
What the iPad Really Means to Developers - ivey
http://www.pragprog.com/magazines/2010-03/nice-apps-if-you-can-afford-to-write-them
======
dgabriel
You don't need a world-class art department to make something people will buy
-- you need a clean, usable interface, an original idea that fills a need, and
well written code. If you're a one-person shop, you're writing niche
applications, anyway. You're not competing directly with Apple, and you most
likely don't need any fancy photoshop skills, just the basics... if you're
writing an app that requires stunning graphics, then you're either over your
head in terms of your project's goals and you need to expand your team to 1+N,
or you're already proficient.

edit - and it should go without saying, BUT: don't build another twitter app.
Please.

One more edit: this is a good rebuttal to the "awesome design is necessary!!!"
school of thought [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/iphone-apps-
desig...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/iphone-apps-design-
mistakes-overblown-visuals/)

Overdesign is not good, either.

~~~
patio11
I live in perpetual design envy of most Web 2.0 apps and Mac shareware shops,
but my very... unspectacular design has not succeeded in totally dooming me
yet. I am agnostic on the truth of this, but I keep hearing everybody and
their dog saying that the iPad is made for Real People. I sell to Real People.
You don't need to win design awards to sell to Real People.

------
cpr
I don't buy it.

I already have way too many ideas for apps which aren't lush-graphics-heavy
that are still very attractive and functional, as well as breaking new ground.

Besides, the graphics work doesn't have to be full-time on someone's part.
Yes, good graphics work is expensive, but it's generally only part-time,
compared to the developer's time, if the app is more than eye candy.

So there's plenty of room for the indie.

On the other hand, the $30 bar Apple has set for pro apps like iWork is pretty
low ($10 each). I'm hoping that serious indie apps will be able to sell in the
$10-15-25 range. But only time will tell.

At least we know it'll be a different equation from the iPhone market.

And, I think PG is fundamentally right: only people who spend time working on
the iPad are going to spot the emerging opportunities. It's really a new
platform where the possibilities are very hazy, if promising.

~~~
juhgfcgvhnjm
It's a good way to monetize a website.

Charging you $0.1 to read HN or the NYT or the BBC is hard, selling you a $10
app to read the site on your iWhatever is easier. The app is a trivial wrapper
around an xml feed, it's a slightly better user experience than the browser -
and I get $10

------
jcromartie
I think that if I can learn to make nice graphics, anybody can. It's largely
just a few Photoshop filters and techniques. My wife is a graphic design major
and she is impressed by my UI graphics, even though I could never hope to draw
a simple picture of some natural object.

Code still matters a lot when it comes to UIs, though. Motion and
interactivity are just as important as the static images found in attractive
UIs. For instance, Convert's magnifying-glass effect and Tweetie 2's (now
widespread) pull-to-refresh idiom are neat tricks not possible with Photoshop
skills alone.

~~~
alanthonyc
Do you have any tips or tutorials that you used to become competent in this?

~~~
jcromartie
This was on HN a while back, and I thought it was a good summary. It doesn't
hold your hand on how to actually achieve the effects but it gets you started:

[http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic-
user-...](http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic-user-
interfaces.php)

~~~
alanthonyc
Great. Thanks!

Over the past year, I've been studying up on drawing, typography and other
graphic design stuff. If not to get to proficiency myself, at least to get
conversant in the topics so I can properly communicate with people I hire or
work with. This will definitely help. Thanks again!

------
sreitshamer
I don't agree that a talented indie developer can't build an immersive,
beautiful iPad app. The problem is that it's not worth the risk of investing
the time to build it only to get rejected by Apple. Mac apps do not have this
problem.

Maybe the only way to mitigate the risk of the capricious app store
gatekeepers is to build enough relationships with Apple to bypass them (like
ngmoco seems to do). Maybe that requires being a big(ger) company.

~~~
lurch_mojoff
Rejections (by which I mean - "we are not putting this on our store") are an
imaginary issue. They are so few and far between that you'd be hard pressed to
find a developer who had had an app rejected. Also in my experience the "app
store gatekeepers" have been far from capricious and in fact rather sensible.
And unlike less than a year ago, now Apple are proactive in communicating with
developers - detailed information what issues they've found (including things
like screenshots and even suggestions how the issue can be solved), follow up
ID, contact information (including phone) of a person that can answer any
further questions you might have, etc.

