Daithi's Kindle Fire App Diary

Daithi · 01-12-2012, 04:41 PM

In case anyone is interested, I'm going to try and develop an App for the Kindle Fire and make gobs of money with it. [

Like many of you I received a Kindle for Christmas. One of the first things I did was download Angry Birds and then promptly wasted hour upon hour of time smashing little green pigs who kept grunting and smiling at me everytime I came up short. It was a great game that lived up to all the hype (it had been years since I've played games).

I then did a little research into how much App developers were making. As I suspected, the vast majority of them don't make squat. However, if you can design the next big App you can make a ton of money. One statistic to consider is that according to IDC the current worldwide smartphone market is a little shy of 500 million, and it is expected that the worldwide smartphone market will reach about 1 billion phones by 2015. In other words, a popular $1 App that everyone just has to have can make a lot of money.

Designing that popular App won't be easy. You need to have a good product, and just as importantly you need to get the word out so that people know about your product. I have a few ideas in regards to both of these, but I'm a newbie. Oh yeah, I happen to design software for a living, but primarily medical software. I've never even written in Java program in my life.

So here's the deal. I'm planning on writing a game that I hope will make some money. I'll use this thread entry to inform people where I am in the process. I'll tell you about how development is going. I'll tell you the things I'm doing to get my app into the Kindle App store. I'll tell you about the things I'm doing for marketing. I'll even tell you how much revenue, if any, the App makes. Hopefully, some of you with similar aspirations may get some use out of all of this.

This is where I'm at so far.

I've thought of the idea for my App. It is a game and I've looked to see if there are any other similar games already on the market. It turns out there are two games that are somewhat similar but I can see some glaring flaws in their design, so I think my game will be far more enjoyable to play. One of the similar games was also the most popular game in Hong Kong in 2010, so I think I've got a pretty good shot at designing something people will enjoy playing. I'll give more details about the game once I get closer to having it completed.

I've already sketched out the basic storyline of the game, and thought through the basic functionality of how the game will be played. One thing I have already figured out is that a game should be very simple to play. It should take no more than a second or two to figure out how to play it, but then it can't become too repetive and boring. You need to add more complexity as the player figures out the basics. I think my game will have this covered.

I've also started working on designing the graphics. I want to get this out the door in a reasonable time period so I'm keeping the graphics fairly simple. I'm only going to have a couple background scenes (done in Photoshop) that will require any substantial amount of time to create, and everything else will be simple. (At one time I wanted to be an artists but programming paid a lot more.)

Lastly, I don't know Java yet. So, I've bought a couple of books, Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours and Beginning Android Games. Most likely, I'll read through these fairly quickly, maybe work through a few samples, and then start writing my code and using the books as references as I get stuck. As the time gets closer to launch I'll also buy a book on Marketing Apps.

The plan is to work on this project in the evenings after work and on weekends. If I fail utterly then I just missed out on some TV watching time. I'm going to try and get the project done within three months (which means it will probably take me 6 to 9 months -- programmers tend to underestimate and I'm no different). I'll post an update here to keep everyone apprised of my progress.

One of the reasons I'm doing this thread is to help keep myself motivated as time goes on. It is easy to start a big project, but from experience I know that staying motivated until the end isn't quite so simple. Hopefully, by making a public commentment, I won't allow myself to slack off.

orange! · 01-12-2012, 05:02 PM

Hi Daithi,

Cool thread! I'll be looking forward to hearing about your progress, and ultimately, of course, your immense success!

I have a similar project underway for an "educational" app, although, to be honest, I haven't gotten very far on my project. I don't expect to make buckets of money, but it would be nice to break even on the new MacBook that I'll need so that I can also port my apps to iOS.

I might be telling you something you already know; if so please pardon me. You have a couple of other choices other than writing a native Java app. You didn't say what kind of development environment you live in. If it happens to be .NET, you might be interested in Mono for Android. The other development environment that sounds kind of interesting to me (again, I'm eventually planning to port my app to other OS'es) is PhoneGap, which is an HTML5/Javascript environment.

Best of luck in your endeavor!

