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Show HN: Tag Along (my first iPhone app 37 days later)

itunes.apple.com

30 pointstsalfie23 comments

I'm interested in knowing what you found to be the best resources for building your first iOS app. Did you use anything like PhoneGap or just Xcode? I have been looking at making an iOS app and while there are lots of examples of how do specific things, I haven't found any good overviews of how to properly architect an iOS app or what if any framework to use.

I built the backend server with Rails (I knew this already), but the rest was native iOS, so all Xcode. As far as how to architect it, I'm not sure I'd be much help. I basically jotted down what the app would look like and just started with individual features. I did have some help and advice from two iOS devs when it came to questions like, "I want it to do X, what is that called in the iOS world?", so I was better able to search for answers.

Basically, I'd just start with a feature of your app and try to build it. Most likely, someone smarter than both of us has done it and written about it (or at least something similar enough). Once you start writing code, you'll quickly get a feel for how things work and have a better sense of what the overall app should look like. Not sure if that helps any but good luck.

Hey jamesgagan, I feel your pain. I found the same thing when I started iOS development a few years ago: plenty of tutorials on how to restyle a specific widget, but not many resources on how a real-world application should be structured as a whole.

I've got a few iOS apps under my belt and I feel like I could have something to offer in this area. Feel like Skyping for a half hour or so? I'd love to help talk through your architecture. My email is in my profile.

thanks for the offer - i may take you up on it at some point!

I think the Stanford coure was a great reference.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cs193p-student-final-proj...

I built my first app from scratch almost entirely using Learn iPhone Programming (http://learningiphoneprogramming.com) by Alasdair Allan. Highly recommended.

i'll check it out.

I'm going through Beggining iPhone 4 Development from Apress right now and it's a great resource.

I built this in 37 days with no prior iOS experience (though I did have experience with ruby/rails). I think it could be useful but I'd love some feedback.

Instead requiring all of your friends install the app why not have people add friends by email/cell number. Then on the backend determine if they have an account if they have an account send it through the app otherwise they can just send an email/sms.

more to build, and for people who may never buy.

Yes, it is more to build.

However, this idea eliminates the risk that your uers won't bug each of their friends to install your app.

Also, the right design for the email notification can act as great marketing for your app. You can certainly make a better landing page on your website than your app's product page in the App Store.

I think most of us would love to give feedback, but at first glance it seems requires all the "friends" to use the same paid app is not something easy to tag along.

Besides, I am using Android now ;-) so...

Just a side note, for solutions that needs social networking to work, it would be extremely hard to charge people up front. You gonna have to give it away for free (first) to earn some viral effects to kick in.

This is a good point and I see the turn off of "pay for this and hope your friends will too." This is the sort of feedback I was looking for - would someone buy this then ask their friends to do the same or is that too much to ask?

I don't think so. If I tell my friends "hey this app is cool, we should all buy it" I think that could work. It's only $2, you spend way more than that doing most anything with friends anyway.

Without first trying an app I wouldn't recommend to my friends. However I couldn't properly evaluate this app without my friends also trying.

If all have to buy a copy, the decision to buy would become a collective one which the chance of buying this app would be even lower.

Further, as this is the first app by the author, there is no track record as a reference.

Hope you understand my reasoning for why social apps should be free at least at the beginning.

Don't charge. In products with network effects, you want as little friction as possible.

This is why about.me demolished flavors.me, even though flavors.me came first.

Since your product is built around doing things with other people, there's a natural advertising angle, viz., suggesting things for people to do.

I would consider some sort of free version of this app, so people can join without risk. Maybe make a version that limits you to 3 friends for free, or unlimited friends for $1.99?

Yeah, combined with the above comment, I think this is a good idea. This was actually my initial thought (but with 2 friends) early on, but I wanted to experiment with the idea of only having a paid version because I believe paid apps get more usage (I might be crazy here).

From my experience free trumps paid unless the paid app is promoted by apple/lots of blogs. You may get more return users with a paid app (since they shelled out the cash they will probably want to get their money's worth) but if you're trying to build a user base and especially if your app relies on one, which yours seems to, free is the way to go.

I agree. Sounds like a great app, but to be useful, I have to pay for it and so do each of my friends (unless you add the email / SMS feature suggested above).

I suggest a fremium pricing model. Perhaps all features are free exept one killer feature, which is an optional in-app purchase. For example - push notifications when one of your friends suggests an activity.

honest question: how will you differentiate yourself / market your app better than a group texting app?

I think the big advantage here is reducing the noise and the effort. If I'm going mountain biking this afternoon it only takes me about 10 seconds to let all my mountain biking buddies know that. I don't have to figure out which group I'm sending the invitation to and explain what I'm going to do and where.

I believe simple, targeted apps can be useful.

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