In short, if you are reasonable (e.g. not trying to sneak in a porn app or an
app that obviously violates Apple's terms) you are practically guaranteed that
you'll get your app in the store. And if you are not reasonable being big or
close to Apple will likely not help you much.

(By the way, I cannot come up with a single case in which ngmoco might seem to
have bypassed the approval process. Do they have a tits app in the store or
something?)

~~~
gte910h
After 6 months of suggestions to one of my clients, they retroactively decided
to flat out forbid 2 party phone call recording apps from the store.

He was flat out rejected. After being suggested to put in-app purchasing in
his app.

I'd say "App store reviewers are tired, cranky, varied from one another,
pissed off when people dump crap on them, and unwilling to go out on a limb
when in doubt", and that accounts for 90% of all the rejections and behavior
we see from them.

~~~
fleitz
Phone call recording gets into dicey legal ground. I'm aware that 2 party
covers most of the situations but it's mess they likely don't want to deal
with.

~~~
gte910h
Phone call recording with notification is very legal. We could very easily
call the second party on the call and play a message before combining the
calls that clearly points out the call is being recorded

Either way, they're not liable in the slightest for it.

All of that aside, it doesn't really matter. If you don't want to get into a
call recording app, you say that at the beginning when first shown a call
recording app. After you've suggested a company do 10k worth of development,
then make a policy rejection on something the app has done since day one,
you've screwed up.

------
wallflower
> Oh, there will be plenty of opportunities for iPad developers, in
> contracting, vertical markets, and corporate development.

The majority of iPhone developers I've personally met make their money from
writing and maintaining apps for other companies. The company just needs to go
through the iPhone developer application process and pay the annual $99 fee -
and no one will ever know (win-win). Yes, they do have their own personal apps
and some have done quite well.

Oh, and most of the developers I've met have spouses with a relatively stable
full-time job (health insurance and financial risk mitigator)

------
richcollins
_Apple has a world-class art department to produce this stuff. The indie
developer in the garage does not._

That's why it's stupid to try to compete with Apple for things where this
matters. Much better to attack niche markets that aren't worth pursuing to
players that have the resources to make lavish graphics.

The great thing about the Apple platform over the web is you can get away with
creating _fewer_ graphic resources. You can make a nice looking app using
native controls. I'm hoping that Cappuccino and Aristo do the same for web
apps.

------
houseabsolute
Just FYI, next time someone tells you the thick client is dead, hopefully
you'll have the good sense to call them a fool on the spot rather than waiting
five years for their foolishness to be proven.

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jeff18
In reply to the "return of the thick client", I disagree with the notion that
desktop apps are going to beat web apps. The reason why the original web API
failed is because the hardware was too poor and WebKit was too immature. This
is rapidly changing though.

~~~
jcromartie
I disagree... it's not about desktop vs. web, but rather native code vs. a
teetering tower of questionably repurposed abstractions. No matter how fast
WebKit becomes, it will still be a browser and will only offer a limited
subset of what the hardware can really do. JIT compiling JavaScript engines
and the various media specs in HTML 5 help, but there's still such a gulf.

~~~
papachito
<http://www.w3.org/2009/05/DeviceAPICharter>

Google said they will implement all that into WebKit for ChromeOS.

------
gte910h
I do have to say, I was surprised how easy it was to make passable buttons
once I bought fireworks (an Adobe PNG tool ostensibly geared towards web
mockups). [I'm a professional iPhone/iPad/Android developer.

------
Qz
I wonder if Flash CS5 will extend the iPhone app compilation to iPads as well?
Because all the stuff that he's saying is hard for developers to do (nice
visual effects and animations) is dead easy in Flash.

------
seiji
Design on mobile platforms is more important than everyday little webapps.
There are many mobile apps I'd like to make, but the time of getting it to
_look fancy_ is such an unknown that there's an implementation paralysis right
from the start.

Anybody can write an article, but few people can can produce a full
graphically designed issue of GQ alone.

Check out the the showcase of mobile apps at <http://wellplacedpixels.com/>
then honestly ask yourself if you can produce both the application and graphic
design of that quality by yourself.

As the song goes: You got to work to feed the soul / But I can't do this all
on my own / No, I know, I'm no Superman

------
papachito
Yet another device to support?

