From idea to the app store

A mobile app looks simple from the outside. You tap an icon, something useful happens. The distance between an idea and that icon sitting on a customer’s home screen is where most of the work hides, and knowing the shape of it makes the whole thing far less daunting.

There are four stages, and they run in order. Skip one and it tends to come back around at a worse time.

1. Idea, made concrete

The goal here is not a long document. It is agreement on the one thing the app has to do well, and who it is for. Most apps that struggle tried to do five things at launch. The ones that land pick the single job people will open them for, and get that right first.

2. Design you can tap through

Before a line of code, we draw the screens and link them together so you can move through the app as if it were real. It is far cheaper to move a button on a screen than to move it after it is built, and seeing it makes the missing pieces obvious.

3. Build, in the open

We build the real app for iPhone and Android and show you progress as we go, not at the end. Native, so it feels right on each phone and can use the camera, notifications and the rest. You try each part as it lands, which is when the useful feedback actually shows up.

4. The stores, and after

Getting onto the App Store and Google Play has its own rules, and we handle the submission, the review notes and the accounts. Launch is a milestone, not the finish line. An app is a living thing: phones update, and small improvements are what keep it worth having. We stay on to look after it.

Pick the one job first. Everything else is easier to add later than to unpick.

Where to start

If you have an idea and are not sure how big it is, that is a good place to begin. See mobile apps, or tell us what you have in mind and we’ll give you an honest read on scope and effort.