First Android App, Beginning to Launch 1 Week



Last night development on Intergalactic Spacefleet Sensor came to a halt as it was prepared for launch. With about a weeks worth of late night development and a number of expenses in preparation for the launch, the application was ready to be published.

About a week and a half ago I bought a Nexus One and immediate began researching development for it. I downloaded the Android SDK with Eclipse and began a number of tutorials to learn the inner workings of the system. Being a .Net developer 99% of the time it was a different experience from usual developing with Eclipse. The big thing I like about Eclipse is the Ctrl+Shift+O command that automatically places in your dependencies, that feature helped a lot during the tutorials. Initially development for android reminded me a lot of Flex and Silverlight and any other platform hat organizes its UI with an XML file.

From the beginning of development I planned to make a sound synthesizer based on the touch readings from the phone, I find that sort of thing fun and interesting. I later came to the Spacefleet Sensor idea when I came out with a crazy square wave that sounded like something out of all the old scifi movies. I then had my wife draw me up a scifi looking icon and portrait, and began work on the display. The visuals on the app were dynamic from the beginning. I wanted originally to make some sort of waveform for the app and ended up with moving circles that change color, this will help me in the future with game programming because I built the dynamic visuals around he same idea. Once the application was completed I became paranoid about legal matters.

I decided to research weather or not I needed a business name or not. Correct me if I am wrong but after my research I ended up with the need for a Business License, and Fictitious Business Name. That expense plus the domain name, and Android developer fee, it came down to about $100 to get everything up and running to be able to publish.

Finally, with everything squared away I was able to begin the final publish process. After creating all the necessary requirements for exporting the Android app, I began filling out the publish request, which is pretty much what you see on the Market. (i.e. Description, 2 Pictures, Contact info, etc..) All that was left was to hit publish, but it was 1am by the time I got to that point. I decided to publish anyway in hopes that 40 more apps would not publish by the time 8am came around. I was wrong. Post morning groggyness I came to realize that the application was about 20 apps down from the "Just In" section on the store. Unfortunate but it is all a learning experience. After getting home from work I did a little promoting online and got a few sales!!

I will definitely be making more android apps in the future, while updating Spacefleet Sensor. The whole process was simple and easy to adapt to, with a release in 1 week of development, and legal document filing time.

If you want to check the app out go to its website at http://www.spacefleetsensor.com/
Or scan the barcode with your android phone

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