple: $6,850.35
Total Earnings: $63,927.52
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January 2011:
Free the Apps!
Apple iAd: $ 30,668.54
Google Adsense: $38,188.11
Admob: $ 2,715.59
Moon Apps
Apple: $2,250.94
Admob: $1,175.15
Hipposoft
Apple: $2,454.63
Total Earnings: $77,452.96
Christmas this year was great for ALL developers in the Apple App Store!
Shown above are the earnings for November 2009 to January 2010 and newly
added January 2011. From November to December, we were personally invited by a
representative from the Adsense team over at Google to join their beta program for
mobile applications. Google Adsense for mobile applications was not yet open to the
12
public and was by invite only, so we were very fortunate to have been presented with
this opportunity.
By January 2009, the only money we were still getting from Admob-FreeTheApps
was from users who hadn't updated their applications to use Google Adsense. We
started 2010 with Dash of Color FREE as the #1 Photography app and many more
applications in development.
As you can see in January 2011, we started using Apple iAd. Nowadays we run and
maintain an $800,000 a year business, making apps with no programming
experience whatsoever. If you had asked me whether we could do this in early 2009
I would have said it was impossible. The idea to outsource our business was the
single smartest decision we made.
13
Splash of Color FREE (Now known
as Dash of Color FREE) is the icon
for Photography (Dec 29, 2009)
Splash of Color FREE (Now known
as Dash of Color FREE) #1 Top
Free Photography (Dec 29, 2009)
14
Chapter 2:
The Secret to How We Get Things Done
You've reached the most important section of this book--the secret to how we get so
much done without any programming experience and minimal time spent on our part.
Here we will talk to you about outsourcing, why we chose to take this route, and why
it was the best decision we ever made.
The truth is that we actually have some experience with computer programming, but
not with Objective-C which is the language that is used to write iPhone applications.
Now I could've just picked up a book, read a tutorial, and tried to get the hang of it.
But I knew that it would take me 2 to 3 times as long to finish an application as
opposed to hiring an expert. I would have wasted hours of my time trying to figure
out little quirks of the programming language that would have taken an expert
minutes.
By outsourcing all tasks such as data entry, app programming, graphic design, voice
acting, etc. we’ve been able to release more than 20 apps in the app store. If we had
decided to do it all ourselves we would have been lucky to release more than 3 apps
in that amount of time.
One of the coolest things about outsourcing your work half way around the world is
that your work is getting done as you sleep. You write a couple feedback emails to
your service providers, to keep them on track, before you go to bed. They work their
hours while you sleep and you get results when you wake up in the morning. It is a
good feeling to know that you have people from different parts of the world, working
on your projects around the clock while you’re eating, sleeping, or doing whatever
else to make the most of your day.
Freeing up your time by outsourcing also allows you to do the things that are more
important to you. Things like spending time with family, friends, working out, playing
a sport, learning a new language, take an acting class, anything but working 8 hours
a day for someone else. The times that you are working for yourself you feel so
much more productive and accomplished than the 40 hours a week you used to
spend at your day job.
How much is your time really worth? Some people prefer to do everything
themselves and consider themselves hands on, but sometimes it just isn’t worth it.
Doing things yourself as opposed to hiring an expert may save money, but there are
many times when you’ll run into a problem, whether you’re installing your own
kitchen cabinets or programming an iPhone app. Chances are you’re going to run
into a situation that will take you hours to solve.
15
If you had hired an expert, they probably would have run into the same problem
many times and would have fixed it in 10 minutes. In the end, the time that you save
you could have been working on other projects to build income, spending time with
family, or taking a new class to learn something fun and new.
With outsourcing, the limits to what you can accomplish are now only limited to your
ideas. We have used outsourcing to complete every aspect of our iPhone projects.
From $1.22/hour for someone in India to gather data off a website and input it into
excel spreadsheets, to voice actor recordings for medical pronunciations, to graphic
design and iPhone application development.
This book will walk you through, give you tips and show you exactly how easy it is to
make your iPhone application idea come to life. What you learn in this book won’t be
limited tojust iPhone apps though, remember using the online resources we give
you, you’ll be able to outsource just about any project or idea you may have.
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Chapter 3: The New Gold Rush
The Apple App Store is currently the largest mobile applications store on the market.
It creates an environment that allows developers to reach millions of users. And, the
best news of all is that, you and I, average people so to speak can become
developers with a few simple steps.
Until recently, there has been no realistic way for individual programmers to "strike it
rich". The software market is dominated by big time companies and the traditional
distribution method for independent developers reaches a very limited amount of
potential consumers.
By contrast, Apple’s iTunes App Store provides a platform for marketing, selling and
distributing software. The only thing a developer needs is a good idea and some
working code. Let's take a look at some interesting facts:
 There have been over 90 million iPhones sold.
(as of Feb 18, 2011)
 There have been over 45 million iPod Touches sold.
(as of Sep 7, 2010)
 There have been over 15 million iPads sold.
(as of Feb 18, 2011)
 The app store has exceeded 10 billion downloads.
(as of Jan 22, 2011)
 There are over 400,000 live apps currently on the app store.
(as of Jan 22, 2011)
During the iPad unveiling on January 27, 2010, Steve Jobs quoted, "Another thing
we're excited about is that there's already 75 million people who know how to use
this because of how many iPhones and iPod touches we've shipped."
While you might have thought that the number of apps currently available leaves no
room for you, that simply just doesn't make any sense. With all the iPhones, iPods,
17
and iPads that have been sold and are being sold daily your potential for success
continues to grow. These numbers speak for themselves.
The number of iOS devices available is now over 150 million, with iPad sales alone
estimated to reach 45 million units in 2011. With the upcoming release of the iPhone
5 and iPad 2, these numbers show no signs of slowing down, in fact the general
consensus is that the numbers are only going up.
Even better Apple has now allowed the iPhone to be sold through the Verizon
network, effectively doubling the potential subscriber base. On the very first day they
were available on pre-order, Verizon sold 250,000 iPhones. You are not too late to
get in on the action. There is almost unlimited potential.
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Success Stories of Other Applications
There have been many success stories with applications in the app store, but we will
look at three cases specifically. Two of these are paid applications and two free.
Tap Tap Revenge (free):
You have to give props where they are due.
Tapulous, the minds behind Tap Tap Revenge
generate $1 million in monthly revenue all from a
free app
Within 20 days of release they had almost 1 million
downloads. Three sequels later the number is over
15 million downloads and one of the best selling
franchises of all time.
Really puts things into perspective doesn't it? A
study by comScore in April 2009 claimed that 1 in 3
iPhone users had downloaded the game, and now they work with music labels and
major artists, releasing purchasable add-ons and sequels for the game.
iShoot:
iShoot is a tank artillery game for
$2.99 that also hit the #1 spot on
Apple's
App
Store.
The
developer, Ethan Nicholas, told
Wired.com that he quit his job
the day iShoot hit #1, earning
him $37,000 in a single day. In
one month, iShoot raked in
$600,000 for Ethan.
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Sound Grenade (free):
Sound Grenade is an application created by a dynamic duo
from New Zealand. The developers claimed that it took
about 30 minutes to finish from start to end and had about
10 lines of code.
The application is very simple. When activated, Sound
Grenade produces an ear piercing high pitched noise that
would drive anyone crazy.
In less than two weeks, their app spread like wildfire,
passing 1.25 million downloads. They generated over
$10,000 from Admob in less than one week, hitting
$200/hour from ad revenue at their peak.
Doodle Jump:
Doodle Jump is about guiding your “Doodler” up
an unending series of platforms by tilting your
phone to gain a high score.
Since being released by Lima Sky in April 2009,
Doodle Jump has totaled over $5 million in sales
and topping out at a whopping 28,000 downloads
per day. Each of those costing only 99 cents.
Not bad for a small indie development firm.
20
Chapter 4: Business First
When signing up for your Developer's Account (which we'll talk more about later),
you have the option of signing up either as a business entity, or under your personal
name. There are pros and cons to each, which we'll cover in this section.
Disclaimer: All of these options have pros and cons. You will need to decide what is
the right choice for you. Please consider your options carefully, and seek advice
from others more knowledgeable than us if you are interested in pursuing either of
these routes. We are NOT lawyers, and this section is NOT intended as legal
advice. We strongly suggest you get advice from a lawyer to help make your own
business decisions.
A Business Entity:
The Good
People start businesses for many reasons. Whether it's for personal fulfillment, or to
take advantage of certain tax write-offs that can save you some cash. Creating a
business entity is definitely something you should at least consider before entering
the app store with your first app.
Below is an outline that tells you exactly why we decided to invest some time into
creating our own business entity.
1. Liability
A properly formed and managed business entity creates a legally enforceable layer
of protection between you as an individual and your business.
In other words, if you setup your business correctly, your personal assets won't be in
harm's way if things go wrong (i.e. getting sued or not being able to pay off debts,
etc.).
2. Tax Advantages
If you start your own business, you have the ability to take advantage of certain tax
benefits. For example, you may be able to write-off certain pieces of equipment that
you use for your business, or if you work from home, you may even be able to write
off some of your mortgage or rent. Doing this can save you and your business a lot
of money.
21
There are a lot of rules and regulations regarding what can and cannot be written off,
so we definitely advise seeking the advice of a certified-personal accountant to help
you figure those things out.
3. Professionalism
If you have a company name attached to your application, chances are that your app
may be perceived as having more value.
It's the difference between buying a car from a dealership, versus Joe Shmoe down
the street. A dealership will usually (and hopefully) sell you a car that is in good
working condition and they'll be there to go to, for support, later on if needed. Joe
Shmoe is just a dude selling you a car - who knows exactly how it will turn out.
Having a company tied to your application can be especially useful when it comes to
how you are perceived by other companies and websites who may be accepting
reviews for new applications.
4. Easier to Sell / Get Bought Out
To further our last point, if you're ever thinking about selling your applications, not
individually on iTunes, but rather your entire app as a property to someone else, it's
much easier legally for this to happen if you're a company.
For some, this isn't an issue, but there are plenty of people looking for an "exit plan"
and hoping to get bought out. If that sounds like you, you'll have a better chance of
selling if you're a company.
The Bad
Although creating a business identity has its advantages, there are a few things you
should think about first.
1. Money
In order to setup your business legally, you will have to pay some money up front,
and depending on which state you file in, you may have additional costs as well. For
instance, in the state of California, there is a minimum annual $800 tax fee (in
addition to the normal taxes owed based on earnings) that all LLCs (limited liability
corporation) must pay.
22
The exact cost for setting up your own business depends on what kind of business
entity you create, as well as how you get it done. We'll give you a summary of
exactly how we got our business established and how very little we actually ended
up paying later in this section.
2. Time to Get Approved
When submitting your application to Apple as a business, it will take longer than if
you were to do it just as yourself. The reason is because Apple wants to make sure
your business name and everything related to your business is legal, rightly so.
If you have time, this isn't that big of a deal, but for those of you who want to get an
app in the app store by yesterday, it can be very frustrating waiting for your approval
notice.
Additionally, all of the banking information and where to deposit your earnings all
have to be approved as well. We'll talk more about business banking at the end of
this section.
3. Managing Finances
Managing finances as a business is a lot more complicated than if you were simply
earning money on your own behalf. Everything from what you spend to what you
earn has to be tracked and kept in the books correctly for tax filing every single year.
Luckily, Apple does provide us with some kind of documentation and overall
earnings reports, but you may wish to invest in a bookkeeping program such as
Quickbooks, or in an actual bookkeeper or CPA (certified professional accountant) to
help you with your finances.
