This post is about coming up with the idea that you will eventually turn into an iPhone application. Identifying a market and finding out what that market needs is essential to this process. The complimentary part of this is to know what the iPhone platform is capable of providing and executing on that.

Here are some simple steps that you can follow to do this. Once you are finished with this section you will have seen the process of identifying your market, thinking of an application idea and bringing it all together with a name.

Write a Profile of Your User

This step is essential to creating a successful iPhone application – the idea is that you must figure out who it is that is going to buy your application. Start with the customer first. A good exercise to help you do this is to write a story about your typical user.

For our purposes, we are going to think of a person who wants help staying organized. However, you probably already had a million ideas about who your audience is going to be: wine tasters, accountants, video game fans, stamp collecting enthusiasts, etc.

You need to start thinking about the people who are going to want to buy your application. For your first application, you may want focus on a niche or market that you are a part of or that you understand well.

The user profile does not need to be a complex and detailed analysis at first. Just write enough of a description to get inside your customer’s head. One paragraph should be fine for now. As you start to interact with your customers you can use methods like surveys and social media to start getting a more sophisticated understanding of their wants.

Here is the profile I wrote for my typical user:

Joe User, who recently bought an iPhone, has trouble staying organized and getting things done. Joe is a huge fan of the iPhone, but is surprised that it does not come with a built in application that will help him remember the things he needs to do throughout the day. What Joe really wants is a simple to-do list that he can use to keep track of things. He is not a productivity guru and so he gets turned off by complex task management systems.

Think of an Application

Now that you have an idea of what your Joe User wants; think of a way that you can solve Joe User’s problem in the context of an iPhone application. Try to come up with an original idea or an improvement on an existing idea. Keep it simple, the most important purpose of version 1.0 application is to reach your audience and start getting their direct input on developing the product.

Give yourself some time here to brain-storm, run ideas by your friends who are in the market you are targeting, daydream and be willing to throw ideas out if you feel they will not work. If possible, find a way to ask your potential users what they would want in an iPhone application. You can use surveys, personal contacts or ask members of forums.

Another source of ideas are the free ideas that people give you the second they find out that your are an iPhone developer. Almost every person I know who has an iPhone has an idea of what they would like to see as an app. Let them tell you what they want.

Getting back to our Joe User, I think that giving him a very simple to-do list will help him stay organized. All Joe needs to remember is the to-do itself, whether a particular to-do is done or not, a due date and details.

For version 1.0 of our app I will simply provide a way to record to-dos in a list. Joe will be able to get more detailed information about a to-do by touching it to reveal the details like due date, etc.

Come up with an Application Name

Your iPhone application is going to need a name – try to come up with something short that communicates the purpose of your application. Hopefully, your name will be attention getting since this is one of the first things your customers will see when they are browsing the Application Store.

For our application, there are a few possibilities: Task List, To-Dos, Remember Stuff, Honey To-Do… For now, I am going to use “Done!”. I like the action oriented ring of the name and it speaks to Joe’s problem directly. Be sure to check the Application Store to make sure the name is not already taken – my first choice, “Get It Done!”, turned out to be in use.

Clearly, this is partly a matter of taste and partly a marketing decision that will get easier as you go through the process a few more times. Don’t get too caught up in this, simply come up with a working name for now if you cannot decide on a name.