Today, if you wish to make a full time income, it's not enough to simply have a job. You'll need at the very least 2 or 3 different sources of income to ensure that you can pay all your bills in the event something unfortunate happens. Technology has evolved so much that in recent years lots of people are finding another method 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 develop mobile apps yourself, keep reading this article.

Mobile app development is just a rapidly growing industry because individuals are finding more ways to earn money through their smartphones. Every day how many active users keeps growing. Here are a few numbers which will illustrate just how big the industry has become:

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

- In accordance with statistics there were nearly 35 million iPhone developers as of December 2010 ( source ). This figure shows a rise of 25% over the previous year's figures!

If you want to develop mobile apps then you'll need several things before you start. This is true of almost any development, nevertheless, you especially need the next:

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

- Some type of computer – Needless to say! Ideally it ought to be a laptop/netbook that runs Windows or Mac OSX because most computers nowadays run one of these brilliant operating systems. However, if your skills are sufficient then you may be able to produce a software on Linux as well.

- A smartphone – It's not required for developing apps, nonetheless it will surely help because you can test them directly on your device. If you don't have a smartphone then you could always make use of a friend's or a household member's device.

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

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