iPhone Apps - Build or Buy?

Mobile usage is skyrocketing.  Time spent on smart phones is on the rise.  Video streaming has jumped 600% in one year.  There are 45 million smart phone users in the United States and it's predicted that 80 million more smart phones will by sold by 2011.  Downloading apps grabbed the attention of over 28% smart phone users - a 2.6% increase over last year.  Apps are changing the way we live, shop, eat, play and are entertained.  Talk about a window of opportunity!  Apps are the one way to level the playing field between independent artists and major labels.  I've looked at the apps presented by Sony, Warner, EMI and Universal and found out that about 50% of the artist apps are free. Nice.

Apps may be the 'thing' that makes music 'buyable' again.  Think about it.  Offer your app for free, get people to download it using social marketing and then you can send them real-time push notifications about a new release, ask opinions on a track your working on, share information about your shows and even sell tickets right from the phone.  Apps are exactly what the music biz has been missing - a way to be connected to music fans wherever they are.

So how does in independent musician make the decision to build or buy an iPhone app?  Secretly, I was hoping to find a fabulous wizard that would let me create an app in less than two hours - about the same time it would take you to put content on a web based site.  After spending a few weeks researching, I have an idea of what you need to ask yourself what'll work best for you.

1. How good is your learning curve?  Building an app is way more complex than building a web page.  If you're handy with programming, you probably don't fall into the 'norm' of people that have tech saavy, but don't have the time to learn about programming and app.
2. How much money do you want to invest in the building and upkeep of an app?  The pricing is all over the place.  You can pay from $25/month to several hundred dollars per month for basically the same functionality.  Some app companies charge an average of $1,000 to develop the app and then you have the monthly bandwidth to pay.  There are also app companies that package the development and monthly fee that range from $350 to $5,000.  If you want an app that plays like Pandora -- get ready to sell your house.

My search came up empty for a wizard type of iPhone app builder.  Now that Apple is getting selective about which apps they're keeping on the shelves, I am leaning heavily toward buying an app.  Perhaps in the next couple of years, the process will be streamlined and easier to manage.  In the meantime, you can find excellent low-cost solutions to getting a customized iPhone app.