Make Money on Androind in Swedish

For you swedish-reading readers, see my similar more extensive blog regarding creating your own Android app in swedish at http://androidpengar.blogspot.se/

The Dream of My Own App Lives On

As you might have noticed, my progress towards making my own app has slowed down a bit. I had a wedding to plan etc, and then after that I had my master's thesis to write and defend etc. So sorry about that. My previous time plans were crushed due to this, but I am still committed to my dream of my own Android app.

Regarding the preparations for what type of app to make, I have identified two factors that I think are important. One is which type of app that are likely to be popular, and also how difficult/time-consuming the app would be for me to make. I have realized that many ideas I have had are completely unrealistic for me to ever succeed in creating. This is only a hobby for me, something I do in my free-time, and I have no possibility to hire anyone to help me do this. My day job is full-time and does not leave many hours in the evenings. And my own skills in this are limited so far.

But I think that most readers of this blog probably are in the same potision as me. They want to make a few bucks on the side by releasing their own app, and they do not have a team of developers to support them, or great experience in java developing.

I am currently playing around a but with App Inventor and reading some guides that I have found online. Some guides really suck, but there are also some great ones out there. A link to one of the better ones are here below.

You others who are in the same position as me, feel free to leave comments with tips and tricks so that we can help each other :)

Peace out for now!

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/how-to-create-your-first-android-app-916066

App Inventor it is!

First, I'd like to apologize for not updating the last two weeks, I actually got married during that time which made it a VERY busy time :) But now, let's get down to business:

I've now tested App Inventor a little bit, by going through Google's own tutorial "Hello Purr" (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/learn/setup/hellopurr/hellopurremulatorpart1.html). It seems as App Inventor would do fine for my purpose, and considering that there doesn't seem to be a problem to upload App Inventor apps to the Android Market (see my earlier entries) I have decided to use App Inventor to create my first app. After that I will decide whether or not to keep using it for future apps, or if Java/Eclipse will seem like a better alternative. But App Inventor will definitely be used to reach Goal 1-4! (see earlier entry "Goals")

In the coming entries, I will be sharing a little bit regarding how I will decide which type of app to make, and hopefully also share some tips and tricks I will be learning while using App Inventor. Soon I'll also set a more detailed time plan for this project. In case any of you reading this blog (actually way more people than I thought :) are working on similar projects, please leave a comment or something, perhaps we can exchange some useful tips and experience :)

Peace for now!

Setting Goals

I always find it challenging to set up concrete goals for myself. I find that using partial goals to "check off" along the way keeps me motivated, as I can feel that I am making progress. Thus I've decided to set up a number of partial goals for the development of my first own Android app:

Goal 1: Develop a somewhat functional beta version of my Android app
Goal 2: Release a fully functional and bug free version of my app on the Android Market
Goal 3: Make my first dollar from my app in the Android Market
Goal 4: Having the app generate an income of $15 in one month

I do feel that these goals are enough for me at the moment. Goal 1-3 are very realistic I think. As for Goal 4, I have no idea how hard that will be, but I suspect it might be quite a challenge. When/if I achieve Goal 4, I will set Goal 5. I believe I have insufficient knowledge to set a reasonable one right now.

Now I will keep on familiarizing myself with App Inventor to see if it will be suitable for me to work in. I certainly hope so as I in no way feel excited about learning Java :P Once I've decided about using App Inventor or Java, I'll also set up preliminary dates for when I hope to reach each of the above goals.

In the next entry I'll let you guys know which path I've chosen - App Inventor or Java/Eclipse :)

App Inventor Apps and the Android Market

Like I wrote in the end of my last entry, my latest step in the process has been researching whether or not it is possible to upload apps made with Google's App Inventor to the Android Market. Supposedly, if you just create an app with App Inventor and try to upload it, it does not work, says Google as well as many other sources on the internet. However, it seems to be several ways to step around this limitation.

The smoothest option seems to be using a tool called AppToMarket. This tool pretty much seems to automate the whole process of packaging your app in a way that the Android Market accepts. The tool is even free (donationware) and you can find it at http://amerkashi.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/automating-conversion-of-app-inventor-apk-to-google-market/. At the end of this entry you can also see a Youtube clip where the author of the tool explains in detail how it works.

