How to Hire an iPhone Developer
Oddly, hiring an iPhone app developer is itself a challenging and mystifying process, almost rivaling the app development itself. If you are planning on building an iPhone app, but you are neither able nor willing to complete the development process yourself, then you may find it necessary or perhaps even desirable to hire a developer to complete the job.
Suggestions abound on how best to go about hiring an iPhone developer. The Internet contains lists of five tips for hiring a developer, six tips, and even thirty. In that way you are offered guidance through the maze, even if in the end you may still wind up lost. For starters, the eye-opening suggestion, near insistence, is made that the would-be producer of the app burrow down deep inside him or herself first to ensure that he or she in fact understands the app. What is it to do, how is it to do it, and why? Moreover, why should it do it even if it can? Through this bit of soul searching and sound business analysis, it is hoped that the producer will develop and clarify a vision which can be communicated to and adopted or rejected by the developer. This is to be done even before a developer is contacted. That is to say, that before a developer can speak intelligently to you about your app, you must first be able to speak intelligently about it to the developer.
Along these lines, too, must be an honest and hard-headed consideration of budgeting. In round numbers, iPhone apps cost from $20,000 to $100,000 to bring to market. $20,000 will pay for a small and narrow app, and $100,000 will be required for a sophisticated and highly polished app. Perhaps the majority of this is in the development cost, and selecting a developer enters into that. Bluntly put, there are cheap developers, and there are good developers, and generally no developers fall into both categories. New, inexperienced developers and freelancers will generally charge less, but will also generally be less capable, and may actually wind up costing more in the end anyway due to delay and excessive revisions. For top quality work, top dollar will likely be required, and so the producer's question must be, if top quality work is required, is it budgeted for and affordable. If it is not, then possibly the project is unachievable. That is a hard reality, but it is a reality nonetheless.
iPhone developers are widely available, and can be located through various sources. A simple Google search for iPhone developer will yield days-worth of search results, with developers from across the board. Freelancers can be found on any of the various freelance websites, such as freelancer.com, elance.com, and guru.com. One might even find the occasional freelancer with an ad on craigslist. To find the names and numbers of developers is not a problem.
You should certainly meet with more than one developer before deciding on one. Meeting with them, ask a few simple questions. First, do they have apps on the Apple store? If so, great! Then what are they? Then, what will be the timeline for development. If they seem in a hurry, watch out. Good apps cannot be rushed. Finally, and asking what some might call the first question last, what's it going to cost?
If you have an app that should be developed, and that can be, and you have the money to do it, excellent. All you will need is a capable developer to complete the process. Oh, that and a few months. Concept to market, that's the goal.
Suggestions abound on how best to go about hiring an iPhone developer. The Internet contains lists of five tips for hiring a developer, six tips, and even thirty. In that way you are offered guidance through the maze, even if in the end you may still wind up lost. For starters, the eye-opening suggestion, near insistence, is made that the would-be producer of the app burrow down deep inside him or herself first to ensure that he or she in fact understands the app. What is it to do, how is it to do it, and why? Moreover, why should it do it even if it can? Through this bit of soul searching and sound business analysis, it is hoped that the producer will develop and clarify a vision which can be communicated to and adopted or rejected by the developer. This is to be done even before a developer is contacted. That is to say, that before a developer can speak intelligently to you about your app, you must first be able to speak intelligently about it to the developer.
Along these lines, too, must be an honest and hard-headed consideration of budgeting. In round numbers, iPhone apps cost from $20,000 to $100,000 to bring to market. $20,000 will pay for a small and narrow app, and $100,000 will be required for a sophisticated and highly polished app. Perhaps the majority of this is in the development cost, and selecting a developer enters into that. Bluntly put, there are cheap developers, and there are good developers, and generally no developers fall into both categories. New, inexperienced developers and freelancers will generally charge less, but will also generally be less capable, and may actually wind up costing more in the end anyway due to delay and excessive revisions. For top quality work, top dollar will likely be required, and so the producer's question must be, if top quality work is required, is it budgeted for and affordable. If it is not, then possibly the project is unachievable. That is a hard reality, but it is a reality nonetheless.
iPhone developers are widely available, and can be located through various sources. A simple Google search for iPhone developer will yield days-worth of search results, with developers from across the board. Freelancers can be found on any of the various freelance websites, such as freelancer.com, elance.com, and guru.com. One might even find the occasional freelancer with an ad on craigslist. To find the names and numbers of developers is not a problem.
You should certainly meet with more than one developer before deciding on one. Meeting with them, ask a few simple questions. First, do they have apps on the Apple store? If so, great! Then what are they? Then, what will be the timeline for development. If they seem in a hurry, watch out. Good apps cannot be rushed. Finally, and asking what some might call the first question last, what's it going to cost?
If you have an app that should be developed, and that can be, and you have the money to do it, excellent. All you will need is a capable developer to complete the process. Oh, that and a few months. Concept to market, that's the goal.
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