My son has been working off and on over the last few months to develop his own app for the iPhone. He started programming at the ripe young age of 10 with Visual Basic and now has evolved to building usable applications for the iPhone and hopefully for him, other popular devices. Go figure — at $1/download, millions of people out there looking for new ways to pass time and be mentally stimulated, he could retire before he officially hits the job market. Only in today’s world with the so-called net-DNA generation could this be possible.
It’s not a perfect world — it did take some doing to actually get it into the app store — although not in Canada you say. For that, we had to get him an HST/GST account number with the government, so they could collect an appropriate part of his take on the 99 cents income from each download — gross income, Apple takes some as well. So for now, the app is posted everywhere BUT in the Canadian app store – hopefully he has some friends in the US and abroad to buy it.
In watching him build his app, one of the highlights that made the whole exercise worthwhile from a parents perspective, is when he found himself using Grade 9-10 math concepts in his code. He had to combine aspects of slope calculations with Pythagoreans theorem to figure out collisions. It was good to see him realize the value of an education — something not all kids see for many years, if at all.
So now we wait, check the sales reports daily to see it become viral — he’s busily working on his second app just in case the first one does not provide the financial independence he would like to have!
Take a look if you can —
Application Name: Dodge!
Builder: Casual Apps (www.casualapps.com)
Proud parent (and silent business partner) signing off.