I Finally Developed My First iPhone App, But…

Well, I have jumped into the pool of iPhone app developers, seeking fame and certain fortune in a whole new stream of development. I have read the stories: man creates simple iPhone game and nets $250,000 in two months; girl creates iPhone app while watching episode of the Real Life on MTV and nets $25K in first 15 minutes; 8-year-old boy invents iPhone app that cures Polio. I figured I would give it a shot so that I too could become wealthy beyond compare.

My first app is for the NaNoWriMo competitors. It allows you to track your buddy list and get an update in real time of all of your buddies’ word counts. It’s actually a pretty cool little app. It stores all of the data locally, so if you open the app up when you are not connected to the internet you can see the most recently downloaded results. When you go online or hit the network, it will get the new numbers and update the database. All you need to do to add a buddy is put in their id number - it fetches their user name and all that jazz.

The app didn’t take me that long to build, which is a bonus. I did have to learn Objective-C and use Xcode and Interface Builder, but that was not really a problem for me. I have used many IDEs in the past and have a strong Java and Ruby background. Objective-C does take some getting used to, and I hate having to think about pointers, threads and memory, but that is another story.

When will this wonderful app be available to the NaNoWriMo faithful, you ask? Well, it will be out… next year. Sucks, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I am in the part of the process over which I have no control.

I have submitted my application to Apple to become a certified iPhone App Developer. When they get done crawling up my butt to make sure I am not some hacker looney, they will approve me, give me my secure keys, then I get to submit my app to the App Store on iTunes. Then, I wait some more for them to approve the app.

Since NaNoWriMo officially ends on Sunday night at the stroke of midnight, I am guessing that no one besides myself will get to benefit from the joy and excitement as you pass your buddies in the great wordcount war. Then again, I only have one NaNo buddy, and that is my wife. And she has not had the time to participate, so I guess I really don’t get to have much fun with my app, either.

But NEXT YEAR, you will be able to download the app and have some fun keeping up with your buds. No doubt, I will have made some improvements to the initial app by then as well, perhaps allowing you to message your friends when you pass them or find others in your area or something. All depends on what they allow in the API. I will still release the initial version when I can, so if you want to carry the word counts with you for the next 11 months for posterity’s sake, by all means.

The app will be free initially, of course. I may try to sell a subtle ad on there next year in order to keep the app free and to allow for improvements. But I have nothing in there that accounts for that yet.

Tags: development, iPhone, iPhone Apps, nanowrimo, Objective-C