12 steps for developing an iPhone application

The emergence of phone brought about unprecedented changes, with the participation of people outside the application development community. But for those outside the development world, this process is still mysterious. This tutorial will guide you to gradually turn iPhone application ideas into reality. If you plan to create your first iPhone application, this article will provide you with various ideas, technologies, skills, and resources you may use.

1. Create ideas-excellent ideas

How do you know whether your ideas are excellent? The first step is to check whether your idea has connotation. The second step is to check whether the idea contains at least one element of success, including the following:

Can applications help users solve a unique problem? Before the invention of the lightbulb, some people complained that it was inconvenient to read books by candlelight. You need to know what problems the user has and how the application should make the user's life more comfortable.

Does an application provide services for a specific group? Although there is no such data on the App Store, the increase in the number of applications in the App Store indicates that the number of users of the app is also increasing. Find a suitable application group and create an application that is biased towards a specific group.

Can applications make users happy? This is an obvious problem. If your thoughts are interesting, you must find the right direction. Your thoughts may be a wonderful one.

Does the existing successful applications lack a very important function? Can you do better? What you need is not just a liquor list, but a waiter who can talk to customers.

Is the application highly interactive? We must face this problem. Successful games and applications use actions to attract users.

Tip: Is your application idea one of the above? If so, you need to prepare necessary tools.

2. Tool list

The following are the tools you need:

Add Apple iPhone developer Program *

IPhone or iPod Touch *

An Intel-based Mac OS X operating system

Prepare a confidentiality agreement *

If not, download and install the latest iPhone SDK.

Prepare a notebook *

Tip: Prepare all required tools.

3. Understand your strengths

What skills do you have? Are you a designer who is disgusted with programming? Is it a developer who cannot work after leaving the computer? Or neither of them is, just an ordinary person who has an idea to push to the market? A successfully designed iPhone application is like opening a small company. You play many roles, including investigators, project directors, accounting, information architects, designers, developers, marketers, and advertisers.

Keep in mind what all the outstanding entrepreneurs agree with-team cooperation is required to build a successful product. Of course, you can also take the lead, but you may waste a lot of time and energy in this process. Don't worry. Check the list below and then ask yourself which jobs are most suitable for you? Then find other talented people to fill the gap. The participation of other personnel will make the product more subtle!

Skill list

Identify which practices can play a role in existing iPhone applications

Market research

Overview Application features

Sketch

GUI Design

Programming

Application promotion and marketing

Remember to have participants sign confidentiality agreements. Tell the participants in the contract: I value this project very much, so I cannot disclose my thoughts at will.

Tip: select your skill needs first. Hire professionals for jobs that you cannot do.

4. Market Research

In layman's terms, market research is to look at what others are doing and avoid making the same mistake. Learn from the excellent and inferior applications in the app store. First, analyze other applications (game state Note: including similar applications), and then find creative application development and design solutions. Even if you see a large number of poorly-designed applications, you will learn from them and know which practices are inappropriate.

Tip: answer the following question: what will the application solve? Which products have you seen can solve this problem? How does a successful application provide users with information? How do you create unique applications on the basis of solving problems? What value does an application bring to users?

5. Understand the UI of iPhone and iPod Touch

If you want to create an iPhone application, you need to understand the functions and interfaces of the iPhone.

The good news is that you don't have to memorize the content in the encyclopedia-like Apple user interface guidelines to understand what iPhone applications can or cannot use. Try to download as many apps as possible, and then consider what features should be added to the product.

Pay attention to the following points:

How can well-designed applications switch from one screen to another?

How do other applications organize information?

How much information does they present to users?

How do they take advantage of the unique features of the iPhone, such as the accelerator?

Tip: Download and experience the top 10 applications in each category. Refer to Apple guidelines for planning the uidesign and list at least five features you want to integrate into the application.

6. determine the user category

Suppose you have determined that the application is valuable to users and that you are sufficient to attract a large number of Loyal users to the application. Who are these loyal fans? What actions do they need to take in their applications to achieve their goals?

If your app is a game, maybe they want the highest score. What is the difference between the experience of first-time game players and those senior players?