Lastly, you must keep your business expenses and your personal expenses
separate, especially if you're setting up a single-member LLC. If you don't, the
protection that you have as an LLC can be compromised, and if you get audited you
can get into a bit of trouble. For many people, it can be difficult to keep track of all of
the financial aspects of running an actual business and keeping things separate as
they should.
23
Types of Businesses and Why They Matter
Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, Limited Liability Corporation, S Corporation - these
are just a few of the types of businesses that you can choose from. You'll have to
decide which is the best for you and your situation, but we'll give you a quick
rundown of most of your choices. Of course, as we said before, we are not lawyers
and we advise that you seek professional advice before making any important
business decisions such as this.
1. Sole Proprietorship
A sole proprietorship is a business that is owned by a single individual, and is
probably the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to create a business entity. There is
no paperwork that needs to be filed with the state, and the only real expenses you
have are from filing a DBA (Doing Business As) with a local or state office, and any
other state fees that may apply.
Additionally, there is no separate income tax filing needed for the company. All
income and losses are reported on the business owner's personal tax return.
The downside to having a sole proprietorship is that the owner is personally
responsible for all of the debts of the company. Basically, the asset protection benefit
that we talked about in the last section is totally non-existent.
2. Partnership
A partnership is another business that is fairly easy to establish with 2 or more
owners of the business. Again, no paperwork has to be filed with the state, but there
is a bit of work that needs to be done in regards to the agreements between the
multiple owners of the business.
For example, partner agreements have to be written which clearly define the rights
and responsibilities of each partner, including the amount that each partner will
contribute, what will happen if more money is needed, the distribution of profits and
losses, who is in charge of what, and what happens if a business partner leaves the
company or dies. There's obviously a lot to think about, so if you're planning on
doing a partnership, be sure both you and your partner(s) take the proper time to talk
things all the way through.
It's relatively easy to start a partnership, compared other business entities which we'll
talk about later, and taxes are dealt with in the same manner as a sole proprietorship
- the profits and losses get passed through to the individual business owners.
24
The downside of a partnership is that all partners are personally liable for the debts
of the business, and all partners are responsible for the business-related actions of
all other partners.
3. Corporation
This is the most common business structure, however we're not sure if this holds
true for those who enter the app store as a business.
The good thing about a corporation is that the business is treated like a separate
legal entity (almost like a whole new person), that is owned by shareholders. The
shareholders are protected from debts and liabilities of the company, so that means
if the company gets sued, only the company as a separate entity has to pay for the
debts.
There are various types of corporations, such as a "C" corp., an "S" corp., a
professional corporation, and a non-profit. Although we won't cover the details of
each and every type here, we will tell you some of what turned us off from becoming
a corporation.
First of all, there is a lot more paper work involved. A lot.
Secondly, depending on which type of corporation you choose, you could be taxed
by what's called "double taxation", meaning the profits of the company get taxed at
the corporate level, and then again at the individual tax return level.
Many people, however, are ok with these things and find that starting a corporation is
the best way to go, not only because of the protection that it grants its owner, but
also because it's much easier to get funding and strike deals with other companies.
4. Limited Liability Company (LLC)
An LLC is like the best of all of the above business structures. Although it's not a
corporation, it still provides that corporate-like protection that most professional
business owners are looking for.
Additionally, an LLC can choose how they want to be taxed: as a sole proprietor, a
partnership (if applicable), a "C" corp, or an "S" corp, and profits and losses are
simply reported on the owners' individual tax returns.
There is also far less paperwork involved, and setting up an LLC is relatively easy. In
the next section, we'll go over exactly how easy it was to created our Limited Liability
Company, and how you can do it too.
25
Before that, we should mention that depending on which state you file in, you may be
required to pay a franchise tax, which is basically an annual fee just for having the
LLC. Also, it can be fairly difficult to manage to keep your business and personal
finances separate, which MUST be done in order to properly run your LLC.
Again, we chose to go with an LLC, but your particular business structure is up to
you. As always, you should first consult with your professional Lawyer or CPA for
advice on how you should proceed in your particular situation.
How to Setup Your Own Business Entity
You could hire a lawyer to help setup your business entity, however thanks to
LegalZoom.com, starting your business is really simple. Here is the basic outline of
what you have to do:
1. Before anything, you need to determine what the address of your company
will be. You COULD use your home address, however it is not recommended,
because again you should do all you can to separate your business from your
personal activities.
What you need to do is purchase a mailbox, however it cannot be at the post
office. The state will not accept applications that have a P.O. box as the
address.
So what can you do?
What we did was simply use a mailbox address from a local UPS store. The
cost widely varies by location, but expect to pay roughly $150 for 6 months for
the smallest size (you don't need anything larger), although you can get an
even better deal by signing on for a longer period of time. The trick is, you can
use your mailbox number as a suite number, so it looks like a real business
address.
For example, if you picked up mailbox #123 at the UPS store located at 456
Main Street, your business address might look like this:
456 Main Street, Suite #123
We used our UPS store mailbox address for signing up for our LLC and in the
app store as well.
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2. Visit http://www.legalzoom.com, and choose the business structure that you
want to create. (For the purposes of this section, we'll specifically discuss
starting an LLC, since that is the most common type of business structure
formed and the one we're most familiar with. Legalzoom does a great job of
walking you step by step through exactly what you need to do, no matter what
type of business you choose).
3. Click on "Get Started", and begin to answer the questionnaire.
4. You'll first be prompted to register for an account, which you can do by
following the instructions on the screen. You'll be asked to confirm the email
before proceeding, so be sure to use a real email address, and double check
your entry.
5. Finish the questionnaire. If you're having trouble with some of the questions,
Legalzoom provides you with some nice examples of what other people are
answering for those particular questions.
Furthermore, you'll be asked about whether or not you'd like LegalZoom to
take care of an EIN (employer identification number) for you. Definitely say
yes, because you will be required to have an EIN in order to setup a business
banking account and get paid by Apple. There will be a small fee, but you'll
have to do this anyways, so you might as well let Legalzoom handle it for you.
Also, you'll be asked if you want Legalzoom to act as a "registered agent". A
registered agent is a business or individual that is designated to receive
certain paperwork, especially those regarding any legal actions taken against
your company, such as a summons. You are required to have a registered
agent, so it's really easy just to have Legalzoom become the agent for your
business. Again, there's a small fee involved.
6. Lastly, you'll be asked what kind of package you want: Economy, Standard, or
Express Gold.
They each have different price ranges (Economy being the cheapest, of
course), and come with different features.All you need is the Economy
package, which gives you the basics needed in order to properly form your
business.
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Do note that if you choose the economy package, processing your business
with the state can take up to 35 days, which is definitely a long time, so be
sure to plan ahead if you're interested in setting up a launch date of any kind
for your app.
Quick Tip: The Standard package has a shorter waiting period, but is much
more expensive, as it does come with some other things to go along with it. If
you simply want the Economy package, but want it to be processed sooner,
you can call Legalzoom, give them your confirmation number that is given after
you setup your business, and tell them you want to get your business
application expedited. There is an extra fee, but it's cheaper than going with the
Standard package.
After you submit your application, it's basically just a waiting game. Until you
have your Employer Identification Number (EIN, which is kind of like a social
security number for your business), Operations Agreement and Articles of
Organization, you can't get a business banking account or a DBA, which we'll
talk about in the next section.
In the meantime, however, it might be a good idea to begin developing your
application if you have not yet done so already.
Your Business Bank Account
It's important for your business to have it's own bank account. At a minimum, you
need a checking account that is separate from your personal accounts and is under
your business's name.
You need a checking account in order to get paid. You can also use it to pay for
certain business related items, so you can write them off as tax deductions when the
time comes.
In order to get a business banking account, as we mentioned above, you're going to
need to wait to get your business application approved by the state, and all of the
forms to come in from LegalZoom. Most importantly, this includes your Employer
Identification Number, The Operations Agreement, and The Articles of Organization.
To be safe, just bring everything that Legalzoom sends you to the bank of your
choice.
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When you get to the bank, don't stand in line at the teller. Go to the side and speak
to someone who is usually sitting at one of those desks. You may need to sign up
on a list first in order to speak to someone. When asked what you need help with,
say that you'd like to open a business checking account, and then you should be
good to go.
Make sure you also have a form of identification on you, preferably a driver's license,
as well as $100 to deposit into your account, which is required by some banks in
order to open an account. We definitely recommend checking with your bank of
choice before you go in, so you'll know exactly what else you need.
The process usually takes about an hour, sometimes less, and the most important
thing to take away from the bank are a checking account number, as well as a
routing number for that specific bank.
DBA ("Doing Business As")
After you create your legal business entity, you can also get a DBA so you can also
legally do business under a different name.
So for example, you may have created your company as John Smith Enterprises, but
you can setup a DBA specifically for the app store called John Smith Mobile
Applications. This is fairly common, and can easily be done via Legalzoom for an
extremely reasonable price.
The entire process should take an additional 2 weeks maximum.
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Entering the App Store Without a Business
Besides entering the app store as a business, you have the option of entering under
your own name, without a business structure. Doing so requires much less
paperwork, takes much less time to get approved, and is obviously a bit cheaper.
That being said, there are a few drawbacks to entering the app store under your own
name that we'd like to mention:
 As we mentioned before, your name will show up under the name of your
applications in the app store. Some people may not want their real names to be
associated with their applications, and others want the professionalism of having a
company name behind their app.
 Because you don't have a corporation or LLC to protect you, you are personally liable
for any damages that your app may cause you. Personally, we haven't heard of any
apps causing any real issues for people, but people are suing people for anything these
days, so you put yourself at risk when you go in the app store as yourself.
 Lastly, you don't have the ability to write tax deductions and write-offs that normally
a business entity could take advantage of, which could potentially save one a lot of
money.
The decision is ultimately yours, and if you can, seek advice from professionals to
find out what's best for you.
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Chapter 5: Getting Started:
(Hardware and Developer’s Account)
There are a couple things that you definitely must have before you get started
developing iPhone applications. These are listed below
Hardware:
1. Some kind of Apple Computer – You will need this to install the iPhone
Software Development Kit (SDK) in order for you to run your applications that
your developers will be sending to you. We both started with 13 inch
Macbooks which worked great for everything we need to do. It is possible to
run the Mac operating system on a PC using virtual machine software, but
that is too complicated and doesn’t go along with the purpose of this book,
which is to do things as simply as possible. If you don’t already have a Mac,
just think of it as an investment into your new venture and remember that you
will also be able to write it off as a business expense at the end of the year.
2. iPhone or iPod Touch – You will need either an iPhone or iPod touch in order
to test your applications on a device. The iPhone SDK does come with an
iPhone simulator that you can run on your Mac, but that is not good enough.
You will also need to test your application on a device because the simulator
does not always work the same as an iPhone/iPod. *tip* Don’t forget this
device and a portion of your phone bill may also be a tax write off to any
income you’ll make off of your iPhone applications.
3. iPad – Almost everyone will want to start developing apps for the iPhone, but
if you have any inclination to release your app for the iPad as well, then you
absolutely need to buy one yourself for all the reasons mentioned above.
While the iPad is very similar to the iPhone (both use the same Developer
Kit), they are not the same device and have some different needs and
requirements especially regarding the user-interface. Read our bonus chapter
on the iPad for more details on how to make iPad apps.
