Apps with Rob vs your other options.

You've got a few ways to get an app designed. Here's an honest look at each one.

Hiring an agency

You explain your idea to an account manager. They write it up, pass it to a strategist, who passes it to a designer. By the time your idea reaches the person actually designing your app, it's been through three rounds of telephone. The feeling's gone. The detail's gone. And when you give feedback, it goes back through the same chain in reverse.

Timelines blow out. Costs creep up. You end up in meetings where six people are nodding but nobody owns the outcome. Your idea gets diluted by committee, and you're paying for every person in the room whether they're adding value or not.

Some agencies do great work. But the model itself creates friction, and you feel it at every stage.

Going offshore

The rates look attractive upfront. But then you're awake at midnight on a video call trying to explain what you mean. There's a timezone gap, a cultural disconnect, and a communication barrier that makes feedback slow and frustrating. You say one thing, they hear another, and the revisions pile up.

What started as a cost saving turns into a false economy. You spend more on revisions and miscommunication than you would have spent doing it properly the first time. And when something needs to change quickly, you're waiting 12 hours for a response.

There are talented designers everywhere in the world. But the logistics of working across timezones and cultures add a layer of difficulty that most people underestimate until they're in it.

Vibe coding / DIY with AI

AI tools are impressive, and they're getting better fast. You can generate screens, build layouts, and even get a basic app running without writing much code. It feels like magic at first.

But AI doesn't replace design thinking. It doesn't do user research. It doesn't understand your specific customers, their frustrations, or the strategic decisions that make an app actually work for real people. You can build something that looks like an app, but without proper UX it's just a pretty shell. It looks right but doesn't feel right, and users notice.

There's another problem. AI is only remixing what it's already seen, and a lot of what's out there is average. It leans on Jakob's Law, the idea that users prefer familiar interfaces, which is usually smart UX. But when every AI-generated app looks the same, you're not getting familiarity, you're getting a cookie cutter. Everyone has the tools now. If you want to stand out, you need someone who understands the chemistry and can hit the exact flavour your customers want to taste.

Then there's the code. Vibe coding is getting better, but it still produces code that works in a demo and falls apart in the real world. The moment a thousand users hit your app at the same time, every shortcut and assumption starts to crack. Edge cases pile up. Performance drops. Things that looked fine on your screen break on someone else's phone. You still need a proper developer to review the architecture and make sure it actually holds up, and you still need a designer who's thought through every flow so there's nothing for users to trip over. AI can speed up the process. It can't replace the people who know what to check.

AI is a powerful tool in the right hands. But handing your entire product strategy to a prompt and hoping for the best is a gamble, especially when your money and your reputation are on the line.

Working with Apps with Rob

One person, start to finish. You talk to me, I do the research, I design every screen, I build the prototype, I write the developer notes. Direct communication, Australian timezone, 15 years of design experience. No layers, no handoffs, no one learning on your dime.

You get proper research, a prototype that's ready for developers, and a network of trusted senior developers and marketing specialists when you need them. Five weeks, fixed price, no runaround.

It's simple. And that's the point.