Tale of how I became an iPhone software developer
Somewhere in early 2010, I learned about a very interesting theory for me, which explained a lot of things for me in life. I wrote about it already on Habré habrahabr.ru/blogs/ui/111401 .Although I myself am engaged in the business of consulting and psychology, but most of my life has been associated with IT and programming. And here the thought came to me - to release an application for the iPhone, the release of which has changed a lot.
Well, as always, it all started with an idea. The idea of ​​the application was as follows: to give the user a tool with which he could easily recognize the behavior patterns of other people, and that this application would give specific answers to the questions “How?” And “How?” To interact with this or that person in different situations .
Under the cut, the process of creating an application and a lot of interesting things with sums in USD and pictures are described in detail.
Prep
At the very beginning of the way, I thought: “Or maybe take it yourself to write?” And began to find out how the process of creating software for the Apple iPhone looks. Having learned that there is such a language as Objective C, I began to read materials on it. But very soon I realized that with my knowledge of object-oriented programming, this would be a very long way (before that, I wrote in PHP, 1C and assembler). From that moment began the search for artists.
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It turned out that people who are friends with Xcode (an environment for developing applications for Mac OS X and iPhone OS) and Objective C simply do not exist among my friends and acquaintances of my friends. I had to expand my scope - and I started looking for performers in a wide geography. It was formulated the first TZ, which I posted on free-lance.ru
In parallel, I was looking for an artist among firms. The first figures of the project cost began to appear - $ 1,500 , $ 2,000 , $ 3,700 , $ 4,500 , one office even announced me the amount of $ 11,000 . The first sum is if I provide the design myself, the rest with their design and development is my content only. I was not ready to spend such sums on my own, rather a hobby than a large-scale project, so I shifted my focus to freelancers.
Within a few days, an ad for freelancing worked - and I had several candidates. The figures were announced completely different order of $ 500 , $ 600 , $ 800 USD. In the end, a freelancer was chosen, who agreed to the amount of $ 180 . It could not please me. Although there was a nuance - it is without design.
And so the work began: prescribing detailed ones. tasks, discussion of methods of implementation, the creation of interfaces, etc.
I must say right away that until this time I had been an avid Windows user with many years of experience (the administrator worked for several years). And I was not particularly attracted to the idea of ​​switching to Mac OS. Although at the time of the start of the project I had both an iPad and an iPod Touch, which for testing, I thought that would be enough. But it was not there. Of course, for drawing the interface, it was possible to do with Photoshop and specialized applications for designing interfaces for the iPhone / iPad, but somehow it was not at all interesting. And I started looking for ways to put Mac OS X and Xcode somewhere.
My first experiences were with Hackintosh - but they did not end in success, because Xcode refused to work under it (I had an AMD processor). Next, I decided to make a knight's move. I bought additional RAM up to 8 GB and installed Mac OS X under VMWare. The Habrayuzer experience here also came in handy.
Mac OS X on VMWare worked quite well, except for strong brakes. The first interfaces of the application were already customized in Xcode and Interface Builder under VMWare. But it was really a perversion. It was then that I started looking somewhere to buy a Mac for myself.
Many options have been sorted out - and used, and laptops, but I stopped on the Mac Mini. Fortunately, my friend just went to the States, and I asked her to buy it for me. In the end, it cost me $ 830 .
I will not describe my first impressions, but I can say right away - for almost half a year using a Mac, Windows' from BootCamp I used 2 times. Then my active development of Mac OS began.
In parallel, I registered as Apple Developer. Especially nothing remarkable happened. Everything was fast, it took about 1.5 weeks. Cost as for all $ 99 . The only thing I did was superfluous, as I later understood, was the received a US EIN, which, as it turned out, Apple no longer requires.
Design
Now I will tell how the development of the application itself took place. I myself have done a lot of design in the past, respectively, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are native tools. I started with the development of an interesting interface.
The first thing I decided was that I would not invent a bicycle and develop some completely new concepts, so I started drawing based on the recommendations of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines.
At the beginning, mockups were developed in iMockups for iPad, here I'll show a couple.
Then, I took up drawing in Photoshop. I found in the internet ready-made interface templates for iPhones for Photoshop and started drawing. Here are the first blanks:
In the process, I also found out that I would not be prevented from interesting colorful illustrations for my offspring. Again, an artist was found through free-lance.ru, the style of illustrations I really liked. 5 pictures in the end cost me $ 150 . But they give a special charm to the application. These illustrations are:
Development
After that, my freelance programmer took up the job. He painted programmatically, interface elements, transitions between screens, and I was engaged in testing and catching bugs.
From interesting technical solutions, I can tell you a few points.
- The application was immediately planned in two languages ​​- Russian and English. And it was decided that the languages ​​should be switched in the program settings. Therefore, the native multi-lingual mechanism of the iPhone OS was not very suitable. Based on this, we used XML files with interface translations, which allowed us to switch languages ​​on the fly.
- Since the content in this application is a key point, I had to develop a whole system for creating and editing content.
For this, I used my knowledge in PHP and MySQL. The shell allowed editing each block separately, both in Russian and in English. At the same time, the most important thing was that I often traveled, including in different countries, and I had to, so that I could edit and prepare texts everywhere, having a spare moment. Accordingly, I placed the database on my hosting, and got access to it from my iPad.
Ultimately, the PHP script generated the necessary XML code that was inserted into the program. - Also, a very important point in the development was to make the program logic easily adaptable, without changing the program code. Therefore, again, the XML mechanism was chosen, which described the necessary branches of the test logic and the final result.
In the course of development, various elements were added to the program, which increased the usability of the application.
