How to use ChatGPT to create an application

It's best to break the bad news right away. If you think ChatGPT can write an in-app shopping iPhone app for you that will make you a million dollars, you're out of luck.

I pre-empt this expectation because every time I talk about how to build products, there are a few people who either (a) want me to write them a million-dollar app, (b) want me to show them one class or book that will teach them how to write a million-dollar app, (c) share one secret tool or program that millionaire programmers hide from regular people, or (d) introduce them to my programmer friends because one of them will probably write a million-dollar app for a non-programmer, or (e) introduce them to my programmer friends because one of them will probably write a million-dollar app for a non-programmer.

Special function

It's not like that in the software business. Software is very large and complex. Many applications depend on connecting to huge networks of other resources that need to be integrated. In fact, many applications are just external interfaces to huge computing infrastructures that do their work behind the scenes.

Other applications - like games - require teams of people with a wide variety of skills working in sync, usually for years.

How ChatGPT can help you create an app

I believe that ChatGPT can help you build an application. But it won't do most of the work. That is up to you and your team. But it can save you time and reduce the amount of effort. And that's a win in itself.

So, let's take a look at how ChatGPT can help you build your application.

There are about 2 million iPhone apps and about 3.5 million Android apps. Finding a unique offering will be difficult, but creating something that already has a ton of competitors is not a good idea either.

Don't limit yourself to just ChatGPT to do your research here. Be sure to connect to it by asking questions such as: "Are there iPhone apps that count the days until retirement?".

Keep in mind that ChatGPT's training data ends in 2023, so if you want to, for example, create an app to help you write ChatGPT prompts, ChatGPT won't initially know what's available in the app store. However, ChatGPT can now search the web to supplement the knowledge contained in its training data. You may need to encourage it to search your prompts for more up-to-date information.

But planning an app isn't just basic market research. You definitely need to think about functionality and features, and then create a UI mockup. For an app that helps you write prompts in ChatGPT, you might ask:

I want to create an iPhone app to help write prompts in ChatGPT. What major and minor features should such an app have?

Try it yourself - the answer I got by typing this into ChatGPT was surprisingly complete and may come in handy when building an app.

Next is the user interface. I thought that maybe DALL-E 3 inside ChatGPT, especially GPT-4o, could generate some sample screens, but ChatGPT replied that it can't. While ChatGPT can't draw a wireframe (yet), you can ask ChatGPT to help you generate basic screens:

Can you describe the screens and UI elements that this application should have?

Again, I encourage you to run this prompt because the artificial intelligence tool's answers were surprisingly well thought out.

Once you have an idea for an app and have planned some of its elements, you will need to think about development and deployment. You can try using a tip like this:

I want to build this application. What do I need to do to start development and prepare for deployment?

I found the answer too general, but perhaps helpful for a newbie learning the process. The following is what I tried:

Help me install and customize the Xcode development environment to write this application

It helped me get closer, but it was still too general. I went one level deeper:

Help me choose a template and customize Xcode settings for my project. Also, how do I customize Interface Builder?

This has really helped a lot. Keep digging and asking questions, keep adding elements to your project, and feel free to ask ChatGTP along the way. But don't forget that there is a huge amount of help for app development outside of the new world of AI. Don't be afraid to use a good old web search and look for examples and tutorials. This is a big project and you'll need to utilize all the resources available.

This is where the rubber meets the road or the code meets the development system. This is where you actually build your product. And this is where ChatGPT can offer very interesting but very specific help.

Let's be clear again: we have not yet reached the point where you can ask an artificial intelligence tool to make an application for you. Applications often consist of hundreds of thousands (even millions) of lines of code spread across hundreds or thousands of files. ChatGPT cannot handle such volumes today.

In terms of scale, think of an application as a book or a set of books (up to a whole library). And think of a function, method, or subroutine (various terms for a small functional unit of code) as a paragraph or a small article, perhaps a chapter in a book. ChatGPT can help you at the paragraph level. It can help you structure a chapter. But it has no idea how to handle the whole book.

But that doesn't mean it can't be useful. Earlier I showed you how it can be used to define UI elements. You can use ChatGPT to give you specific instructions on how to layout them. For example:

Explain how to customize outputs and actions to initiate a hint search in an existing set of saved hints.

