Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 08, 2014 1:45 am

Okay,

I never usually post any info about any projects until I complete them, but this one I am quite keen to share with you guys.

I am thinking of soon building an iOS app for OpenCart admin users. The app will be free (with ads) or 0.69p/$0.99.

The free edition will allow you to have 1 OpenCart installation saved to your device. It will also display adverts. I know people hate adverts, but this will be an expensive project for me, time is money.

The paid version will allow you to have UNLIMITED OpenCart installations saved to your device with NO adverts and FREE upgrades.

In the app you will be able to do almost everything you can do in the admin panel itself:

Add/edit/delete Products
Add/edit/delete Categories
Add/edit/delete Manufacturers
Take photos and upload them to the server

Add/edit/delete Customers
Add/edit/delete Orders

The app will come with a free API kit for OpenCart (so the app can communicate with your OpenCart website).

I will add other features like promo codes and other admin stuff later on, but what do you think so far? Would this be something you would download/buy?

I may also look into an android version later this year.

I will also post prototypes, designs and beta releases for a limited number of developers. I am keen to hear back because I believe this is something that you will all benefit from.

Peter

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Post by butte » Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:25 am

That should be widely sought. You're underestimating what it's worth.

Giving it its own alpha keyboard and numerical keypad, independent of the usual fare, might make campers even happier. The ones that are standard in mobile devices usually are pains in the somewhere.

Touchscreens go way, way back and there are still two essential kinds that you touch with either your finger or a stylus, so you may want to accommodate (or be able to accommodate quickly) both kinds. There's no telling how suddenly the industry can switch which, now that the buttons are and soon enough even mobile devices will be too small for men's hands.

Dunno, 69 pence and a buck seem way too high, you would still have a little bit left over, can't let that happen. Mind the numbers, you'll have price(s) + vat + domestic_payment_% + domestic_payment_flat + international_payment_% + international_payment_flat - commissions_out - discounts_off - income_tax, and odds are that you'll want enough left over that you'll have owed and paid income tax on it. Dunno, 2 or 4 Crowns and 3 or 6 bucks might work, but 6 Crowns and 10 bucks would be quite reasonable and leave you enough net-net (after taxes) to help you enjoy having done it.

People using OC admins by cpu or small device are still using OC, for what they intend will be profit. Probably most of them will avoid it if it has ads. And sans ads that would take up already small screen real estate, it will be more than a mere extension. A mere 6 Crowns and 10 bucks would be trivial compared to what they already spend on mobile devices without thinking about it. There are several thousand OC installations, probably most are manned by people who have mobile devices, and probably quite a few of those would try it. The single-shot "now" usages will probably prevail, and instant gratification for somewhat literally the sheer fun of it typically carries a modest or larger pricetag.

There will also be thousands of us who will not try it, partly owing to security concerns (cellphones are already hackable, and in certain areas of the world are the preferred nearly untraceable means of hacking standard websites), but primarily because the mobile devices will be annoyingly tiny for what is already often tedious to edit in OC admin even with a full sized screen except by stuffing it into a spreadsheet or the like.

That poses how else to make a mobile device do something (else and further) useful for the sake of OC admin, and that's a pretty big new pasture to graze. You have a frontier view of it and scant competition for it.
Last edited by butte on Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:39 am

Hi butte,

Thanks for your opinions and thoughts :)

I don't want to make the price any higher than that. I am a programmer and in it for the experience, and pleasure. I am not a businessman, I have a job and earn enough. I just don't want to go away out of pocket completely.

If I sell it at 0.69p that's 0.49p for me and 0.20p to Apple. And Then 20% VAT, so I will make 0.41p per sale. I don't really need to pay tax that anyway because my business doesn't earn over the UK threshold amount. I think I need to be earning over £60/70k before my business pays tax.

The free version will be the real money maker for me as the income will be continuous, but everyone hates adverts.

If I do everything correctly here I know that this could be successful, judging on the amount of people who have bought/downloaded my extensions.

If nobody bought it, or if money became an issue later on, I won't care too much.

I understand the industry changes constantly, but I don't see that a reason to go for it. If every programmer thought like that then nobody would be making apps.

Peter
butte wrote:That should be widely sought. You're underestimating what it's worth.

Giving it its own alpha keyboard and numerical keypad, independent of the usual fare, might make campers even happier. The ones that are standard in mobile devices usually are pains in the somewhere.

Touchscreens go way, way back and there are still two essential kinds that you touch with either your finger or a stylus, so you may want to accommodate (or be able to acccommodate quickly) both kinds. There's no telling how suddenly the industry can switch which, now that the buttons are and soon enough even mobile devices will be too small for men's hands.

