Using Unity for prototyping a non-game App ??

Hi guys,
I wanna develop a mobile application, I've got a really good idea of the things I need but I'm not even near a developer, i'm just using Unity for a while now.

I know that I won't be able to create the app, way too complicated, and if I succeed, it would be "the wrong way".

My question is : considering I couldn't reasonably develop it on my own using a proper tool ( like Xamarin ) does that make sense to go like this :
- creating a prototype using Unity
- use this prototype to research sponsors and other marketing purposes
- use this prototype to diminish the production cost when asking an external company to actually develop the final product ? (does this even make sense ?! )

Please note that I'm talking about Front-End stuff here, I don't even have a clue how to deal with Back-End stuff (well, using a BAAS I guess... )

Thank you guys for your inputs and advices !

 

I recently had to put together a proposal for a mobile application, and although I consider myself proficient in Unity, I didn't use it because there are much better tools out there.

In my case, I used PowerPoint to mock up the UI and the user's main interaction with the app. When it came time for a functional prototype, I used Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova and a UI framework called Framework7, both of which I have never used before. But they were both easy to learn and I managed to put together a simple yet functioning prototype in a week or so.

That's what I did and that's what worked for me. YMMV.

Hope this helps.

 

Depends on the app but I'd also look into xamarin forms. If you're at least somewhat familiar with C# from working in Unity, it shouldn't take long to get a basic prototype together (if standard native UI controls are enough and you don't need to implement something platform specific that isn't done for you already).

 

I was indeed thinking about Xamarin Forms.
But the final App contains many different functionalities and seems really complex (think a mix of social media and linking, calendar, notifications and geoloc) so i dont think I'll be able to deliver something clean.

That's why I'm thinking only prototype here, and from this standpoint battery and cpu usage seem not so important right ?

For mock up, I'm gonna use Flinto.
Another important question for me is : would a mockup be enough for marketing purposes ? Yes.
But would a real "coded" prototype diminish my production costs ? Or will the external developers re-code everything and would have prefer a simple mock up ?

 

This is a very clear 'not in Unity' flag for me. Social media linking is okay. But interfacing with things like the user's calendar has virtually no support in Unity.

 

Any professional team worth your time will just abandon the Unity prototype. They'll know it just isn't made for it. It may provide them with a rough idea of how it will function but chances are that will change greatly too before it's finished.

 

If you are just making something to show off and throw away, why not try something like MarvelApp? Its literally just static screens with links between them. But you can mock something up in half an hour or so.

 

I really like the ideal of interfacing with the calendar and personal contact list but due to wanting to avoid jumping through privacy verification hoops I will avoid it. That is the price of data warehousers selling your contact information and shopping activities to common criminals. Everybody thinks every call or activity of a stranger is out to get them or their money. Profitable for businesses and politicians but completely annoying to the receiver of the criminal slut calls that think they are so desirable and clever they need only call you and you'll be tossing $20 bills in their direction. Lucky they are so lazy they defeat themselves before they get started.

 

Don't those type apps have to be peddled as magazines?

 

You would be stupid to use it for production. But if you idea is just to show off a concept and grab interest, then its a cheap way to go.

 

I created a application for Mobile with Unity using GPS, accelerometer, file system, udp socket, wwwform.
That work fine, easy to maintain, and that works on Android, iOS, Wp8, Wp10.
For me it's perfect.

 

I created a social media application for a Spanish company with Unity, udp socket to chat, wwwform to send picture, calendar plugging to add entries in the Android calendar.

 

Interestingly, we have a ui prototype tool that works exactly like that in unity. You layout all your screens in illustrator and connect them with symbols for the buttons, then export to the unity project and it assembles them into a click-throughable prototype. It makes for very fast iteration of complex ui, on-device.

 

Git repo or it didn't happen.

Sorry, I had to try

 

I would like this thing that you speak of.
I will pay monies for it.