I have also found guides to how to modify apps made in App Inventor in a more manual way, so that the Android Market will accept them. However, AppToMarket seems to be much easier to use so I will try that solution first if I end up using App Inventor. And now that it seems very much possible to be able to upload App Inventor apps to the Android Market, I am quite much leaning towards developing my first own app using App Inventor. Mainly because that would allow me to get started much faster.

My next step will be to try App Inventor a little bit and see how I like it. If it seems alright, I will use it to create my first app which I then intend to upload to the Android Market!

Stay tuned for the next step!

Research Phase

I've decided to create a rough plan for how to develop my own Android app. I'll be needing a rough estimate of the time needed on this, to be able to calculate approximately how many weeks/months this will take. I am a full time student also, so I will only be able to put in about 2-6 hours/weeks into this project. So when I will be estimating the time to do something below, the weeks/days stated reflect 2-6 hours/week. I should also mention that I am not aiming to create a graphics-intense game, or some other type of very complex as my first own app. This fact is also reflected in the numbers stated below, as programming such an app would need far better programming skills than creating a simpler type of entertainment or utility app, which is my goal

I felt that I do not know enough to estimate the hours I put in accurately, thus I have done some research online during the last days to gain knowledge on how to create my own Android app as a beginner. My impression is that there are two main ways of doing this:

• Programming the app in Java, using the developer tool Eclipse. This would require me to learn intermediate-level Java programming , which I estimate would take me 2-6 weeks to get started, and then learn the rest "along the way". The upside of this alternative is that it will allow me great freedom in implementing the functionality I want.
• Creating the app using App Inventor - Google's own development tool, where you don't need to do the actual programming, but rather build your app using simple logic and "block programming" (see video below). I estimate it would only take me 1-2 days to get started with this. However, using this alternative, I am more confined to using only the functionalities that App Inventor support. However, App Inventor actually seems to support quite much functionality, for example it supports using the accelerometer, the GPS and even some database support. A potential problem is that it seems to be impossible to upload apps created with App Inventor to the Android Market.

Considering the time frame, I'd very much prefer using App Inventor to create my first own app. I'd like to test it out and see how I like it. It'd be a lot more fun to be up and running within a couple of days, as compared to putting my teeth into some book to learn Java programming for several weeks. However, my goal is to put an app on the Android Market, and if using App Inventor does not allow me to do that, I'll have to chow down that Java book no matter what.

The conclusions of my research are that I have the two following options (pros in green and cons in red):

• Creating it in Java
• Quite long time to get started with the actual development
• Development will probably be slow as I expect many bugs and problems considering I will be learning while doing
• Large freedom in app functionality
• Will for sure be possible to put app in Android Market
• Creating it using App Inventor
• Possible to start with actual development within days
• Development will probably be fast as I expect using App Inventor will not cause many bugs and problems compared to Java.
• Some restrictions in app functionality as to what App Inventor allows
• Possibly problems with putting the app onto the Market (I will as the next step investigate if there are ways around this)

The First Entry

So now I am officially starting my blog, where I will be writing about my own process going from a total beginner regarding Android development, to hopefully having my own app on the Android market generate my first dollar in revenue. The idea of this blog is that all you people out there, who like me might be very interested in starting to make your own Android apps - but never get around to doing so, since you feel like it is too much work to learn everything by yourself, can read, follow and learn from my own learning process. I have no experience with Android development, a total Android programming beginner, so all you other beginners will most likely find my own experiences helpful.


I will be sharing pretty much all information on this blog: how I create my app, which tools I use, what my strategies are to market the app, the results and eventually - how much money I make, how many downloads I get, etc.

Personally I have some limited experience in programming from high school. But high school was many years ago, and the programming languages I learnt then are of absolutely no use now (Pascal versions). Also, I do not remember a lot from then. Apart from that, I have no programming experience really, more than some PHP/JavaScript/HTML from the days when I made my own webpages in the early years of the last decade. I believe there are tons of people like me with the same background out there who have great ideas for apps and would love to put their ideas out there on the Android Market to see if it can make any money. If you are one of them, I believe you will get a lot of help from following this blog.

Feel free to comment and ask questions if there are things I might be able to explain better or help you with. Hopefully it can work in both directions sometimes!

Now begins the journey towards publishing my first own app on the Android Market!