With each day that passes the popularity of the iOS devices keeps heading to "infinity and beyond" (I have a two year-old give me a break). With that comes the "urgency" for companies now to get an app. While that is a legitimate need, and helps us developers in lucrative business, there is still this mindset that apps can be done overnight. Well, I guess they can, but it won't be good at all.
I was skimming through Tapworthy, and this book in the FIRST chapter puts it perfectly and something that individuals and companies need to pay close attention to when they say they want an app.
"you do need an iPhone app. Apple’s glossy gadget touched off a whole new kind of computing - personal, intimate, and convenient - that has become both passion and habit for millions of regular folks. That’s not going away; looking ahead, we’re not going to spend less time with our phones, our tablets, our on-the-go internet devices. More and more, getting in front of people means getting on mobile devices, starting with the iPhone. It’s a device with the following and technology to get your stuff out there with a rare combination of volume and style.
An iPhone app isn’t an end in itself. It’s not something to be hustled through, just so you can check it off your list. There’s a whiff in the air of the go-go website panic of the 1990s, when everyone rushed to cobble together some HTML just to have a website, any website, with little consideration of either usefulness or usability. It was at once a period of heady innovation and herd-following mediocrity. The same holds for iPhone apps today. There are mind-bending creations to be found in the App Store, but the store is also chockablock with time-wasting duds. You can do better."
Tapworthy - Designing Great iPhone Apps
ByJosh Clark