Announcing Pat Counter for iPhone

This evening I finally received an email from Apple informing me that our first application for the iPhone and iPod touch is ready for sale. I’m pleased to announce Pat Counter, a simple way to keep track of a running count without having to hold something in your hand or look at a screen to tap a button.

It’s a simple application, but it was an interesting experience in developing and shipping an application for a new platform. Rands was right about 1.0: it’s amazing how much work and time it takes to take care of all the little details, even in something as simple as Pat Counter. Valley start-ups really do go out of business because it can be so hard. (Aside: Rands’s book Managing Humans is quite good.)

I wasn’t able to find any data points out there about lead times, but for me it was five days between submission of the binary to Apple and approval for sale. That includes a weekend, but it seems like apps are still approved then, just at a slower rate.

Finally, a word of advice: make sure your binary is right the first time. I goofed my initial build and it took seven days before Apple told me about it, by which time I’d already noticed it myself. Replacing the binary was effectively the same as the initial submission; I went to the back of the line. Read the instructions for a distribution build closely and follow them exactly.

Update: It’s now available on the App Store with a direct link, but isn’t in the search results.

Update 2 (Sep. 15): It now shows up in search results, a mere five days after approval.