iPhone / iOS App in New Zealand

The question to settle before you talk to anyone

Most iPhone app projects that go badly went wrong here, not in the code. There are two completely different things people mean by "we need an app", and they have different budgets, different risks and different definitions of success.

A product. Strangers will download it, so it has to be found, explained, trusted and kept. Building it is perhaps a third of the work. The rest is getting anyone to install it and come back.

A tool. Your staff, your contractors, your existing customers already have a reason to use it. Nobody has to be persuaded. It has to work in a van, in a shed, and with one bar of signal.

Say which one you have in your brief. The quotes will be sharper and the developers who are wrong for you will say so.

Be honest about whether you need an app at all

An app costs three to five times a mobile website doing the same job, and then asks your customer to visit the App Store, download it, and keep it installed. That is a real price and it should buy you something.

It is worth it when you need:

• Push notifications people will actually act on.
• Offline use — inspections, deliveries, work in the field.
• Background location, or the camera used as a tool rather than an upload button.
• A place on the home screen for something people open weekly.
• Apple Pay, Face ID, HealthKit or another Apple system.

It is not worth it when the app would mostly display information, take a booking, or accept a payment. A good mobile website does all three, costs far less, needs no approval from Apple, and updates the moment you change it.

Ask every developer quoting whether they think you need an app. The answer tells you a great deal about them.

Native, or cross-platform?

Native means built in Swift specifically for iOS. Cross-platform means one codebase — React Native or Flutter — producing both an iOS and an Android app.

Cross-platform is typically 30 to 50 percent cheaper than two native builds and is now genuinely good. Most business apps, field tools, ordering apps and portals should be built that way, and you will not be able to tell by using them.

Native still earns its cost when the app is your product rather than a channel, when you lean hard on iOS features as they ship, or when performance and animation are part of what you are selling. If you only ever need iOS, native is also simply the straightest line.

What you should be wary of is a developer who never asks the question and quotes their house technology by reflex.

The App Store is a real step, not a formality

Apple reviews every app before it goes live and every update afterwards. Review is usually a day or two. Rejection is normal, not a disaster, but it costs time you should have in the plan.

The common New Zealand ones:

• Selling digital goods outside Apple's payments. Subscriptions and in-app content generally must use Apple's system, which takes 15 to 30 percent. Physical goods and real-world services do not.
• Sign in with Apple. If you offer Google or Facebook login, you generally have to offer Apple's too.
• Privacy labels and account deletion. Apps with accounts must let people delete theirs from inside the app.
• Apps that are just a wrapped website. Rejected routinely, and the most common cause of a launch slipping a month.

Ask each developer what happens if Apple rejects the app: whether responding to review is included, and how many rounds.

Own your own account

The Apple Developer account should be in your company's name, paid for on your card, with your people as administrators. Your development agency gets added to it.

Set it up before the build starts. Apple verifies organisations, and for a New Zealand company that can take a week or two — it is a miserable thing to discover on launch week. It is USD 99 a year, and it is the difference between changing developer being a decision and being a negotiation.

What the year-one number leaves out

Ask for the ongoing figure at quoting time, not after launch. Typically:

• Apple Developer Program: USD 99 a year.
• Backend hosting: $50 to $500 a month for most apps, more once you have real usage.
• Maintenance: 15 to 25 percent of build cost a year. iOS ships a major version every September and something always needs attention.
• The second version. Every app that gets used generates a list of changes within a month of launch. Budget for it rather than being surprised.

Comparing five quotes

Prices in this category spread further than in any other, because "an app" can mean almost anything. Compare on scope before price:

• Does the quote include the backend, or only what is on the phone? This is the single largest hidden difference between two quotes.
• Who owns the code and the Apple account when the project ends?
• Is App Store submission and review included?
• What is the year-two figure?
• Which of them asked whether you needed an app at all?

Describe who will use it, the three things they must be able to do, and whether it must work without signal. Five developers will come back with sharply different scopes, and reading the differences is more useful than reading the prices.