Build your first iOS game in an hour

Previous tutorials

Build your first app in the next hour
Building world's best tip calculator
Thinking about billion dollar apps

Stop Number Game

Using our knowledge of iOS app development so far we are going to build our first game app. Now when I say game, we are not going to build something with tons of graphics like Temple run, candy crush or even flappy bird. But rather we will use simple components like labels and buttons to achieve gaming elements like thrill, frustration, skill development, challenge etc.

What you will learn

• More of what you saw in previous tutorials
• Timer control
• Gestures

Happy gaming!



Download source code

Next tutorial

Let me know on fb, twitter or comments what you would like to build

About me

I decided to get back to programming after a break of 10 years and want to take you along for the ride. I'm going to start with iOS development because I carry an iPhone and it will be fun to use to the little things I create. As we improve our skills we will branch out on different platforms.

If you would like to support me, get learning and spread the word! Twitter, Facebook

Billion Dollar App

Previous tutorial

Build your first app in the next hour
Building world's best tip calculator

Billion Dollar Tip Calculator

Now that you have built the world's best tip calculator how do you make it a billion dollar app? We could publish it to the app store and price it at $1.00. Then we can sit back while a billion people download it. Simple enough? You say it won't work? Why not? Because the market for people willing to pay a dollar for a utility app like tip calculator is almost nonexistent. To build a billion dollar app or any business the steps are as follows:

• Identify a market that is big
• Identify a gap or inefficiency in that market
• Build a product to address that gap or inefficiency

As you can see, we started with the last step first. But don't worry, most folks make the same costly mistake. When that happens we pivot! Here are some ideas for making our app a billion dollar business.

• When people are waiting for the bill they could be entertained with a game. Gaming is a big market. Can we include a game in our calculator? Why is this a bad idea? Maybe because you will be competing to displace other games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds. What is more likely, the user popping into one of these games already on their phone or using yours?
• The best time to rate the restaurant experience might be in the process of paying the bill. Since we are now part of this process could we ask the user for a star rating and a quick review? Now we are in the territory of Yelp, Urbanspoon, Zagat etc. Combined they have few billion in market cap.
• After you are done eating and you pull up the tip calculator, what if the bill appears within the app? Could you click a single button to make the payment right from the app and walk out? Now we are in the space of mobile payments. This is a massive market and steadily growing. Is building this functionality feasible? Can we get restaurants on board? Can we market it to get a large number of users? 

Building a successful app is much more than just writing the code. It involves analyzing markets, working out the economics, building a great product, marketing, partnerships etc. In future posts we will also explore the business side of things.

Next tutorial

Learning to build a simple game

About me

I decided to get back to programming after a break of 10 years and want to take you along for the ride. I'm going to start with iOS development because I carry an iPhone and it will be fun to use to the little things I create. As we improve our skills we will branch out on different platforms.

If you would like to support me, get learning and spread the word! Twitter, Facebook

World's Best Tip Calculator

Previous tutorial

Build your first app in the next hour

Building the world's best tip calculator

Last time we built your first full app on iOS. A tip calculator that lets you enter the bill amount, tip percentage and calculate the total. Doing this we learnt some basics of app development. This time we are going to take it to the next level. We are going to update our tip calculator to be the best one in the world. In the process you will learn a whole lot more about app development.

How do we go from just another tip calculator to the world's best? By approaching the problem we are trying to solve from the user's perspective. In this case it is not going to be too hard because you yourself are the user and experience the use-case frequently.

Currently our app takes two numbers and does the math. It serves the function of a generic calculator. And a poor one at that. Why would users download and install our app instead of just opening up the calculator app that comes preinstalled? They won't. Let's take a deeper look at what the user really wants from a tip calculator.

When it comes to tipping here are some of the user problems that we could attempt to solve:

• I know how the service was, I want to be told how much to tip
• Dining being a social experience I often go in groups and would like to split the bill
• When I travel to different countries I don't know the customary tip percentage
• I want an optimized, quick experience for the above

The two part video tutorial below will teach you how to build the world's best tip calculator that solves the above user problems.

What you will learn

• More Xcode
• More coding concepts
• Arrays and dictionary 
• Loops
• Functions
• Handling keyboard
• Picker view control
• Persistant storage

Homework

• Download the source code 
• Add more countries to the dictionary
• Build and run on your iPhone
• Take the app with you and use it

Next tutorials

Thinking about billion dollar apps
Learning to build a simple game

About me

I decided to get back to programming after a break of 10 years and want to take you along for the ride. I'm going to start with iOS development because I carry an iPhone and it will be fun to use to the little things I create. As we improve our skills we will branch out on different platforms.

If you would like to support me, get learning and spread the word! Twitter, Facebook