By Graham K. Rogers

With the number of apps that have appeared in the last couple of years, some people may think it is easy -- especially if you already have a desktop version of the software -- to port an app over to the iOS platform. In some cases it has been, and developers highlighted by Apple at their keynote presentations have told how the whole thing was done in a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is not quite so straightforward.

While some developers have produced remarkable results in a couple of weeks according to Apple, the iTunes App Store is also a repository for a lot of less than stellar apps. Users download, try them out and put them in the trash. Occasionally reviews make the weak points clear and the developer either improves the app, or it eventually disappears. Sadly, some good apps disappear over time too. As Steve Jobs made clear in his interviews with Walter Isaacson for the Jobs' biography, there are no shortcuts to excellence.

I was heartened to read an online letter of the status quo on development from KB of Literature and Latte. They are working on an iOS version of their highly thought-of application (for OS X and Windows), Scrivener.

As well as explaining the reasons for the delays that have occurred, the letter -- serious and humorous in parts -- provides lessons in keeping the customers informed, plus the hard graft needed to create an app and get it right.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.