Tons of books have been written on the topic of selling desktop apps – when it comes to mobile, the bookshelves remain mostly empty. O’Reilly’s latest work is focused on mobile apps in general and the App Store in specific – does it make sense?
Ken Yarmosh starts out by looking at the process for creating an app. For him, this starts out at processing the idea – and finding out whether pursuing it actually makes sense.
When the idea is workable, the next step involves design and UI. Even though the tools shown are focused on the iPhone, the lessons learned here are valid on all platforms.
The next chapter looks at managing the development process. If you do the development yourself, the value of that is limited – but one never knows when scaling up is due. The chapter after that looks at the publishing process in iTunes.
chapters eight and nine are very interesting. Chapter 8 looks at the marketing process, while Chapter 9 analyzes various ways to keep a product line alive after its initial launch.
Finally, one or two interviews with prominent iPhone developers are at the end of each chapter.
As usual for O’Reilly, the book is well written and is made up of decent quality paper. The only issue I had was the permanent cross-referencing to the marketing chapter at the end – it seriously disturbed reading flow for me.
In the end, a seasoned and experienced developer who is interested in PR will probably find little new in this book. Rookies, on the other hand, must buy this book irregardless of which platform they end up targeting. If you are inexperienced in handling the iTunes store, the book also is worth its price…
Content, RSS
Twitter