In my experience the guidelines are mostly common sense once you get used to the "Apple way", and are straightforward to comply with, especially if you're already familiar with them (OP had submitted several apps before).
Options are:
a. you have already the code somewhere (own sources, StackOverflow, GitHub, etc.) b. you are bluffing
you wouldn't bother making a repo for something like this. Testing is done while programming, and the process of putting it on the app store presumably wasn't counted as 'programming'
Does the 1hr include the hour you spent driving to the shop and back for a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk?
`git init`? Clicking create repo in GitHub?
> setting up project in the IDE
are you doing this stuff blindfolded or something?
He just might have to combine two projects and some programming and replacement of icons.
And doesn't this use the camera and/or photos API? Not hard, but somewhat time consuming to set up your boilerplate for these. Also handling permissions request, response, & error handling. Probably copy/pasted from another project so it wouldn't count?
Yeah I'm skeptical, but also sounds like a fun challenge.
Of course, writing it in 1 hour is a bit ridiculous. Did he have the icon images ready?
As far as the other stuff, this reminds me of recruiters who send you a coding project that they say will take 2-3 hours that generally takes 4-6 if there isn't some major problem. The extra time is of course setting everything up choosing what dependencies you need etc, because every project is slightly different and you are unlikely to have everything that is needed for that one project. The actual coding is probably 2-3 hours.
So perhaps he already had everything his system needed, if so I expect it might have taken 1 hour to code (because he was very comfortable and knew exactly what he would need to do) and some minutes to make git repo, push code. Then add another hour to time compiling and submitting to app store.
If he knew what he needed to do in the code of course that was probably from thinking about it for weeks beforehand.
I’m surprised anyone here thinks something like Snaplight would take more than an hour to build (no repos, testing on device but otherwise no tests, simple permissions, uncomplicated UI that only improved post-launch, etc.).
I think it would take me longer just to make the icon, having never done anything like that before.
Think about all the skills you had previously built up that allowed you to make it in an hour. If someone lacks even one of them, they would never be able to do it so quickly.
Was it simply scratching the itch to make higher fidelity prototypes?
PS- should designers code? ;)
I started coding long, long ago in order to build my web portfolio (back before site builders were a thing). As a result I saw how empowering coding can be.
I've always felt being able to code software gives you an ability to solve a lot of your own problems with technology. e.g. I have a lot of private tools I've designed and coded to help me in my day job (such as this simple one I recently open sourced: https://tannerchristensen.com/spf).
If you're a designer who works on digital products, I think it's only advantageous to know some programming. It gives you empathy for your engineering peers, gives you more insight into how what you design will actually get built (and the constraints/advantages of the technology), and helps you see problems in different—often more linear and logical—ways.
Learning to code is not for everyone, but learning a little can go a long way. At least learning the basics of code structure, loops, memory allocation and management, etc. would be my suggestion.