Well, I’ve finally been paid by Apple for my iPhone apps! It’s been an interesting road, but I’m awfully glad that I stuck with it and made it onto the payroll in the end. So, briefly, here’s a summary of my experiences thus far with the iPhone Development.

July 2009 – Downloaded SDK, bought ‘Beginning iPhone Development by Mark and LaMarche. Highyl recommended.

August 2009 – First apps on the App store.

November 2009 – More apps on the App store

December 2009 – More apps on the App store

January 2009 – Best month’s sales yet!

February 2009 – Received payment from Apple for sales made on the app store.

Although the payment wasn’t enough to retire on, and I’m certainly not giving up my day job, I’m pretty pleased with myself for having actually turned a profit. I must remember that I set out on this venture not to make my first million (although that would’ve been nice) but to see if I could actually do it. This result suggests that I can.

You might have noticed that a lot of the apps that I’ve designed have been pretty rudimentary. You’re right, they are. You might also have noticed that there is a lot of commonality in code between the two apps. Again, you’re right. I make no apologies for the simplistic nature of the apps I’ve designed; they were designed as I was learning to program, after all. And to be honest, even if I was a gun programmer, there would still be no way I could compete with the big companies. Remember, I do this on weekends and holidays!

The fact that people have bought my apps suggests that there is still room in the market for the part time developer.

I guess this signifies a movement in my approach to iPhone development. I feel that I’ve developed my skills enough that I can move on from simple apps, and I intend now to work on far more complex apps. I’ve already got a few in mind; as these develop, I will take the other apps off the market, and leave only the new, more professional applications.

These are my ideas:

1. A home brew app.

2. A more complete history quiz app.

3. A more updated Australian citizenship quiz app.

And a few others that I’m keeping under my hat…

And finally, thank you to everybody out there that’s actually bought my apps! I appreciate the support!

I haven’t posted too much here about iPhone development – normally I leave that on my iPhone development page, but I had to tell you about some of the fantastic resources available for developers on iTunes U.

If you are a complete neophyte, I recommend you check out: SEE (Stanford Engineering Everywhere). This has classes for the absolute beginner, including an introduction to Java, and C++.

If you are a little more advanced, then I suggest you check out: CS 193P (Intro to iPhone App Development.) Another Stanford course, this one is directly focussed on iPhone development.

Enjoy.

(Oh, and you can get the textbooks from Amazon, if you need, but they are not cheap!)

Education4u continues to make progress in my plans to open another income stream on the app store. I’ve developed a very simple system for administering quizzes via iPhone apps. Basically, this is the way it works: Firstly, we start off with a splash page, advertising education4u. Then there is a start page. After that, 10 questions are selected at random from a sample of about 30 or so. Each correct answer scores the player points. After 10 questions have been asked, there is a conclusion page, which explains how well you did, and offers you the opportunity to play again. Pretty simple, but effective, I hope. These are the apps that I’m planning to develop in this format:
Australian History
World War 1 History Quiz
World War 2 History Quiz
Vietnam War History Quiz
I’ve also been thinking about developing a quiz based on the Australian Citizenship Test. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.

I’m currently trying to get my apps that I’ve developed onto the app store via iTunes connect. It’s turning out to be quite a complicated process – certainly a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. So this is the process so far: 1. I created my apps. Pretty steep learning curve, learning objective-c, but I was prepared for that – and I enjoyed that process, so no complaints about that. 2. I registered as an iPhone developer, with my business name, education4u. Paid my $99, no worries. 3. Now that I’ve got to the point that I want to sell my apps, it turns out that it’s not enough to have registered my company ABN – it’s got to be registered for GST, as well – and that means I have to complete quarterly reports on my income. I’m only selling my apps for $1.19 – how much income can there be? 4. Then I’ve got to submit banking and tax information! For the US as well as Japan and anywhere else. To understand my annoyance at the hassle, try searching on google for the amount of other developers getting annoyed at this process. I’m a bit disappointed with apple – for a company that prides itself on its home-grown developers, and the fact that it makes money via innovation, not product placement, the app dev market has really been sold out for the big businesses. Anyway, I will let you know how long it takes me to get listed on the app store…

Anyone know how long it takes to get your app cleared on the iPhone App Store? I’ve sent my apps in (all fine, no problems with uploading images or binaries) and two weeks later, I’m still twiddling my thumbs and waiting for my apps to be approved. Very annoying. I’ve read somewhere that apps that you have to pay for (which mine are) take longer than free apps to publish on the store. I wonder why… Something else that is annoying – if you are developing and selling apps in Australia, then apparently you need to register your business for GST – which is ridiculous, because normally you only need to register for GST if you earn more than $75 000. If I’m in any danger of that, I’d gladly register for GST, but I really don’t think that’s a possibility. Anyway, I’ll keep you updated on my progress. but I’ll also post some screenshots from my apps.