Dear software people, mobile apps are just software | Hacker News Reader

Dear software people, mobile apps are just software

wasigh.com

21 pointswasigh9 comments

They are, and I think that's really the root of what people have been trying to say. However, because of the boom in mobile, and the shift in adoption away from Blackberry and toward iOS and Android devices on the Enterprise level, there has become a somewhat unrealistic expectation of both what can be accomplished with these devices or how fast something can be accomplished on these devices. I've experienced it myself.

Of course they're capable of great things, and any competent development team should be able to accomplish these things in a reasonable amount of time. But that's the issue. Reason is being thrown out the window. I believe a large part of these "Dear people," articles RE: mobile development have been a mix of venting these frustrations, while trying to bring the discussion back to a rational place.

Still, it's nothing new. The last ten years till today people are still surprised that we can't build an ebay for € € 1000,- . It will always be our job as software engineers to educate our clients.

I do understand that mobile apps are just software, however the way you approach an embedded app is very different from a web site.

I'm not against your idea of viewing both the same, but in your post, there are many loose pointers, let me list a few here:

* You mention creating of RESTful API like it's a walk in the park.

* You take 2-5 days to create the flow of app and jump from mockups straight to testflight!?

* You have a visual designer to implement your app?!

I disagree. At the company where I work we have the exact same proces for making a website and making a mobile app. Depending on type of customer we use a waterfall or an agile approach.

Fair enough, that you mention the loose points. From your article I got the impression that you think app development can be only be done as a waterfall project because of the toolset. And the point I was trying to make in my post is that my experience tells me otherwise.

Maybe my text was not clear on this. I will check it again.

To answer your questions: a RESTful API to be used by my app only and not to be consumed by the rest of the world is not such a big deal. Using the mock-up as input I'll create a working prototype in xcode in 2-5 days. After that I'll send it to the customer as soon as possible. The visual designer will design the app. I will implement the design.

As software engineers we are hired by our clients because we have knowledge and skills that they don't have. It is our job to educate them on the important parts. Always have, always will be. I understand your frustration, but it is nothing new. Or maybe it's just me getting old :-)

Many 'business' people see all those $0.99 and free apps on the App Store and automatically reason that it must be really easy to make and iOS app (if they required a lot of work, they wouldn't be that cheap. Would they?). I thinks this is what the original article was implying.

The same reasoning would imply that making a movie would be really cheap. Afterall ticket prices are really cheap as well.

I'd like to know more about iPone development.

What would you like to know?

iPone development can be "lean" and "agile", but can iPone development be "waterfall"?

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