h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have an idea for an iPhone app.

I'm near certain it's not already been done.

I don't have the first idea how one would go about writing an app, but I could specify this one quite clearly (as in - I write industrial software specifications, so it wouldn't be an amateurish "Make a sort of... thing, on the screen that, you know, goes round").

I could reasonably guarantee downloads in the thousands, even if the app was charged - in the incredibly unlikely event that it already exists, it would be the app I'd be prepared to pay cash money for for the very first time.

Anyone?

OK, strike above, I'm fully certain it's not been done. Nothing even remotely like it, in fact.

It's a relatively simple thing, but it has a useful real-world educational/training application as well as being a fun coordination/puzzle style game thing.

Oh, and one other thing - I will pretty much guarantee that it will get downloaded, and used, a lot, by thousands of 25-60 year old males with lots of spare cash all over the world.

I bought a book on how to write iPhone Apps. You need to register yourself with Apple, download the software to your Macintosh, and then when your app is ready, to pay a fee of something like $99 to Apple for the right to put apps into their store.

So you need a Macintosh and $99.

Eek. I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to do it myself, as anyone who's invested the time in learning to do it is going to want me to pay them to program...

So I don't already have a Mac, I'm looking at some serious investment of money as well as time...

Hmm...

Would an Android app have fewer overheads?


Geggs

An Android app would indeed have fewer overheads. It's a far more open platform.

I have never done any coding except for building websites. I'd be interested in learning ... one day.

Other option: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=coders+for+hire. (If you go this route, be very careful with the wording of contracts. If it's "work for hire", you should own the copyright of the code.)

TRiG.

If you know how to program, writing an Android app is fairly easy. I more or less learned how to do it in a weekend (and that was starting from not knowing Java, the language used for Android, but knowing C++).

Hoo, check your messages.

Overheads? It's all going over my head!

Hmm. Android may be the way forward for now... I just don't have ready access to an Android phone.

Question: how good are the accelerometers in Android phones?

The app I have in mind requires the use of accelerometers to sense tilt on the pitch and roll axes.

(Suspects hoo's app is something to do with the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force)

Wow... you're showing your age there. That is going seriously way back. It's nearly ELEVEN YEARS since I wrote that stuff. In internet terms, that like before the dinosaurs evolved...