If this is a practical application and users want to quickly find a coffee shop, what operations do they need to take in the application to find the coffee shop? Where are they looking for a coffee shop? It is usually in a car. Can I design a user interface that requires multiple clicks and readings? Maybe you cannot do this! You need to design applications based on the real life of users.

Tip: list different groups of people using the application. If you want to make the picture as realistic as possible, you can even name these groups.

7. Draft ideas

Ask yourself the following questions:

What information does each screen display?

How can we direct users from point A to point B and then to point C?

How can elements on the screen be properly scaled and moderately sized?

Refining your ideas and writing them on paper can further develop your creativity, which is more effective in your mind! You can also purchase the iPhone stencel kit to quickly draft the app user interface prototype on paper.

Tip: plan and draft each screen of the application. Test various navigation schemes, text on buttons, and connection modes of various screens. Iplotz is a useful tool if you want to convert your drafts into numbers.

Draft an idea (from smashingmagazine)

8. Design

If you are a designer, you need to download the iPhone GUI Photoshop template or the iPhone PSD vector kit. At the beginning of the design, both iPhone GUI elements can save you a lot of time. If you have already embodied the application layout during the drafting process, drawing the screen is more like a real application design.

If you are not a designer, hire one! This is like hiring an electrician to do electrical work. You can also go to Home Depot to purchase a tool and try to design it on your own, but no one is willing to take this risk. If you follow steps 1 to 3, you should have all the things the designer needs to start working on.

When looking for designers, try to find those who have experience in mobile app design. They may provide some valuable feedback and suggestions for your draft. You can find designers in coroflot, crowdspring, and elance. The requirements should be detailed during job placement and a large number of resumes should be prepared.

Tip: if you are a designer, start working with Photoshop. If you are not a designer, you should start recruiting a designer to complete the job.

Design (from smashingmagazine)

9. Programming

Although this tutorial lists the practices in steps, it is best to prepare application programmers while preparing design resources. Talking to programmers can help you develop technically feasible projects with costs within your budget.

If you are an Objective C or cocoa programmer, start xcode. You can register for the following forums: Apple Dev Forum; iphonesdk; iphonesdkforum; iphonedev forums; and iphonesb.

If you are not a programmer, you have to hire one! Elaborate on the types of applications you want to create, including games, practical applications, and other types of applications. Different types of applications usually require different programming skills. You can search for programmers from odesk, iphonefreelancer, elance, and the above forums.

10. submit the application to the Apple Store

Next, how do I submit your application to the Apple Store? For anyone unfamiliar with xcode, it may be difficult to compile the application and publish it to iTunes connect. If you have a programmer, ask him to help you with the following work: Create a certification file, determine your application ID, create a distribution provisioning profile, compile an application, and upload it to iTunes connect.

Tip: if you are a programmer, you should plan the development schedule and start to work. If you are not a programmer, you need to hire a programmer to complete the work for you.

11. Promotion and Application

Applications can easily be buried in the store without being known. Don't let this happen to you. Make marketing application plans. In fact, it is best to develop multiple application marketing plans. Make preparations for testing various marketing plans. Some ideas can work and some cannot.

Strategy to maintain or increase application sales:

Use social media.It is a good idea for users to publish their favorite games to Facebook or Twitter if they get high scores. Think about how to integrate social media and its functions into applications. At least an application-related page should be created on Facebook and Twitter, using this as a platform for communicating with users and obtaining application feedback.

Promotion before release.Before publishing an application, you must create an atmosphere. Send emails to those who have written articles related to the application to see if they can make a fortune when the application is about to be released.

Develop multiple release plans.All functions and features cannot be provided at the first release. This gives users an illusion about the application and ensures that the application will be updated in the future. Then, the new version of the application is released in stages to promote the sales of the application in the store.

Tip: Develop 20 promotion strategies for target users of the application. Develop these strategies on your own, or hire someone else to help you do the job.

12. Concentrate and never give up

When you start to create the first application, you will be very excited and dream of turning a large number of new application ideas into reality. This is very easy to happen. You can have a dream, but don't let new game ideas affect the design and development of your first application. When developing the first application, you need to focus on it. designing multiple projects at a time will reduce your passion for building the first application as a success.

Tip: from now on, design and develop applications and turn your ideas into reality!