A one day project
I started work today on an iPhone project with a friend. I figured it would take only a day to get to a reasonable 1.0. I've only put in about a half day on it so far, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's actually a two day project.
Looked at one way, that's a 200% estimation overflow. But more realistically, it means it was pretty small and I tackled it in the wrong way. I had to refactor some code early that I left alone for too long. I should've written in the right way to begin with, and I should have realized it was wrong sooner, and I should have stopped trying to make it work.
More pragmatically, maybe I should have known better. But, of course, I didn't. And that's okay! I know better now.
What's my point in posting this?
Mostly, it's this: iPhone development isn't nearly as hard as I've made it out to be. Useful applications can actually be quite small and still be useful. Simple things are simple. When they're not simple, it's time to fix something.
I'll post a link here when I finish the project. It'll be a bit before I can devote another day to it. But I'm excited by its usefulness, its simplicity, and the idea of having an app in the App Store of my own.
Paul Graham (Wikipedia article) on Apple's Mistake, with a great comparison: What would happen if every update to Mac OS X had to go through an opaque, fickle intermediary?
Joe Hewitt, creator of the iPhone Facebook application and Three20 framework, has moved back to web development. A blog post explains, placing on Apple's App Store process without using so many words. But he makes an observation on how little it means on his way out.
Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, following an egregious Apple rejection.
Steven Frank (Panic) is Furious with Apple and AT&T. Impossible to argue with any of this, really.
Tidbits: Web-enabled iPhone Apps Aren't for Kids.
A long essay by Craig Hockenberry on the good and the bad of the App Store.
Another Apple App Store rejection
Duplicating Apple functionality? Well, not so much.