Before you become a Freelance Mobile Developer

Mobile app development is taking over our world today. With the endless demand for smart phone apps, this field is full of Apple, Android and BlackBerry developers. Submitting your app has become much easier, with the major app stores relaxing their restrictions. Most app stores charge a nominal registration fee, which makes it more lucrative for the app developer. But can a freelance mobile app developer really earn that much to support his own living? Is it worth becoming self-employed, freelance mobile app developer?

Pros and Cons of becoming a Mobile Developer Contractor

Here are the things you should take note before you decide to become a freelance mobile app developer.

Each App Store has its own drawbacks

Each of the major app stores comes with its unique drawbacks.

• The Apple App Store still continues to slap several restrictions on app developers. Besides, the huge number of iOS developers would make it difficult to make your mark as an independent mobile developer.
• The Android market is easy to enter, but the mobile platform is fragmented, thanks to apps for too many types of mobile devices.
• BlackBerry World is not systematized enough. Besides, this has to be installed on the device before use.
• The webOS and Windows Mobile 7 are much lesser saturated.

Registration Fees

Most mobile platforms require you to pay up an initial registration fee. While the Apple App Store charges developers an annual fee of $99, the Android Market is much cheaper at a one-time registration fee of $25. The BlackBerry World charges one-time fee of $100 as well. Nokia Ovi charges a one-time registration fee of $73, but adds on other signing fees as and when applicable.

The Android Market works out the least expensive for you, while Symbian is the most expensive one.

As you can see, you also need to consider the cost you will incur as regards registration and signing fees for each of these app stores.

Company Registration Fees

Some app stores also charge you what is known as “company registration fees”, which is a fee to certify that your app has been “verified and tested” in their marketplace. At this point of time, Symbian is one platform that charges a hefty company registration fee. The Apple App Store charges you a fee to sell your app in their store. Most other platforms are free and you can download and use their SDK without fearing the above restrictions.
Of course, paying certification fees is optional and only required if you want to access certain advanced features of that particular app marketplace.

App Store Commission

Most of the major app stores charge you a 30% commission on the sales of your app in their marketplace.
The BlackBerry World charges only 20% commission. The webOS pays their developers via PayPal, which decreases your commission further. Hence, this one may not be an extremely viable for you, returns-wise, especially if you are a US-based mobile app developer.

Breaking Even

It is important for you to consider the pricing of your app, as you finally need to break even your expenses and returns. Most of the major app stores stipulate a minimum price point of 99c. Only the BlackBerry World has a minimum price of $2.99. This shows that you will be able to recover your initial investment without too much trouble. So there is no major risk factor involved here.

Actually earning from your app

Your aim is not just breaking even, but also making a decent sum every month, from the sales of your app. For this, you will first have to decide a target sum you want to earn and based on that, see if you can manage to generate the volume of sales required to make that much amount of profit. While you are projecting this figure, you will also have to look at the size of the particular marketplace that you are targeting. Right now, Apple and Google are at the very top of the rung. Hence, these also have the highest number of app users, which means, you have that much more chance of making profits in these markets.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you can definitely make profits being a freelance mobile app developer. But how much you can make each month depends on your costs, your marketing efforts, volume of sales and so on. Analyze each mobile platform in detail before selecting your chosen platform or platforms and then go ahead and develop apps for the same. 

Good luck!

Creating your first Mobile Device Application

Amateur developers and coders are often intimidated with the various issues surrounding the development of apps for mobile devices. Luckily, the advanced technology that’s available to us today makes it relatively easy in developing mobile applications. This post focuses on how to create a mobile app from a wide range of mobile platforms.

Developing a mobile application

How do you develop your first mobile application? The first thing you have to look at here is the size of the deployment that you are aiming to create and the platform that you want to use. In this post, we are going to talk about developing mobile applications for the smart phones.

Developing applications for smart phones

Developing apps for smart phones is similar to Windows Mobile devices, but you have to understand your device first. Smart phones have similar features to PDAs, so they have send and end button features. The ‘back’ key is used for backspace and browser back functions.

The best thing about this device is the soft key, which you can program it. You can set this feature to create multiple functions. The central button also acts as an “Enter” button.

Note: You have to install Smartphone 2003 SDK to write smart phone applications using Visual Studio .NET 2003.

What if the smart phone has a touch-screen?

This is the difficult part, in the absence of button controls in a touch-screen handheld device, you will have to choose alternate controls, such as the menu. Visual Studio gives you a ‘Main Menu’ control, which is customizable. But too many top-level menu options will cause the system to crash. What you can do is to create few top-level menus and give a variety of options under each one of them.

Developing apps for BlackBerry smart phones

Developing apps for the BlackBerry OS is a big business today. For developing a BlackBerry app, you will have to possess:

• The BlackBerry JDE Plug-in for Eclipse
• BlackBerry simulator
• BlackBerry smart phone and data cable
• JAVA programming knowledge

Eclipse works great with JAVA programming. A new project, filed with a .COD extension, can be directly loaded to the simulator. You can also test the app by loading it through Device Manager, or by using the “JAVAloader” command line option.

