Ask HN: Could you help me price a mobile application?

by a-saleh on 10/12/2014, 6:03 AM with 5 comments

Hi,

my uncle wants to create a gimicky video cooking-recipe mobile app and he keeps asking me if I'd write it for him, hol long would it take and how much would it cost.

I am not really sure I am up to the task, because doing IT bussines with family members seems like a terible idea, and I am guite occupied with balancing my 9-5 job and infant daugter :)

I am quite terrible in giving estimates as well :-)

So I am turning to you, if you could hepl me with this. Answer I am searching would probably consist of number of programmer man-days and designer man-days you would estimate this might take.

Description:

1.) His idea is, that he would have a youtube channel with his video recipes.

2.) His application would be able to download the videos and display them in browsable fashion, probably with ability to display particular kind of recipe (i.e. 'vegan', or 'beef')

3) You should be able to play the videos on device without internet access.

4) Main gimmic would be, that while playing the recipe video, you should be able to issue voice commands to navigate in it (i.e. : "pause", "play", "next step", "previous step", "list ingredients")

5) there would be set number of commands, app should be responsive even in the laud environment of the kitchen, and commands might be in language different than english

And I have no idea, how long would this take.

Thanks for any input on this :-)

  • by staunch on 10/12/2014, 10:55 AM

    Tell him to create a YouTube channel with the videos first. That's the hard part. If he can't do that then don't even consider doing the mobile app unless you just want the experience.

  • by chrisBob on 10/13/2014, 12:20 PM

    I recently went through something similar with a family member I didn't want to get into a business relationship with (half sister). In my case the requirements were much simpler, but also much more vague, and detailed questions were met with "I don't know what data rate, resolution, capabilities, data... I need."

    I decided that the best answer to this was to quote high ($5k), and recommend that she look at elance.com where someone will likely be willing to do the job for less. If you think it will be a fun project then go for it. In many cases I would even do free night/weekend work for family, but if you are feeling hesitant then this might be one to steer clear from.

  • by siscia on 10/12/2014, 7:09 AM

    I am not really sure that doing this kind of work for the family is a great idea...

    But if you really need to go forward I don't see it extremely difficult...

    Probably there are a lot of libraries you can use to manage youtube video on Android, as well with vocal command...

    I will focus only in an American base version, it is easier and I don't see much market outside US.

    I would say one whole months for a little prototype, working close to full time...