iPhone development time

Question

I have been asked to develop a relatively simple iPhone application. However, it would be my first application.

I am a fairly competent programmer and can turn my skills to a new language fairly quickly... what my question is, is...

How long has it taken some of you guys to make your first iPhone application and what was your experience like? Also, if you can say this sort of information, how much did you charge for it?!

Thanks in advance. Kindest Regards Tom

Answer 1

If you have an OO language under your belt and have a mac, these are reasonable minimums for the creation of your first, simple application (based on my own experience):

• 2 weeks: Learn enough Obj-C and iPhone SDK to create a simple 2-3 screen app.
• 2 weeks: Create and polish a beta version of the app.
• 1 week: Do a beta test of the app including 1-2 experienced iPhone devs.
• 2 weeks: Submit the app to Apple and wait.
• 1 week: Administrivia: Setting up a developer account, bank account info, and going through app submission process for the first time.

So a total of 8 weeks, or two months, minimum, if you keep the app simple.

iPhone / Apple specific pitfalls that will delay you (i.e. other than things that would delay any app developer, such as feature creep):

• Registering as a corporation (more complicated than registering as an individual)
• Failing to read the Human Interface Guidelines
• Failing to get at least one other iPhone developer with titles on the store to test your app
• Let me add to that, including content which "ridicules a public figure"

Learning resources that I found helpful:

• Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (PDF version)
• Stanford iPhone course video lecture series

My first app took longer than this, about three months start to finish. I was a little more delayed because I registered as a corporation, spent about a week making small, unrelated "test" apps, and ran a longer beta test. My app had a total of 7 screens, 3 of which required some moderately complex UI logic. In addition it required writing scripts to convert a large data set w/ images, and copy editing a lot of bilingual text. You can check out a video of my first app that took about three months to create from the time I started learning Objective-C to it's first day of sales on the App store. If your app is less complex than this, then it will almost certainly take you less time to launch it.

Answer 2

In my experience, this is the best place to learn iPhone development, hands-down:

http://mycodeteacher.com/lpackage.php?key=objc_iphone

Hard to say on time, but if you really devote yourself to these lessons, you should be able to create a simple app within a few weeks, I would think.