Building An App for Smart Phones

[tarcone]

How difficult is this to do? Is it easily done if someone is a programmer? If there isnt a lot to it, can anyone do it?
I guess Im looking for someone who knows a little about this process.

[cartman]

It really all depends on the app and the platform, but for the most part you are going to need programming skills. For iPhones/iPads, you are going to more than likely need to know Objective C, and for Android there is a lot of Java and C++. Our company does a lot of development in the mobile area for our security offerings, and it is a challenge to get a consistent look and feel across the multiple platforms.

[tarcone]

Thats interesting. I didnt think of the multiple platform issue. Is it costly to publish an App?

[cartman]

There is a small fee to join the Apple Developer program ($99 to $299, depending on the focus) but publishing the app itself is free. Apple takes a 30% cut off of the sales. Google charges $25 to register as a developer, and publishing is free. Google takes a 30% commission on sales as well.

[gstelmack]

Apple requires you to build on a Mac as well, that may affect the cost.

You can also look into some of the engines out there, such as Mono or Unity, that make it easier to write cross-platform. Then you can code in C# instead of Java or Objective C if you know them. You still have to worry about platform-specific bits, different screen resolutions, etc.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

If you have some experience with IDEs and coding XCode can be a joy to work with. Eclipse much less so.

In my experience, it is easier to code for Android (to me Java is much more straightforward) but difficult to make it look good, whereas the opposite is true for iOS development.