Building an app isn’t just coming up with an idea and then coding (or finding someone to code it for you). There’s a lot involved in the end-to-end process that you wouldn’t necessarily think about when you’re idly dreaming about making one yourself. Developer David Smith, who created the much-loved Pedometer++, as well as Emoji++, Feed Wrangler and many more, has created a video that walks viewers through the process.
It’s an interesting look at making a lightweight app from start to finish, beginning with identifying the need or pain point that he wants to address (in this case making it easy to create a list of favorite locations for easy retrieval in navigation apps both on the Apple Watch and on the phone), and then compressing the total coding time in a sped-up video clip.
The fast-forward look at the coding and submission process isn’t particularly illuminating, but it does give a decent sense of the volume of work involved in building even something incredibly simple like Take Me There, which is the app documented here. What is probably most interesting is the way the way Smith comes up with the concept – he says it’s usually about identifying a bit of awkwardness and figuring out if there’s an elegant, feasible way to do it better.
For the record, the app itself seems like a great idea, too, especially if you’re looking to navigate to places with your Watch with any amount of frequency.