how much does it cost to develop an app

Here is a great post about the cost to develop an app. I draw it here in my blog for my record. There’s a big ecosystem around app and offshore development for an app has been discussed heavily recently.

http://www.inside.com.tw/10/17/how-much-to-develop-a-great-app

我想這個問題會是越來越困擾著大家的問題，而這個問題其實也應該是國外已經被問到爛的問題。在Stackoverflow這個專業的程式設計師問答(知識+)網站上，2008年就開始這了這一則討論串 『How much does it cost to develop an iPhone application?』，問與答一直持續到今日，相當的有意思，也非常值得大家參考。開始的問題是這樣的：

如果要開發一個像是Twitterrific的iPhone App，開發者的收費會是多少？我想知道的原因是，我想要做個相同功能的應用程式給一個新的社群網站。我會用Ruby但是沒有任何Objective-C開發的經驗，所以對於我來說，選擇是我應該開始讀書學習iPhone開發或者是外包工作給一個iPhone開發者將是件有趣的問題。

Twitterrific主要是一個專門用來給Twitter使用者在iPhone/iPad上閱讀推訊的免費應用程式，在整體設計上頗受使用者的好評。而其開發者iconfactory所開發過的軟體以及其設計過的專業圖示更是不計其數，知名的LBS服務Gowalla、Windows XP與Window Vista等，裡頭的圖示皆出自該公司之手。

在2008年的時候，開發者Rob Drimmie回答的回答大意如下：

Everyone Needs an App

Everyone is blogging since it’s so easy to create a blog with blogger or wordpress. Now it seems that everyone is trying to having websites of their own. With the help of hosting and self-help drag and drop service, it’s easier than what you can imagine to create a beautiful website without knowing the programming knowledge of HTML and CSS.

And since apps on smart phone become so successful and such trend has moved to the app store.  Why don’t you create an app and access your customer whenever they are with their smart phone? There are a lot of self-help services for making your own app without knowing anything about the programming skills for iphone xcode or android eclipse.

See the following summary about a self-help service for creating your own blog/website and apps for smartdevices.

Website/blogging:

Weebly, Yola, Jimdo, Webs, uCoz, Wix,

squarespace, wordpress.

apps:  http://bit.ly/d5SY2D

appmobileloader, mobbase, motherapp, mobile roadie, isites, sweb apps

game: gamesalad

next action

Finally consolidated my business plan.  My plan is to target at app development on smartphone. There are three ways to realize it. i. online-platform; ii. co-office environment to incubate small development team; iii. coach for oversea marketing promotion.

i can leverage the resource once i start my MBA to fulfill above plan and hope to meet partners and angel investor.

Now i’m going to head down to learn iphone app development. I haven’t programmed since i graduated from the graduate school. Now in order to know the process of app programming, i need to start again. I find a coach and will pay some consultant fee for his advising and teaching.

The following time of this year will be very busy. Learn to develop iphone app and apply for MBA. I hope to get above done successfully.

The era of Mobile Internet

My business plan is about mobile internet, particularly in the stream of apps for smart devices.

Smart devices will be the tool to easy access to customers. Apple has proved to everyone that hands-with devices may have the potential beyond our imagination. Now all IT giants are eager to follow into the smart devices including phone, pad and as well as e-reader. What empower these smart devices are apps.

What’s the challenge behind the app economy? Vision Mobile published the first ever research of mobile developer economics 2010 with great depth analysis.  One point highlighted by me is that the challenge to adapt the apps to different markets.

I can tell very soon there will be one popular app research engine which can smartly identify the app you’re searching for. Also app outsourcing and auto-inventor solution will make the whole apps economics more promising.

The opportunity i’m looking at is the most effective way to localize apps and introduce them to the chinese market.