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Preface

I got an email the other day from someone who was asking me where to start when it came to writing iPhone apps.

Those of us for whom the response to the question “What do you do for a living?” is “I make iPhone apps…” know all too well, that the very next words that follow that question are usually “Really? I have a great idea for an app…” This almost always leads to either “Do you think you could write this app for me?” or “Can you tell me how to write this app?” So the point is, we get asked those kinds of questions a lot.

So in response, I wrote up this email, and when I was finished, I said “Y’know, this would make a good Blog post…” so here it is…

“I can has iPhone code pls? kthxbai”

I’ve been writing code for 15+ years, and been thinking about interactions with multi-touch devices for at least the last 8 years as well as writing Objective-C for 7 years.

Yes, it’s true, even before multi-touch was a sparkle in Jeff Han’s projector, I was telling friends how cool it would be if we had touch displays that enabled more than one finger to be used on them at a time. I had been writing mobile apps for Fujitsu touch-screen tablet computers as early as the late 90’s. (Things have come a LONG way since then.)

Anyway, when the iPhone SDK came out, I was all over it. This was my moment… everything I had done in my career was leading up to this, and I wanted to make the most of it.

For my ideas, I wanted to develop apps that would help people. Apps that would help them relax, achieve goals, etc. Implementation was pretty straight forward because I already had the experience to do it. I knew Objective-C. I knew the limitations of mobile platforms. With my liberal arts background (I studied to be an artist before I got into computing) I had a keen sense of design and what makes beautiful art. The point here is that I had the resources, and the ability to turn my ideas into an actual app.

And that brings me to my first cold hard truth WRT iPhone apps:

Truth #1: Ideas are cheap. The key to turning an idea into an app is in implementation and execution. If you can’t implement the app, you have nothing.

I should be clear here, I don’t mean in any way to reduce the importance of your idea. It may be a great idea. And it’s great that you’re thinking about these kinds of things. But the point I’m trying to make here is that unless you can execute on that idea or partner with somebody who can, an idea is nothing more than vapor. So it’s really, really important that you focus on what you need to do to execute the idea. An idea is 1% of a project. The execution and implementation is the other 99%. If you can’t deliver that extra 99% then you don’t really have anything.

The second thing to consider is that you’re working with a platform that is new, revolutionary, and crowded. When I first started working with the iPhone SDK I was one of the early beta users. When I started using it, interface builder didn’t even work. We had to do everything strictly through code (And walk uphill in the snow barefoot both ways). I realized that this was an incredible opportunity that I had been given. I took it as my responsibility to deliver something worthwhile. It was important to me to build something that was worthy of the platform. In a lot of ways, I still don’t feel I have achieved that, but that’s my goal every day when I get up and start coding. Whenever I have a decision to make about what features to include or leave out, I ask myself, how can I most deliver the “Zen” that fits within the iPhone platform, that is worthy of running along side other great apps that I admire.

Today, in order to stand out, you still need to build something worthy of the iPhone. You need to build something worth talking about. Doing it halfway wastes everybody’s time, and the App Store is a cruel mistress. If you put something out there that is not your best work then the people that review your app will waste no time picking it apart in every way that they can. So this brings me to my second cold hard truth:

Truth #2: Build something worth talking about and worthy of running on the iPhone or don’t bother.

Finally, I read a bit of inspiration the other day from Craig Hockenberry and he was talking about how he had been talking to someone from Apple when he was at MacWorld . The person from Apple told him to look around him and see that they were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh platform. The iPhone platform is just now being born. It’s new, it’s exciting, and it is full of opportunity. While the rest of the world is talking about how the economy is melting down, we are enjoying good sales and reliable income from making iPhone applications. There is definitely opportunity if you have a great idea and great execution, but more interesting is to think… where will the iPhone and Cocoa Touch be in 25 years? What will this platform become?

Truth #3: Be in it for the long haul. Get rich slow. Sure, some folks are winning the lottery, but don’t plan on it. If it comes, then good for you.