Brian Cooke of roobasoft has posted an insightful blog entry about the launch of his iPhone application, Count It Off, used for 'simple calorie counting and weight tracking'. What stands out about this blog entry more than anything else is the process of sketching out user interfaces on paper as the first step in the design process. This is an essential step that is often overlooked or undervalued by iPhone developers. Whether or not this process takes place on paper or on screen, make sure you give yourself enough time in the early stages to experiment with and refine your designs.

If you are an OmniGraffle user, there are a couple of stencils out there for use in the iPhone design process - iPhone Wire Frames by Theresa Neil or the Design Pattern Library by Yahoo! Many developers I know go through this process in Interface Builder, but this route can be less approachable to some. Of course, there's always paper.

Thanks to John Gruber at Daring Fireball for the reference.