The increasing popularity of smartphones has drawn a handful of entrepreneurs into the niche market of developing applications for mobile devices.
People download applications — or “apps” as they commonly are called — from the Internet for use on devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry Storm and Palm Pre. Applications allow users to play puzzles, manage their Facebook and Twitter accounts and identify and download songs.
Rather than creating all these exhanced applications themselves, some smartphone manufacturers, including Apple and Research in Motion, pay independent software developers who submit applications.
More than 40 million iPhones and iPod Touches have been sold since 2007, and industry experts say the current applications available, which exceed 50,000, only scratch the surface of what the devices can support.
Hasani Hunter and Andy Peters of Omaha are developers for Apple's App Store, the company's online source of applications. Both ditched former careers in corporate America to launch their own software startups: Hunter started I.COM in late 2008; and Peters formed Ninth Division in January of this year.
They haven't regretted their decision yet, they say. They set their own hours, work from wherever they want and collaborate with each other.
Instead of being confined in offices, Hunter and Peters said, they meet a few times each week in the relaxed confines of Scooter's Coffehouse in Elkhorn.
“I'm coming from 12 years in cubicle land,” said Peters, who with Hunter estimates working 60 to 70 hours a week on Apple mobile application development. “It's great. I love what I'm doing.”
It's too early to know whether developing mobile applications is a financially viable career in the long run, they said. They declined to say how much they've earned but said they've seen little change in their lifestyles or budgets.
“I'm able to pay my mortgage and make all my obligations without having to work at Burger King or McDonald's to support my family,” Hunter said.
Peters agreed.
“My wife and I live the lifestyle we would normally live,'' he said. “We've seen very little change.”
During the early months of their independent ventures, there were tough times and bumps in the road, Hunter and Peters said, but the addition of client-based work — creating specific applications on request — has added some stability to their revenue streams.
Peters said he has seen contracts between $5,000 and $50,000, depending on the size of the application, time needed to develop it and the complexity of the programming.
“I'm taking work as I get it, but right now it seems to be more client work,” Peters said. “One of the reasons client work is so great is because the market is so new. We're still figuring out what people want and what companies want to invest in.”
Hunter has worked with Eelios, an Omaha company that provides individualized weather data to create a mobile weather application called WXFX. In addition, he has released a photography app called Photowall under his I.COM brand that helps connect photographers with photography fans.
Similarly, Peters worked with Omaha-based Sojern, a company that prints customized, destination-oriented information and advertisements on airline tickets to develop an application so that frequent travelers can check in, find flight status, frequent flier info or even book a flight.
Most of their clients are outside the relatively small Nebraska market, Hunter and Peters said, which is part of the reason they went into business for themselves. It's unlikely there soon will be companies here that deal with application development.
“In Omaha there aren't many opportunities for Mac or iPhone developers,” Hunter said. “So you're really faced with moving out of Omaha or doing it on your own.”
Joe Olsen, CEO of Phenomblue, an Omaha multiplatform digital software creation company, said developing and marketing apps for the iPhone is a challenge because they can be used only with Apple's OS 3.0 operating system.
“Apple has the hardest platform to design for, and that's why companies like Andy's and Hasani's are starting up,” Olsen said. “There are not a lot of Apple developers out there because they have a limited market share.”
Phenomblue has created applications for Apple, BlackBerry and Palm, but unlike Hunter and Peters, doesn't rely solely on revenue from those contracts.
Since opening July 11, 2008, the App Store has seen more than 1 billion downloads, according to industry estimates. By comparison, Research in Motion's App World, which supports application downloads for BlackBerry, recently doubled the number of programs it offers to 2,000. Palm's App Catalog offers just a few dozen apps.
“At the end of the day, Apple is the 10-ton gorilla in the room,” said Scott Steinberg, publisher of digitaltrends.com, which reviews digital devices. “It's going to take a lot to shake them off the tree.”
The market for mobile apps has become a “wild, wild West”-type climate with lots of opportunities and few huge successes, Steinberg said. He said developers like Hunter and Peters will be hard-pressed to make a long-term career out of application development.
“The reality of it is: Don't quit your day job,” Steinberg said. “[You] have to be a skilled businessman to do this full time with any degree of consistency.”
Contact the writer:
444-1414, ross.boettcher@owh.com
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