Note: Not all BlackBerry APIs will work for all BlackBerry smart phones. So note the devices that accept the code.

What’s next?

After you have learnt to develop a basic mobile device application, you should carry on and try to improve your knowledge. You should:

• Be active in developer forums and discussions
• Enroll in learning labs, both online and offline. This will give you more tips and tricks on creating varied applications.
• View online video tutorials on building apps across various mobile platforms.

Creating iPhone/iPad apps that sells in APPSTORE

Pre-Requisites

Have you ever wanted to develop your own iPhone/iPad app but you might not have the programming knowledge or experience? Well, you’ve come to the right place then.  First, make sure you have all of these: 

1.  Determination
2.  Time (approx. 4 weeks)
3.  A dollar  

Have you got all of that checked? Great, move on. Otherwise, come back when you have all of that checked. 

Getting started – What to expect 

So, I see that you have the determination, time to spare, as well as a dollar. So let me tell you what you’re going to do with all these. Firstly, you’ll be going through a course that’s going to last you for 4 weeks. Yup, you’ll be attending it. So you definitely need the determination, as well as time to go through all the materials that you’re going to be studying. I will also let you know what you are going to go through in the 4 weeks. So you’re probably wondering why you need the dollar, well that dollar is basically to get you signed up for it. It’s pretty straight-forward for everything else.

Before you’ll even be diving into the course itself, you’ll of course, be greeted, like how you’ll be greeted and introduced when you just sign up for a class, just like in High School. So anyway, you’ll also be given a short overview of the app/game development market and also, the potentials of the business. You’ll also be informed about what’s new in iOS7 and what the differences are between iOS 6 & 7.

First Week – dipping your feet in the water

In the first week, you’re going to get all geared up. You’ll be given a short overview of the app/game development market and the potentials of the business, a description of the course structure, the most important things you need to know about iPhone app development. You’ll also be doing some market research for your future product(you’ll be taught, how to do that), some pointers to plan for your product, finding your niche or about all the product ideas – who will use your app? The main differences about iPhone and iPad app-game development.  Lastly, you’ll be given the week’s summary as well as a step by step of “how to” to iPhone app/game development, from absolute newbie to expert. Oh, I almost forgot, you’ll also learn about planning a project and putting together a development team.

Second week – in a week of total programming

You’ll be devoting your time to different programming techniques, and getting your feet wet in the iPhone app/game development. You’ll be taking time to look at ways in finding out what programming tools are available for iPhone game development. What hardware/software should be used for iPhone app/game development. Learn how to use the XCode, code editor, and develop basic grasps of a few programming languages. You’ll also be given some programming practice to developing iPhone/iPad web app. Creating a simple game and building a universal app for both the iPhone and iPad. Learn about software testing procedures, see how to simplify the app development process using special shortcut tools.

Week 3 – design, process and audio motion effects

Week 3 is devoted to learning the design methodology, sound effects, and also the animation for iPhone game development. Even if you’re not a designer, you will also learn how to start designing a project. Find out how to create a user-friendly interface and graphic elements and develop skills in using graphic editors for the iPhone app/game development for 2D and 3D character design, animation and sound effects. Learn how to design a good audio centric app, create a simple animation with adobe flash, learn what’s necessary to know about sound effects, and image libraries and design patterns for the development project.

Week 4 – marketing and publishing

You’ll be taught how to promote your iPhone/iPad application or game and start making money. It’s devoted to learning the marketing techniques and how to publish your app or game on the app store. You will learn everything about basic marketing techniques and optimal pricing strategies. Find out what app and game genres are general best sellers and learn all the different ways to promote your app or game. Using methods like viral marketing, creating trial and paid versions of the app, effective blog advertising, Q&A participation and many more. You’ll also learn how to quickly and easily publish your product on the app store. Not to mention that you also get some insider information on how successful app game projects. You’ll find out what makes the best selling iPhone application. Understand how to think like your customer, analyze your competitors, learn the step by step guide of marketing strategy. Find the optimal price for iPhone apps and games. Video tutorials will also be provided, in here, you’ll get lots of programming practice by developing a element re-app known as, “hello world”, with variations an iPhone/iPad web app creating a simple game using Cocoas 2D and building a good audio centric app. In addition, you’ll also learn how to use the XCode editor, how to debug your app, and how to make a simple user-friendly app interface with the interface builder.

It’s not the end yet, there’s MORE for you!

There’s some bonuses for you as well. You’ll get lots of information about developers secrets by reading the 9 interviews held with successful developers. Use their knowledge and success. Now, it’s your turn to develop your great game or app, and get it on top of the app store. Click the image below to get started, or you can also click here.

TAKE NOTE** Paying $1 is for the trial, it might show as the discounted amount which is $49(U.P $100+). The trial lasts for about a month, then you will be billed fully, you will also get a 'warranty' of 60-days money back guarantee(it's 100%) if you might not like the service, you can claim your money back. That's for sure.