Software:
iOS Developer Kit – You will need to be signed up under the Apple iOS Developer
Program and have downloaded the latest iOS SDK (Software Development Kit). This
will allow you to develop, run and install applications to your Apple devices. Start the
enrollment process here: http://developer.apple.com/programs/start/standard/
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How to Enter the iOS Developer Program
Apple does a great job at walking you through the enrollment process and making it
as painless as possible, and easily trackable using the status bar. Just read
everything thoroughly and follow the instructions. The process will involve entering
your information and then verifying your email address. After you verify your email
address you will be prompted to choose which Developer Program you are
registering for.
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The first thing they will ask is whether you want to register as a company, or an
individual. There are a couple differences between the Standard Individual and
Standard Company programs. We suggest that you initially sign up as a Standard
Individual and then just upgrade for free to the Standard Company later if you want.
Below we list the differences between the two.
For most of the people reading this book, one of the two Standard programs for
$99/year will be their best option. The Enterprise Program is for big corporations that
want to make in house applications that will not be publicly available on the iTunes
app store (and costs $299/year). *tip* Don’t forget this is another expense that you
can write-off.
There is also a free option available however you will not be able to submit apps to
the App Store, which kind of defeats the purpose of earning money with apps. If you
want to experiment for whatever reason then sign up by all means. Just remember to
upgrade to a paid membership when you want to submit apps.
Individual Program
 Much faster to get approved. 1 day instead of possibly weeks for the Company
program
 Your name (John Doe) will appear as the seller
 You will still get to choose your company name (Hipposoft)
 You can upgrade to a company and change your seller name later
Company Program
 You can have more members in your development team (this won’t be needed if you
are outsourcing your applications).
 Your company name will appear as the seller name. This is a small issue, but can
make your application seem more professional.
 As a business it is better to be doing business as your official business name
 Takes longer to setup because Apple will have you fax/send in papers to verify your
business.
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We first registered our company “Free the Apps!” as an Individual program and then
later upgraded it to a Company just like we suggested. The Seller used to be
“Michael Moon” but it is now “Thinking Drone, LLC”. As you can see that is the only
big difference between “Free the Apps!” and “Hipposoft” which has yet to be
switched over to a Company.
If you do decide to sign up as a Company, Apple will put your registration on hold
and require that you fax in one of your business documents that shows your
business name and address for them to verify your business belongs to you. Apple
will send you an email with a list of approved documents. This list may change
overtime as they don’t accept Fictitious Business Name statements or Doing
Business As (DBAs) anymore. This is the step that can take weeks to finally get your
registration approved. We suggest that you fax in your document and then call the
next day to check up on your registration. The list of phone numbers:
http://developer.apple.com/contact/phone.html
You should also call one of the numbers on that list when you are ready to upgrade
from an individual account to a company account.
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Registration Completed
Once your registration is completed and you have paid for your Developer Program,
you will be able to login to the iPhone Development Portal and download the latest
iOS SDK (Software Development Kit).
http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action#downloads
The iPhone Development Portal has many resources to help you get started that you
should go through when you have the time. The most important thing right now is to
find the Downloads section and download the correct iPhone SDK that corresponds
to your MAC OS.
Installing this on your MAC will also install xCode which will allow you to run iPhone
applications on your MAC and allow you to test and play with your applications that
are sent to you by your developers.
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Itunes Connect - itunesconnect.apple.com/
Itunes connect is your developer portal that you will use to submit and maintain your
applications. You will also need to update some business and financial contracts in
here before you start selling your applications.
Login to iTunes connect itunesconnect.apple.com/ and click on the “Contracts, Tax,
& Banking Information” link. There is a Paid Applications type contract on this screen
that will require you to fill out the financial contact info, bank info, and tax info. Make
sure to fill this information out correctly because this is how Apple will be paying you
for all of your applications sold. If you end up making a mistake on the bank or tax
info you might have to fax in the changes. (At the time of writing this, Apple doesn’t
allow for corrections to be made online). Once all of your information is filled in and
Apple reviews it, your contracts should be in effect and should look like the below
image. This might take up to a week or more depending on Apple.
You should now have everything setup and ready to go with all the logistics. There
are still a couple of programming certificates to setup before you can actually start
building and submitting applications but we will go over all of that in the upcoming
chapters as we walk you through your first iPhone application.
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Chapter 6: Your First Application
Now it's almost time to get started on your first app! Before we get started, we will
need to focus on planning. In this chapter, we will be going over the entire design
process with you to help get you on the right track. We will be getting your ideas and
thoughts onto paper and then translating them into solutions. The planning process
doesn't just end with the design. There is an entire marketing aspect too. You don't
want your great idea to flop because you priced it too high or you didn't know how to
get visibility. We will take you through, step by step, using our live application that is
in the Apple App Store as an example.
K.I.S.S.
Ever heard of K.I.S.S.? "Keep It Simple, Stupid". This principle applies perfectly to
creating applications. Why? There are a lot of reasons, but the most important ones
are cost, time, and risk. You don't want to be working on a project that is too
complicated. This will not only be expensive and take a long time to develop, but you
run the risk of losing everything you've invested into it. Your first application should
ideally be simple because it will be cheap, fast, and you will have gained that
invaluable experience.
Keeping it simple means cheaper apps. This translates to creating more applications
and generating more income. By having invested less money into developing this
application, you now have less financial risk. Just because the app is simple, doesn't
mean it won't be a hit. There are tons of simple apps out there that are huge hits
(e.g. Flashlight, Dog Whistle, etc).
The length of time for development is another key factor. You don't want your
application taking so long to develop that by the time you're finished, there will be
five more on the market just like it. There is still lots to be done after completing your
application. Marketing is a big part of making your application successful. You don't
want to waste most of your time waiting for development.
Low risk and high reward is one of the biggest perks of the iPhone apps business.
By keeping things simple, you keep your risk low, but still have the chance to churn
out that one "jackpot" app. You only need one hit to make it big. Even if your app
isn't a hit, you would have still gained experience that you can apply to future
projects.
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Identify Your Audience
Here's a question:
Who do you want to buy your app?
If you said everyone, then we've got a problem.
Have you ever heard of the saying: "There's Rich in the Niche"? Well, it's true. The
more you try and hone down who your target audience is, and forget trying to sell to
everyone, the more successful you and your application will be.
Try to sell to everyone, and your approach will be too general, and your results will
be mediocre at best.
So the real question is, who is your target audience?
The answer, obviously, depends on what kind of application you want to create, but
spending time to answer these questions will help you to determine exactly what you
want included in your application, as well as how to sell and market it.
This is why our app, drug Pronunciations, has done fairly well for us. It caters to a
very specific type of people (people in the medical field), who are looking for a very
specific type of information (help with pronunciations, which happens to be a very
important thing for people in the medical field to know). That is exactly who this app
is for. It's not for little 14 year old Jimmy who likes to play games, or Claire, the mom
from Indiana who loves to shop. It's for people in the medical field, namely those who
are studying medicine.
Categories
When you submit your application to the App Store for approval, you have to choose
a primary category, and a secondary category for which the app will be places within
the store.
The truth is, the secondary category doesn't really matter. We've never really seen
any major changes in sales or downloads based on which secondary category we
select. That being said, the primary category is everything.
The category that you place your app will have an effect on how many sales and
how many downloads it gets. It will also determine how easy it will be for you to rank
in the top lists, as well as how long your app will stay on the first "new releases" page
when it first comes out.
Here's a short briefing about some of the more notable categories that you can
choose from, just for your information.
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Entertainment: Entertainment is a tough, tough category to place yourself into. The
reason is because "entertainment" is so general, and so many new applications that
aren't necessarily related to each other are getting approved each day, which
minimizes your time exposed on the first page of the "new releases" section. That
being said, if you have the ability to create an app that cracks the top 100, you're
definitely going to see your downloads and sales skyrocket.
Games: The games category is another one of the most popular categories, and
plays just like the entertainment section. It's hard to get exposure, especially
because you're up against some of the major game companies in the industry. But
again, if you can crack the top 100, you're gold.
Healthcare & Fitness: Healthcare & Fitness is a very specific niche, which is why it's
one of the lesser popular categories in the app store. Accounting for only about 2%
of the apps available, getting into the top 100 list for a free or paid app if much easier
than the categories mentioned above. However, even the top apps may not get as
many downloads as some of the lower ranked applications in entertainment and
games.
Lifestyle: Lifestyle is an interesting category. Unfortunately, it's filled with apps about
girls, mates, and chicks, so you may find that you'll get bumped out of the first page
of the newly released section rather quickly.
There are a variety of random types of applications here, so you're putting yourself in
the spotlight of many different kinds of people. Finding a target niche here might
prove to be difficult.
But, you might be surprised to know that Lifestyle is actually one of the top
downloaded categories, with the 6th most applications in the app store.
Medical: The reason we like to talk about the Medical category, is of course because
we're using our example of Drug Pronunciations. Medical is one of the categories in
the app store with the least amount of applications, which is exactly why we chose it.
Music: Music is a semi-popular category, with about 1/4th the amount of applications
as entertainment or games. Of course, the iPhone and iPod Touch are also iPods,
so music is a big part of the user experience.
Besides music played from the music stored on the iPhone, there are numerous
amounts of instrumental apps which have become popular as well. Not as
competitive as some of the top apps, but it definitely still needs a good app to crack
the top 100.
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Photography: Photography is an excellent
category that we have a lot of experience in.
We don't want to say it's easy to get into the top
lists, because it does take a good application
and a bit or work to do so, but all of our
photography apps were able to be placed into
the top 100, for both paid and free applications.
In fact, several of our free apps took the
number one spot, including Crop for Free, and
Dash of Color Free, as you can see below:
We would rank this category a medium in size
(similar to Music) and medium in difficulty to
landing one of the top spots.
Social Networking: Although this is a less competitive category, there's only so much
that can be done with social networks, and to think that you're up against the major
players, such as Facebook, Twitter and all of the messenger clients - it will be very
difficult to see a lot of downloads/sales unless you were to come up with some
unique, brilliant idea or application.
Sports: Sports is a fairly popular category, with many apps that are specific to certain
teams for all types of sports. So, your chances of getting bumped off the newly
released list is fairly high for Sports, but if you can crack the top 100, you may stay
on there for quite a while.
Utilities: Utilities is one of the hardest categories to find a spot in the top 100 in,
mainly because there are a lot of good apps already available in it, covering a wide
variety of helpful things. Out of all of our apps, our unit conversion application,
Convert Units for FREE, has seen the most downloads, with over 2.7 million
downloads and counting.
Putting Your Ideas On Paper
Perhaps you've already written down a lengthy list of app ideas, for things you are
sure will be a big hit. But, you must learn how to be detailed and how to convey
those details to others. By implementing the tools within this section you will soon be
a pro at communicating exactly what you are envisioning in your head.
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Tools for Brainstorming and Idea Mapping
Even if you already have an idea for an iPhone application, brainstorming and idea
mapping are very important. As much as you might know about your app in your
head, you're going to need to write it down and flesh it out on paper so you can see
exactly how it's going to work, so you can then translate your ideas properly to the
developers who will be making the app for you.
Additionally, you'll be able to see exactly what parts are missing, or what needs to be
changed around before handing it off to the developer.
Seriously, this is one of the most important parts of the process, so don't get too far
ahead of yourself and make sure to at least do a wireframe, which we'll talk about
later in this section.
Here is a list and some links to certain tools that can help you take the app that's in
your head, and put it onto paper.
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Mind Maps:
A mind map is like a bubble diagram of your thoughts, and a roadmap for how
everything is connected together. With software such as mindmeister or FreeMind,
you'll be able to categories and put thoughts into a perfect hierarchy, which will help
you figure out what your app is all about, and what parts and sections are involved.