Since I initially planned for the user to answer questions about his interlocutor every time, and he himself defined his behavioral type, in the process I realized that this was not very convenient. Therefore, I added a couple of points to the TOR: a database of interlocutors and the first test that the user does for himself and determines his behavioral style, and only then the application combines the behavior style of the user and his interlocutor and on the basis of this produces results.
Since it was expanded, at what significantly, the technical task, respectively, and increased the price of development. I can run ahead, but the programmer finally cost me $ 600 .
Next began the testing phase. I have a habit that does not allow me to release and do something poorly. Therefore, we tested the application for about 1.5 months. A myriad of bugs (bugs) and various artifacts were caught. But in the end version 1.0 of the program was compiled, which can be found in Russian AppStore as DISCover , and in American DISCover Me .
Publication
Next, I started creating a complete package for upload to iTunesConnect. Writing descriptions, icons, screenshots, creating a support site. I created the site myself, but to work on texts in other languages ​​I had to attract freelancers. Although I know English quite well, I cannot call myself a native speaker. And the description is still worth doing in a language understandable to the carrier. I found freelance translators from Canada who translated my descriptions into good English and French. And the content of the application site disc-app.com in English. All this still cost me $ 60 .
In addition, another good piece of time took me to create an application icon. First of all, there must be a whole bunch of different sizes. And secondly, such a size as 57 by 57 is very badly divided by 2, and in my idea of ​​the icon there should have been a central line, with which I had to pervert a lot. Here is the result:
As a result, on January 11, 2011, I sent my application to Apple for review. Whether long, short, but after 7 days or a week, I do not remember exactly, I received a letter from iTunesConnect, which stated that my application is “Ready for sale”.
The first statistics appeared only after 3 days. She was not very pleased. But later everything began to level off. At the time of this writing, there were about 400 downloads. Some of which were at $ 1.99, the rest at $ 4.99. In this case, no marketing moves at the moment has not yet been applied.
Development results
Direct costs:
Apple Developer Program - $ 99
Programming - $ 600
Artist - $ 150
Translator - $ 60
Total: $ 909
Related costs:
Mas mini - $ 830
Memory 4 GB to Mac Mini - $ 60
Apple Keyboard Keyboard - $ 100
Total: $ 990
Profit:
It is too early to sum up. But there will be. The application is long-playing. At the moment, direct costs have already paid off.
In conclusion, it is worth noting some points:
- I became a dedicated Mac user. And I like it. (Although at home I still have a server on Windows 2003 Server, but this is more the cost of production).
- This project is more of my hobby than a way to make money.
- A very interesting experience was created, which I plan to use, and release a couple more applications for iPhone, the ideas of which already exist.
About the application itself
Well, and probably cost a couple of words about the application itself and how it works.
The algorithm for working with the application is very simple.
At the beginning it is necessary to determine your prevailing style of behavior. For this there is a tab "My profile". It uses a questionnaire, in which it is special validated separately for Russian-speaking users, and separately for English-speaking users. There are 15 blocks in the questionnaire with four definitions in each. It is necessary to arrange the definitions in such a way that their order describes your behavior as accurately as possible. The program interface simulates metal satin plates on which words are written. To change the order, you just need to drag the plates, changing their order.
Based on the responses of the questionnaire, the DISCover application determines the prevailing style of user behavior and describes its graphical profile (one of the 16 available in the program).
Further, in the “Interlocutors” tab, the user can form the base of his interlocutors. In the beginning, you need to somehow name the person whose behavioral style the user plans to determine, and then follows a series of questions about the person. The questions are extremely simple. You can answer them even after a 2-3 minute conversation with a person on the phone. Questions of the following nature: “How does a person speak - quietly or loudly?”, “Does he argue or rather agree?”, Etc.
Based on the answers, the application compares the basic style of the user and the style of the interlocutor and provides information divided into 5 sections:
- General - general characteristics of the interlocutor - goals, values, fears;
- Communication - methods of communication with him, the compatibility of his style with yours;
- NLP-Rapport - tips on creating rapport with a person, which words are better to use when communicating with this person;
- Sales - features of sales to people of this style of behavior
- Personalities are famous people your interlocutor looks like.
In this case, the interlocutor's data is entered into the mini-database of users in which they are stored, and the user can re-read the characteristics and tips at any convenient time.
In addition, the application has a mini-library, which contains articles in which the DISC theory itself, its principles and history, as well as descriptions of all basic styles of behavior are briefly and concisely described.
And of course bonuses. In the "Settings", there is a button (i) About. There are some bonuses for Russian users. Bonuses from me personally and the company which I own.
PS According to a long-standing tradition that has already taken shape for as many as several years, I post a number of promotional codes for the Habra community. I hope you enjoy this product. Like my tale of his creation.
Promo codes
UPD: I post the last 5 codes:
UPD 2: As for the EIN, it should be clarified - I am from Ukraine, maybe it is for Ukraine that EIN is not required. Just do not want to mislead habrayuzerov. And getting it is very simple, you don’t need to send faxes anywhere, the easiest way is to call a well-known number in the American tax department and get it in a telephone mode for 5 minutes. In fact, I was so. In the beginning I was soared with faxes, and then I called and realized that I filled out the form for nothing. Although it is worth filling in, because the operator asks questions about it. Fill only in order to have a crib before your eyes.
UPD 3: Especially for one-day Habrayuzer new application price of $ 1.99 (
DISCover in iTunes
DISCover application site
UPD 4: I was advised in PM to do a web service on this topic. How do you, Habrovchane, look at this? Is it worth it?
I, in general, everything is ready for this - even there is a base for PHP and MySQL - all that remains is to make a shell and buy a domain.
And a couple of screenshots
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/114447/
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