Bump after bump in mobile app development / 5217 Pomodoro Blog

A post about what I learned while working on the application. Looking back, I ask a strange question: in the end, who created whom? It’s like I was making an application, but it has changed a lot in me.

My application is a solution to my personal problem. Working on it would be impossible to stay away. The product grew and changed, it got better - and with it I.

So,
Part 1 - discoveries in the field of time and project management.
Part 2 - useful services and resources useful in the development and release process.

Part 1. Notes on project management and time

I am writing about what I did, what I noticed, and what worked. No claim to objective truth or comprehensive consideration of the issue.

The development was carried out without budgets, sponsors, mentors, investors, star performers or any other pleasant accelerators. He did it on his own money, and therefore cherished every day and every ruble.

He started a “logbook”, where he recorded all the tasks, deadlines and goals. Distributed roles and arranged the sequence of tasks. It turned out, of course, not ideally, but comparing the plan fact and recording the logs quickly made it possible to identify a weak spot and make adjustments to the development process.

Flipping through the "logbook", I hasten to share a list of my notes:

• Determine for yourself exactly what you want to get as a result. Insanely important. Primarily. All subsequent activity is through the prism of the question: "Do I need to do this to achieve a result?".
• The second point follows from the first: to set tasks for yourself and the performers as clearly as possible. None: “draw a cool design by Monday” ... The answer to your question next Friday will be: “so, yes, design ... I didn’t understand, but what did you want specifically?”
• To create a product, you need to work. Yes, that's so trite. You need to constantly think, analyze and work. Do not fantasize about a product, but take any useful actions and put a lot of effort!
• No need to learn "for the future." I read, listen and watch only what I need now or as part of the work on the project. Here, many will begin to argue, but I will immediately counter: when you rely on your own budget, every minute is expensive.
• Think, think and ask yourself how much the user will cost and how much he will bring to you. Sometimes, this simple question and calculations give a stunning result.

Such is the list from Captain Evidence. What is surprising - in order to work productively, in reality, complex systems and secret theories are not needed. You just need to understand what you want to come to, what to do for this, whether what you are going to do really will lead to the achievement of the goal. You need to work, think and just live your project without breaking into "everything in a row."

Part 2. Useful Resources

It was necessary to do quickly, probably and as cheaply as possible. Here is my list of sources and tools that helped a lot:

1. Habr . Subscribing to certain channels + searching for any question gives a lot of comprehensive information. In particular, the work of the habroiser to translate the equipment into Russian, as well as the topics of other users about creating their products, played a huge role. By the way, help me find the link? I downloaded the document, but I can’t post the link in the public - I lost it.

2. Apptractor - perhaps the main site about mobile development in RuNet. A lot of useful articles, links to the necessary resources and tools. For me personally, this site is a godsend.

3. Podcasts. This experience is not suitable for everyone, but for me this channel was incredibly convenient. Every day, some time passes in the car, and at this time I listen to “programs” about mobile development. While you are going to the office, you receive information, thoughts, tune in to a “working spirit” and do not spend extra time on this. I chose the following for myself: “How do games”, “AppTractor”, “mobile applications as a business”, “Runetology”.

4. Localization. There is some crowdin service. There is strength in this approach. The only question is what tasks you face. In my case, it turned out that it’s more profitable to simply translate all the texts at once and not spend money anymore. There are not many texts, I have chosen not many languages ​​either. I used the icanlocalize.com service. Price 0.09 per word. Translation from native speakers, a huge selection of artists. I was satisfied with the service. Recommend.

5. ASO. This topic is incredibly important and absolutely necessary. There are a lot of materials on this subject in the network. In theory, everything is beautiful until you start selecting keywords. Here the difficulties begin. Often, authors of miracle articles are silent about the tools for selecting keys or talk about the Yandex or Google service. Who has already tried, will understand. My find on this is the sensortower.com service. I activated a trial (free) subscription for a couple of weeks and got great tools for analyzing competitors, finding and localizing keys. Do not forget that if you do not unsubscribe, then after the trial period, money will be written off.

6. Zuckerberg will call. I signed up for the digest and every Friday I flip through a summary of interesting materials. Useful articles are often found. If you do not abuse the reading of everything, then the right resource. In addition, it was there that I found a designer. And the other day there was the third of a series about optimizing the application for the store - an excellent manual, everything is on the case and right.

7. Product Hunt . An incredible amount of information, but if you carefully and selectively view it, you can find interesting services and solutions. I monitor my topic and among the new products and free startup services I find a lot of useful things. In particular, free mockup generators, screenshot creation services, watch emulators and other joys.

8. Mocapas. It's funny, but until some time, I thought that my designers did it manually. dunnnk.com, mockuphone.com - great and completely free services. My discovery.

9. Sounds . freesound.org - in most cases one of this service is enough to select sounds. Very simple and free.

conclusions

Going through these lists, I suddenly made a strange conclusion. For many months I have been collecting cones, creating and failing one after another projects, with blood and then step by step I comprehend such banal things and that’s strange. “Beginners” or those who think that they want to create a “cool application” turn to me - and now I recognize myself in them and I hasten to share everything that I learned and stumbled on ...

I speak, write, argue, warn, advise ... and it looks like I'm a coward, a skeptic, a pessimist, a miser, and I don’t understand anything about brilliant ideas.

Overall, the conclusion is simple : ready-made tips in their pure form without personal experience are useless. To create something really worthwhile, you must first create something at all. And then more and more, but the potoooh ...

Therefore, my advice to beginners is to take care of your time and try to create simpler projects to begin with, and only about what you are really good at.

Yes, the lyrical end:

5217 pomodoro plus - with a love of time.