For example, check out a watered-down mind map below of our drug Pronunciations
application:
Collaboration:
Because we have more than one team member, we like to use Google Docs to sync
and share documents with each other. We use the word processor for sharing and
fine-tuning things like the app descriptions and keeping track of ideas, while we
utilize the spreadsheets to take care of data such as downloads, financing, etc.
Spec Writing:
Writing specifications, or in other words, a description of EXACTLY how your app will
work and what it will do, is a very important step. It's not only beneficial for you as the
creator of the application to fine tune exactly how you want the app to work, where
you want each button to go and graphic to be placed, but it's for the developer who
will be working on the project for you.
The more detail you can put into your specs, the less chance of any confusion
between you and the developer. Your job is to try and make it as easy as possible
for your developer to figure out what you want, and there's no better way to do this
than to write a set of specs.
So how do you write specs?
Well, there are several ways. One way is to do a bubble diagram, which is sort of like
the mind maps that we described above, however it can be difficult to visually see
exactly what you want going on, and what pages or screens you want to pop up from
where.
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An easier way is to create a wireframe, or a "storyboard" drawing of exactly what you
want to see on the iPhone's screen.
Simply take a sheet of paper, draw a rectangle that represent's the iPhone's screen,
and draw out what you want to see. Beside the rectangle, describe what the screen
is, and where it's going to lead. If there are buttons, draw arrows to another rectangle
that represents the screen that will show up when a user clicks on that particular
button, and so on and so forth.
If you take the time to do this, you're going to know the ins and outs of your app so
well, that you should have no trouble explaining any part of it to your developer if
they have any questions or concerns, and they will - so be ready for it.
If you're not much of an artist and you have trouble drawing, we recommend using a
tool found at Gliffy.com. Gliffy is a cool tool that allows you to draw flow charts, which
will again help you and the developer see exactly what goes where. Here's a quick
example:
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Chapter 7:
How To Outsource Your Application
This section is all about how to find the developer that is going to build your
application. It's very important that you pay close attention to everything that we're
about to tell you here, because it's the bread and butter of our success.
Again, we outsource the development of all of our applications, so we let the experts
do the hard work for us. Unfortunately, there are many developers out there who
claim to be experts, but are not. It's a very competitive market for iPhone developers,
so they're willing to bend the truth and do what it takes to get your business. Follow
our tips and give yourself the best chance of finding that perfect developer for your
iPhone application.
Where to Find Them
We like to say that there are three basic ways to find an application developer:
 On www.Elance.com
 On www.oDesk.com
 Through Google Searches
Elance and Odesk are basically like Ebay for software development (although many
other types of services can be hire for as well). First, you post a description for the
job that you want to be completed. People who are interested in your job will post a
bid and you get to choose the one that you want to work with. It sounds simple (and
relative to building and coding the application yourself, it is), however there's a lot
more to think about when choosing your developer.
Here, we'll give you a detailed look at each method so you can decide which one
works for you.
Elance
Elance is our top recommendation for finding your developer, primarily because
we've had a lot of success with it ourselves, and it's not very complicated to
understand.
Because it's one of the most popular outsourcing websites, you'll have a lot of
developers to choose from, all with different styles, price ranges and personalities.
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Handling business through Elance is excellent because they have a great record
keeping system, both for messages and for keeping track of finances.
The one thing that we believe Elance falls short on is making sure the developers
are keeping up with their workload. ODesk, for example, requires the developers to
submit screenshots every so often while they work, so you know that works getting
done, and you can sort of see the development of your app in real time as it's
happening. On Elance, you'll be responsible for checking up on your developers. In
most cases, however, they do a great job and don't need to be hounded very often,
if ever at all.
As far as payments are concerned, you can choose to have your project be bid on as
a fixed price, or an hourly rate. Usually, a fixed price is better because you'll
understand the total cost up front, and not have to worry about your developers
lagging just to get a few more dollars out of you.
You and the developer that you award the project to will negotiate a payment plan,
which usually consists of a certain percentage up front to begin working on the
project, another percentage sometime in the middle of the development (perhaps a
beta test after the first iteration is complete), and finally the rest at the end. Again,
those tasks and milestones can be set and reset by you and/or the developer.
You can connect a Credit Card to your profile (which will take time to be verified by
Elance), or you can use a Paypal account as well. They even have a built in escrow
service that allows you to pay a third party service, and only release those funds to
the developer once certain milestones have been completed. It really protects both
sides.
Odesk
Odesk runs basically the same way as Elance does, however the user interface the
and the way payments work is a bit different.
As we said before, Odesk is great because you can keep tabs on your developer as
he's creating your application. You can do this via Elance, but only through email and
manually asking and checking up on the progress. Odesk keeps track of the
progress for you, which is great.
Jobs can be placed as a fixed price or an hourly rate, whatever you choose, and
payments are only through credit cards on your account. As far as we know, there
are no Paypal payments available through Odesk.
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Web Searches
If you type in "iPhone app developer" into Google, you'll find a number of companies
that are willing to design your app for you. Although many of these companies are
highly qualified, you'll find that they tend to be more expensive than the developers
you can grab off of Elance and Odesk, especially if you are doing something highly
customized and a little more complicated.
How to POST Your First Job Description
We'll go through the details about how to write your job description for your
application in the next section, but we first wanted to walk you through how to go
about posting your description on Elance. Here is the step by step process for you
below. This assumes that you already have an Elance account.
The "Post Your Job" button can usually be seen in the upper righthand corner of the
homepage of http://www.elance.com.
Step 2: Enter your job title
In the job title, make sure you include the words "iPhone application", or "iPhone
app". Developers look out for new jobs with those keywords in the title, so make sure
you do this to get maximum exposure.
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Step 3: Select the appropriate category
For iPhone apps, first select Web & Programming, and then Mobile Applications
for the subcategory.
Step 4: Write your job description
The job description is what you write about your project that all potential developers
will see to determine:
 If they want to work with you on developing your application.
 How much they will bid for it.
Writing your job description is an important part of the process, because how you
write it may affect who bids on your application, and it also sets the tone for the
developers which may impact how they work with you in the future.
Job descriptions will obviously vary from application to application, however there
are a couple of things you should always try to do:
 Stay Professional: If you start off looking like a professional, you'll be treated like
one throughout the entire process. Just imagine what the developers might think of
you if your job description started off like this: "OMG! I'm so excited to tell you
about my application, it's going to be DA BOMB!" Remember, you're doing business
with people who develop apps for a living.
 Don't Tell Them You're a Newbie: Yes, you're probably new to the iPhone scene,
but don't tell them that in your job description! If you do, you're opening the door for
them to take advantage of you, which we've seen happen before.
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So, what should you include in your job description? Here's a basic outline for you:
 Introduction: A short, professional introduction about who you are and what you're
trying to accomplish will do.
 Basic Information About Your Application: Don't give away all of your details
here (we'll tell you why in a second), but give just enough so that they'll have a basic
understanding of what you app is about.
 A Timeframe: In your job description, you should always include when you want the
application to be finished. If you've already created a schedule for yourself, try to
have the developers finish 2 weeks in advance, if possible. That way, there's a safety
net just in case they fall behind, and also they'll have the chance to fix any bugs that
you notice once it's finished.
 A Non-Disclosure Agreement: A Non-Disclosure agreement is a document (usually
a PDF or Word file that you can attach to the project description) that basically tells
the developer that they cannot take or steal your idea and use it on their own. Many of
you, I'm sure, would like to protect your idea, and this is exactly how it's done. We've
never heard of any developers, especially ones from these outsourcing websites, take
anyone's idea before (they do this for a living, so it wouldn't be so smart for them to
do so), but it's always good to protect yourself just in case. This is pretty standard and
most developers know about the NDA, so don't worry about them not understanding
why you want them to sign it. Be sure to address the NDA in your job description,
and let them know you'll give them the full details of your application after they sign
it.
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The Non-Disclosure Agreement does a couple of things for us:
First, as we just mentioned, it protects our ideas. This is why we don't give away all
of the details about our application at first We give a detailed job description to each
developer after they give us their signed Non-Disclosure Agreement. Bid amounts
will usually show up after they hear the details from you.
Hi, my name is Quoc and I'm in need of a professional iPhone application
developer to help program an app for my company.
We're looking to build an application that a user can use to hear the various
pronunciations for drugs that are used in the medical profession.
We're hoping to have this application finished within 3 weeks.
Please sign the attached Non-Disclosure agreement and send me a message
in order to get the full specs of the application so you can have a better
understanding of exactly how it should work.
Secondly,
puts the
into the
developer's
hands.
It is soon.
their job to message you
Thanksitagain,
andball
we look
forward
to working
with you
and ask for the details of the application. You'll get a good feel for how each of these
companies work by how fast they get back to you on the message boards, and what
they write to you.
We've included a FREE sample Non-Disclosure Agreement with this eBook, so
make sure you check that out before you attempt to get developers for your project.
Here is the basic job description that we initially used for our Drug Pronunciation
App:
Step 5: Attach the NDA
Using the "add attachment" link on the screen, upload a Non-Disclosure Agreement
(which should include your name or company name first), to the job.
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Step 6: Select iPhone as a desired skill
Step 7: Select "fixed price" and the budget range
A fixed price is far easier to manage, and you'll have an exact idea of how much
you're going to spend. On average, iPhone apps on Elance cost between $1000 and
$5000 to create, depending on exactly what kind of app you're looking to produce.
The approximate budget is just an approximation, and you'll always get an exact bid
from developers as they view your project, so don't worry so much about this here.
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Step 8: Click on continue
Step 9: Chose your posting type
On the next screen, you'll be asked to choose your posting type. There are three
choices:
 Basic (FREE)
 Verified ($10.00)
 Featured ($25.00)
The basic option is all you really need, unless you want your particular job to be
highlighted on Elance, you can pay $25 to make that happen. Some providers are
more comfortable seeing the Verified status, though we've seen plenty of developers
bid without going with the Featured or Verified option, but that's up to you.
Step 10: Preview your job and click "Confirm and Post".
Finally, review what your post will look like, and if there aren't any changes to be
made, click on "Confirm and Post".
You'll immediately get an email saying that your job has been posted to the Elance
job board, and developers will be able to see and bid on your project right away.
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The DETAILED Job Description
As important as the initial job description is for the project, the detailed job
description is obviously what the developers will use to place an exact bid on your
project and understand exactly what you want the final product to look like.
We recommended that you write this beforehand, so you don't have to waste time
writing it after you get signed NDAs back from potential developers. It should include
as much detail about your application as possible, and if you have it ready, you
should also attach your wireframes or any drawings or sketches that you have.
For our Drug Pronunciation Application, here's exactly what we sent to the
developers after we received an NDA to get a quote:
Here are the requirements for our drug pronunciation application and how we want it
to work. We've drawn up and attached a simple wire frame for the application as
well:
Title Screen:
This screen will be the main starting screen and will just consist of the Title, Start
Button and some information.
Search Screen:
As the user starts typing into the search box the list should fill up according to each
letter typed in. They are then able to scroll through the words and select whichever
word they would like.
At the bottom of the list there should always be the "Suggestions" link just in case
they are looking for something that isn't there.
Drug Page:
This page will have the drug name, a play button, a phone speaker checkbox, and
links to Google and Wikipedia for the drug.
Phone Speaker Checkbox - Is it possible to have this option to play the sound
through the phone speaker (The user would have to hold the phone up to his/her
ear) to hear the sound. This would be instead of playing it on the loud speaker.
Just in case someone wants to listen to the pronunciation of a word discretely
without anyone knowing.
