hire iPhone dev and be sure for the future

Question

Hello

I'm thinking to hire an iPhone developer for creating an app for my site so the users could have a more easy navigation to it with their iPhone. If I'm not wrong, the app will be uploaded to the app store through the account of the developer.

I want to ask how will I be positive that the app will have me as an owner and not have any problem in the future (ex. the developer decides to close it and take the app with him). Should I ask him for the app code and create an iPhone developer account by myself ? Don't know if it has anything to do with it but the base of the coder is at Shangai and I leave in Europe so I think no contract covers me.

Thank you for your help

Answer 1

You could sign up for an iPhone developer account and submit the app under your name or company name. If you own publish the app through your developer account, then you will not encounter problems of a rogue director.

Answer 2

In this case, even if you are not a developer, I would sign up for a developer account (it's on $99, far less than you will be paying for the application itself) at at the end of the project, either ask the developer to turn over the project files and submit it yourself, or have him submit it under your account.

Any other method may not be asking for trouble, but it certainly leaves you open to mischief in the future.

Answer 3

If you wish to own the application, I recommend that you own the relevant ADC (Apple Developer Connection) account. If you register as a company, then you can add other developers to your team, while owning the distribution certificate yourself. Alternately, you can register as an individual and publish the code yourself by having the developer send you the code.

You could ask the developer to set this up for you, or if it made you more comfortable, you may want to consider hiring a separate consultant or firm to handle the publishing aspects. Not to advertise here, but I do some of this kind of work, interfacing between developers and customers who may not know what to ask for. A posting on the CocoaDev jobs board would find you several other consultants in the same field I'm certain.

Answer 4

Thank you all for your answers, really helpfull. One more question please

Since I'm not familiar with this, if I sign up to the developer program of apple, should I upload the source code of the app or the executable file ? If they ask only the executable I think the developer won't have any problem with this instead of giving the source code and it will be the best for me too.

Also do you know if apple approves any app which the menus are not in english ? I haven't seen any foreign app so I guess only english apps are being approved, right ?

Thank you