It’s the middle of the night.
You have this non-stop craving for something delicious.
Something worthy of your taste buds.
For me that urge is only fulfilled by the middle east taco known as shawarma.
Sometimes after a night out, I had trouble finding the nearest shawarma restaurant to my location. I would then have to do a google search. My fingers would usually mess up the spelling.. it was too much of a hassle.
I would then ponder late at night in my bed, while staring at my ceiling fan, and ask myself the really BIG questions of life. One of them was:
“Why isn’t there a simple app that.. with one press of a button could DO THIS FOR ME!?”
So I put these two ideas together (iphone app & shawarma locator) like a genius, and decided to create something.
It’s called Nearest Shawarma.
So please check my app out, FINALLY in the App store after two rejections (I explain why later). Click below.
Once you download it to your Iphone, you can see it’s a fairly simple app that shows you the closest place you can chow down on shawarma goodness from ANYWHERE in the world. For free.
How cool is that? It’s pretty cool.
Now please repeat after me:
Thou shall never go to bed without a shawarma in ze tummy.
Thou shall never go to bed without a shawarma in ze tummy.
Just doing my bit for society.
So a question I got from friends while making the app was: what about the money?
Well the goal wasn’t to make money on this first one. It was just to learn the process behind making an app.
And it’s definitely been a learning experience. I’ve outsourced some things before, but this was different stress. When I use the word stress, I really mean eustress – one that’s healthy for you. Figuring out how to do something you’ve never done before is always uneasy at first, in this case – working with Apple and finding a good Iphone App Developer.
Drawing out the idea, communicating it’s functionality, learning a little about enabling google API’s (this is what finds the restaurants) and other nerdy stuff, etc.
It wasn’t that difficult either, but it required some persistence. Lots of email/skype chats early morning/late nights since my developer, who I found on odesk.com, lived in Eastern Europe. I oddly enjoyed it.
The reason why it was rejected a few times because it was reviewed as too simple of an app. I had to add features, such as the Favourites button, to make it of higher quality. Or perhaps the Apple reviewer was having a bad day when I first submitted it (I’ve heard of some people’s app being approved without much in changes).
Also – It helps to type out the procedures of re-submitting the app as well.
This is where the design for the App icon came from. Remixing ideas. I knew a RED icon would stand out on the screen. I sent this to my developer’s team.
Make sure you find a developer who can speak English clearly and will communicate with you at least every 2-3 days. Take your time hiring the developer as it will save a lot time. Hire slow, fire fast.
Anywaaaays, I’m now off to the bar to celebrate. Just in case you’re too lazy to scroll up and check it out: Here’s the link again.
Any comments or feedback welcomed.
laterz,
Nishant
nishant mehrotra 