App Developer

[jackhos1]

Do you guys code iOS apps in Swift, or Objective-C? And why do you choose one language over the other?

I've found it hard for me to open up to Swift wholeheartedly, but I've heard almost nothing but positive reviews for it; and many believe that within the years to come the will be no need for Objective-C.

We use objective c due to the fact that we have so much code written in it, it would take a whole lot of time to change from objective - c to swift.

 

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[Hooked]

Thanks for the AMA!

Following up on your last response, do you have any experience with Swift? Any thoughts on it?

What language would you learn as a newer developer making a GUI app?

 

[AndrewNC]

It just depends how many times the user is using the app, to make a lot ($1000+) off ads you must have hundreds of thousands of downloads if else you will not make anything off ads. If you are going to a small niche market I recommend you pricing it at .99 but if your making a app in a niche that is populated I would make it free and have in app purchases.

I have about 700,000 iOS app downloads in the last year, and average between 1,000 and 2,000 downloads a day. All my apps are free and most of them are ranked pretty high in their category.

Based off of 1,000 app downloads per day when the app is free - do you have any idea what the conversion rate is if I began pricing them at $0.99?
Also - What prices for in app purchases have you found to be the most profitable?

Thanks in advance!

 

[luniac]

u say u dont do marketing for ur apps but yet u have social media pages for them, is that not considered marketing?

What method do u use to generate visibility. I find it hard to believe that u just release an app and keep completely silent about it but if someone downloads it then only then do u actively entice them to check out your social media pages.

do u contact review sites?
do u have a dedicated site for each app?

how do u create those dedicated sites if u have them? do u use some service like QuickMVP or wordpress,etc...

Are there any specific strategies that u use to get people to see ur app?
an example:
1)making a twitter account just for the app that targets a medical niche
2)searching for twitter medical accounts
3)following all the followeres of the medical account that u find
4) once some follow u back u post the link to ur medical app on ur twitter
5) targeted medical niche followers are more likely to visit and download your niche medical app

thanks!

 

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[jackhos1]

I have about 700,000 iOS app downloads in the last year, and average between 1,000 and 2,000 downloads a day. All my apps are free and most of them are ranked pretty high in their category.

Based off of 1,000 app downloads per day when the app is free - do you have any idea what the conversion rate is if I began pricing them at $0.99?
Also - What prices for in app purchases have you found to be the most profitable?

Thanks in advance!

Again it just depends what niche your in if you put your app from free to paid I usually see only about 10-15% of downloads compared to when it was free and I found most in app purchases at 1.99

 

[jackhos1]

u say u dont do marketing for ur apps but yet u have social media pages for them, is that not considered marketing?

What method do u use to generate visibility. I find it hard to believe that u just release an app and keep completely silent about it but if someone downloads it then only then do u actively entice them to check out your social media pages.

do u contact review sites?
do u have a dedicated site for each app?

how do u create those dedicated sites if u have them? do u use some service like QuickMVP or wordpress,etc...

Are there any specific strategies that u use to get people to see ur app?
an example:
1)making a twitter account just for the app that targets a medical niche
2)searching for twitter medical accounts
3)following all the followeres of the medical account that u find
4) once some follow u back u post the link to ur medical app on ur twitter
5) targeted medical niche followers are more likely to visit and download your niche medical app

thanks!

I have a social media page for the company, not for each app

Once the app starts getting downloads it markets itself and yes we do incentivize ratings and to follow us.

1) No
2) No
3) No
4) No
5) Always target the nice but let the app market it self, have such a good app that people come to you.

 

[luniac]

so quality is king, thanks.

 

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[eStan]

Thanks for the AMA! I'm getting into the App space myself now. I've been following the top apps for over a year.

My question would be what have you found to be the best revenue estimator of the top apps? Thinkgaming.com maybe? For instance, based on your experience, what would be the average daily revenue of the apps on the 500 and 300 spots on the top grossing chart?

Good luck with your ventures!

 

[GetRichODT]

I have a computer science degree and spent many years coding, primarily in java, before I moved into management. I've always been passionately entrepreneurial but never broke free of the golden handcuffs of a corporate job. I'm currently blogging about my journey to do just that.

I'm in my mid-30s and am curious what resources you would recommend for someone with a comp sci background to get up to speed quickly on building an iphone app?

