Why release something so simple?

Padee (my sketch-pad app for iOS) is very simple. If you've used it, you've probably noticed the lack of features. That simplicity is why it's free, for starters. I know it's simple (crude, really). But the reason I released it is also simple.

It's better to have something that does the absolute bare minimum that to not have something at all.

I think of myself as a Cocoa/Cocoa Touch developer. I wanted (needed) to have something that I could point to and say, "Here's an example of my work. It's not much, but it's a start.". With each release of Padee, I add something to make it a little more useful, or to enable future enhancements. Version 2.1.0 didn't add any new functionality, but it changed the way user sketches were stored (see this post for more details). That change will make it easier for me to implement iCloud adoption in a future release.

Padee also isn't a bad app. It's stable, does what the app description say it does, and it's small (~7.9 MB for iPhones, ~8.4 MB for iPads).

The same reasoning behind releasing Padee is why I released WebTools. I try to build on the functionality of the apps with each release. For me, it's a great learning process, as well as helping me build a portfolio.