This is a post by Xavier Veyrat – Entrepreneur, graphic designer, UI & UX designer – Co-founder of Hot Apps Factory and creator of App Cooker.

I would like to thank Inspired Magazine for letting us write our first article and let us share what we learned from 1 year and a half of hard work on App Cooker. I think we have some interesting points to share so let’s get started! Most of this knowledge comes from the Human Interface Guidelines, Apple’s introduction to iPhone videos, our sweat and some common sense.

There are two reasons for you to make an Application: for fun or for business. If your App is made for fun, just do it and don’t read this post. If it’s the other and you want to maximize your chances to make a living from your Apps, this is for you.

Be old-fashioned, don’t be foolish

Before getting hardcore on the design, the code and the communication, have a look at the type of application you want to do. Basically, we think there are two big categories: games and the others. If it is not a game, have a look at your competition, it is called “benchmarking”. Type the keywords of your idea in the App Store and have a look at the results. If you are serious about your idea, buy the apps of the competition. Even if you think you have the best idea out there, there are tons of brilliant people just like you who already have the idea or are currently working on the subject. Use them for a day or two, look at their functionality and pick up the top three. Then go to their App Store page and look at their reviews, this is where you can find some gold nuggets that might change the face of your App. You can use  Discovr Apps which has a great way of letting you discover similar apps (it isn’t perfect but much better than what the App Store provides). Another search on Google to find “work in progress” could also save you a lot of time.

Games are another world. If you want to benchmark similar games to your idea, you must have a solid bank account and this long process might affect the originality of your game. If you have a great concept for a game, the only way to stand out in this overcrowded category is to be original. Try to resist looking too hard at what’s already out there. This might unintentionally influence your direction and stifle your imagination and creativity. After this preliminary work, comes the most important moment in the life of your project, this is where you will have to confront the idea to the actual App.

The Idea VS the App

Having the idea is great but as soon as you get it, you start thinking that “this” would be nice to have and “that” feature would be awesome. The key thing here is to remember that you are going to make an App for a mobile device. That means a limited memory. That means you can’t do everything you want, which means you have to narrow the scope of your App to its core functions. We have seen a lot of developers and designers starting their ideas coding or drawing inside Photoshop and this is wrong, really wrong. Spend some time to define and refine your idea and you will reach the end of your project sooner.

So how do you select what’s in and what’s out? Well, this is where common sense and gut feelings start to play a role. With the exact same idea, you might find numerous ways of doing the App because the key features selected may not be the same from one team to another. This is the human factor. A great way to be sure that you manage to define your App idea correctly is to describe it in this form: “Differentiation” “Solution” for “Audience”. For example, “an easy to use” “photo editor” for “photographers”. This Application Definition Statement is the most important thing you have to do when your start an iOS project. Once you have clearly defined it, stick to it and ignore all the features that doesn’t fit to it.

Why should you start this awesome iPhone or iPad project?

Now that you have a clear idea of your App you are ready to code right? Nope, not yet… There is one more step to do before getting in the design and code process, it is the business model. How many developers have started an App and when they arrive on the App Store they are lost when it comes to set the price and their categories? Often they end up doing this part in seconds because they want to see their app on the store, trashing all their hard work in seconds.

Before everything, think about your business model and test some scenarios to evaluate the revenue generated from hard sales or a free App with in app purchase. There is an App for that called Price Cooker that can help you do the maths in a neat way. Don’t underestimate this part, changing from a paid app to a free app with in app purchase is not 1 hour of coding, but more like 1 week (in the best case scenario). Estimate the time you need to do the App, PAY yourself and look at the sales volume you will need to cover everything. When it comes to pricing, I am one of the believers that unless your company name is Rovio and you can sell millions of copies at $0.99, you should price your App higher than this. That way you will still have scope for promotion and more than anything it gives an indication of the quality of your App. There are countless Apps with nothing inside at $0.99 and customers are starting to realise that.

Do it the right way

When you get your idea clearly defined as well as your business model, it is now time to get your hands dirty. Here are some basic rules that may drive the way you work on your project.

• The design process should be 60 to 70% of the development time.
• Communicate about your App as soon as you get a Beta and get people involved in it.
• Communication is the key to selling your App
• Don’t think you have the best App on the App Store, the best App is the one that sells the most…
• In this shadowy century, standards are higher than ever people only want products they will love.
• Give love with your App, here at the Hot Apps Factory we strongly believe that targeting the heart of our users will always reap greater rewards than targeting their pocket.

