What's the Catch?

I’ve had more than a few people ask me why Flickit is free. Several have said they can’t believe I’m not charging money for it. While I take this as a huge compliment, I get the feeling that some people are asking this question suspiciously, waiting for me to hatch some sort of nefarious plan by luring everyone in with a free app.

Let me be clear: I don’t plan to ever start charging money for Flickit or to introduce ads. I just don’t think either is appropriate for this app.

So if I wasn’t planning on making any money with Flickit, then what was my motivation for writing it?

The truth is that Flickit was a bit of an experiment for me. I saw this as a learning opportunity. Not only in terms of getting experience with new technology, but also gaining knowledge about all the peripheral issues related to writing software for this new platform. Things like: how to navigate Apple’s app approval process, the mechanics of App Store distribution, dealing with technical support for mobile users, and understanding the impact of being in the “Top X” lists on the App Store.

I also had a lot of questions I was trying to answer from a design perspective: What was the smallest amount of functionality people were willing to live with? Did they prefer a small, focused app, or did they want a more full-featured, desktop-like experience? Would people appreciate a custom, graphically rich user interface, or were they just as happy with the standard iPhone UI controls? How much UI polish is too much? What is the best balance between form and function for a small app?

Flickit was my attempt at trying to answer these questions. Granted, some of these things could be divined by reading about other developers’ experiences, but I felt like it was important for me to get first-hand knowledge using one of my own apps. Now that it’s been in the App Store for a while, and I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, I feel like I have a good idea for how to answer most of them.

I’m certainly glad that the app is popular and that it’s solving a real problem for a lot of people, but this is only the tracer round. The heavy artillery is still yet to come.