TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Great story from Sean Sperte about how Sky Balloon nearly built a web browser for iPad:

It was May or June of 2010 (I can’t remember exactly) and we were loving our brand new iPads … except for the web browser, Safari. While advancements had been made in terms of its speed, we felt it still lacked in features and experience implementation – or UI. So we had the brilliant idea to make a new browser for the iPad.

Actually, I should say, I had the idea, because I had no idea what it took to build software, and I figured we could do it. You know, with our three-man team that only met for a few hours per week. And because, after all, we were only going to be building a great “frame” around a UIWebView. And Apple already did the hard part by building the renderer. And, how hard could it be? Right?

A bunch of good lessons, including choosing application ideas for iOS. While an idea may be very good in a vacuum, there are many factors to consider first—what’s possible, who your competitors are (especially if it includes Apple), and deciding if it’s best to give up on a project.