Happy First App To Me

My first iPhone project StencilsApp was approved by Apple today and just appeared in the AppStore here in Ireland.
Contrary to the widespread rumors, the approval process was a breeze, the review team was extremely professional and it all took less than 14 days.
Considering the fact that StencilsApp is a complex and rather unique tool, rich in content and text (you see what I'm doing here), my respect for what Apple have built in the last 3 years just grew even more.
I'll definitely be sticking with their platform and the AppStore for the foreseeable future.

What is StencilsApp?
It's a native prototyping (or wire-framing, mock-up etc) tool for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Probably the first of its kind.
It lets you design user interfaces and software using the native components of the device and produces sketches as close to the real app as you can get without programing it.
The results simulate the complete work-flow of an iPhone application through UI transitions and annotations triggered by the user's taps or gestures on the screen.

It's easy to use and you don't even have to know anything about programming. My 9 year old daughter is sketching with it quite successfully.
I'm hoping it would be useful both for non-programmers to visualize and communicate their ideas and for iPhone developers to prototype, test and receive approval for their projects.

It has lots of cool features, like 2D drawing, a large free icon library, a set of templates, app samples, online sharing etc.
Just check the video tutorials that I've put on the web site.
And if you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, why not just grab it from the AppStore, while it's hot ;)
It's a free download (with some optional stuff purchasable from inside the app if you feel like supporting my work):
iTunes Link

I'll be writing more about my experience and the technology behind StencilsApp in the next few weeks and I'll probably open-source some of the code when I get time to clean it up.
But at the moment all I care for is to get my first decent sleep in the last 7 months.
Yes, that's how long it took, but hey I'm a married guy with two kids and a busy, full-time job.
Plus, as I said, it's quite a complex and powerful tool ;-)