Do you do all your development on a mac? That's been one thing that has held me back in the past since I don't have one but now may be the time to go out and make a purchase. I'm also curious about whether my time would be better spent learning how to code or if i would be better off outsourcing my app ideas and how much that would generally cost.

 

[jackhos1]

Thanks for the AMA! I'm getting into the App space myself now. I've been following the top apps for over a year.

My question would be what have you found to be the best revenue estimator of the top apps? Thinkgaming.com maybe? For instance, based on your experience, what would be the average daily revenue of the apps on the 500 and 300 spots on the top grossing chart?

Good luck with your ventures!

This deponents on wether you are talking free or paid the top 150 app in the paid section do anywhere from 1500 to 10000 a day and for the top grossing thats a whole story haha.

 

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[jackhos1]

I have a computer science degree and spent many years coding, primarily in java, before I moved into management. I've always been passionately entrepreneurial but never broke free of the golden handcuffs of a corporate job. I'm currently blogging about my journey to do just that.

I'm in my mid-30s and am curious what resources you would recommend for someone with a comp sci background to get up to speed quickly on building an iphone app?

Do you do all your development on a mac? That's been one thing that has held me back in the past since I don't have one but now may be the time to go out and make a purchase. I'm also curious about whether my time would be better spent learning how to code or if i would be better off outsourcing my app ideas and how much that would generally cost.

It just depends on what type of apps you want to make, if your going to be making games I would recommend coding it yourself but if you are doing simple apps just outsource it as it is not worth your time to code it, but if you plan on making 50+ apps I would learn to code. Also all we use is Macs since you can program for iOS and Android from there.

 

[Sisyphus]

hey, thanks for the AMA. Couple questions:

1. how long did it take for you to make your first app (in hours), and did you have any prior coding experience?
2. did you start out by yourself?
3. thoughts on the opportunities of developing on google glass/ apple watch/ oculus rift vs. the standard mobile app space.

 

[Ninjakid]

Thanks for doing this thread, it's very insightful and worthy of some rep.

 

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[jackhos1]

hey, thanks for the AMA. Couple questions:

1. how long did it take for you to make your first app (in hours), and did you have any prior coding experience?
2. did you start out by yourself?
3. thoughts on the opportunities of developing on google glass/ apple watch/ oculus rift vs. the standard mobile app space.

It took about 150 Hours of development time to make my first big app, now it takes less then 10. I did start out by myself and I decided to invest into other people then to pocket money and it worked out really well. I would start of with developing for a platform with a lot of people and then if you app gets really popular then I would move to developing the app for other platforms.

 

[BigBrianC]

When you started out, did you already have a Mac? If not, how did you end up acquiring one?

 

[jackhos1]

When you started out, did you already have a Mac? If not, how did you end up acquiring one?

I did start off with mac mini, but if you don't have a mac I'm sure a local library does.

 

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[RisingStars]

First of all, thank you for doing this AMA.

I got a few questions:

What would you tell someone who is just about to start app development?
I mean, I got some resources to learn already, but what would be your advice?
How would you start if you had to start all over again?

I know a little bit about programming, but I need the total basics in app developement.

 

[Alche]

I've outsourced an app and its going to be finished in a few weeks. Its a free app and the niche has a couple strong competitors but I believe there is room for my app as well because other competitors have poorly executed the idea with bad code and design. My friend will be promoting it through his local connections where I live which hopefully will kick it off to a good start.

What is the best paid way in your opinion to promote the app? My guess its in-app advertising?
Any other free methods to promote my app?
The app will have a banner ad but no in app purchases, can it still earn a decent amount if it takes off?
Also its an app that has a backend and requires good load times, whats a good dedicated server? I've only tried softlayer.

I can provide you more info via pm about the app if needed. Thanks

 

[Alan LT]

Which is better to learn objective C or swift for beginners?

How long would it take me to learn these languages ( I learned html5 & css3 in less than a month)?

I'm going to assume you use Xcode to create your apps, so do you think this program is best for creating apps?

Why & how do you get people to go and download your apps?

 

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[BigBrianC]

Do you reccomend going $.99 on Android even with risk of piracy or should I go free with ads? I could also do a lite-premium style. Its a large niche (sports coaches and scouts)

 

[skrdav]

Hi, I'm looking to execute my idea for an app.