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Suggestions Screen:
This screen will allow the user to type in a word and submit it to go into our database
of suggested words. Is there a way to post to a link that we will create but not allow
the user to actually see the link? We wouldn't want people typing it into the browser
and abusing this function.
We will need the suggested term, as well as an iPhoneID so that one user can't
submit the same word over and over again.
We will be setting up this database and the website for you to post to.
Things you will get from us:
A list of terms in an excel spreadsheet. (I have attached a sample excel file with the
terms for the letter A). Total number of terms will be between 3000 and 3500.
An mp3 file for each term. File naming conventions: all lowercase, dash (-) for any
spaces.
User Interface design, and icon.
Comments:
We would need to be able to easily update the content with new terms/mp3s. These
would just go out as normal iTunes updates.
We believe this is a fairly simple and straightforward application so we are looking for
a good price, and a quick turnaround time. Please let me know if you need any more
clarification.
Thank you,
Quoc
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What to Look For Once You Get Bids for Your Project
In this section, we'll give you some advice and some tips on what to look out for as
you begin to get bids for your application.
Pricing:
The price of your application will depend on the application itself. However, even for
the same application, bids from the various developers can cover a rather large price
range. For our Drug Pronunciation app, for example, we saw bids that ranged from
$500.00 all the way to $3000.00. Your specific application will most likely have a
different price range.
The price difference could be for a number of reasons: size of the company, how
desperately they need a job, or even the quality of work they do. It's up to you to find
out exactly what kind of work they can do, which is why we always suggest to not
even look at the developers' bids until after you decide on which ones interest you
first.
When we first started developing applications, we made the price the primary factor
in our decision of which developer to go with. Well, it didn't turn out so well. We
chose the lowest bidder, and the quality of our apps weren't as good as we had
hoped, and they were even delayed a couple of months as a result.
To investigate further, we're going to look into their portfolio and reviews.
Portfolio:
After you get bids, the next logical thing to do is investigate their portfolio.
The developer's portfolio will show you exactly what kind of work they do, and if their
style matches what you had in mind for your app.
On Elance and Odesk, you can view the developers' portfolios by simply clicking on
their username. That will take them to their profile, which has all of the information
you need to make an educated decision as to whether or not they are someone you
could see yourself working with.
In the portfolio, we always check to see what kind of other iPhone applications
they've developed in the past. They may have a number of different kinds of projects,
such as website designs or graphic design, but since we're in the iPhone app
business, that's what we want to look at first.
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When you come across their application history, try not to make any conclusions
based on the design of the application alone. Remember, a lot of times the graphics
are done by a third party, so we shouldn't judge the developer on how the app
"looks". Instead, we should look at how the applications work, and exactly how
technical they are. The more complicated and technical they look, the more obvious
it is that the particular developer of the application you're looking at knows what
they're doing.
Furthermore, we lookup the application in the iTunes Store. Sometimes, if the app
was made specifically for a different country and hasn't been opened to the U.S.
market, we won't be able to check it out, but usually we're able to view the app in the
iTunes Store.
In the iTunes Store, we look specifically at the reviews to see if there are any
problems with the application from a developmental standpoint. If the reviews are
bad, it may just be because the idea for the app wasn't good or maybe the app cost
too much. If you read the reviews and there seems to be a lot of bugs or screen
crashes, you may want to stay away from that particular developer.
If you look through the portfolio and it doesn't seem like they have much experience
with developing iPhone applications, then you may want to steer away from that
developer. If you wanted to, you could send that developer an honest message,
saying something like, "I was going through your portfolio and noticed that you
haven't had much experience with iPhone applications. What can you do for me that
all of these other, more experienced iPhone developers can't?"
The answer may surprise you. And, it's possible that they have more apps. to show
you and have just not updated their portfolio recently.
Reviews / Feedback:
Besides the portfolio, you should also always check out the feedback that other
clients have left for the developer. This is a great way to get a quick snapshot of
exactly what kind of developer you might be working with.
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Here's a sample company snapshot from Elance:
As we can see, this developer has done 67
projects
with
a
4.8
rating,
and
recommended by 95%. The high level
would also indicate a reputable firm,
though there are new talented providers
registering all the time.
Besides this snapshot, we can look at the
previous work history and reviews from
clients for each specific project that they've
done. Here's one for an iPhone/iPad App
that shows us that this particular developer
was excellent to work with:
Messages:
Besides the portfolio, job history and the feedback, there's no better way to figure out
if a developer and you will work well together than by directly messaging each other.
You're going to be investing quite a bit of money, so the question is why wouldn't you
have a conversation with your potential developers before selecting one?
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Elance has a great messaging board system that is good for pre-development
conversations, so you can get a feel for how quickly they respond, and how
communication will be between the two of you.
Look through each individual developer's portfolio and job history, and if you have
questions about anything, just ask! If you want to hear from other clients who have
worked with them in the past, you can simply ask for a reference and more than
likely they will be happy to provide one or two references for you.
Think about it like it's a job interview. You're the boss, and you're hiring a developer
to work for you.
Awarding the Project:
First of all, if you haven't found a developer that you like yet out of all of the bids that
you receive, that's okay. You aren't forced to choose one, and you can just simply
cancel the project. You will, however, have to leave a reason why, which is common
courtesy because these developers have taken the time to read your job description
and place a bid.
If you do cancel, just be honest and say that none of the developers fit the criteria
that you were hoping for, for the development of your application.
If you have a handful of developers that interest you, then you should take into
account the price. But again, the price shouldn't be everything. You'll hopefully make
up the price in no time with your application once it hits the store anyways.
After you select a developer and award the project, things will start to happen right
away.
First, all of the other developers who placed bids should see that the project is now
closed, but you get one or two who doesn't pay attention and continues to message
you about the project. Just kindly message those particular people that you've
already awarded the project to someone else, and they should stop bugging you.
Secondly, you'll be taken to a screen that talks about milestones. Milestones are
particular dates that certain things regarding your project get done, as well as when
payments should be made to the developer. Usually, at the very beginning, there's
just one milestone, or even no milestones at all. Our recommendation is to just wait
and let the developers come up with a milestone schedule first, and you can adjust
things accordingly after that, or just simply agree to the terms.
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Here's a sample milestone page:
Milestones can be updated or changed at any time by you or the developer, but the
other party must agree before they actually change.
As you can see in the above screenshot, there are 3 particular milestones for this
project (note that whoever edits the milestones can name them whatever they want,
and there can be an unlimited amount):
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 Upfront Payment - This is the payment that you'll usually have to make right at the
beginning before development starts. It acts collateral in the way it lets the developer
know that you can make payments and that you're definitely on board with the
project. An upfront payment of 25-50% is usually standard for iPhone applications.
 Beta - This milestone is when you get a version of the app to test. Not all developers
will require a payment or milestone for the beta version (some just go 50% up front,
50% after the final product), but we included it here in the screenshot just so you don't
get caught off guard.
 Final Deliverable - This is the last payment you'll give the developer which should
happen after everything you wanted to be done is done. Make sure you pay only after
a final version of the app has arrived in your hands.
The Graphic Artist
The design and appearance of
your application plays an equally
important role to the functionality
of your application. You do not
want to hire the same team to do
both the development and the
graphic art. This will more than
likely lead to mediocre results.
Developers
are
good
at
developing and graphic artists are good at creating graphic art. You don't want to mix
the two.
There are a plethora of graphic artists looking for work on outsourcing websites such
as Odesk.com or Elance.com. Take your pick. Another approach is by holding a
design contest. 99designs.com is a website where talented designers enter their
designs for your project in hopes that they have the winning design. This allows you
to view all the different possibilities by the many different flavors of talent. (see image
below) Various artists submit their designs and you choose the winner. This may be
more costly than hiring a graphic designer directly, but it gives you more options for
choosing a design.
The graphics that you need will vary depending on your app and your requirements.
The previous iPhones had a resolution of 320x460 pixels, but the new highresolution Retina display on the iPhone 4 has a display that is 480x960 pixels,
almost double that of previous iPhones. The iPad further complicates things by being
59
1024x768 pixels, but on a much larger screen, the iPad is covered separately in the
bonus chapter, sofor now we will focus on only the iPhone.
Every app needs an icon, and it is highly recommended to get that in several sizes:
Image Size (pixels)
File Name
Used For
Required Status
57 x 57
Icon.png
Regular iPhone screen
Required
29 x 29
Icon-small.png
Spotlight & Settings
Recommended
114 x 114
[email protected]
iPhone4 screen
Recommended
[email protected]
iPhone4
Settings
iTunesArtwork
iTunes Store
58 x 58
512 x 512
Spotlight
&
Recommended
Recommended
Simply put, the biggest reason for getting icons in all these sizes is that if you only
use the required icon, it will look terrible when used in any other size. If you must,
you can manage without the smaller icons, but get the three biggest ones at least.
You will look that much more professional as a developer and once you get the one
design, it is relatively easy to convert it to different sizes.
Some people choose to have a loading screen and/or splash screen for their app,
you need to get that made at the full screen resolution of the phone which as we said
before is 480X960 pixels for the older iPhones and 480x960 pixels for the iPhone 4.
You have the option of creating a splash screen for both portrait and landscape
modes if you wish, which is something to bring up with your developer and graphic
artist, don’t forget to ask if you want this feature.
Again, talent for all your criteria can be found on 99designs, Elance, or Odesk.
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Example icon for "Medical Drug Pronunciations"
Example splash screen for "Medical Drug Pronunciations"
Communicating with Your Virtual Assistants
Learning how to effectively communicate with your virtual assistants or service
providers is extremely important. Effective communication will give you better and
more timely results from your providers and will allow work to run much more
smoothly which is a great relief to both you and your provider. One thing to
remember is to be professional. You are now the boss, so act and communicate like
one. Be professional, courteous and remember to have a little patience. Most of your
service providers will be from half-way around the world so their English might not be
top notch, but you will still get your money’s worth because they are professionals at
what they do. Instructions should be as clear and precise as possible. Write
instructions at a 2nd grade English level that can only have 1 interpretation and give
clear deadlines.
There are many ways to communicate with your service providers. We have found
that the easiest method is to write clear and effective emails. This will limit the
communication time needed and allows the providers to do their work. Some people
might prefer Skype or instant messenger. Just remember to keep logs of all your
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conversations if you use instant messenger, there might be a time that you need to
refer back to what someone said in case of conflicts. If you are working on a project
through Elance, then do everything through the Elance private message board. This
will keep things logged and organized just in case you need to resolve a conflict
later. Treat each Elance message just like an email.
Try not to be such a micro-manager. No one likes a micro-manager and no one is
happy to work for one. Send your providers their tasks and give them some time to
work on it. Give them clear deadlines and remind them if they miss deadlines but
don’t bother them every hour asking how the project is coming along. One good way
to make sure they understand your requirements is to ask them to confirm and to ask
questions if there is anything they don’t get. Many times a good provider will provide
a development schedule with milestones for completing certain parts of a project.
Keep in mind the schedule and make sure your developer stays on top of it. Here is
a sample schedule given to us for one of our more recent projects:
Milestone #1 (9 Feb ~ 12 Feb):
We will finish...
1) The main frame
2) Online searching module
3) Searching function based on user's current location
4) Listing results and displaying them on a map
5) Testing and bug fixing of all modules above
Milestone #2 (13 Feb ~ 16 Feb):
We will finish...
1) Searching based on inputted addresses
2) Searching based on addresses picked from the contact book
3) Testing and bug fixing of all modules above
4) Android-UI-style proposal
By 16 Feb, we will provide a prototype for you to test and a proposal on android UIstyle. And we will be waiting for is your feedback.
