iOS developers have very recently leant at WWDC about huge changes to the platform, tools, and APIs that we use to make great apps. It’s an exciting time, with whole new categories of apps becoming feasible and a lot of work on the horizon. iWatch indeed.
This time last year, I had big plans to get a number of simple apps out for iOS 7’s launch day. I didn’t get it done, largely because I spent the time more wisely in learning the platform and in so doing, realised that the goal I’d set myself wouldn’t stretch me in the right way, and wouldn’t lead to much benefit for me or anyone else.
I decided instead to write a larger app, for ordering photo prints for friends and family. It’s nearly ready for release, and writing it has helped me learn about the whole process of app development, taking an idea which can be expressed in a sentence to an app which can make a task significantly easier, and therefore (I hope) more likely to be done, more often.
There’s a lot new in iOS 8, a lot to do with photos, extensions (apps working together), and iCloud, and all sorts of handy APIs which will make it easy for me to make this app more useful and compelling. It’s due out in ‘the Fall’, so 3 or 4 months away; I only have a little time each day to work on my app, so it’s tempting to delay for the iOS 8 launch, but I think that would be a big mistake. Getting work out earlier will allow me to learn how people want to use my app.
And there’s the nub of this whole thing. Right now, my app just lives on my laptop and phone, it’s only been seen by a handful of people, and everything’s still very ordered and under my direction. I need that, at first, to build an app which is clear and usable. Quickly though, the feedback from users will be worth more than my close control over the app, so I am aiming for a release, and then I’ll build from there. Some of the new toys in iOS 8 will doubtless end up in a later release, while others will not. I think it’s better that those plans are made with the users, not in isolation.