Dunno, 69 pence and a buck seem way too high, you would still have a little bit left over, can't let that happen. Mind the numbers, you'll have price(s) + vat + domestic_payment_% + domestic_payment_flat + international_payment_% + international_payment_flat - commissions_out - discounts_off - income_tax, and odds are that you'll want enough left over that you'll have owed and paid income tax on it. Dunno, 2 or 4 Crowns and 3 or 6 bucks might work, but 6 Crowns and 10 bucks would be quite reasonable and leave you enough net-net (after taxes) to help you enjoy having done it. People using OC admins by cpu or small device are still using OC, for what they intend will be profit.

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Post by butte » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:40 am

If the ads are all small (as in tiny), then ads as simple as little logos could offset resistance to them. Apple must have an array of how and why booklets for all of that -- resistance to ads is nothing new, so is probably covered.

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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:37 am

I'm not sure what you mean?

Apple iAds is a standard object included in xCode. The sizes of the ads are already set by Apple I thought?
butte wrote:If the ads are all small (as in tiny), then ads as simple as little logos could offset resistance to them. Apple must have an array of how and why booklets for all of that -- resistance to ads is nothing new, so is probably covered.

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Post by rayan012 » Wed Jan 08, 2014 6:37 pm

Greate idea about app, everyone will can manage their shops wherever they are. But i've got some questions, do you write app only for iOS? What i'm curious is, will you release a Android version of this app? ???

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Post by butte » Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:03 am

Yes, "already [considered, addressed, and] set by Apple" is what I meant.

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Post by Qphoria » Thu Jan 09, 2014 6:09 am

Yea.. your best bet is to make it for both ios and android since you don't have anything specific needed by either OS.
This gives some tips on how to make your app more cross platform:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4957 ... id-and-ios

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Post by pedro1993 » Thu Jan 09, 2014 7:38 am

rayan012 wrote:Greate idea about app, everyone will can manage their shops wherever they are. But i've got some questions, do you write app only for iOS? What i'm curious is, will you release a Android version of this app? ???

I write for iOS, I have been for a few months now, I have never written anything for Android just yet, but I am liking Qphoria's suggestion. I might hold off a while and decide whether building an app for both OS's at the one time is a good idea.

It is something to think about. I know that a large number of OpenCart users are probably Android users.

Peter

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Post by pedro1993 » Thu Jan 09, 2014 8:13 am

butte wrote:Yes, "already [considered, addressed, and] set by Apple" is what I meant.

I'm confused, I am not sure where you are going with this?

Peter

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Post by butte » Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:23 am

The basic thought was that Apple has already reckoned how best to deal with ads for the format size, so go with what is already preset.

You may find writing the applications easier if you work through alternate versions or, as Qphoria suggests, a common cross-platform version for the two kinds of devices as you go. If you round up what you need to review for both and for cross-platform, you may find that the whole project takes reduced time.

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Post by pedro1993 » Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:45 am

butte wrote:The basic thought was that Apple has already reckoned how best to deal with ads for the format size, so go with what is already preset.

You may find writing the applications easier if you work through alternate versions or, as Qphoria suggests, a common cross-platform version for the two kinds of devices as you go. If you round up what you need to review for both and for cross-platform, you may find that the whole project takes reduced time.

Yeah, I agree :) I am going to look into that. To be honest, I am still going through the thinking and writing ideas down stage.

I have not started any official planning for this project, apart from the name haha!

Peter

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Post by pedro1993 » Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:44 am

Just started writing the mobile API. The API is going to be placed in a sub-folder which will call on OpenCarts core system files, just like the admin directory. So in other words, the mobile API will be powered by OpenCarts PHP MVC framework (without using the templating system as it is pure json data that will be outputted from the controller files).

I am using JSON to output all data as JSON is easily recognized by iOS and Android's code!

The language system will also be enabled in for the API which can make the app mulch-lingual very easily.

I am actually so excited for this app to be released.

I will keep everyone in the loop :)

Again, keep your feedback and suggestions coming :)

Peter

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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:17 am

Working on the API right now. The API is built using the OpenCart framework so you can still benefit from OpenCart's core system features. The API can be used for other things as well as the app I am building, so it will be good when this is released! :D

I am really excited about this whole project :D

Peter

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Post by eire » Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:07 am

Fair play to you Peter, best of luck with the project. Looking forward to testing the Android version of this.

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Post by nvedia » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:00 am

eire wrote:Fair play to you Peter, best of luck with the project. Looking forward to testing the Android version of this.
Same here,
looking forward to see Android app as I own 3 Android apps and no Apple :)

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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:32 am

Based on the feedback so far I will be looking to either build an Andoid version of the app, as well as an Apple version.

Thanks for your input :)

Peter
nvedia wrote:
eire wrote:Fair play to you Peter, best of luck with the project. Looking forward to testing the Android version of this.
Same here,
looking forward to see Android app as I own 3 Android apps and no Apple :)

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Post by pedro1993 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:31 pm

Here's a few things the API can do already:

Basically that is most of the product features complete. Now to move on to categories :D

Will keep everyone up to date :)

Peter

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Post by Counting Pounds » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:28 am

Hi, did you ever build this iPhone addon for OC ? Primarily want it for uploading new product similar to how I can now with ebay.


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