Milestone #3 (19 Feb ~ 21 Feb):
We will finish...
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1) The UI work (including the animation page)
2) Deal with all problems or requirements from your feedbacks
3) Testing and bug fixing of all modules above
Milestone #4 (22 Feb ~ 26 Feb):
We will finish...
1) Advertising module
2) The lite version
3) Assistance passing through Android Market (if needed)
In our experience, sometimes you won’t hear from a provider in a while but that
doesn’t mean they are not working. In this case a simple checkup email would work
fine.
Hello Team,
We were wondering how the progress is coming on this project. Any
updates would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Quoc
Sometimes your provider will do something completely different than you had
planned. Before getting angry and pointing fingers at anyone, sit back, relax, and
make sure it wasn’t your fault to begin with. Did you give them clear and precise
directions? Did you use too many big fancy words? Even if it wasn’t your fault, most
things are easily fixed without any stress. Just kindly explain to them the problem
and allow them to fix it to your specifications.
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Hi Team,
I noticed (mistake), when I had originally intended it to be like (this
way). I realized that I probably wasn't as clear as I should have been,
and I apologize for that. However, since we're on a schedule, I'm going
to tell you exactly how it's supposed to be so that there are no more
misunderstandings between the two of us about this.
(detailed explanation)
If you have any additional questions, please let me know.
Thanks!
(Your Name)
Now, if the developer has made an obvious mistake that should not have been
made, either because it should of been plainly obvious, or you've told them to correct
the mistake once already, and it seems like they're just being careless or lazy, then
you might want to respond with something such as:
Hi (developer's name).
It has recently come to my attention that (mistake). This really concerns
me because mistakes like this should not happen, especially with a
professional developer like yourself. I'm putting in my best effort to
make this project successful, and I hope that you would do this same.
That is what I'm paying you for.
I hope to see this fixed by our next deadline, which is (insert deadline /
reminder date).
Thank you.
Of course, these are just sample messages, but you should be able to structure your
emails (or better yet, direct instant messages), in a similar way that makes sense for
your particular developer and your project. Lastly, be sure to CC everyone on the
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developer's team, especially the "higher-ups" (if there are any), if things are just not
working out like their supposed to.
On the other hand, if your developers are doing a great job, you should definitely let
them know. This not only makes them feel good about the work they've been doing,
but it will encourage them to keep impressing you and probably do even better work.
Sometimes, they'll do even more than you've asked of them, just to help you out.
Here's a sample message that you can use when your developer does something
correctly.
Hi (developer's name)!
Thanks so much for your hard work so far, that's exactly what I like to
see. So far, everything looks like it should, and I'm really impressed that
everything has been done on time. If this keeps up, you can be sure I'll
be working with you on future projects, so keep up the good work, and
keep trying to impress me.
If there's anything else I can do to help you along the way, you can
always just message me.
Thanks again (developer's name).
65
Chapter 8: Testing Your New Application
So now you have gone through the process of selecting your developer and are on
your way to getting your first application completed. How is your developer going to
send you the different versions of your application and how are you going to be able
to test them?
We have found that developers go about sending you the source code for the
applications differently. Some will send you the full source code for each version of
the application and some will send you an ad hoc file that you will just drag and drop
into iTunes and have it install on your device. In the end you will need the complete
source code from your developer in order to submit it to Apple, but some developer’s
don’t like to release the source code until you have paid for the development costs in
full.
In this chapter we will go through how to install the application on your device given
both scenarios.
Ad Hoc File Installation:
An ad hoc distribution means that the developer packages your application using a
unique ID for your device (iPhone or iPod touch) and gives this to you for you to
install on your device.
Identifier (UDID):
The first step is for you to give your developer your device’s unique id number. When
your developer asks for it, here is how you find it.
1. Plug your device into your computer
2. Open iTunes and select your device from the left hand menu
3. Under the summary tab you will see your devices Name, Capacity, Software
Version and either Serial Number or Identifier (UDID). If the Serial Number
is showing, then click it to show the Identifier (UDID). The Identifier (UDID) is
what you are looking for.
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Installing Ad Hoc:
When you get your ad hoc files from your developer it should come with 2 things
1. A Mobile Provision file that ends in .mobileprovision
2. The application file. This will either end in .ipa or .app
Now follow these steps to install it to your device.
1. Save those 2 files above to a convenient location on your computer
2. Drag and drop the .mobileprovision file onto the Library -> Applications in
iTunes. If you’re using a Mac you can just drag it into you iTunes icon in your
doc.
3. Do the same with your application file. Drag and drop the .ipa or .app file onto
the Library -> Applications in iTunes. If you’re using a Mac you can just drag it
into you iTunes icon in your doc.
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4. Your application should now show up in iTunes under Library ->
Applications with a generic icon.
5. Now sync your applications from iTunes to your device and it should be
installed for testing on your device.
Source Code File Installation:
If your developer decides to send you the source code for the application instead of
an ad hoc then you will need to follow these steps to install your application. Source
code just means all of the application files and programming code necessary to run
the application. We will go through some of the more important files in more detail
soon.
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Preparing your Device for install
In order to install your application to your device using the source code, you will first
have to setup a couple of things in the iPhone Developer Program Portal online.
Login to the iPhone Dev Center http://developer.apple.com/iphone/ and then click
the iPhone Developer Program Portal link.
Once in, you will see a description of the iPhone Developer Program Portal and a
link to launch the development provisioning assistant. This is a great resource
designed to walk you through setting up the Development Provisioning Assistant.
You need this in order to setup your computer and XCODE to be able to run your
application on your device and build it for submitting to the app store.
Once you’re done going through all of the steps of the Launch assistant you will be
able to also manually create and install Provisioning and Distribution Certificates
yourself by going through the menu on the left. Apple provides very handy “How To”
tabs for each one of these that will easily walk you through each step. Apple’s
guidelines and processes are constantly changing, but they do a great job giving you
simple step by step instructions for getting stuff done.
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Installing your application to your device
Now you should have your programming environment all setup to install your new
application to your device and test. Let’s go through in more detail what files are
important in your source code and how to edit. We will use the included source code
for Medical Pronunciations as an example.
First let’s browse to your application folder. This folder will contain all of your
application files including all the code, data, and images that may be used in your
application. In this main directory you should see a file ending in .xcodeproj
(speakit.xcodeproj in our case). This is the main application file, double click to open
it in XCODE (you should've already downloaded and installed the iPhone SDK
mentioned above).
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This will open up your application in XCODE. If it is overwhelming, don’t worry, we
will go through what you see on XCODE now.
Important sections of XCODE to know
1. Top left drop down box – This is the drop down box which will let you pick
which Device SDK and which configuration you will use to build your
application.
2. Top center button - Build and Run – This button will build your application and
either install it on your device (debug configuration) or build your application
for submission (release configuration).
3. Left pane – This is the tree view list of all the files associated with your
application. Everything from the main programming files to the images used in
your application should be in here.
4. Top right pane – This is an expanded file list of the selected folder.
5. Bottom right pane – This pane will show the contents of the selected file. You
will be able to edit the source code of a file here.
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There are a couple changes you will need to make to your application before you
can run and install it on your device.
1. Update the signing certificate.
Remember the certificate that you installed earlier? This is where it comes into play.
When you open an application there are different profiles that are associated with it.
This controls how you want XCODE to run and build your application. The default
Debug profile is what we will be using to install to your device and test. We will use
the Release profile to build and run your application to submit to iTunes, but we will
go over this later.
In your directory/file tree on the left pane of
xCode, there should be a Targets that you
can expand to show the target configuration
file for the application. See below, in our
application the file is called speakit. Double
click on this file to open up the Target Info
window.
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Above you will see the Target Info window. First make sure you are on the Build tab
at the very top. Also make sure that under the Configuration drop down you have
Debug selected. Debug is the configuration we use to build the app for testing either
in the simulator or your device.
Now scroll down until you see the Code Signing Identity – Any iPhone OS Device
field. This is the certificate that will be used by xCode to build your application. If you
do not select the correct one then you will not be able to install to your device. Select
the correct Development Certificate. This should be the one that you installed
earlier.
2. Update the unique code and version number
While still in the Target Info window highlight the Properties tab above.
Here you will be able to edit your applications unique identifier name. This is used by
Apple to uniquely identify your application. A good rule is to use the appID that you
created in the previous section in this format:
com.<companyname>.<uniqueappid>
ie.
com.freetheapps.dashofcolor,
com.freetheapps.flash4free, com.hipposoftonline.physicalexam. When building
an update you want to make sure you go into this screen and that the unique
identifier is the same as the previous version so that Apple recognizes it as an
update.
Also on this screen is the version number of the application. Usually a good rule is to
leave the first version to be 1.0. When you build an update you can change the
application number to something higher like 1.1, 1.2 etc. Sometimes when submitting
a really big change you might want to change to be a complete version higher like
2.0.
After these updates you may close the Target Info window.
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Updating Display Name:
The name that appears below the icon on a device is called the Bundle display
name. You are limited to the number of characters you can show so try out some
variations to find a title you are happy with. Here are the steps on how to change the
Bundle display name.
First go through your file tree and find a file that ends with Info.plist
In the right hand pane you will see the contents of the Info.plist file. This file has a
field named Bundle display name. This is the value that you need to change in
order to change the display name. Be sure to save the file after your changes.
Build and Run Application:
Your application settings should now be all set
for you to build and run your application for
testing.
First you will need to make sure the
configuration profile is correctly set in the top left
hand drop down of xCode.
The Active SDK should be set to the base SDK
that your developer developed the application in.
If you are going to be installing the application to
your device to test (recommended) then choose
one of the iPhone Device values. If you are
going to be testing on the simulator on your computer then choose one of the
iPhone Simulator values (good for just a quick test).
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The Active Configuration should be set to Debug for testing. Later on you will set
this to Release when you are done testing and your application is ready to be
submitted to iTunes. We will go over this in the next chapter.
Next step is to go to the top Build menu and Clean All Targets for the application.
Then on your device make sure you delete any old version of the application that
might be present on the device. This will ensure that any changes you have made to
the application will be re-built into the application.
Finally click on Build and Run at the top and your application will compile, build and
either install to your device or run in simulator mode. Make sure your device is
connected to your computer at this time.
If you run into a problem trying to install your application to your device and you have
checked and made sure all your settings are correct then you may need to reboot
your device.
How to reboot your device:
Hold the Home button (that’s the big button on the lower front) and the Sleep / Wake
button (that’s the little button on the top) down. Keep holding these two buttons
down until the screen goes black and the Apple logo appears. Wait while your device
reboots.
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Testing: Tips and Advice
Now that you have successfully installed your iPhone application, it is time to go
through and test it. Keep in mind that the first couple revisions will not be perfect to
your specifications. This doesn’t mean that your developer is incompetent. Testing
and debugging is just a process that takes a number of revisions between developer
and client feedback to get a software application to work perfectly.
Go through your application and keep a detailed checklist of bugs, problems, and
things that don’t work correctly. It is helpful to break this up into a numbered list that
your developer can then just go through and fix one by one. Make sure you go
through all of the application’s functionality thoroughly to make sure everything works
and nothing breaks the application.
Here is an example of feedback we gave to our developer for one step of the
pronunciations application:
Hello Team,
I have provided some feedback/comments about this build of our application:
1. We would like the attached picture to be the one that shows up when the
program is loading. Then when it is done loading it should go to the main
home screen with the start button instead of going straight into the program.
Only when they press the "start" button should they go to the search screen.
2. On the search screen instead of the "cancel" button we would like it to say
"Search" instead.