As Jobs said during his speech at the Stanford University “stay young, stay foolish” and I would add “share your great ideas with people, you may not have the time to develop all of them”.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

HOW TO: Start “an App For That”

iOSinspires.me was created aiming to be the new best friend of every designer who’s putting efforts in creating new and inspiring iOS applications for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. With the progress of mobile platforms, we entered a new era where basic functionality and originality of an application itself isn’t enough to attract a big following. Therefore, developers must have a very unique and attractive design. If you’re dealing with iOS and trying to make your way among numerous App Store competitors, iOSinspires.me is a great starting point for you.

Here you can find large number of app icons and app interfaces that can inspire you to create your own for your iOS project. iOSinspires.me hosts as well a gallery of app websites, so if you have your own app with a dedicated website, you can submit it as well, and the staff behind iOSinspires.me will do their best to promote your site.

Here are some of their top picks:

Icons

Awaken

Awaken is the popular Mac OS X alarm clock and sleep timer that’s now available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Commodore 64

Kiloo and Manomio bring back the best selling personal computer of all time: the one and only officially licensed Commodore 64 for your iPhone and iPod Touch! This version provides an authentic reproduction 8 original games.

Voices 2

Ever wish you could change your voice to something more fun? Well, now you can with Voices!

Interfaces

Awesome Note iPad

Awesome Note is an innovative note taking application and to-do manager that allow you to combine notes with to-do flexibility.

Project Noah

Project Noah is an award-winning mobile application that helps nature lovers discover local wildlife and aspiring citizen scientists contribute to current research projects.

Billings Touch

Billings Touch takes the Apple Design Award winning time tracking and invoicing experience from the Mac and puts it in your pocket.

Websites

Lighty Website

Lighty is the most easy to use LED flashlight app. Lighty does one thing: ON and OFF (automatically set to ON when launched).

The Daily Website

Superstash Website

Superstash is an enhanced web browser allows you to quickly take screenshots of any image or page on the web, annotate it, instantly share with friends and colleagues, or file it for future reference.

Resources

If you need help with a certain task in progress of designing your iOS app, the Resources page should be your next destination. There you’ll find various resources like icons, tutorials, wallpapers, GUI elements etc.

iPhone 4 GUI (Retina)

This PSD is formatted for Apple’s retina display at 326 dpi and includes the majority of elements in iOS 4.3.

Glyphicons

Combine 3D Geometric Shapes and Flowing Lines for a Sleek iPhone Ad

Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame will guide you through the most popular icons, interfaces and websites. Here are some apps that are currently at our Hall of Fame.

Top 3 Icons

Twitterrific

Thermo

Clock Pro HD

Top 3 Interfaces

Thermo

Hunting Calendar

Dring

Top 3 Websites

Tapmates

Hunting Calendar

Barista

Last, but not least, every once in a while they host special giveaways, where visitors can enrich their iOS device with various paid applications.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Meet iOSInspiresMe – iOS Design Inspiration and Resources

This series is supported by Appboy – the most popular social outlet for mobile app lovers. Catch up with previous editions here.

Today’s smartphones are every bit as powerful as most hand-held gaming devices, however what is really driving mobile gaming forward is not just the hardware capability, it is the creativity of developers. What I mean is, developers who are not just looking at the iOS or Android devices as traditional gaming platforms, but rather also looking at who they might expect to play the games. The proliferation of smartphones and other non-gaming mobile devices (tablets, MP3 players, etc.) is opening up a huge new market for smart game developers, I’m going to profile 4 games which have figured out how to do this right.

I would not consider myself to be a gamer, and for the most part, the majority of smartphone owners would likely not categorize themselves as such either. I didn’t own a gameboy, nor have I owned any of the more recent mobile gaming platforms, but I do remember playing Tetris on a friend’s gameboy. What was (or is it) about Tetris that made this game so compelling? It’s simple, Tetris is an uncomplicated game, it presents a challenge no matter how good you are, and you don’t need hours at a time to play a game. When I look at the mobile games that are achieving huge success today, the same factors are present. Add in good design and you have the formula for success in the world of mobile gaming.

Angry Birds

If you haven’t heard of Angry Birds, you’ve likely been hiding under a rock. The game has had over 6 million downloads in the iTunes store, and the recent release to the Android platform resulted in over 1 million downloads on the first day.

The premise is simple, knock over the structures, eliminate the pigs and move on to the next level. Now when I say that anyone can play this game, there is no doubt in my mind that it’s true. My 4 year old daughter plays it, so does my wife, and just about everyone else I know with an iPhone. This is not a gamer’s game (although I’m sure a hardcore gamer could have fun with it too). Angry birds provides a solid challenge, and if you get into all of the achievements and seeking out the Golden eggs, it can become quite involved, but it’s also very easy to load the app, complete a level and get back to work or whatever else you should be doing.

