More and more companies are building iPhone apps for their businesses to make themselves more marketable, competitive, and more accessible to their customers. Since iPhones are all the rage right now, it’s become quite the competition to create engaging apps that will spread like wildfire to iPhone users and (hopefully) create a following around that particular business, game, etc.

When I hear a particular company is developing an app, I’m interested to learn more. As an avid iPhone user, it’s feels like a Christmas present every time I download a new one. (Of course the “present” is even better when it’s an app that I like.) Today I learned about a company that is developing an “iPhone-esque” web application that will have the same look and feel of a native iPhone app, but will only be accessible via the phone’s browser. (The thought being that multiple types of mobile phones will be able to access the app.)

Here are the thoughts that ran through my head:

A.) Why would you spend ‘x’ amount of dollars on development, resources, etc. to create a web application that looks like an iPhone app and behaves like an iPhone app, but ISN’T an iPhone app? (How does the saying go, “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck” – or maybe it should be.)

B.) If the web app doesn’t do anything different than the company’s website, what is the incentive for me (the iPhone user) to access it when I can just as easily (and probably just as quickly) use the Safari browser and go to the main website?

C.) Am I the only person who thinks this is a waste of time, money, and valuable business resources?

I later found out that several of the decision makers for this particular brain child don’t even have iPhones, nor do they know much about them. So this faux-iPhone app will be created and will be unsuccessful because the project isn’t being thought through.

If your company is creating, beginning to create, or potentially will create an iPhone application—for all things sacred PUT SOMEONE ON THE PROJECT WHO KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT iPHONES. Approach the project from the iPhone user’s point of view. Create something engaging that either a.) does something different, or b.) presents the information differently than your company website. Otherwise, you’ll be spending money to develop something that the user can certainly live without, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.

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