How did you get on, what did you use, what did you learn? Particularly interested in experiences of people who are not programmers and still managed it.

I have an idea for an app, it will be the most amazing thing ever and make me into a billionaire.

I’ve built a couple, not published on the AppStore but used to do specific internal process for a company. I’m not a developer but come from an IT background, not sure that makes much difference. I self learnt objective-c to make apps for iOS, pretty fun times learning but quite long winded, wish I’d learnt programming at Uni.

If you do have a good idea it might be worth checking out a freelancer website, it’s not just coding, your need a designer for the graphics etc..

This is my app, http://www.app-uncture.com/bike-setup.html, luckily I had a wife that was a developer, that just got laid off and wanted some more iOS experience, and I had the idea for it, I played with the website and icons and general layout with no prior experience, had bigger ideas for it but then she got a full-time job again, hey-ho.

oh, and despite only selling it for a $1, we made about a $1000 with coverage on here as well as some other big websites, downloads dropped to a few a week after that initial flurry so I figured I’d make it free, rather have people using it than not, now it gets about 20 per week or so.

I made a Pebble Watch app, wrote it in C in an evening. I win the most purile use of computer code ever.

My mum is so proud

I’ve also written a lot of prototype stuff on Android and iOS. Maybe look at ReactJS or Cordova and retreat to javascript if it all seems too hard (which it is)

I have never, ever, been interested in a smart watch before but now I need one just so it can tell me time in swear. That is brilliant.

Frank – depending on your view point it is (a) incredibly simple or (b) unbelievably frustrating! That doesn’t really help you does it? If your app has a straightforward (formulaic / forms type UI) then it is reasonably OK. If it doesn’t really involve much algorithm development to do smart stuff it is reasonably OK. If it runs all on the App and doesn’t need to exchange data with a server it is reasonably OK. If it is for your own use and doesn’t need to be fast, crash resistant, constantly updated to cope with OS variation it is reasonably OK. If it doesn’t require too much clever hardware interaction (e.g. camera, accelerometer, etc) it is reasonably OK. If it is only for one phone OS (and even better one screen size) it is reasonably OK. If you have some idea of the language you are developing in it is reasonably OK. If you have some experience of the IDE you are using it is reasonably OK. If you don’t have to dance through the apple restrictions to make releases to your beta users it is reasonably OK.

If some of the above are not true then take the pain involved in each one and multiply them together. The chances of making money directly from Apps are almost non-existent, even Apple users are accustomed to most functions being free now.

On a more positive note, if you think it will be easier employing a professional App developer – it might not be unless you can clearly define exactly what you want it to do, and how. In that regard at least making a prototype yourself has a lot going for it. Someone who could hold your hand through the painful bits would be good though.

Depending on what you want to do, http://appstudio.windows.com/ might cover things for you.

I’ve made a couple on Android, as a programmer I didn’t find it particularly difficult. There are quite a lot of free courses out there – I like the Coursera ones, but others are available. It’d be well worth doing a bit of structured study as you’ll save a lot of time in the long run.

My three boys have. Our primary does basic programming (Scratch and Minecraft) and secondary gets all pupils to make an app. MIddle_OAB also attends Coder Dojo in Stirling.

I Use basic for Android, really like it. Written a few apps as a hobby. Keeps the mind fresh and the maths current.

thanks for all the feedback.

The app would be relatively simple (I think). It needs to flash up random photos (from a defined gallery) and random lines of text from a user inputted list. I’ll have a play around myself and see how I get on, at the very least I may be able to produce a prototype then take it from there.