[consulting] iPhone App & Drupal Pricing Ballpark

Fri Jun 18 20:52:34 UTC 2010

Perhaps if you take this route you can even charge less ;-D

http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/developing-apps-iphoneipadandroid-using-drupal-base-system

R.A.Smith
Manager/Technical Lead
Exterbox - "Thinking outside of the box"
http://www.exterbox.com
rohan at exterbox.com
1-876-449-7506

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Josh <josh at joshnliz.com> wrote:

> Thank you Greg and Jesse for your very insightful responses.
>
> I'm excited to dip my toes into the iPhone App environment. Mac Mini is
> ordered and I'm in the middle of reading my first iPhone SDK book.
>
> Sounds like iPhone App development has the kind of learning curve that
> Drupal had... I'll chime back in with my results.
>
> Josh
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Jesse Feiler <
> jfeiler at northcountryconsulting.com> wrote:
>
>> I totally agree with Greg's points except the last one. The iOS learning
>> curve can be very steep (iOS was invented last week to replace the outdated
>> "iPhone OS" name in view of the fact that iOS runs both iPad and iPhone as
>> well as iPod touch--actually it was licensed from Cisco by Apple).
>>
>> Build in a big pad and then double it, particularly if working in the
>> physical constraints of an iPhone screen is new to you and it the navigation
>> tools for users on both iPhone and iPad are new to you. Without this leeway,
>> you may get an app up and running but it won't look right--and may not make
>> it through the App Store's review if you trample on the user interface
>> guidelines.
>>
>> That said, I'm not certain the client should pay all of this start-up
>> learning curve. First of all, I don't know how you can transfer that
>> expertise to the client after they've paid for it. You'll have that
>> expertise, and as Greg points out, your second iOS app is a lot easier to
>> do. If it's for the same client, that's OK, but if it's for another client,
>> you'll wind up charging the new client much less. Second of all, iOS is a
>> great environment in which to develop once you get up to speed.
>>
>> P.S. Read, re-read, and re-re-read the iPhone/iPad user interface
>> guidelines, and think about what it means for users to interact with a
>> computer that they hold in their hand.
>>
>>
>> > Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:42:18 -0700
>> > From: "Greg Holsclaw" <greg at t2media.com>
>> > Subject: Re: [consulting] iPhone App & Drupal Pricing Ballpark
>> > To: "'A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting
>> >       providers'"     <consulting at drupal.org>
>> > Message-ID: <00b901cb0f15$fbaeae10$f30c0a30$@com>
>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> >
>> > Without knowing the specifics app, it can be a bit hard consider. For
>> our
>> > Dog Park Finder app,
>> > http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dog-park-finder/id362002678?mt=8 ,
>> (Drupal
>> > backend, link for example we don't need more downloads doing fine as it)
>> I
>> > initially spec'ed it out and got 6 bids. Ranged from $3000 at $20/hr to
>> > $18,000 at around $75/hr. The low end were all off-shore vendors with
>> less
>> > provable experience to high end established Houston based group.
>> >
>> > We decided to do the dev in house (for a myriad of reasons,
>> > cost/maintenance/desired in-house expertise..).With the learning curve
>> it
>> > was over 200 hours to develop (but that curve has spun out another app
>> > already and another to come, all Drupal backend).
>> >
>> > If you are starting from zero iphone dev experience, you had better add
>> a
>> > huge pad to your total time estimate. There are many twists both in the
>> > iPhone and Drupal intregration you will have to account for.
>> >
>> > If you client is willing to pay for both the product and the learning
>> > curve, more power to you.
>> >
>> > Greg
>> >
>> >
>> > From: consulting-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:
>> consulting-bounces at drupal.org]
>> > On Behalf Of Josh
>> > Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 11:08 AM
>> > To: consulting at drupal.org
>> > Subject: [consulting] iPhone App & Drupal Pricing Ballpark
>> >
>> > Hello Fellow Drupalers!
>> >
>> > I'm starting iphone app development and have plans to make a
>> Drupal-powered
>> > back-end for some of the more mundane parts of the new iphone app (News,
>> > Directory, Locations, etc).
>> >
>> > Does anyone on this list have experience with marrying those two
>> > technologies? Most of our websites start at 75 hours and go up from
>> there
>> > into the 600 hours range. (Think $7,500+ for our clients.)
>> >
>> > When I estimate our time for an iPhone app, we're getting close to 130
>> > hours+
>> >
>> > Does this sound right? Do you think your clients would pay for iphone
>> apps
>> > in the $13,000+ range? To be honest, this feels high. But with very
>> little
>> > experience in the iPhone app world, this may be low.
>> >
>> > My apologies if this message somehow violates the protocol for asking
>> these
>> > kinds of prices. I'm not looking for someone to do the work, I'm just
>> > looking for some feedback who do this work as well.
>> >
>> > Josh
>> >
>> >
>> > Josh Miller WEB / TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR
>> > HAAN MARKETING+COMMUNICATIONS
>> > T  (765) 423-5470          123 North 8th Street
>> > F  (765) 742-2881          Lafayette, IN 47901
>> > www.haanmc.com
>> > -------------- next part --------------
>> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> > URL:
>> http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/attachments/20100618/094427a8/attachment.html
>> >
>> > ------------------------------
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > consulting mailing list
>> > consulting at drupal.org
>> > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>> >
>> >
>> > End of consulting Digest, Vol 53, Issue 15
>> > ******************************************
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> consulting mailing list
>> consulting at drupal.org
>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/attachments/20100618/c1e71210/attachment.html 