This will ask the AI to explain how to customize one feature in the UI. You can repeat this over and over again with different UI elements. You can also ask it to write a specific function or customize data elements. Let's create a mechanism to store saved hints. Here are two options that you can use one after the other:

Help me set up a mechanism to store saved hints.

Tell me about using Core Data to save hints for later access.

The first one recommended three data storage mechanisms, and I asked him to help with the second one - using Core Data. Here he even wrote some basic code to help you get started with this data storage mechanism.

First, it helped to customize the storage mechanism itself.

This is followed by an example of how to save a hint. You can use these code snippets as a starting point and then add your own code to them. But using ChatGPT will give you a good starting point.

It also shows you how to get a hint. This is where you get the data and format it and present it in your own UI style.

Overall, the conclusion is this: you can use ChatGPT to write small, very well-crafted chunks of code and for guidance. Think of it as a very talented junior developer who understands the code but doesn't see the big picture.

Finally, don't expect all the ChatGPT code to work. As I said before, sometimes AI code works perfectly and sometimes it completely fails. This is similar to code written by us humans.

In this example, I'm assuming you're creating an iPhone app, but these procedures are the same for apps for all platforms. Essentially, you don't just create your app and it magically appears on people's devices. Instead, you have to follow procedures specific to each app store to prepare the app and then publish it.

To get started on this, you can issue a prompt like this:

Tell me about the steps required to deploy my application

When I asked ChatGPT a question, it gave me these six steps along with a short description summarizing the steps:

1. Sign up for an Apple developer account.
2. Customize the settings for your application.
3. Prepare the application for distribution.
4. Submit your app to the App Store.
5. Wait for the application to be reviewed.
6. Release your app.

Here is another good place where you can get more use out of ChatGPT. You can follow each of these steps and ask for more detailed instructions. For example:

Tell me exactly how to customize my app settings for deployment. Tell me how to submit my app to the App Store.

Continue to go deeper. If ChatGPT misses a step, ask it to clarify. Imagine you are in a courtroom during a trial and a witness gives an incomplete answer. Keep digging, asking more and more pointed questions until you get what you want.

If you are very, very lucky, you position your app as unique among all the others, you have created a customer base, get a lot of money and start thinking about which Ferrari model to buy and what your next app should be. However, you will most likely be maintaining customers, fixing bugs, adding features and trying new marketing approaches.

Regardless, if you've made it to this point, congratulations. I've written 40 silly little iPhone apps in my day, and ChatGPT would definitely be a huge help for them. Just treat it as a tool like any other tool, not as your only tool, and you'll be fine.

Questions and answers

Which is better, an iPhone app or an Android app?

Both markets are huge. If your app is successful, you'll probably want to release it on both platforms. Depending on what you want to do, the app may be more suited for one platform than the other. For example, one of my favorite Android apps is Tasker, which allows you to customize many more Android features than Apple's crude counterpart, Shortcuts, on iOS. If you were building an app like Tasker, you'd probably focus on Android.

In general, choose the platform you are most comfortable with and create your application on it. Then port it to another environment.

How do I make my app visible in search results?

When it comes to app store search results, you will have to combine keyword testing and graphics. First, make sure you have an eye-catching icon, and include enough screenshots and videos. Don't leave them out of the mix. Next, it's all about SEO. You will need to find the right keywords that will make your app stand out. There are many tools for this, and you can ask ChatGPT what these tools are and ask for help.

What programming languages can ChatGPT help me with?

Pretty much everything. I tested ChatGPT with a dozen top programming languages, and it didn't flinch. Then I gave it ten more relatively obscure or obsolete programming languages, and it still did well. I'm sure there are languages that aren't in the ChatGPT library, but I doubt there's any common mobile development language that he can't handle.

How long does it take to build an app?

Short answer: From a week to three years. Longer answer: It depends on the situation. How big is your application? What is it trying to accomplish? How experienced are you and your team? When I created 40 apps (most of which were very similar to each other), the first one took almost a month, and the rest took a day or so each, not counting the 10 or so days it took Apple to approve each one.

But other apps can take years to get there. A ChatGPT app for saving and recalling tips is very different from, say, a Facebook app. If you're trying to build Facebook, Instacart, Uber, or something else big, you have a long way to go. But if you have an interesting idea, expect the process to take a few months to a year.