How many hours does it take to create an app?
It depends on a lot of things:
- The type of application: business app, game application, social media, shopping app, etc.
- The number + complexity of the features in the application: creating a Facebook-like app takes more time than a calculator.
- The design of the app: how special is the design, and how many custom graphics, animations and interactions are in the app.
- The complexity of the architecture of the app: does it have a backend, is it integrated with other services, etc.
- The application development technology: fully native apps take twice as long to develop as cross-platform apps.
You can say that a very simple app - e.g. calculator, simple game - can be created by one developer working full time for several weeks (10-20 working days / 80-160 hours) without a specification / design phase. While there is no upper limit to the efforts, real-world application MVPs take 12-24 weeks for a small, dedicated team of 3-4 people.