When Dale Zak and a team of volunteer software developers from Halifax set out to create an iPhone app one warm weekend in July, the idea was simple – by Sunday, there would be three new apps ready to be sold on the iPhone app store, with proceeds going to local charities.
In fact, it took four months for the fruits of the group’s labour to become a reality, but by December, the group had two iPhone apps available at the app store and was officially registered as a corporation with a mandate to donate proceeds from the applications to charities.
Under the Apps 4 Good name, the group of developers has launched “Wish You Were Here”, an app that allows users to take photos and send digital postcards to friends, and “Meet Me Here”, an app used to schedule meet-ups via e-mail and Twitter.
“It’s hard to ignore the Apple app store,” Zak said of his decision to base the charity around the platform. “It’s just so successful and the fact that you can publish your app and you instantly have millions of people it’s accessible to – they take care of rolling out updates and they take care of purchases. In software development, one of the big challenges is just reaching a market. You can develop a great app but if no one sees it, no one’s going to be able to buy that application.”
The apps developed by Apps 4 Good have had moderate success, with about five to ten purchases per day (they cost $1.99 each), according to Zak, but what matters for the group is that ultimately, charities like Phoenix Youth Programs and Feed Nova Scotia are benefitting.
“It doesn’t seem like much, but if that’s constant every day for a year, that all adds up and at the end of the day, it’s more than the organizations would have had if we didn’t do this,” Zak said.
