Good perspective from a developer doing the entire process. Learning experience side, he'll probably have quite a challenge seeing significant success in the long run (IMO). He might not care about that though, it's very exciting to both make and publish iPhone apps. I'm over web apps, lol.

I just gave a brief presentation last night a CocoaCoder's group in Austin discussing my company, and our first go at the AppStore. I also outlined our strategy for 2009. Here's a PDF. It's not very long, mostly focuses on the business side of things, non-technical.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/184250/CocoaCoders%20%2801-08-09%...

Very nice. Thanks for sharing. Are you taking on new members? It sounds like a great model to share the common costs, and share the profits.

Thanks, just updated the PDF with a few things I forgot that I thought were important. At the moment, I think we've got our hands full for the next 3-4 months as we recently announced full-service publishing.

The open-ended model works great for getting things going, but I'm not sure it's viable in the long run. The company needs it's own profits to grow and re-invest in itself. If things go really well, then we'll move to equity stakes in the company and take salary. Two of us still rely on consulting/dev work for primary income.

What's full service publishing?

we can do everything from start to finish (design, develop, publish, promote)

What do you do for promotion?

great presentation.

The "myriad of tax forms" can be very, very nasty if you're not american. Documentation is confusing and I can assure you that the forms are not so understandable, if you're not a native speaker. The docs on apple site say to apply for a 'TIN' but, as I learnt after some days, a TIN is almost impossible to get outside the US (it seems that you have to send your passport to the IRS by mail). After a while (and a very useful post on the Internet from an UK guy that managed to get it I discovered that the key is to apply for an EIN. You can apply by phone, they release it to you immediately by phone and, after a while, you will receive a letter from the IRS with the number for your record... With the EIN you can send your W8-BEN... but this is another, different, story. Objective-C is easy and the development tools are very good (for an embedded system), the real problem (again, at least if you're not from US) are the US tax forms...

I might be on the wrong track here, but one option for assistance with US tax forms for foreign nationals might be to apply for a US stock trading account through a local stockbroker.

I setup a US trading account several years ago here in Australia through CommSec (local bank broker). I had to fill out a W8-BEN and a few other forms but they provided a full guide on how to do it. Just a thought.

Not quite. From a preliminary reading, it seems to me that there might be special exemptions on dividends from stocks and other instruments for nonresident alien individuals that don't extend to other kinds of income.

On the other hand, does Apple really need a TIN at all? Some people report that Apple is happy to have you skip it on the W-8BEN you submit to them because the 70% on iphone apps is 'sales/commission' and not 'royalties', hence not taxable at all (for non-US developers). I have asked Apple for clarification and am waiting to hear.

Tell me about it! I live in Norway and I have no clue on how to approach this problem. My provisions on my few, simple apps is at about 2 000$ in six weeks. So I was just wondering.. Apple can't claim my proceeds for themselves because I haven't yet set up my tax and bank forms can they?

I think they just withhold paying you until your financial details are figured out.

I'm basically in the same boat as you... It's extremely frustrating to set up my financial info. I'm a coder, damnit!

Hahaha, yeah it's like: oh, wait a minute, I'll just get my economics degree and I'll be rrrright with you :P

*Don't shell out for the $100 version that lets you push apps to your iPhone until you have AT LEAST the rough draft of your app completed and running on the simulator. There's nothing worse then spending $100 on something and then never using it because you've lost interest.

Disagree, without a developer provisioning certificate you can't test the app on a real phone. There are a few inconsistencies between the Simulator and the real device, you need to test early.

re: the red tape. This is only a problem if you charge for the app. Free apps are dead simple, and Apple has been super responsive in approving our app. Only took them 3 business days.

So does anyone of you iPhone developers actually market your apps at all or do you just leave it to chance?

What are the possible ways of marketing an iPhone app?

I understand it's not easy to learn a new language and that the apple process can be tedious but it's definitely not that bad. I have publish a couple of apps for clients without any problems. Somehow people think because it's for a phone it's supposed to be simpler.

For those of you that have published a paid app, how long did it take to get through the Apple application process and then the app approval process?

When I applied under a business name, it took about 3 weeks for Apple to finally contact me asking for business documents. In the interim, I applied as an individual and I was approved immediately.

I finally got first app approved and onto the app store this week. When I first submit, I was rejected exactly 7 days after submission. I fixed my error (wrong version in the Info.plist file) and resubmit the same day I received the rejection email. 5 days after the resubmission my app was approved for sale.

Once I got the email that the app was ready for sale, it appeared in the app store about 18 hours later.