

From idea to AppStore in 2 weeks - timparker
http://www.alasdairmonk.com/journal/from-idea-to-appstore-in-2-weeks/

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podperson
A year or two back three of us (one only very part-time, and two of us
inexperienced) developed an iOS app that did two way translation (speech -
text - text - speech) using two three different services from two different
vendors, from scratch in less than a week. In Objective-C. (It didn't get
submitted to the App Store, it was demoed to potential investors and then
disappeared, presumably owing to the existence of similar apps.)

Not a terribly ambitious app, but no less ambitious than the app described.

Ruby Motion looks interesting, but I don't really see how it would make a big
difference to shipping something like this in a very short time frame.

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bobthedino
Hi, great looking app, well done! I'm wondering if you ended up caching the
Tube status information on your own web server, or if you are directly
accessing Transport for London's site?

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vignesh_vs_in
Incidentally my first iOS app is also a London tube statuses app. But i never
made any money out of it, (i deemed it unworthy of 1$).

Although i was learning Obj C for some time, i developed my tube map app in 2
weeks of starting with cocoa framework.

Its time to start looking at marketing 101 lessons :).

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AlexeyBrin
I'm curious if the author was able to earn the initial investment in the
tools: _200$_ __RubyMotion __+ _100$_ __iOS Developer __.

~~~
sgottit
Yes – as of writing I've sold enough units to pay for the costs a few times
over as well as server costs for the custom API I built. Some profits will be
reserved for London based charities.

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brador
What stack are you using for the API server? Any chance of a quick article on
that?

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geon
Ruby would be my guess.

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AlexeyBrin
If you know and enjoy coding in Ruby, you intend to target only iOS, and you
don't know Objective-C, C or C++ than RubyMotion is a good investment.

On the other hand, if you want to target iOS and Android you'd better learn
Objective-C and Java. An interesting alternative is to use HTML5 and
JavaScript if you already have a good background as a web developer.

~~~
gebe
Or, if we disregard costs, C# and use Xamarin's (<http://xamarin.com/>)
products.

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AlexeyBrin
Same goes for C# and Xamarin, if you already know C# and enjoy coding in C#
...

If you don't know C# I see little reason to buy a Xamarin license (I know you
can get started for free which is great).

~~~
gebe
Code sharing between platforms could make it a worthwhile investment of time
and money. But it's quite costly if you are just starting out.

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ceeK
This is great. I spent much, much longer on my first iOS app and it isn't half
as successful. Very well thought up and executed.

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andrewroycarter
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like because iOS is such a hot platform right
now everyone is trying to hop on the bandwagon without learning anything new.
Write iOS apps in ObjC. It's not hard, it's not that different, it's just
something you don't know yet.

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mgkimsal
Might just be the fonts, but this looks like a Windows 8 app.

Congrats on the launch!

~~~
riklomas
The font, called Johnston, is from the London Underground design style and the
colours are those of the lines

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface)>

~~~
adam-a
It's a great font!

I've recently been working on a game and I wanted to include this font in it.
I've been a bit worried though because of the vague and scary sounding license
that seems to come with all fonts, including Johnston. Did you consider the
legal aspects? And did you do anything to make it "legit"? Like pre-rendering
your text assets to images or anything? Or did you just include a .ttf in your
app bundle?

Nice looking app btw!

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robomartin
> earning me enough pennies to buy some Dominos pizza.

To a large extent this has been the real problem in the iOS app domain for a
while. Apps are far more likely to make you enough to buy a small pizza than
even approach earning you a reasonable salary.

Part of it, I think, are the mechanics of the App Store itself. Search has
been broken for years. When compared to searching on the 'net the difference
is stark. This is unfortunate because developers who do a little financial
math will, without a doubt, walk away. You are far more likely to make money
with a good website than on the App Store. That's why people hesitate to spend
$200 on Ruby Motion...you simply won't get your money back unless you use it
to write apps for others and earn money for your work rather than from your
apps.

~~~
andymoe
Three years ago my friend published his first app in the App Store. He taught
himself Objetive-C and had never programmed a day in his life before. He first
app made a few bucks a day so you know what he did? He build another app. And
another. And another. You know what he is doing today? House hunting in San
Francisco and taking frequent vacations to Hawaii. By the way he did this
working four days a week. So the problem is not really the App store it's that
peoples initial exception don't intersect with their willingness to put in the
time needed to build a business.

~~~
thetrumanshow
I think a lot of us are curious if this is still possible (or whether it is
only true if you built apps 3 years ago) and would like to hear from anyone
with knowledge as to whether this is still possible simply by playing the
numbers game with a 1-man shop.

For example, "met" a guy on Reddit who claimed to have built a bootload of
Google Gadgets and made 1/2 mil in the process. I've been in the same market
during that same time-frame, so I'm generally aware of what is feasible... and
I believe I can vouch for the fact that this may still be possible, but
probably 150x harder now.

~~~
andymoe
Once he got to 100-250k installs things started to take off but that did not
happen until two years in so this success is not that long ago. He also
started to build more polished apps at that time and stopped consulting to pay
the bills and worked on his own stuff "full time."

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gearoidoc
Great post - I love reading about this rapid fast releases, even better when
the writer had to learn a new language.

I was curious about ruby motion beforehand but now I can't wait to get stuck
in.

Oh, and congrats! :D

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purephase
Congrats. I still can't get by the initial cost of RubyMotion. I know, it will
pay for itself, but that's a lot of initial buy-in going on faith. I wish they
had a demo version available to try before buying.

~~~
gearoidoc
They offer a 30 day money back guarantee:

<http://sites.fastspring.com/hipbyte/product/rubymotion>

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Kurtz79
I'm really curious about that.

There are about half dozen similar applications on the Appstore, for free.

I tried a few, and most of them did the job they were suppose to do fairly
well.

How did you convince people to choose yours as opposed to the other ones that
already existed ?

Clearly the Metro article is what pushed people (that possibly didn't know
that those apps existed) to actually get and download your app.

Congrats and kudos.

~~~
sgottit
Thanks!

I knew that there were a lot of similar apps on the AppStore but I went with
my conviction that less is more. Nearly all the apps are multifunctional and
include journey planners, maps, alerts etc etc.

As a Londoner, I know my way around, the only thing I want to know is if the
tube is even working – this is how Lines was born. I've tried to make the
app's simplicity it's main selling point and hope I've achieved this to some
degree.

~~~
drd
Actually, it is a very useful function. It has usefulness and simplicity.
Would you mind to give ROI analysis for your project? This will be helpful to
the audience here.

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sgottit
Thanks. As of writing Lines has sold a few thousand copies, so it's made a
good ROI. After costs have been paid (servers, iOS dev license etc) I'll be
giving some profits to chairty.

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gfodor
I'm also pushing out a rubymotion app in the next week. Its hard to estimate
how much time it saved me but it definitely made building the app a much more
enjoyable experience.

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mesozoic
This looks like a sales pitch for Ruby Motion to me.

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cnp
Its a good one. RubyMotion is a delight to work with, my absolute favorite
coding environment.

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RyanMcGreal
"BUT, and it's a big butt" - deliberate misspelling?

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LAMike
4 days for approval? That's pretty fast.

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leviathan
From my experience it's a hit or miss. I just got an approval for an app I
submitted on March 1st. That's the shortest time (6 days) I had to wait for an
approval.

