FoodFlip
A ground-up rethink of local food search for iOS 7 — photography first, chrome stripped out, built and launched in five weeks across 85 countries.
Numbers
- 85
- Countries at launchworldwide beta
- 5 weeks
- Build time
- 3
- Team sizeone designer, two developers
Problem
A year inside local food search had made one thing obvious: almost nothing on the market had absorbed what iOS 7 actually proposed. Apps were still spending screen on chrome — bars, borders, controls — in a category where the only thing anyone wants to look at is the food.
Solution
A new app built on the opposite assumption. Photography edge to edge, interface elements removed rather than restyled, and search results arriving immediately rather than after a form.
Universal binary from the start, so iPhone and iPad were one product.
Analysis
Five weeks and three people is the interesting constraint, and it only works because the thesis was narrow. The scope was one idea — let the content have the whole screen — and everything that did not serve it was not built.
It also meant the product could be wrong cheaply. Eighty-five countries of beta is a market test, not a launch, and it is a far better way to find out than another quarter of internal debate.
Result
Shipped to beta in 85 countries as a minimum viable product, iPhone and iPad from one universal binary.
Photos
Search, with the result already filling the screen. The photograph is the interface. 
