Show HN: Make your iPhone app look beautiful

(A) Learn the obviously important skill (because if it was unimportant, there would be zero market for things like this)

(B) Hire a designer (which isn't always a "load of money")

(C) Spend $130 on this

I'd pretty much do them in that order. If this was a free product, I'd be all for it. It would be awesome to see more free iOS native app templates.

But it's not free and that's an issue. Assuming this becomes successful, this will be the Bootstrap of iOS themes and half the apps out there will look identical. The brave ones will be a different color. I think Bootstrap is okay because it can be used as a stepping stone (or the basis for a more comprehensive (custom) design). I use it on a project when I have every intention of redesigning or having it redesigned later after the proof of concept is fleshed out.

People are not going to spend $130 on a theme and redesign it 6 months later. There will be no iteration or redesign because the fact that there is a price associated with this means it's "good enough."

You can get a skilled art student or brand new contractor to design a custom interface for 10x this or less. Hell, you can crowd source this on a site like 99designs for $600.

I'm all for making money and I hope the OP is successful. This looks well designed and I'm sure there is a market for it. That doesn't mean that it's the best option, or even a particularly good one, if you have the slightest bit of talent or money. And if you're really so broke that you're considering a $130 theme, I don't see why $600 for a custom theme that much worse. Wait two more months and save the extra money. We have plenty of apps in the meantime.

Yes.

The app store era has significantly raised the stakes - it's no longer enough to ship something functional, people demand that it also be beautiful and usable.

For every product niche worth tackling, there is a competing app that has had the proper love of a designer. And it will win.

The success of a modern iOS app hinges heavily on ranking and featuring - go to the App Store right now and look at any of the featured lists. Are there any lazily-designed apps there?

So in short, there is no alternative. Proper design is not optional for success in the app store. The only exception here is if your app has some functionality that is so powerful, so utterly necessary for your users, and so exclusive no one else can meaningfully copy it, that your users will live with your crappy out-of-box UI.