3. Please get rid of the "Candidates" title above the search results.
4. When loading up the search screen all of the words will show up in a list. If we
have 3000 words in that list will it slow down the application at all? What about
have 3000 mp3s? Will that slow down loading of the application at all?
5. On the suggestions page we would like users to be able to type in their own
suggestions. It would auto fill to whatever was on the search page but they
should also be able to type in to fill in the rest. For instance, if they were
searching for abacavir but it wasn't in the list, they would just type in abac and
not find it, then they would click suggest, and they should be able to fill in the
rest.
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6. UI: I noticed that you were able to use our UI screens for the interface, but
can you use the titles and back buttons that we've provided instead of the
default apple ones? For the name of the term you can just use a big font that
goes there and use the background we've provided: drugs-wall-drug.png
7. We noticed that there is a thick white trim around some of the buttons,
"Submit", "Google", "wiki" buttons. The buttons we've provided shouldn't look
like that.
8. Can you add in the button clicking sound for some of the other buttons,
"Submit", "Google", "wiki", "start". No sound for the back button or when
clicking on a term though.
That is it for this build.
Thank you!
Quoc
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Chapter 9: Everything About Pricing your
Application-Free or Paid
In this section we will be looking at the pros and cons of paid apps vs. free apps.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Paid applications aren't the only
way to earn money. Free applications can earn income as well. You can also reap
the benefits of both by having a free and paid version of the app. We will be going
into details of all these topics next.
Pros & Cons of Paid Applications
Paid applications are apps sold in the Apple App Store for a specified price. Apple
takes a 30% cut from all profit you make. This is the price to pay for the convenience
of Apple allowing your application to reach millions of potential customers. For
example, if you price your application at $2.99, you will be paid $2.10 for every
application sold. Paid applications have the chance for the highest gain when you
reach the top ranks (iShoot made $37,000 in a single day, $600,000 in one month).
The cons of paid applications include Apple taking 30% of everything you make.
Your application also won't reach as large of an audience as a free application.
Everyone is willing to download a free application, but not everyone is willing to pay
for one. Notice the difference in the number of downloads in our paid application vs.
our free application (figure 1 vs. figure 2). The downloads of paid applications are
also a lot more volatile vs. free applications. Paid applications tend to have a large
initial spike and then die down quickly. Free applications also have that initial spike,
but dies down more steadily (side note: ignore the spike in December. It was a great
month for all applications in the store). Another con to consider is that you cannot
see the money you are making in real-time. You need to wait for the day's end report
to see the profit made for the previous day. In free applications, you are able to view
your profits in real time (using Admob, Google Adsense, etc.)
Pricing Your App
One of the most important aspects of paid applications is choosing the right price.
You need to find the "magic number". This number will be the perfect balance of
downloads
vs.
pricing.
Let's
look
at
three
scenarios.
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario
#1:
#2:
#3.
150
250
350
downloads
downloads
downloads
at
at
at
$2.99
$1.99
$0.99
(net:
(net:
(net:
$448.50)
$497.50)
$346.50)
Scenario 1 is priced the highest and scenario 3 has the largest number of
downloads. Scenario 2 falls in between, in terms of pricing and downloads.
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Looking at the three scenarios, the second scenario is the "magic number" and
yields the highest net profit. Let's consider a fourth scenario.
Scenario #4: 450 downloads at $0.99 (net: $445.50)
This scenario is almost the same profits as scenario 1, but slightly lower. In this
case, we should choose scenario 4 because it has more downloads. More
downloads bumps up your app's ranking and gives it more visibility in the app store.
More visibility equals more downloads.
Figure 1: Green Screen Studio (paid)
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Figure 2: Green Screen Lite (free)
Pros & Cons of Free Applications:
Free applications have many advantages as well. You will reach a much larger
audience and gain more visibility in the App Store. In our example for Green Screen,
we were getting thousands of downloads for the free version vs. hundreds or less for
the paid version. Reaching a larger audience with free apps and establishing your
name or brand on the app store can help you boost your paid applications.
The disadvantages of free applications are that you get nothing from Apple when
users download your apps. Since the number of downloads you get are significantly
higher, you will get more users and negative reviews because of people downloading
apps they don't need just because it is free. Reviews in general tend to be a lot
higher and positive on paid applications vs. free applications. This is probably
because people already know what they are purchasing when they want to buy an
application and tend to do more research.
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The Best of Both Worlds - Creating a Lite Version
You can take advantage of having both a free and a paid version of your application.
One important strategy developers use is to release a free, but limited version of
their app. This way, the free app reaches more users and gains more visibility in the
app store while promoting their paid app. You get the best of both worlds.
Let's take a look at our example. In our "Medical Pronunciations" application, we
created a lite version that is the same exact application in terms of functionality, but
we provided limited content. There was no extra development time in creating this
extra lite version of our application since all we did was provide less content. Since
there was no extra development time, there was no extra cost.
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Chapter 10: The Submission Overview Process
Apple’s application submission process has gone through many changes and
improvements over the past year or so. When we first started developing
applications it took about seven days for an application to go through the submission
process and go live on the app store. There was recently a time when it was taking
Apple 2+ weeks for an app to get approved. Luckily, it seems like Apple has
streamlined their review process and it is back to a week or less for an application to
get approved. We have experienced a couple of our apps getting approved in only 2
days, but one thing for sure is that you can never predict when your app will be
approved. You will just have to submit and be patient.
Getting your application ready for submission
There are some necessary steps in order to get your application ready to be
submitted to Apple. Similar to how you needed a Development Provisioning
Profile to install your application onto your device for development, you will need a
Distribution Provisioning Profile to prepare your application for distribution on the
app store. You should have already created and installed the Distribution
Provisioning Profile if you had followed the steps in the previous section. If not, go
back and do that now.
Building your application for submission on iTunes is very similar to building your
application to install on your device. The only difference is making sure you are using
the correct configuration (Release) and that it is setup correctly.
Setup your Release Configuration Certificate
This step is very similar to when you setup your development certificate earlier.In
your directory/file tree on the left pane of xCode, there should be a Targets that you
can expand to show the target configuration file for the application. See below, in our
application the file is called speakit. Double click on this file to open up the Target
Info window.
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Above you will see the Target Info window. First make sure you are on the Build tab
at the very top. Make sure that under the Configuration drop down you have
Release selected. Release is the configuration we use to build the app for
submitting to iTunes.
Now scroll down until you see the Code Signing Identity – Any iPhone OS Device
field. This is the certificate that will be used by xCode to build your application. You
must select the correct Distribution Certificate in order for your application to build
correctly.
Build and Run Application
Make sure your application settings are all set correctly as specified under the
testing chapter.
You will need to make sure the configuration profile is correctly set in the top left
hand drop down of xCode.
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The Active SDK should be set to the base SDK that your developer developed the
application in. Make sure it is one of the iPhone Device selections and not an
iPhone Simulator one.
The Active Configuration should be set to Release to build your application to be
submitted to iTunes.
The next step is to go to the top Build menu and Clean All Targets for the
application. Then on your device make sure you delete any old version of the
application that might be present on the device. This will ensure that any changes
you have made to the application will be re-built into the application.
Finally click on Build and Run at the top and your application will compile and build.
Ignore any warnings or errors about the device not being connected correctly.
Get the application file
Now that your application is built you should be able to see it in your directory/file
tree in the left pane of XCODE. It is in the Products folder and should end with .app.
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Highlight this file, right click it and then select Reveal in Finder.
This will open up a Finder window and show you the application file.
Right click on the application file and select the Compress“<File name>” option.
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This will compress and package up the application file into a .zip file as shown
below. This is the final application file that you will use to upload to iTunes. We
suggest that you drag this file to your desktop for easy access.
Description, Icon and Screenshots
Aside from the actual application file itself, which you now have, you will also need to
prepare a couple other pieces of your application before you can start the
submission process.
1. Description and Keywords
Write a good description for your application. Most descriptions include some sort of
sales copy to entice the reader into buying your application, a list of application
features, and maybe some kind of tutorial on how to use your application.
Remember not to make it too long. Apple allows 4,000 characters max for the
description.
After you have your description ready, you'll need to come up with keywords. This is
one of the most important parts of submission because keywords will determine how
your application is searched for. Take the time to figure out all the keywords related
to your app. Do not rush this part. You can find plenty of keyword tools online to help
you generate useful keywords. Google has a pretty useful one:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Here is our description for Medical Drug Pronunciations:
**Also available on iTunes: MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY PRONUNCIATIONS**
**Drug Pronunciations: Over 2500+ drug pronunciations at your fingertips!!**
---------------------------------------------------“Medical Drug Pronunciations” is a simple application that will play back audio
of the correct pronunciations of over 2500 drugs used in medicine today (which
includes the top 200 drugs)
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First impressions are everything, and nothing screams out inexperience
and incompetence like butchering the pronunciation of drugs! Be
confident when pronouncing drugs by knowing how to pronounce them
properly beforehand.
Physicians, pharmacists, medical students, nursing students, physician
assistants, medical techs, pre-med students, foreign health
professionals… Virtually anyone in, or interested in the health
professional field will benefit from our application!
---------------------------------------------------HIGHLIGHTS:
-Accurate audio pronunciations of 2500+ drugs including both generic
and trade names (verified by physicians and pharmacists).
-Simple, easy to use, intuitive interface.
-Internet access is NOT necessary to listen to the pronunciations!
-Continuous FREE updates for new drugs and user suggested drugs.
-Integrated web browser with direct links to Wikipedia and Google for
additional drug information
---------------------------------------------------INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Browse the selection or enter the drug of interest in the search
field to narrow your list.
2. Select your drug and press PLAY. It’s that simple!
3. To listen again press “Back” and select your drug again.
4. For additional drug information, select the “Google” or “Wikipedia”
buttons to open an integrated browser.
5. If your drug is not listed, submit the word through the provided
submission page and we promise to include it in future updates!
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OUR PROMISE OF QUALITY
We always strive to deliver the highest quality products and although we are
very confident in the accuracy of our pronunciations, everyone makes
mistakes! If you find a drug pronunciation that you disagree with, please let us
know via email ([email protected]) and we’ll be happy to
look into it. Thank you!
2. Icon and Title
You will need a big 512x512 pixel version of your icon. This will be used in iTunes.
The icon and title of your application is usually the first thing anyone sees, so these
are extremely important. Don’t make your icon look like cheap clip-art. Give good
consideration to color, design and try to make it stand out as much as possible. The
title of your application should be short and straightforward. Try to give the user a
good idea of what your application does in the title. A good example of this is our
Convert Units application. There was a competing free convert application out before
ours called “Units”. This might sound like a cool, catchy name, but it doesn’t tell you
anything about what the application does. We named our application “Convert Units
for FREE” which quickly rose to the top past the competition. The title alone tells the
user that our application will let you convert units and that it costs nothing.
Our icon for Medical Drug Pronunciations:
3. Screenshots
Apple allows you to submit up to 5 screenshots for your application and you must
submit a minimum of 1 screenshot. Screenshots must be 320x480 or 480x320.
These don’t necessarily have to be exact screenshots from your application but that
is the easiest way to go. The best way to grab a screenshot from your application is
through your device. To save a screenshot from your device press both the Home
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button (that’s the big button on the lower front) and the Sleep / Wake button (that’s
the little button on the top) down at the same time.
You should hear a camera sound and your screenshot will be saved as a new photo.
Open up the photos in your device and email them to yourself or sync them to your
computer to get your screenshots.
Submitting Your Application
Now that you have all the pieces to your application you can start the new
application submission process. Open a web browser on your computer and go to
itunesconnect.apple.com and sign into your developer’s account.
