How difficult is it (in terms of programming) for a mobile app to track a user's mileage without displaying a map?

I've been developing web and iPhone apps for a while and I usually recommend to first use the provided sharing mechanisms. They provide great flexibility and as well don't require your app to request permissions on external networks. Using the iOS SDK sharing components will also save you precious development time. The most important part is the content that will be shared. On that side, make sure all the content has a unique URL, and can be properly consumed on all plateforms, desktop and mobile. Pay a particular attention to the head meta tags of those pages. Open graph and Twitter tags are not optional anymore and help driver a better visibility on the networks your content is being shared onto. Don't forget to track with an appropriate analytics tool how your users use the sharing module. Then you can evaluate the pertinence of building something custom.

Having gone through this multiple times either in new startups or for side projects, here is how I would approach turning your idea into an app. 1. Defining the Minimum Viable Product Your first goal with any new idea should be about proving the idea and finding a market that wants the app you want to build. Achieving that quickly is probably one of the most important thing. To achieve that, you will need to write the specifications that will constitute your MVP. The MVP is basically the simplest expression of your idea to prove it. This step should not cost you much as you can do this on your own. 2. Design the app Before starting any development work, I would suggest you work with a good UX/UI designer to create wireframes and mockups of the app based on the specifications you came up with in step 1. You can find good designers in meetups & hackathons or on website like Dribbble or 99designs. If you want to reduce your costs, you can give shares in the project to the designer. Otherwise, it really depend on the size of the MVP but I would say it will probably cost between $5K-$10K. 3. Develop the app Once you have the specifications and the design of the app, you now need to find a good developer that will build it. Again, you can find good developers in meetups & hackathons or on sites like Github. If you want to reduce your costs, you can give shares in the project to the developer. Otherwise, it really depend on the size of the MVP but I would say it will probably cost between $10K-$25K. For this part however, I would recommend the developer becomes part of the project as his engagement will most likely be higher. 4. Test the app This step is not only about making sure the app is bug free, it's also making sure the app does what was intended in the specifications. To test the app, you can use platforms like BrowserStack or SauceLabs which gives you access to multiple devices/browsers. You can do this step on your own so the cost will be for the subscription to the test platform which would be around $100/month. Hope this helps and good luck with your project.

The best day to launch your app is either Wednesday night or Thursday, because the iOS App Store changes features every Thursday and you may get featured that day as "New games..." "New app..." etc. Ideally all your marketing/PR/advertising efforts should start that day (Thursday) because Apple likes it when an app is being privately promoted at the same time it's being featured. Yes AdMob could work for you but please know that there are many other ad placement companies similar to AdMob that can work for you too. You need to see what kind of clients they have, if they match with your niche, etc. Usually this is a trial and error process, you start with several ads and you see which works and which doesn't, you improve, you cut them. etc. Good luck

This is a little hard to answer because it is so vague. It depends on the area, the market and the strength of innovation. I know that The App Guy has a terrific podcast at http://www.theappguy.co/ and is also trying to organize a community for App developers to sell their ideas. Let me know if I can be of further assistance to discuss patentability in terms of its value to getting a sale or license. What ever you do, don't spend money filing a full patent, just a provisional. Good luck.

Hi, I have been a PHP developer for 13 years and have experience building enterprise applications. What framework are you using? Most PHP frameworks have a built in authentication and authorization mechanism. For example, Yii has a builtin RBAC system that allow you to define a hierarchical permission system. If you're not using a framework or you just want to implement your own system for whatever reason then you can utilize Object Oriented Design and implement a Base controller (if MVC) that checks the permission for each request. That won't use a lot of if statements. Probably need more info, to give definitive guidance. Hope that helps.