Looking to make an Android app

[John Bickerton]

Evening all,

Does anyone know anything about making an app? I've a good understanding of what outputs I want, I have a little C++ and BASIC but no Java and a general confusion around web servers and CSS files etc. This is for a speculative commercial project so happy to pay for time or have a gainshare arrangement. This is for a limited B2B market so, let's be clear, it won't become the new Facebook and make anyone a billionaire though.

Function:

I want a call-and-response format, to speak a question, gather a voice response and record it.

I'm looking to have a standalone app which populates a local database (in case of disconnection). It would be ok to run a web app if it could store each response without an unacceptable delay. The app will speak the field name from the database and record speech-to-text to capture a response to select from predetermined options (Yes, No, numbers 1 to 10 etc), allow navigation between questions by voice ("Back", "Repeat" etc) and then allow screen-keyboard input to populate other fields which are more complex. These responses will be captured and output as a CSV, at least in the first iteration. 

Platform:

This needs to be a local app to avoid data loss in case the connection drops (unless there's a clever way to circumvent that such as loading a page for each question). Initially it'll run on Android and it's unlikely to be a problem if its constrained, but it might be useful to roll out on iOS if that affects an early decision.

I've had a look for a commercial solution but I can't find software which does quite what I want - and it'll be good to have full control.

I understand the requirement very well, but software not-so-well. The first round of work will be to understand the statement of requirements so we know what we're making, then to code up a working prototype for trials with a bluetooth headset.

Would anyone like to put some time into this with me?

Regards

John

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John Bickerton
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[Mr.G]

You could try try a service like Fiverr

When I was working full time I used to subcontract boring bits of C++/Kotlin  proof of concept to some Linux Sysadmin in Africa and received very good results.

Then try a professional site like Upwork

I've personally used these 2012 to 2017

Other people swear by Freelancer  I've never used them myself.

You could try Linked-in or Reddit

Kind regards

Gerald

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[John Bickerton]

Really useful leads, thank you. I guess I'm hoping to find a person, or at least a recommendation, rather than going out to contract with a wider and unknown populace.

I'll start some hares running and see who can offer some coding time 👍

Regards

John

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[m.l.mc...@gmail.com]

Hi John,

I'm not an app developer myself but have some experience designing and testing apps as part of my job. You say that initially it needs to run on Android, but iOS might be useful too. If there is a chance it needs to run on both platforms, that's probably a decision you should make early-doors, because it will affect the choice of development language.

Native Android apps are typically written in Java or Kotlin, native iOS apps are typically written in Objective C or Swift. If you go this route, you'll end up with 2 sperate codebases, potentially managed by 2 different developers. If the app takes off, this can be more difficult to manage and maintain.

You can avoid this by building a cross-platform app, which means a single codebase that works for both Android and iOS. Historically, cross-platform apps might have run a bit slower or had some restrictions in what they could do, but the technology is pretty mature now and well worth looking into - my company is currently rebuilding our native apps in cross-platform technology. Some languages and frameworks that you might come across here are React Native, Ionic, Cordova and Xamarin.

I hope that's of some use!

Michelle