The app will display data from a website to its users. As I'm not a developer, that will have to be outsourced. Do you have any recommendations regarding this process?

Thanks

 

[Stan.Geek12]

Hi, I'm looking to execute my idea for an app.

The app will display data from a website to its users. As I'm not a developer, that will have to be outsourced. Do you have any recommendations regarding this process?

Thanks

I think this might help you find some guys who will take up on that and develop exactly what you need. It's basically gonna be called "outsourcing" if am not wrong.

 

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[Fox]

What are your thoughts on App analytic tools.
Do you trust them to keep your information regarding sales private?
Which have you used and which do you recommend?

 

[Alan LT]

Apple just announced tvOS for the new Apple TV. Does anyone here have an apple TV and feel like an app could increase the quality of it?

 

[Fox]

You have a successful app that is selling well but you have some great ideas for more updates. Would you translate your app first (say it is only in English currently) or would you update first then translate the update?

In short: test demand before translating or cut costs by translating all new updates at once?

 

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[maxfilho]

how do you keep the people you are outsourcing from stealing your app?

 

[Elliott_Diaz]

First off if there is anything I can do to help you out or provide you with any value since I'm still new around here I would love to!

I know deep down over the past 2-3 years I have build a solid mindset on what I should be doing to do extraordinarily great things in this world. The one thing in my life though is school. Right as I am developing my app and at the beginning of growing my blog, I see that there is so much opportunity if I can get my app developed to the point where I it can be launched on the app store and receive positive feedback.

I am in my second year of college. halfway through the first semester of this year.

I am thinking of developing the app fully as I finish this semester off then go all in during the summer and possibly take next semester of school off.
With snapchat and their filters being pretty much the new emergence of a social media feature like hashtags were for all the other platforms I have some Ideas that I think would be incredible on the marketing of my app. But that of course takes time and as a computer engineering student that also works, it's not a matter of me making excuses but things that are genuinely requiring time to survive.

What's your take on developing an app while going to school and working. Would you say it would be worth it to finish this semester. Then take off next semester of school. This semester I would everything possible to get the app developed to beta testers liking then launch and go all in on marketing it and growth for the remainder of 2016 to see how it goes?

I Would appreciate it greatly!
-Elliott

 

[jackhos1]

First of all, thank you for doing this AMA.

I got a few questions:

What would you tell someone who is just about to start app development?
I mean, I got some resources to learn already, but what would be your advice?
How would you start if you had to start all over again?

I know a little bit about programming, but I need the total basics in app developement.

Focus on filling a need. So many people now a days will just publish and app that they think will be "cool" or the "next big thing". The truth is 99% of these apps will fail due to the fact there is no value in them. There are Hundreds of Thousands of games on the app store. What makes you think that yours will stand out? How can you compete with million dollar companies that spend all day focusing on one game? To counteract this I would find a small need, solve it, profit and move up until you have the resources to pull off the big wins.

 

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[jackhos1]

I've outsourced an app and its going to be finished in a few weeks. Its a free app and the niche has a couple strong competitors but I believe there is room for my app as well because other competitors have poorly executed the idea with bad code and design. My friend will be promoting it through his local connections where I live which hopefully will kick it off to a good start.

What is the best paid way in your opinion to promote the app? My guess its in-app advertising?
Any other free methods to promote my app?
The app will have a banner ad but no in app purchases, can it still earn a decent amount if it takes off?
Also its an app that has a backend and requires good load times, whats a good dedicated server? I've only tried softlayer.

I can provide you more info via pm about the app if needed. Thanks

If your app is good people will find it via the app store search tool. I have never spent a cent on app advertising due to the fact that if you play your cards right with the screenshots, title, and keywords the downloads will find you.

Banner ads do not pay that much, the higher CPM is found with full-screen ads. But In-App purchases will always be more profitable then ads.

 

[jackhos1]

Which is better to learn objective C or swift for beginners?

How long would it take me to learn these languages ( I learned html5 & css3 in less than a month)?

I'm going to assume you use Xcode to create your apps, so do you think this program is best for creating apps?

Why & how do you get people to go and download your apps?

Depends on how much time each day you put into it. You should easily master Objective C in less then a month if you live and breath it.
Xcode is the best.