Click on the Manage Your Applications link to go to the application page.
Click on the Add New Application button on the top left of the pane to start your
new application submission.
1. Export Compliance – Answer yes or no whether or not your application
contains encryption. If you did not purposely have any functionality that
requires encryption for your application you should be able to answer no.
2. Overview – Fill out your application details here including title, description,
keywords etc.
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For the Copyright field we usually put the year and name of our company.
(2009 Hipposoft, 2010 Free the Apps!)
The Version Number should be the same version number you set in XCODE
when building the application.
The SKU Number is a unique id number you give your application, this can
be anything that easily identifies your application. Examples: drugpronunciations, convert-units, anatomy-pronunciations.
Demo Account – Full Access is if your application requires a
username/password for full access to all the functionality in your application.
You will need to create a test account for the Apple Review Team to use to
test your application.
3. Ratings – Use your best judgment to fill out the table and give your
application an appropriate rating.
4. Upload – This is where you will upload all the files (application, icon,
screenshots) that you prepared earlier. One of the screenshots will be used
as the Primary Screenshot.
5. Pricing – Select what pricing tier you want your application to sell at. This can
be changed later. The availability date is not important right now. When your
application is approved you should log back into iTunes connect and update
your availability date to the date your application was approved.
6. Localization – Here you will be able to enter information about any other
languages that your application might support.
7. Review – Review all of your application details and submit your application.
Application Submitted
Congratulations! Your application is now submitted. The application review process
can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. It is hard to predict how long it
will take for your application to be approved. If you have any problems during this
whole process a great resource is your outsourced developer. Most developers that
we have worked with have been more than happy to answer any questions we have
had about the whole process. If in the case that Apple rejects your application for
any reason and if it is a programming/code related problem, forward the detailed
rejection to your developer. They should be able to advise you and fix the problem
and send you an updated version until Apple approves your application.
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Chapter 11: After Submission
After you've followed the steps to finally submit your application to the App Store in
iTunes Connect, it's going to be at least a few days until you hear back from them.
Instead of just waiting around, there are things you can do during this wait time to
maximize the impact of your application's approval.
Create a Website for Your Application
If you haven't done so already, you should definitely create a website or a page on
your existing website that highlights your new application and exactly what it can do.
You already have the copy for it, as well as the screenshots that you uploaded along
with your app, so it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish in just a day or two.
If you have yet to create your own website, here's a step by step summary of what
you can do.
1) First, you need to find a domain name. If you're a company that has yet to
create its own website, you should select a name that's relevant to your
company. you can create a page about your app on your company's page.
If you want to create a page just for your application, you can do that too. You can
use the search field on the homepage of GoDaddy.com to see if the domain name
you want is actually available.
In many cases, the first domain name you choose will not be available, but don't
worry. You can simply add a word or two, such as "app" at the end and you'll usually
find that it is still open. Try avoiding using trademarks in your domain name, to
reduce the risk of trademark infringement.
Bonus Coupon Code!
Check out this forum posting for updated coupon codes for cheaper domain
names! http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hotdeals/725207?highlight_key=y&keyword1=godaddy
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2) After you secure your domain name, you'll have to get hosting to go along
with it. Many of you probably already have your own host, so you can simply
transfer domains from GoDaddy.com over to your host, or you may even have
your own domain and subdomain purchasing ability from your own host.
Alternatively, you can go this route:
Find your domain name on BlueHost.com, and buy a domain and hosting package
from there, which will cost you less than $100 for an entire year's worth. What's great
about this package is that there is a one-click Wordpress blogging platform install,
which makes setting up a website easy as pie. You may not want to actually run a
blog on your site, however setting up a blog as a static webpage for your application
is very common because of how easy the process actually is.
You can also customize the look of your site quite easily with a Wordpress site, since
there are thousands of Free themes that you can use to change the look and feel of
your
site.
Also, make sure to get an email address that you can use for your application as
well. Having your domain at the end of your email, (i.e. [email protected])
looks very professional too.
Since you've already outsourced your application, maybe you should consider
outsourcing the development of your website as well. For just a couple of hundred
dollars, you can get a decent, customized looking site that is perfect for your
application in no-time.
It's up to you.
Your Social Media Presence
Another great way to both create buzz for your application and promote it once it's
live in the app store is to talk about it and share it on social media platforms such as
Twitter and Facebook.
We won't go into detail about each here, but if you haven't already, you should use
the time while you wait to setup a Twitter account and promote your application, or
use your Facebook account to do the same.
Twitter
Twitter is great because you can easily reach a number of people in a relatively short
period of time. With Twitter, you should try and get as many people to follow you as
you can so that they can help spread the word about your application too.
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Here's how you can get started on Twitter:
1) Go to twitter.com and signup for an account. For your username, you can use
your name, your company name, or your application name, it's up to you.
However, please note that more people will follow "people", instead of
companies or applications. This is a social network, and people want to be
social with other people, so keep that in mind.
2) After you sign up, you're not going to have any followers at first. You should
still write a few short messages (140 characters max), to yourself so that you
can have something for your new followers to read, and show them that you
are in fact a real person on the other end of the line. Just say something about
yourself or your application, it doesn't really matter at first.
3) Next, go to "Settings" at the top, and update your profile picture and your
background colors. Less people will follow you if you have the default profile
picture.
3) Also, update your bio with information relevant to you and your application. In
the "more info URL", be sure to place a link to your webpage that talks more
about your business or application.
4) Here's the trick to getting people to follow you: You have to follow them
first.
But, who do you follow? Where do you find these people?
Great questions.
You shouldn't just follow anybody, because you want your group of followers to be
targeted to your niche for whatever application your developing.
Take for instance our Drug Pronunciation application. We want to do our best to
make sure that only people who are in the medical field or are interested in the
medical field are following us.
So how do we find those people? We follow the followers of other people or
businesses in the medical field!
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So, at the top of Twitter, you'll see a menu item called "Find People". From there,
you'll be able to search for people related to what your app is about, as shown:
For our drug pronunciation app, we might type in "medical" or "med school". When
you click on search, you'll see a list of other twitter profiles that related to those
words.
Now, you don't follow those accounts, you follow the people who are following those
accounts, because you know they are a targeted group of followers! See how that
works?
In order to do that, click on one of the accounts that came from your search result.
From there, click on the number of followers that person has, which is shown on the
right hand side (not "following", but "followers").
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Then, click on the little icon on the right hand side of each of the followers, and select
"follow".
By doing this, you are notifying these people that you are interested in what they
have to say, and sometimes they will follow you back. If you keep updating your
profile, there will be an even better chance that people will follow you back.
So why do you go through all of the trouble of doing this? Well, when your app goes
live, you can put out a link to it on Twitter and all of your followers will see it. Now
imagine if you had 100 followers, and each of them had 100 followers (people
usually have more, but this is just for an example). If you tweet a message and each
of your followers tweet it as well (which is called a retweet), that means your
message get's shown to 10,100 people, and that's just on the second level. Some of
their followers may retweet it too, and so on and so forth. Are you beginning to see
how powerful twitter is?
Quick Tip: In order to shorten the length of URLs to make it fit within the 140
character limit of Twitter, use a URL shortener such as http://bit.ly or
http://tinyurl.com.
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Facebook
Facebook is also a great tool for sharing your applications through social media.
Probably the most striking thing about Facebook is the fact that there are nearly 600
MILLION people on Facebook, and the numbers seem to keep growing and growing.
That's a staggaring number of people all sharing information and status updates with
each other.
Also, Facebook is convenient because you can easily upload and share pictures of
your application (as well as videos too!).
If you have a personal facebook profile, but do not want to mix your application
business with it, you can create a Facebook Fan Page that acts like a separate page
that's just for your business or application. Here's a link to a great article about
exactly how to do that and get new fans.
Other Forms of Web Promotion
Here is a list of other things you can do to promote your app while you wait for it to
be approved:
 Press Releases
 Articles and Blog Posts (guest posts on other blogs)
 YouTube Videos
 Be a Guest on a Related Podcast
 Contact various iPhone app websites and tell them about your upcoming app. Some of
them may even write a "preview" post on their site about it!
Here is a list of some of the more popular iPhone application review websites that
you may want to contact to get some publicity:




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FreshApps
AppVee
Apptism
148Apps
iPhoneAppReviews
AppRater
TheiPhoneAppReview
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Chapter 12: After Your App Is Approved
Congratulations! Your app has been approved and is now officially on the app store!
What do you do now? How do you keep track of analytics? What do all these
numbers mean? What are promo codes?
Update the Availability Date
The first thing you need to do once your application is approved is to change the
date. For some reason, this isn't done by default on Apple's end. Changing the date
used to be the most important step, but Apple has fixed this. In the past, if you didn't
update the availability date to the current date it was approved, it would be buried
with a week old release date in the endless sea of apps. To change the date, login to
iTunes Connect -> Manage Your Applications -> Select your app -> Edit Information
-> Pricing -> Availability Date.
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Utilize Your Promo Codes
What are promo codes? Promo codes allow the developer to give out their paid
applications for free. These codes can very useful in marketing your application.
They can be found on the iTunes Connect homepage. (see image below)
There are plenty of iPhone app review sites out there to request for reviews of your
new app. These sites usually require promo codes for them to review your app.
These reviews will generate more buzz for your app and hopefully will get your more
downloads. Reviews in the Apple App Store is almost crucial. This is where
everyone will first see any review about your app. You can get off to a nice start by
giving your promo codes to friends and family and encouraging them to write you
some friendly reviews.
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Application Ranking
The ranking of your application is the most important aspect of getting downloads.
Higher ranking equals more visibility. Your first goal should be to make the Top 100
list of your respective category. Choose your category strategically. It is easier to
make the Top 100 list in less competitive categories. Being in the Top 100 list will
give you more visibility to gain more downloads and climb in rankings. If you're lucky,
you might make the Top 5 of your category and get in the Top 100 overall list. Below
is the graph that displays the downloads for our app "Convert Units for Free". There
are three key points, where the downloads significantly increase.
A.
Breaks
Top
100
Overall
Free
B.
Breaks
Top
50
Overall
Free
C. Breaks Top 5 Overall Free (64,281 downloads)
(24,506
(47,171
downloads)
downloads)
On point A, when our application broke the top 100, we gained more visibility and
saw a surge of downloads. We saw another spike in downloads at point B, when our
app broke the top 50. Point C is when we were on the front page of the Top Free
apps and we saw another jump in downloads. There are many tools for keeping
track of downloads, revenue, and rankings of your applications. One that we
recommend and personally use ourselves is Appfigures.com.
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Conclusion
Our goal with this eBook was to open your eyes to the wide array of possibilities
available to you with the iPhone Apps store. There are a million possibilities in terms
of the variety of apps you can develop and tons of potential for big products.
You are now equipped with the tools to build and complete your very own iPhone
apps from start to finish. Now, of course, there is more than one way to accomplish
the daunting task of getting your idea up and running. But we've presented you with
the keys to success without all the hard work. You get to be an overseer. Once
you've hired your developer and designer, simply stay in contact, check back
regularly. And prepare for launch.
Never before has there been such an opportunity for passive income. The Internet
and cellular phones provide diversity and reach to such a huge audience. We don't
know about you, but our heartbeat goes up as we think about what that means in
terms of profit potential.
Now's the time to "grab the bull by the horns." Take everything we've taught you in
this book and put it into action today. Take one step at a time. Your idea may be
small and simple, but powerful. Every step you take is one more toward profit,
success, and passive income that could change your life forever!
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