How I Became an iOS Developer for Fun and Debt

With the explosive growth of both the iOS and Android platforms, building an “app” is the new “I built a web site!” in terms of nerdy pursuits. Unfortunately, developing an app in traditional methods can be overwhelming for even a reasonably technical person who doesn’t possess a proper foundation in application programming. Come hear not only how RubyMotion can destroy the learning-curve associated with iOS app development, but also hear the steps and frustrations involved in starting a business and getting an app into the Apple App Store. Examples of RubyMotion code and its resulting app will be demoed.

Transcript

1. How I Became an iOS Developer ...for Fun and Debt! mark Stanislav mark.stanislav@gmail.com
2. ME • Building iOS apps using RubyMotion since June • Never developed a mobile application prior • No background in Objective-C development Development Business • Running a single-member LLC out of Michigan • Single Goal: Make more than I spend (America!) • Passable amount of business/accounting sense
3. A historical Thought • In 1996, everyone wanted to make a web site. • In 2013, everyone wants to make a mobile app. 2013 1996 Unlocking the true power of technology, regardless of platform!
4. MY Company; An Overview • Pardalis Labs, LLC • Single-Member (Disregarded Entity) • Limited Liability Corporation • Articles of Organization filed on June 15th, 2012 • Purposes • iOS app sales via Apple’s “App Store” • Consulting (Linux & Information Security) • Learning experience!
5. Why build a company? • Protect you, as an individual, from being sued and all of your stuff taken by a court ruling • Represent yourself more professionally as an entity rather than just a person making stuff • Give clarity to accounting (personal v. business) • Have a clear direction for tax season • Logos! Business Cards! Web Sites! Stickers! Solve (Mitigate?) Problems ...by the way, I am NOT a lawyer and/or an accountant
6. Naming your company • Make sure it’s original (enough) • Michigan Government Name Availability Search • U.S. Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) • WHOIS records (i.e. see what domains exist) • Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In) • ...or hire a lawyer to find this all out for you! • After that, it’s just a matter of being creative enough to satisfy your own desires...
7. My company • Pardalis Labs, LLC • Leopardus pardalis is an Ocelot • Labs is just a cool word • LLC is the company type I designated Cool Thing + Geeky = A Company Name!
8. Articles of Organization • Stuff to fill out • Your personal name and address • Name of the company • The “resident agent” (yourself) • The “registered office” (your home) • Date and Sign $50 and a week later, you’re a registered company!
9. Operating Agreement • Specifics of how your company will operate • Overview of LLC declarations • Capital investments from members • Ownership interest percentages • Cost/Profit sharing percentages • Accounting decisions (fiscal year, basis, etc.) • Management (Voting, New Members, etc.) Sign-up to Rocket Lawyer, get document, cancel service
10. IRS EIN • EIN: Employer Identification Number • Free from the IRS and can be done entirely online • Creation of a business-named bank account • If you’re an S-Corp or C-Corp, you will need one • Under a single-member LLC you’ll use your personal SSN and not EIN for tax-related stuff • Forming an LLC does not mean you are a corporation, that is important to know early on!
11. Banking/Accounting • Financial Accounts • Checking: Huntington Bank (w/ debit card) • ePayments: PayPal Business Account • Business Management • Time Tracking: Paymo • Accounting: Kashoo • Invoicing: invoiceto.me All accounts + services, 100% free for my usage of them
12. Other Services I use (for free) Web Hosting General Software Two-Factor Authentication E-Mail & Misc.
13. Logo Creation • Paid $149 to “The Logo Company” for the design • I have no measurable graphic design talent • Design process involves filling out a survey about your desired logo, multiple designers submitting initial drafts, then selecting one and iterating on it • Entire process took a handful of communications and about two weeks from start to finish.
14. Business Creation Articles of Organization Filed Jun. 15th IRS EIN/ Operating Agreem ent Jun. 28th Bank Account Created Jun. 30th pardalislabs.com registered Jul. 9th Started logo design process Jul. 10th Apple Account Creation Jul. 25th D-U-N-S Process Started Jul. 27th D-U-N-S Process Com plete Aug. 29th Apple Developer Account Created Sep. 17th First app subm itted Nov. 3rd First app accepted Nov. 11th
15. RubyMotion • Write Ruby and get 100%-compliant iOS apps • Built by the former MacRuby Apple engineer • No code interpretation needed, fully compiled • No binary size or performance costs to using it • Only utilizes public APIs (keeps things legit!) • A thriving open-source community on Github • 37 Signals, Living Social, Scribd are all using it
16. Cost of Doing Business • RubyMotion costs $200 (I got it early for $150) • License includes support and updates • Apple Developer Program costs $100 per year • You’re going to need this to release usable apps • A Mac OS X system is required to run RubyMotion • Could just use a Virtual Machine... • Apple will be taking 30% of your sales revenue
17. The Power of Community • 370 RubyMotion-related repositories on GitHub • 1881 projects at rubymotionapps.com • 18 video tutorials at motioncasts.tv • 1 conference dedicated to RubyMotion (#inspect) https://github.com/mstanislav/pool-100 https://github.com/mstanislav/lets-camp https://github.com/mstanislav/ptcb-study https://github.com/mstanislav/michigan-pistol-safety-quiz ...and I’ve given back, too.
