From the Desk of Howard Dyal
App Developer

Many of us would like to make an iPhone app for our iPhone or to make money with it by selling our app to many of the other iPhone users, but actually many of us don’t know where to start or what to do, so as this article states “how do I make an iPhone app” I will take you through just some of the steps with which you can make an iPhone app.

Before we start. If you want to create an iPhone app, you need to understand the capabilities of the iPhone and its features.
Can you make a coffee with your iPhone? No. Can you make phone calls? Yes!

To help – whenever I use * symbol that’s the important point to have.

step:1 Tools we need to make our app

Join the Apple iPhone Developer Program ()*
Get iPhone or iPod Touch *
Get an Intel-based Mac computer with Mac OS X 10.5.5
Prepare a Non-Disclosure Agreement (You can get the form on net) *
Download and install the latest version of the iPhone SDK if you don’t already have it.
A spiral bound notebook

Step:2 What skills do we have?
Are you a designer whose understands the Objective C programming language or are you like me, a person who can’t design their way out of a paper sack? Or maybe you are neither, but an individual with an idea you’d like to take to the market?

Step:3 Market research
Learn from the good, bad and ugly in the App Store.
Use search engines to identify apps that sell and the ones that don’t. From this you can see if there may be a need for your app.

Step:4 Look at other Apps in more detail

How do well-designed apps navigate from screen to screen?
How do they organize information?
How much information do they present to the user?
What color schemes do they use?
Do they use the inbuilt features of the iPhone such as the “Accelerometer”, “Rotating Screens” and even the “Screen Swiping” feature?

Step:5 Identify “Who will be your customers?”

If your app is a game then you may only be able to sell to people who are in the younger generation.

If your app if an accountancy program, you may be only able to sell it to business people.

If your app is uses GPRS for maps, then perhaps it would be ideal for holiday makers and people who travel via car.

You get the idea.

Knowing the type of person who would find your app useful may limit your potential sales.

*Step:6 Draw Out Your Idea

They say “A picture paints a thousand words” and this is certainly true when designing an iPhone app
Being able to see the concept shows you how much potential work is needed.

And by “Draw” I mean literally sketch. Line out a 9-rectangle grid on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and get to sketching!

Using tools such as mind maps can really pay dividends and speed up this part of the process.

*Step:7 Design your idea

If you are a designer and use Photoshop, download an iPhone GUI Photoshop template and get your hands on a collections of iPhone GUI elements that will save you a lot of time in getting started. If you’ve solidified your layout during sketching, drawing up the screens will be less of a layout exercise and more about the actual design of your app.

If you are not a designer, hire one! Or look at where you can obtain information that will allow you to easily understand the process of making apps. Unfortunately, no single article like this one can explain all the steps needed and how to complete those steps 100%.

One resource I know of is at http://www.howdoimakeanapp.com but there are others.

Well worth a visit if you are really stuck never-the-less.

*Step:8 Submit your application to Apple Store

Once you have created your app, you will then need to submit it to the Apple store.

The process of compiling your application and publishing the binary file for Apples iTunes Connect can be somewhat difficult for anyone unfamiliar with XCode. If you are working with a developer, ask them to help you or do it for you.

Summary:

So as you can see “How Do I Make An iPhone App” can be straight forward for sell established designers, but for the novice, it may be a little too much to cope with.

A suggestion is to search the Internet for specific tools that can semi-automate this process.

I would use terms like:

How Do I Make An iPhone App

Tools for iPhone App Development

And if all else fails:

Freelance iPhone app developers.

Additional Reading – Report By Laura Morse