Make your own iPhone app

Chances are you’ve read about the 14-year-old that recently designed a mobile application for the iPhone, which proved to be incredibly popular. So popular in fact it knocked your friend and mine, ‘Angry Birds’, off the top spot to earn the American teenager the position of number 1 free app in the UK. Upon your reading of this news you may well have thought to yourself ‘well I could do that, I’ve had hundreds of ideas for apps’. Everyone seems to like saying this, but very few actually put their wallet where their iPhone is and invest some time in their idea. Why not follow our How-To guide to become the next ‘Paper Toss’ success story.

Once you’ve got a concrete idea then there are two routes you can go down. To make an app with simple functionality you can design it online with a company who will launch it for you and take a share in the profits, or you can design and launch it yourself. For the former there are plenty of companies that will help you do this, find the top ten here.

Brainstorming

Your catchy name and single idea for an app is not enough. You need a well thought out plan for what the app will do, and you can start this by firing out ideas about what it could do. Think of all the features available to you on the iPhone and think of a use for them all. You need to ask yourself whether the app will fulfil a function, make people laugh, solve a problem and/or just be ridiculously interactive? Will people pay for the app or will it generate revenue through advertising?

Market Research

You might think you’re the first person to come up with the idea to slice fruit in the air with ninja swords, but someone may have already beaten you to the chase. Get out there and download all apps that are in the same area as yours. Evaluate and improve on each of them noting down their strongest and weakest features, making sure you learn to copy what works and remove what doesn’t. Have you considered your market audience? Ask people you think would be interested in it for their ideas and see if they’d pay for it.

Sketching

Now the real work starts: your first task should be to write out a content-map. That is to say a mind map of each page that will feature in your app and how they connect to each other. Now sketch out each page with notes to remind yourself what you want each button to do. There’s a handy website to help you with this step called MockMe, which aids in producing good looking sketches to get you moving.

Graphics

This is the stage that your app starts to come to life – take your drawings and make them real. Using a professional package like Flash or Photoshop turn your drawings into real graphics. You can usually find a collection of iPhone images to help you with this step should you need it. If you don’t fancy yourself as a designer then you can pay for one. It will make your app look ten times better if it’s professionally done. Get in touch with your fellow students, ask around for someone who’s designed websites or phone apps before. Or start searching on the Internet, as there are hundreds of designers in the UK who can help you.

Programming

For this one you’re probably going to need to find yourself your own Mark Zuckerberg to work for you (make sure you know what he’s doing with your idea though). You can find someone to program your designs on the Apple Developers Forum. Unless of course you fancy learning Objective C? If you already know some C++ then jump right in and start by downloading iOS SDK and Xcode from the Apple iOS developers website. This program helps you to create content while being able to view the graphics on an iPhone emulator. Don’t forget that programming is half coding and half testing. Your app must be solid and cannot have any bugs in it at all when it’s ready to launch.

Launching

Now with your finished app in hand you need to do a few things before you can get it on the Apple App Store. Firstly you need to join the Apple iPhone Developers Program (which costs £59). This will also allow you access to their fantastic website full of help for improving your app and learning the programming language better. There are some technical details to take care of before the final launch:

Creating the app certificates

Defining the app ID’s

Compiling the app

Uploading to iTunes Connect

Promoting

You’re not done yet. Just because you’ve designed an app to take people on a Monopoly Board Pub Crawl of London, complete with augmented reality directions, doesn’t mean that anyone will download it. You need to promote and advertise your app. Start an email campaign to anyone you think might mention your app in the paper, on a website, or on TV and radio. Start your own social media advertising campaign by setting up a website for the app and promoting it through the usual channels of Twitter and Facebook. Get your friends to start talking about it and downloading it.

In order to become really successful you need to reach what’s called the Tipping Point. This is the ultimate achievement of any app whereby word of mouth, fashion, and advertising, meet in one massive sales spike.

Great Success!

Congratulations, you’ve made your own iPhone application and you can now afford to give up your job as a Biochemist!