Alex Kaminski's Blog

Sounds great doesn’t it? Write a simple little application and sit back, relax, and let the money flow in. If you read this brilliant and insightful (<- sarcasm) article in the Guardian, you’d think it’s that simple.

So, let me try to set the record straight. If you are already a software engineer, than it might actually be that simple for you. Like the article says you need to get a mac, learn objective-c and start hacking away. For anyone who knows any programming language, picking up objective-c and learning the ins and outs of the iPhone SDK is a few weeks/months worth of time. Not that bad, especially since engineers love learning new things and challenging themselves.

But this article does a massive disservice to current iPhone developers by suggesting that iPhone development is easy and trivial. It’s not. Joe Schmoe can’t just get a mac, learn objective-c, and launch the next iPhone app hit. It’s simply not that easy. The reason that the iShoot developer was able to learn objective-c so quickly was that he was already a software engineer (working for Sun).

Most (if not all) software engineers have a BS, Masters, or PhD in some computer related engineering discipline. It’s there that they learn programming languages, software development, software design, and a bunch of other things. These can be learned on your own, but its much easier to pick these up while at school.

So of course a highly skilled software developer was able to write a successful iPhone app in his spare time. But this doesn’t mean that anybody can do it. Any person that claims otherwise is simply being dishonest or doesn’t know any better.

There is a ton of competition in the App Store with hundreds of applications being launched every day. So even if you can create an iPhone app, there is no guarantee that your app will be a hit.

If you’re Joe Schmoe and you’re tired of your day job and you want to hit it big by writing an iPhone app, go right ahead and give it a shot – just be aware that it won’t be easy and unlike some articles suggest there’s no 8 step process to making $22,000 in a day.