After weeks/months of work I have submitted my first app to the iTunes AppStore!
So, now we wait for the approval/rejection to occur (hopefully not the latter)…
In truth, the amount of work can actually be measured in hours or perhaps days, with the actual building of the app being the least time consuming part since this is a very basic application.
I had no idea going into this the amount of time that would be spent on the preparation of the application for submission. At this point it is probably the most daunting aspect of the process — the development of the product was the simple[r] part. I expect that it will get easier the more apps I create, and having gone through the process once already, at least now I know what’s involved and what some of the potential gotchas are.
It’s tough to go it alone, but for now that’s what I have to stick with, having a day job and no capital to back up my projects or to hire other staff, much as I would like to be able to focus on this alone. It seems to me like you really need a team of three (+/-) people to make a really decent app in a timely fashion. Ideally, I think I could get by on a relatively lean three-person team and would consist of:
- Me. (duh)
- product design and specification
- UX/interaction design
- iPhone development/programming
- Web site programming (if required)
- graphic designer (my graphic design skills are limited, and I’m really slow at what I do…)
- iPhone interface eye candy
- Icon design
- Web site design
- Deployment/distribution (and marketing) engineer
- Manages distribution for testing, arranging and managing alpha and beta tests.
- Handles all iTunes AppStore preparations (SKUs, marketing materials)
That last one is kind of squidgy, but it was the stuff that really made me insane on this first go-round, and having someone – even just part time – to collect the resources and manage the iTunes part of the equation would be really helpful. This persone would be someone who has done it a number of times and knows all the little gotchas. There are many.
Thankfully, I chose to create an app that was very small and not real complicated to construct. Otherwise, this app would never have gotten submitted! However, since it was an app that I personally needed (but didn’t realize until after I needed it), I felt pretty strongly about just getting it DONE!
I will announce when the app is approved, if it is approved. In the meantime I will be planning out the next update for NineOneOne, in addition to the next app in line…