Today, if you want to make a full time income, it's insufficient to simply have a job. You will need at the least 2 or 3 different sourced elements of income to make sure that you can pay your entire bills in case something unfortunate happens. Technology has evolved so much that in recent years many individuals have discovered another solution to earn money: they develop mobile applications. Many entrepreneurs have made a name for themselves by developing mobile apps, and if you're thinking about learning how to produce mobile apps yourself, keep reading this article.

Mobile app development is just a rapidly growing industry because folks are finding more ways to earn money through their smartphones. Every single day how many active users keeps growing. Below are a few numbers that may illustrate just how big a has become:

- The number of smartphone users worldwide is expected to achieve 1 billion in 2014 ( source ).

- According to statistics there were nearly 35 million iPhone developers at the time of December 2010 ( source ). This figure shows a growth of 25% over the last year's figures!

If you wish to develop mobile apps then you'll need several things before you can start. This will also apply to any kind of development, but you especially need these:

- Skills and knowledge – You'll need to know just how to code, and you'll also should find out about design concepts like UX (User Experience) and HCI (Human Computer Interaction).

- A pc – Needless to say! Ideally it should be a laptop/netbook that runs Windows or Mac OSX since most computers nowadays run one of these brilliant operating systems. However, if your skills are good enough then you may be able to develop an application on Linux as well.

- A smartphone – It's not necessary for developing apps, but it will definitely help because you can test them on your device. If you don't have a smartphone then you might always use a friend's or a family group member's device.

- An IDE – A software development kit (or IDE - Integrated Development Environment) is important to generate applications for Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms. Popular IDEs include Xcode , Eclipse and Visual Studio.

- The developer license – You can develop apps without paying anything, but when you intend to publish them on app stores then you'll need to cover the annual fee which can be currently $99 for Apple App Store and Deniz Guney Google Play Developer Console. Several payment methods are available, including charge cards, PayPal and wire transfer from your bank account.