I have been spending time lately developing some apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. Now that I have some stuff that is close to being ready to release, I am faced with a dilemma: do I release the apps under my name or do I create some sort of company name?

I think it is clear that the latter is preferable, although there is no need for a sophisticated structure like a corporation. A simple DBA will do nicely. For those who haven't dealt with this nonsense before, DBA stands for "doing business as" and it describes a situation in which one legal entity (in this case, me) does business under another name, called a fictitious name. So, legally everything would still be the same as if I left things in my name, but it could have a cooler name.

Looking into it, I find that the state charges a fee of $70 for registering a fictitious name. Not too bad, really, although that is on top of the $99 I'll have to pay Apple to be a registered developer. So, that puts the costs as $169 so far.

And, of course, there is more. As part of registering a fictitious name, you have to advertise the registration in a local general newspaper and a local legal newspaper. The local legal newspaper is the Pittsburgh Legal Journal. They have special advertising forms just for this type of ad, and they charge $106 for the privilege. That puts us up to $275. The Tribune Review does not list their classified advertising rates online (seriously? it's 2009, guys!), but the Post Gazette does. It will charge a tidy $128 for a fictitious name notice, which brings us to $403.

I hope people other than me like my apps. As hobbies go, this one isn't as expensive as some I suppose, but it costs more than just some time on the Mac in the evening. Sigh.