
Should companies in small countries produce iPhone apps? - webdragon
http://webdragon.com.au/main-site/welcome/should-australian-companies-produce-iphone-apps
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fleitz
It's really a question of profit.

Why would developing an app for app store in XYZ jurisdiction be any different
than the US?

If you have a single convenience store in the US it's probably the same
business decision in Australia.

Everything that makes Australia "small" and unique provides niches that will
never be filled by American iPhone devs, for example I'm sure there is money
to be made in the Australian trucking sector which appears to me to be very
different than in almost every other country.

~~~
webdragon
The main reason is population size.

For bricks and mortar retail (or most industries), costs scale with population
size: a larger country requires more stores.

For apps, there is one relatively fixed development cost, no matter how many
customers you have access to. It costs roughly the same to build the app
whether you've got potential customers numbering 1 million or 100 million, so
you're likely to get a lot less bang for your buck in a smaller geographic
market.

~~~
fleitz
There is a Tim Hortons app in Canada, we have roughly similar densities,
2.9/3.4 per km^2

Would you rather build an app for the US market, or Liberia, yet Liberia has a
higher population density.

It sounds like you want to build store finders, to me this would mostly be
boilerplate with a few images and a different location db for each store.

Build one store finder and then go shop rates around that reflect the fact
that they are all the same. Heck it could mostly be done in HTML which means
you can do a jqTouch app instead of Cocoa Touch.

Is there something about Australian businesses or addressing that would make
abstracting these details impossible?

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webdragon
The Tim Hortons app in Canada is a great example - having such a large network
of stores, partially in the US, makes it possible to share costs over a large
number of customers. The same is true of any large company with access to a
large number of consumers (in Australia or elsewhere).

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mahmud
Every developer in Sydney seems to be working on iPhone and Android apps.

Australia might be "small", but aussie hackers and their work are exported to
bigger markets daily :-)

~~~
webdragon
That's true! The article is more about iPhone apps _for_ Australian companies
(as clients) as domestic app users, rather than _by_ Australian companies for
anyone worldwide. There have been some good high-profile success stories of
game developers in particular making great apps for the international market,
but so far only corporate giants seem to be building apps specifically for
their Australian customers.

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gte910h
Disclosure: I'm a app developer who makes apps _for_ 3rd parties, so far from
disinterested in this discussion.

All amounts in USD.

I'd say the calculus for "should we make an app" matters strongly WHY you're
making an app.

Many companies make "prestige" apps. These have little functionality, and are
mostly toys or are basically sophisticated marketing materials. An example of
this type of app:
[http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i2e2...](http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i2e2fd2bc31136679bc3101796b8b9235)
[Coca-Cola]

Should you make this type of app? If you already have name recognition, or
your industry functions off of it, YES. This type of application can basically
be something that people toss away, but just like much of advertising, may
make your customers take notice and remember you.

If your industry does NOT function off name recognition, I don't really see
why this type of application is useful for you to make. They often disappoint
people who want hardcore integration with your products and services, so they
aren't without cost (not even costing development cost).

Now should you create a client/tie-in app for your business? It depends. If
you work off of some sort of information that the iPhone can collect (even
"Where is the user"), then really look at a strong case for developing an app.
Functions the application can access are: Where is the user, what's a picture
of something the user is near, how fast is the user moving, what is the user's
email, what is the user's contacts, what are the user's phone numbers, shall
the user call you right now, and would the user like to hear something right
now. Odd pieces to consider separately, but depending on your industry, they
may be appropriate. If you're a paint company, pictures of their room which
you then make an app to show their walls (or even have real people doing
mockups for them) could be a good selling tool. If you're a home improvement
company, pictures of the job could be a great thing (see the excellent "JuJu
List app" for an example of this) for making a good quote. If you're a company
that needs to show a local area to users (say, here are our locations, or here
is our delivery zone), then the app can do well for you. But remember, if
people think your app COULD do something, they may go away disappointed if it
doesn't.

For instance, if your company repairs heating and A/C, if the app doesn't show
them the status of their call, and estimated time of the driver, you'll very
possibly get negative reviews, bad press, etc (then again, bad press can be
better than no press).

Additionally, iPhone apps are not inherently expensive. You can get them done
for under 10k, but you _have to listen what's cheap, what's not, and be
willing to cancel what's not_. Lots of medium to large size companies involve
way too many people and expensive measures, and end up spending 40-200k
internally and 20-150k externally before they get their app out the door due
to overmanagement. Ideally, this sort of thing should be a 1-3 person job
lightly managed at a company.

~~~
webdragon
In small countries like Australia, unless you've got tens of thousands of
customers, or very high-value customers, it can be difficult to see the value
even from a $10k investment!

~~~
gte910h
Well then make a useful app that costs money! Then it's not just the
advertising side, but the actual revenue as well you get to factor against the
cost.

