Geniune non sk inquiry - phone app development

cobras

I need insight from my sk tech people (sci, bean, etc.) I want to get an app created. I know nothing on the technical or financial aspect so I'm seeking exploratory input.

I want to make a very user friendly app that links to a database and sends/receives in real time (perhaps 15 min intervals depending on price difference) data that is updated by thousands of users regarding millions of items that each item contains up to a few dozen fields (example: eggs-white/large/organic)

Simple example yahoo fantasy sports app but different content but same tech and financial requirements

MY QUESTIONS

1. Approximate duration to mimic the yahoo app
2. Approximate development cost
3. Approximate maintence cost

Trying to gauge if it's 6 months 6 years 50k 500k 5M...ranges ok for answers for sure

Unreliable

a) 1 and a half years if all goes well

b) 130k is more likely

c) oh, this one is tricky...

loafery

They should be teaching us this in business school lol

Bean

Phone apps are glorified web pages, and the cost to have one built will depend on the # of pages/screens they have to code for you. I think you can expect somewhere around $150 - $300 per page/screen, with any non-generic graphics likely to cost you extra. If you get into the games thing, that is flash overlayed into the app and flash development gets prices.

http://www.freelancer.com is a good site where you can bid out projects and get advice and quotes from people around the world to do the work.

The cost to keep the app functional will depend on the number of users and the amount of data being transferred. Small apps/sites use shared hosting which can run about $100 per year, to dedicated hosting which runs $150 /month and up. There's also the cost of any programming changes / upkeep / updates to the code if you so choose.

WallsOfFire

1. the app itself, depends on who you commission to program it and how many people, you could have it done as fast as 2-3months

2. cost, also depends on who u hire, and the difficulty of labor, which from your description isn't that bad.

3. depends how many bugs, but not that much, mostly just a database, most apps databases u can just host on google, and it's quite cheap pretty reliable. will they datafarm you and have access to the data. maybe. lol

Qwjvfiil

Sounds a little cheap bean haha.

Im not questioning you btw you know a lot more than me about apps/developing but from a purely hosting side for the db with thousands of users updating millions of items the costs will rise.

loafery

does economics of scale apply to apps?

I'm sure they have a high fixed cost, but after that i can't imagine any bigger additional cost for maintenance except for income cost.

Viva

Just steel one from the dark Web and change the domain to the one you fanxy

cobras

Thanks for the general parameters everyone that helps contextualize for me the scope of my project

Scientology

millions of items that each item contains up to a few dozen fields (example: eggs-white/large/organic)

I'm pretty sure you've got the tech component of that wrong. You want it to pull down information on one million items (with 12 attributes each) every 15 minutes? Or you want the client device (the app) to be able to view an item and get the information in real time?

The former would be difficult to pull off, as that would be a large amount of data to pass to each device at any interval. See here for more information: http://josh.zeigler.us/technology/web-development/how-big-is-too-big-for-json/

Even storing that amount of data within an app on Android/iOS would take a massive amount of space on the users phone. 2GB worth of offline files would be something most users would balk at.

Usually you would just request the information the user needs to see on that current screen. i.e. - If the user goes to the Eggs-White/Large/Organic screen, it requests the 12 attributes for that item. Or if the user goes to a department, i.e. Dairy, it would send a request for the items in that department.

Perhaps that helps you explain what you want a little clearer. If you have questions or want advice, PM me for my gmail address to get me on Google Hangouts.

If you get into the games thing, that is flash overlayed into the app and flash development gets prices.

Flash is dead.

symtower

I know a guy that does phone apps for a living. I will let him take a look at what you posted and see what he thinks.

Scars

I have no clue what he is even asking for.