What's the purpose of your app?

Chris Palk of DabApps considers the importance of a solidly defined purpose in the world of Apps

An entire feature in the Evening Standard appeared lately on Candy Crush describing it as ‘the Crystal Meth of the commute’!

Playing this inane repetitive game has become an addiction for half a billion people. It’s a ‘zone-out’ game – to a certain degree. Whatever the case, it’s making big bucks. Its London developer has been valued at £4.2 billion on the New York Stock Exchange and the investment brochure says it has a repeatable and scalable game development process that is unparalleled in the industry.

But despite my sweeping statements on how inane it is - it is quite enjoyable, and has a purpose: to entertain, and I suppose, provide relaxation across all demographic and age strata.

Now a days it seems like there’s an app for everything:  from Jamie Oliver’s hugely successful app to Blower app – yes honestly – there’s an app to blow out your birthday candles! (it uses the speaker opening at the bottom of you iPhone as a makeshift fan) But does every thing need an app?

Some words of wisdom from a person who has designed and built more apps than you can shake a stick at: Developing an app with no purpose or scalability is probably going to be a waste of money.

I cannot stress this next point enough: Be very clear on the purpose of your app.

You should be able to define the app’s purpose in two sentences or less. If you can’t, it’s probably confusing and possibly not targeted enough to find its own market.

So just what makes a good app? It’s hard to define but the most successful apps pretty much fall into three categories of purpose: Solution, Entertainment, and/ or Value Added. Broadly speaking your app needs to tick at least one of these boxes to be worth it and possibly make you a return on your investment.

1 Solution/ Problem solving

Making it easier for customers to interact, buy from you, book with you and generally do business with you. There is almost always a similar website that does the same job as these types of apps but the difference is that these apps connect you to ‘what you want’ faster and without going through the internet. Very useful and solves problems particularly when you’re on the move.

For example: British Airways and Easy Jet have apps that facilitate quick booking, checking in, provides boarding cards etc. anytime, anywhere.

‘Ocado on the Go’ provides ”the supermarket at your fingertips” and cleverly lets shop even if you’re offline. Over 22,000 products are stored on your phone – this ticks all the boxes for me:  easy to do business with, connects you faster, and solves a host of time management problems!

A personal favourite is ‘TheTrainLine’ App – helps you look up train times, purchase, store and display your train tickets  - very handy indeed. Other in this category include the free apps from the social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. The websites provide the same service but when on the move, these apps provide instant access.

2 Entertainment

Minecraft, Jelly Splash, Angry Birds. Similar to the success of Candy Crush, these apps simply provide entertainment, relaxation and perhaps their key success is that they appeal across the board from adults to children, in every country. Free to begin with and upgrades at a price.

3 Added Value

These are apps that give you an added or extended service or solution. These are the apps that people incorporate as part of running their lives, for example Skype – an app that has changed the way we communicate. Tune in Radio lets you listen to the world's radio streaming from every continent. Useful and provides all stations in one handy app.  iPlayer – they way we watch and listen almost everything. And another favourite, Spotify  - the music collection of millions of tracks and counting.

So, does your App fall into at least one of these categories? Make sure it has a clearly defined purpose and it’s Appy Days! (sorry couldn’t resist).

The question of whether it will make you money: directly or indirectly, is another installment. But as a precursor if your app hasn’t got a purpose, its not going to be valued, used or have a chance to generate a return on your investment.

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