Mobile application development courses

Savvy_Sue

Cycrow wrote: »

i wouldn't say that is true.
Creating games is alot more complex and difficult than creating basic apps

Oh, I'm sure. But they seem to be a friendly crowd, and some of them do both, as far as I can tell. Is there a similar thing for indie apps developers?

Cycrow

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Oh, I'm sure. But they seem to be a friendly crowd, and some of them do both, as far as I can tell. Is there a similar thing for indie apps developers?

its abit different for apps.

For games, they are generally expensive to create and as such require alot of funding which usually comes from publishers.

indie developers are basically those that fund the projects themselves and dont rely on publishers.
Some of them work as a company and the individuals will get paid for the work, otherwise do it for free and then share the profits.

The later can be good to do, gets you experience and contacts, and theres no pressure so it makes it more fun and with a chance to get some money at the end too.

Mobile apps arn't really as expensive to make and dont require funds from publishers, so most app developers are indie.
Many just setup thier own company and work on thier own too.

of course there is a different between mobile games and console/pc games, many of the mobile games tend to be alot cheaper to make

my expeirence of indie game developers is limited as i have only worked for publisher backed games companies

andrewjf

Cycrow wrote: »

of course there is a different between mobile games and console/pc games, many of the mobile games tend to be alot cheaper to make

That's right, console games are multi million £ projects these days, often taking years to complete. It's no wonder that game developers like to re-work existing franchises for the latest game consoles, and why innovation has become somewhat stifled as they play it 'safe'.

my expeirence of indie game developers is limited as i have only worked for publisher backed games companies

Interesting. Have you worked for any big names in the industry?

Cycrow

andrewjf wrote: »

Interesting. Have you worked for any big names in the industry?

Not really big names. One of the companies i worked for was formed from Codemasters.

Last game i worked on was X3: Albion Prelude for Egosoft

National_Careers_Service

Hi Ader1,

Have you come across the Creative Skillset website yet? I’ve just searched for “apps” on the site and it came up with a number of articles about and courses for app development. Perhaps this might be useful?

Good luck with it.

makeyourdaddyproud

Sorry to rain on your parade but I already have 15 years plus of C, C++ and X / openGL programming and 2 yrs UI design and I can tell you you will by very, very lucky to earn any money as a mobile developer these days, if that's your intention.

It takes an immense amount of effort to crystallise a product to market even with skills. There's just too much saturation and cheaper overseas consultants to make it worthwhile here.

I've looked into it, did the research and sums, and decided not to waste time and money.

As a n00b developer, you would be a fool to start inventing the wheel when rockets are already flying to the moon.

I will stick to playing my Ibanez, it's soooo much more satisfying.

Sorry to demotivate thee.

andrewjf

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

I will stick to playing my Ibanez, it's soooo much more satisfying.

Sorry to demotivate thee.

lol! I'll join you on my new Roland TD11.
You're absolutely right on the mobile app scene. I think that ship has already sailed. It was possible to make some money out of it at one stage, but there are so many people now doing it, and every conceivable app has been done. Of course you may come up with a killer app idea, but as you say it's all about marketing now, and getting your app noticed is another problem.
I'd start playing the lottery, there's probably more chance of making money out of that.

Cycrow

it depends if you plan to make your own apps to sell, or just doing app development for a company.
If your working for a company then its no different to any other development jobs really so you can still earn money from it, but as a salary

The later is what i do now, although the original job was as an OpenGL programmer but changed to develop apps

andrewjf

Cycrow wrote: »

it depends if you plan to make your own apps to sell, or just doing app development for a company.
If your working for a company then its no different to any other development jobs really so you can still earn money from it, but as a salary

The later is what i do now, although the original job was as an OpenGL programmer but changed to develop apps

I was thinking of the 'one man band' app developer making millions. In fact I got myself a Mac Mini with the intention of doing just that. However it didn't really materialise into anything, and the Mac is now a nice looking, but expensive media server sitting under my TV