Doodle Jump

Perhaps the first major gaming success, at least when it comes to previously unknown developers, Doodle jump is an example of not only a great game concept, but good integration of sharing features. There was a period of time when much of my Twitter feed was messages like “I just got up to 2,000,000 on Doodle Jump. Beat that!”.

Again, extremely simple, all you have to do is tilt your phone from side to side. Of course when you talk about it like this, it seems much to simple, but somehow this game provides enough challenge to get you addicted. Over and over again you start from zero and try to beat that most recent high score. When you get bored of one background or design view, switch it up to something new.

Fruit Ninja

Another game that my 4 year old and I both enjoy. When you can create something that is entertaining for children and for 30 somethings, you’ve got to think you’re on to something. Slicing and Dicing fruit has never been this much fun, and the best part, you don’t have to do it alone.

Fruit Ninja was the first game that I encountered which had Game Center enabled. I’d played Open Feint games before, but had never stepped out and tried multiplayer, partly because the whole idea is rather intimidating, but not with Fruit Ninja. You only need a couple minutes and a WIFI connection to play against a friend or a total stranger. Brilliantly simple, superbly enjoyable.

Cut The Rope

This is a new game, just released in the last couple of weeks, but it already has achieved over 1 million downloads. It’s a beautifully designed app, provides a good challenge, but isn’t difficult to learn.

Cut The Rope, like the other games above, offers a single screen of activity at a time. There isn’t a complex world to navigate, simply sit down for a few minutes, play a few levels and then turn it off again. Each level becomes progressively more challenging as new elements are added to the mix, but it’s still just as simple as getting the candy in the monster’s mouth.

As smartphones continue to increase in popularity, the market for mobile gaming continues to grow, but this is not the traditional gaming market. It is a market that includes moms and dads (and their kids who need entertaining), it is business people with a few minutes to kill, it’s teenagers who aren’t necessarily into full-on gaming. There is of course still a market for hardcore gamers in the mobile space, but as the examples above illustrate, the games that are achieving the greatest success in this emerging space are simple, can be played for minutes at a time (not hours), and appeal to a diverse group of people.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

The iSuccess Formula – How to Make a Huge Hit from a Simple Game

Hey this roundup is totally SFW, in fact it’s a MPAW – Must Play at Work! 10 fantastic iPhone games you should definitely touch in your loooong booring meetings, just to refresh your attention and be able to focus more on your work after you get a High Score. OK, if don’t have boring meetings, you’re allowed to play these goodies while waiting for your girlfriend or in your way to the club as well.

Implode | $1.99 | Review | Download

Implode! contains 60 levels of buildings, just begging to be reduced to rubble. Each level presents you with the drawing of a building on a chalkboard, with only the support beams visible.

Pocketball | $1.99 | Review | Download

Pocketball is a puzzle game centered around dropping colored balls into the right pockets. This simple premise is developed with such thought and care that the game just dazzles.

Cross Fingers | $0.99 | Review | Download

Cross Fingers, a beautiful new tangram-style game, is now available in the app store. Your mind and fingers will undergo quite a workout as you put your ingenuity and flexibility to the test with this terrific puzzler from the makers of EDGE.

Reiner Knizia’s Monumental | $1.99 | Review | Download

Reiner Knizia’s Monumental, yet another offering from the genius behind Robot Master, Roto, and Knights of Charlemagne, has been released by Conlan Rios in the app store. As usual, a clean interface mixed with “simple to learn, hard to master” rules is a recipe for a fun, cerebral puzzler.

Alien Glyphs | $0.99 | Review | Download

Alien Glyphs, a terrific new matching game from Viacheslav Klimov, has been climbing the puzzle game charts in the app store. With its attractive graphical style, simple gameplay, and exciting power-ups and power-downs, Alien Glyphs is poised to take its place as one of the app store’s newest puzzle phenoms.

Mr. Mahjong Touch | $4.99 | Review | Download

Mr. Mahjong Touch, a beautiful rendition of the classic tile game, is now available on the app store. FDG Entertainment has dropped a nostalgia bomb on us with their updated version of one of the first computer games (other than solitaire) that we can recall getting hooked on at a very young age.

Cubic Match | $0.99 | Review | Download

Cubic Match, an interesting 3D puzzler from Jungle of Sharks, is now live in the app store. You’ll need plenty of patience and some stellar spatial skills in order to excel at this game.

Fling | $0.99 | Review | Download

Fling!, a terrific new logic puzzle from CandyCane, is available now in the app store. Playing like a Royal Rumble-style, last-man-standing match with colorful furballs, this deceptively simple game is sure both to frustrate and delight.

