A strange question to pose I guess but it is a question that is asked time and time again by our clients who are looking at developing mobile apps. One school of thought says, “There is nothing original any more it’s already all been done and if it hasn’t been done is it actually worth doing?” But the smart, second school of thought looks at originality from a different angle.
Take for example the Apple app store. The are approximately 900,000 apps right now for you to download onto the Apple device of your choice; iPhone, iPad or whatever it may be. Let’s face it the chances of discovering the next great thing that no one else on the planet has thought of are pretty slim so where does this leave the entrepreneurs of this world who want to develop an app business for themselves? Simple, we need to improve on what’s already out there. Take a long hard look into the market you are hoping to serve; find out about the competition, download and use the competition, know it inside out and back to front. From that point you know whether you are going to be able to improve on what is already available in the market. If you can do that you now need to establish how you’re going to improve that user experience for those who are going download and use your app.
If you’re struggling to compare this with something you’ve already experienced in your life, think of a car, its wheels and its tires. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, but we as motorists all need better tires to improve our road safety and our fuel efficiency.
Ultimately we don’t want a whole bunch of me-too products, we want innovative products offering value to the users and, where appropriate, improving on other options. To a certain extent Apple helps the market achieve this. There’s an approval process to go through before a new app or an update of an existing app is approved for distribution in the App Store. Getting through this approval stage isn’t rocket science but experience certainly counts. It’s a great idea during development to understand where you may fall foul of Apple’s rules and regulations. If, when you’re in the approval process, you do come up with a problem it doesn’t come at a nasty surprise and bring your whole idea crashing down around your ankles. I guess what we are saying here is it is always best to make your investment with an experienced development team who know what to expect you can help you get of those tricky corners.
We like to present the development of mobile apps in the most realistic light that we possibly can. We never want to dissuade our customers but we do want them to understand what the journey is going to involve and the more you understand before that journey begins, the better it is going to be.