
But in 2010 dozens of user-friendly app-creation platforms appeared. Five years ago I would have had to know Objective-C, the programming language for Apple iOS coding. Having a world-changing idea is so common it's almost a side effect of smartphone ownership, but only in the past few years have regular people been able to turn concepts into reality. I blame my exasperation on the increased ease of entry into the app-development market. It geolocated me into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Frustrated and over-caffeinated, I switched tasks, checking to see if my app's interactive map worked. And then God only knew if I would find the resolve to dream up special features for the 6 Plus. Even if I got my hands on a friend's copy, I was looking at doing this all over again for the larger screen of the iPhone 6.

It didn't have enough dots per inch for an Android smartphone screen, and I didn't have a version of Photoshop that would let me fix it. Alone in a room whose landscape comprised ziggurats of crude design sketches and empty Red Bull cans, I was wrestling with a picture of bacon dumplings.

I had expected to face some obstacles as an amateur app developer, but I hadn't foreseen this. on my ninth day of troubleshooting, I lost my mind.