Enigmo 2 | $0.99 | Review | Download

Enigmo 2, Pangea Software’s follow-up release to the wildly popular physics-based puzzle game Enigmo, has gone live in the app store. The phrase “devilishly fun” keeps popping into mind as we think of a way to describe this game. If you thought it could get frustrating (in a good way) when you were solving puzzles in two dimensions, you haven’t seen anything yet!

Block Drop | $0.99 | Review | Download

Block Drop, a beautiful and addictive new strategic puzzler created by Dan Russell-Pinson, is now available in the app store. With randomly-generated level structures and musical compositions, you’re sure to enjoy an experience than can never be duplicated.

Now, what’s your favorite? Share your secret guilty iPleasure with us :-]

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Guilty iPleasures – The Coolest iPhone Puzzle Games for Long Meetings

In our effort to feature the most interesting websites for the creative community we’re highlighting today a new app-related project.

What’s Appboy?

Appboy is a fresh social platform with two missions: 1. to get app recommendations and help us discover the ultimate iWesomeness (not just for iPhone, but also for Android and Blackberry apps) and 2. to offer the chance for creative users to post app ideas that the community can vote on in order to get developers convert the idea to code. There’s also a compensation model but you can find out more about this here.

Why is it cool?

This could be the future of the app discovery tools, as the AppStore is delivering more than 100 apps per day and the best only way to dig out the good ones is with the help of lots of people. By making the recommendation system social Appboy brings democratization to the table and wins a white ball. The design looks good, the Hana-Barberesque robot is a geek magnet and the system works like a charm.

What’s next?

They have to bring the people here. A great service with just a few community members is still a service with just a few community members. We need more brains, more apps, more everything. So let’s help these guys, let’s register, rank our favorite apps, discover new ones and submit the next-best-thing app idea!

Thoughts

Your turn! Tell us what you think and why Appboy is or isn’t the ultimate app-discovery tool.

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Meet AppBoy – iPhone, Android & Blackberry Apps Discovery and Crowdsourcing

As some of you know, the eleventh commandment is Share your cool iPhone apps with your friends and you shall discover new stuff from others! And that’s what these awesome designers did – they made screengrabs of their iPhones and cherished the app love with everybody. We have tons of great apps here, be sure to scan really good every screencapture and feel free to share yours in the comments or send screenshots on hello@inspriedm.com

Chris Spooner | @ChrisSpooner | blog

I’m a Creative Designer, avid blogger and I’m generally crazy about pretty colours and shapes. More about my apps

Mills & Paris Hair | @millsustwo | @parishair | blog

Mills: co-owner of digital design family ustwo™ ‘the studio of dreams’ – and one of the only tweeters not talking fucking shite

Paris: I am an illustrator and animator now working as Head Of Content at ustwo™

Calvin Lee | @mayhemstudios | blog

Self-Proclaimed Media Ho, Designer Guy and Twitter Addict. In his spare time, Stunt Doubles for the Hulk and a really Nice Guy! You can even ask Chris Brogan

Daniel Howells | @siteinspire | blog

siteInspire is a showcase of the best web design today, highlighting examples of exciting visual and interface design

Chad Engle | @chadengle | blog

Designer, wordpresser, caffeine addict, RSS freak, mac fanboy, beta tester, adobe nut & a design community innovator FT designer for Charles Ryan Associates

Grace Smith | @gracesmith | blog

A 26 year old Freelance Web and Graphic Designer in ♥ with web standards and social media. An unashamed Apple Fangirl

Pavel Ciorici | @ciorici | blog

Founder of WPZOOM, Blogger, Web-Designer, WordPress Themes Creator. http://ciorici.com – personal blog

Luke Beard | @lukesbeard | blog

Graphic Designer & Web Designer from ‘merry o England’ alwasys willing to say hi and get to know internet peoples! Yes my beard is awesome.

Ro

Roger Byrne | @styletime | blog

Social Media, WordPress & Design, sharing inspiration, originally from England now in Egypt! Work with the cool Envato crew!

Chris Rodgers | @wizarddlite | blog

Web developer and Internet Addict! But my true passion is Design!

Michael Martin | @problogdesign | blog

Web designer, specialising in blog design. Which I blog about

Niki Brown | @nikibrown | blog

Graphic & Web Designer

Christopher Wallace | @chriswallace | blog

Cancer survivor, designer, developer, entrepreneur. Runs chris-wallace.com, alldevjobs.com, mashedjobs.com

Cody Days | @codydays

Designer / Coder and PRarketeer® exploring the  application area with interest, loves creativity, coolness and NGMOCO!

Shean O’Grady | @miralize | blog

Web Designer, Student, Blogger

Josh Hemsley | @joshhemsley | blog

Web Designer, Front-End Developer, Christ follower, Husband, Father, Full-time Creative Juice Mixer

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

20 Top Designers Share the Coolest iPhone Apps They Use Everyday