Apple’s App Store is a service or a directory of applications which allows users to download and install applications, or apps, on their Apple products like iPad, iPhone and iPods. Some of these applications are available for free, while for others the users have to pay their developers. Apple promotes this online store as a marketplace of applications, allowing the developers of an application to take up to 70% of the revenue from the sale of their apps – the rest of the 30% go to Apple. This profit sharing of revenue has spurred a lot of interest in iPhone app development. In the next few paragraphs we talk about hows and whys of iPhone app development, and how you can use it to earn some passive income.
The App Store
The App Store was opened as a marketplace for applications for iPhones on July 10, 2008. At that time, Apple’s iPhone was blowing away the competition in the market in the smart phone category. With the App Store, it became possible for users of iPhone to install new applications on their phones with ease. This online marketplace was further boosted with the launch of Apple’s iPad tablet, which can also be installed with apps from the App Store. With the users of all these Apple products acting as a single market, iPhone App developers do not need to port or develop a product for multiple platforms if they want to reach these users – they only need to use the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) to produce an application that can run natively on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
iPhone SDK
iPhone SDK is the old name of the Software Development Kit used to develop apps for Apple devices. After the release of iPad , Apple renamed it to iOS SDK – just because the applications created using this SDK can be run not just on Apple iPhone, but also on iPad and iPod Touch too. The latest version of iOS SDK is version 4.1, which was released on September 8, 2010. Using it, a developer can create different kinds of apps for their users – apps that are games, apps for news, entertainment, utility apps that help the user accomplish some task, social networking apps that allow a user to remain connected with others, and travel apps, among other various types of apps.
The apps created can be interfaced using touch technology that is part of the iPhone and iPad universe. In fact, any app that interacts with the user without touch sensitivity is seriously lacking in useful functionality, and may be rejected by users. Unless it is a good voice recognition app, perhaps!
To fulfill this requirement, Apple has introduced Cocoa Touch framework as part of the iOS SDK. Cocoa Touch framework is used by the developers to give a touch interface to their applications. The language used to write in it is Objective-C, which also allows a developer to use C and C++, because the latter languages are a subset of Objective-C.
Why Create Apps
On October 20, 2010, the Apple App Store crossed another milestone by selling more than 7 billion copies of different apps in total. The number of different types of apps that are available in the store tops 300,000. These are the kind of numbers, in addition to the fact that the developers can set any price on their application as they see fit, that are driving developers to develop apps for the App Store. In addition to this, the launch of the iPad has introduced a new market of user to the app store. Developing apps for the Apple App Store is serious business, with a turnover of about $1 Billion when last checked.
If you want some part of the action, iOS SDK is available for download for free, and requires a Mac to run. But to be able to actually upload an app to the App Store, you need to get your app “signed” by Apple, for which you need to pay $99/per year as part of standard package or license. Apple will take 30% of the share of the revenue, and the rest 70% is paid to the developer. So if you are interested in reaching millions of consumers directly as a software developer, the Apple App Store is just the right place for you.