which are attention-grabbing, but still useful.
"People have loads of ideas and some of them flop completely, so it's very important that you have something that's very suited to being on a mobile device, something that people need to get instant access to and work with quickly," he said.
While anybody can potentially jump into iPhone app development, Dawson warns that like software development for any other platform, it helps to have a bit more background and grounding in the processes and languages used in development.
"Getting into developing and releasing a program commercially obviously requires a bit of practice and skill," he said. "Whilst there may be some very intelligent people who can jump in and do it, it's probably unrealistic to be able to expect most people to do that."
Rob Kingma, director of sales and marketing at ICT Networks, develops security-based iPhone applications for one of the big four banks. He says that while the iPhone apps environment wasn't initially designed for corporate apps, the marketing components of corporate organisations have seen the value of being able to get their brand within the App Store.
By taking their Internet banking platforms to the iPhone, banks have been able to utilise the functionality that's provided by the iPhone, especially the GPS locator, which provides banks with the opportunity to offer their customers services such as a mobile branch locator.
"Corporate opportunities within the App Store come from companies being able to provide an additional service or an extension of mobility of their services out to users," Kingma said. Regardless of what type of application a developer toils over, games undoubtedly underpin much of the App Store catalogue. Gaming applications hold the largest proportions of sales, and there is no limit to the number of games iPhone buffs might want to play.
Melbourne-based game developer Firemint has been developing mobile phone games since 2002 and hit success in March this year with the development of Flight Control, a strategic flight simulation game.
Developed by Firemint's CEO, Rob Murray, Flight Control has been the number one selling app in 20 countries, and currently sits at number one in Australia. Like Yates, Murray developed his highly successful app as a work of passion.
"I liked the idea of applying a drawing game to something because I like the iPhone's touch screen interface," Murray said.
"I examined the market and there wasn't really much out there in terms of air traffic control. We thought that this game was a winner in the sense that people could really love it and get addicted to it, but we didn't know how it would go."
As far as the timing goes, Murray says any success related to time was a fluke, such a fluke in fact, that Murray's company Firemint was in a scurry to promote its new app once it found out the app had been approved by Apple, and released in the App Store.
The App Store's approval process is a bone of contention amongst local iPhone app developers, whose ultimate goal is to get promoted by Apple in the Top 100. When developers submit apps to Apple for approval, they include a suggested release date. However, if Apple cannot approve the app in time, it can potentially be buried among the just released list.
Yates, whose Blackjack application was promoted by the media attention it received, rather than by Apple, says it's very hard to know how Apple's review process for the App Store works, resulting in an element of pure chance or luck in receiving exposure.
"The main frustration is not being aware of the processes and not knowing what you need to do to get your app promoted by Apple," he said. "Different apps take longer to review than others and I've had an app that took such a long time to review that in the meantime someone came up with an app similar to mine."
It can take a developer up
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