18. A Quick Comparison [button addTarget:self action:@selector(buttonTapped:) forControlEvents: UIControlEventTouchUpInside]; - (void)buttonTapped:(id)sender { self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor redColor]; } button.when(UIControlEventTouchUpInside) do self.view.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor end Objective-C RubyMotion Source: http://clayallsopp.com/posts/the-ruby-motion-way/
19. RubyMotion Build Demo
20. RubyMotion REPL
21. Example AppDelegate class AppDelegate def application(application, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:launchOptions) @window = UIWindow.alloc.initWithFrame(UIScreen.mainScreen.bounds) @quizController = QuizController.alloc.init @quizController.tabBarItem.title = 'Pistol Safety' @quizController.tabBarItem.image = UIImage.imageNamed('quiz.png') @quizController.navigationItem.title = 'Pistol Safety' @quizController.window = @window @infoController = InfoController.alloc.init @infoController.tabBarItem.title = 'Buying Process' @infoController.tabBarItem.image = UIImage.imageNamed('info.png') @infoController.navigationItem.title = 'Buying Process' @infoController.window = @window tabbar = UITabBarController.alloc.init tabbar.viewControllers = [@quizController,@infoController] tabbar.selectedIndex = 0 @window.rootViewController = UINavigationController.alloc.initWithRootViewController(tabbar) @window.rootViewController.wantsFullScreenLayout = true @window.makeKeyAndVisible @quizController.tabbar = tabbar end end
22. Example Controller class InfoController < UIViewController attr_accessor :window def loadView self.view = UIView.alloc.init self.view.backgroundColor = UIColor.blackColor title = UILabel.new title.font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(22) title.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor title.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor title.lineBreakMode = UILineBreakModeWordWrap title.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter title.numberOfLines = 0 title.frame = [[5, 5], [315, 30]] title.text = "Buying Process" view.addSubview title content = UILabel.new content.font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(14) content.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor content.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor content.lineBreakMode = UILineBreakModeWordWrap content.numberOfLines = 0 content.frame = [[5, 40], [315, 100]] content.text = "Where all of the text would go...” content.sizeToFit view.addSubview content end end Result
23. Wrappers & Libraries • BubbleWrap http://bubblewrap.io/ • SugarCube https://github.com/rubymotion/sugarcube • ProMotion https://github.com/clearsightstudio/ProMotion • TeaCup https://github.com/rubymotion/teacup • NanoStoreInMotion https://github.com/siuying/NanoStoreInMotion • Geomotion https://github.com/clayallsopp/geomotion
24. App Store Submission • Things I always do wrong • Forget to change the code-signing certificate from development to production • Use rake archive instead of rake archive:distribution • Attempt to build on a machine without my keys • Process • From submission to availability, about a week • ...unless you get rejected; then things get fun! ;)
25. Michigan Basic Pistol Safety Quiz • Submission: January 19th • Rejection: January 25th • Submission: February 12th • Rejection: February 18th • Submission: February 23rd • Acceptance: February 28th
26. Michigan Basic Pistol Safety Quiz Version #1 Version #2 Version #3 Images for buttons apparently is the magic required!
27. My Apps 99¢ 99¢ 99¢ Free
28. Quick App Demos
29. Sales Numbers As of 04/16/2013 0 50 100 150 13 6 101 128 Pool 100 Let’s Camp PTCB Study Guide MI Pistol Quiz
30. Overall Lessons Learned • Content is king unless your idea is brilliant • Start the process well in advanced of your desire to be publishing iOS apps to the App Store • Register for your D&B D-U-N-S as soon as possible or pay for rushed processing • Separate your personal & business finances completely to protect yourself as much as possible • Use RubyMotion frameworks and libraries as able • Find a friend who can do design if you can’t...
31. Additional Information, Part 1 • Small Business Administration: How to name a business http://www.sba.gov/content/how-name-business • Michigan Name Availability Search http://bit.ly/12mu6PE • Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4003:qp0g8h.1.1 • WHOIS Record Lookup https://www.easywhois.com/ • The Logo Company http://thelogocompany.net/ • Apply for IRS EIN https://sa1.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp • Articles of Organization, State of Michigan http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/bcsc/forms/corp/llc/700.pdf
32. Additional Information, Part 2 • Rocket Lawyer LLC Operating Agreement http://www.rocketlawyer.com/document/llc-operating-agreement.rl • Microsoft BizSpark http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ • Duo Security http://duosecurity.com/ • Amazon Web Services (Free Tier) http://aws.amazon.com/free/ • Google Apps for Business http://www.google.com/intl/en/enterprise/apps/business/ • Paymo http://www.paymo.biz/ • Kashoo https://www.kashoo.com/
33. Additional Information, Part 3 • invoiceto.me http://invoiceto.me/ • PayPal for Business https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant • Huntington Bank - Free Small Business Checking https://www.huntington.com/bas/HNB2320.htm • Apple Developer Program https://developer.apple.com/programs/ • Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Registration http://www.dnb.com/get-a-duns-number.html • RubyMotion http://www.rubymotion.com/ • Pardalis Labs iOS Apps https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/pardalis-labs/id576194764
34. Thanks! Questions? •mark.stanislav@gmail.com •uncompiled.com •@markstanislav •github.com/mstanislav