Idea to App: The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Making iOS Apps

Megan E Holstein

Feb 2015 · Megan E Holstein

About this ebook

Idea to App is the absolute beginner's guide to making iOS apps.  It's written for people who aren't geeks; To read this book, you don’t need to know how to program, do graphic design, or possess any especially technical skill sets at all. This is a book full of information that will help anyone make their own app, not just anyone with coding experience.  It’s written for someone who is an absolute beginner to making apps, for someone who knows nothing except that they want to make one.  Idea to App takes you through the process of creating an iOS app, start to finish.  This is done through three sections, Design, Development and Deployment.

Design:
The first section focuses on how to design an iOS app.  It begins by helping you analyze and test your app idea, through market surveys and user testing, so you know your app idea is a winner before you begin.  Then, you turn your app idea into a functional outline for an app, and then you develop that outline into wireframes of your app's screens.  Then, you use these wireframes to develop prototypes, and are walked through testing this prototype with users.

Development:
The second section, development, takes you through bringing your app designs to life.  This section goes over taking your wireframes, and developing them into an actual coded, functional app.  This can be done three ways:  By doing all of the raw programming yourself, by using a development program to build the app, or by bringing on a contractor to make it for you.  You are taken through the pros and cons of each method, and once you've chosen a method you're walked through how to use that method to make your app.

Deployment:
The last section takes you through marketing, and provides you with all the tools you need to begin marketing your app effectively on the App Store.  It begins by walking you through how to list your app on the iTunes store effectively, walking you through App Store Optimization.  After that, you're walked through how to use a website and a mailing list to guerrilla market your app to the wider internet.  Then you're showed how to use social media to effectively cultivate an online community.  Lastly, you're walked through marketing and promotion techniques you can use to increase your visibility on the App Store.

Ratings and reviews

This book is a great guide to build your own app. It will help you to avoid many pit falls that can catch you out. This is not a coding guide however it will take you through the entire journey from your initial idea all the way through to having a finished app. The sound advice is well worth the price.

About the author

Megan Holstein is a sophomore at the Ohio State University, from Columbus OH, nineteen years old, and the president of Pufferfish Software.  Megan Holstein is the most recent winner of the EO’s Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year award, for the High School level of competition.  She is VP of Design at OSU’s Business Builder’s Club, and competes in university business plan and entrepreneurship competitions regularly.