01-12-2012, 04:41 PM	#1
Daithi Publishers are evil! Posts: 2,418 Karma: 36205264 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Rhode Island Device: Various Kindles	Daithi's Kindle Fire App Diary In case anyone is interested, I'm going to try and develop an App for the Kindle Fire and make gobs of money with it. [ Like many of you I received a Kindle for Christmas. One of the first things I did was download Angry Birds and then promptly wasted hour upon hour of time smashing little green pigs who kept grunting and smiling at me everytime I came up short. It was a great game that lived up to all the hype (it had been years since I've played games). I then did a little research into how much App developers were making. As I suspected, the vast majority of them don't make squat. However, if you can design the next big App you can make a ton of money. One statistic to consider is that according to IDC the current worldwide smartphone market is a little shy of 500 million, and it is expected that the worldwide smartphone market will reach about 1 billion phones by 2015. In other words, a popular $1 App that everyone just has to have can make a lot of money. Designing that popular App won't be easy. You need to have a good product, and just as importantly you need to get the word out so that people know about your product. I have a few ideas in regards to both of these, but I'm a newbie. Oh yeah, I happen to design software for a living, but primarily medical software. I've never even written in Java program in my life. So here's the deal. I'm planning on writing a game that I hope will make some money. I'll use this thread entry to inform people where I am in the process. I'll tell you about how development is going. I'll tell you the things I'm doing to get my app into the Kindle App store. I'll tell you about the things I'm doing for marketing. I'll even tell you how much revenue, if any, the App makes. Hopefully, some of you with similar aspirations may get some use out of all of this. This is where I'm at so far. I've thought of the idea for my App. It is a game and I've looked to see if there are any other similar games already on the market. It turns out there are two games that are somewhat similar but I can see some glaring flaws in their design, so I think my game will be far more enjoyable to play. One of the similar games was also the most popular game in Hong Kong in 2010, so I think I've got a pretty good shot at designing something people will enjoy playing. I'll give more details about the game once I get closer to having it completed. I've already sketched out the basic storyline of the game, and thought through the basic functionality of how the game will be played. One thing I have already figured out is that a game should be very simple to play. It should take no more than a second or two to figure out how to play it, but then it can't become too repetive and boring. You need to add more complexity as the player figures out the basics. I think my game will have this covered. I've also started working on designing the graphics. I want to get this out the door in a reasonable time period so I'm keeping the graphics fairly simple. I'm only going to have a couple background scenes (done in Photoshop) that will require any substantial amount of time to create, and everything else will be simple. (At one time I wanted to be an artists but programming paid a lot more.) Lastly, I don't know Java yet. So, I've bought a couple of books, Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours and Beginning Android Games. Most likely, I'll read through these fairly quickly, maybe work through a few samples, and then start writing my code and using the books as references as I get stuck. As the time gets closer to launch I'll also buy a book on Marketing Apps. The plan is to work on this project in the evenings after work and on weekends. If I fail utterly then I just missed out on some TV watching time. I'm going to try and get the project done within three months (which means it will probably take me 6 to 9 months -- programmers tend to underestimate and I'm no different). I'll post an update here to keep everyone apprised of my progress. One of the reasons I'm doing this thread is to help keep myself motivated as time goes on. It is easy to start a big project, but from experience I know that staying motivated until the end isn't quite so simple. Hopefully, by making a public commentment, I won't allow myself to slack off.

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01-12-2012, 05:02 PM	#2
orange! Born to be wild Posts: 206 Karma: 1010067 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: North Carolina, USA Device: Kindle K3 wi-fi, Nexus 7 + Aldiko	Hi Daithi, Cool thread! I'll be looking forward to hearing about your progress, and ultimately, of course, your immense success! I have a similar project underway for an "educational" app, although, to be honest, I haven't gotten very far on my project. I don't expect to make buckets of money, but it would be nice to break even on the new MacBook that I'll need so that I can also port my apps to iOS. I might be telling you something you already know; if so please pardon me. You have a couple of other choices other than writing a native Java app. You didn't say what kind of development environment you live in. If it happens to be .NET, you might be interested in Mono for Android. The other development environment that sounds kind of interesting to me (again, I'm eventually planning to port my app to other OS'es) is PhoneGap, which is an HTML5/Javascript environment. Best of luck in your endeavor!

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