Some lessons for app developers from last night's episode of the Apprentice? A gang of dislikeable eejits shouting at one another isn't the best way to brainstorm an app. You can't go wrong with animal noises. And comedy racial/regional stereotypes? There are good reasons why there aren't many apps for that.

The Twitter buzz around last night's episode was huge, as usual, but fuelled by an extra dash of aghast app developers watching the two teams try to crack their business model in a little over 24 hours. While shouting at one another.

The fact that the show's producers chose to focus on apps for a whole episode's task shouldn't be taken lightly though: "Business-wise right now, this is pretty much where it's at," explained Lord Sugar, even if his talk about apps "going live on the internet" displayed his old-school technology roots.

The episode was good news for London-based developer Grapple Mobile, even if the price for TV fame was having to mentor teams whose initial ideas were along the lines of: "A traffic light ... I didn't really think it through." The company's raison d'etre is making cross-platform apps quickly for brands, and while few will be demanding comedy soundboards overnight, the fact that Grapple hit its televised deadline will do the company no harm.

Grapple boss Alistair Crane thinks there were some serious lessons to be learned from the episode though. When the teams went out on the streets to grill people about their app usage, it turned out that "quick, snackable content" was hugely popular. "The mobile industry is obsessed with games, but when you ask normal people, often they just want something quick and entertaining," he says.

The victory for the girls' team ultimately came down to their Ampi-Apps app being more globally interesting than the boys' Slangatang collection of comedy regional catchphrases, although a point that came through strongly was the importance of the app descriptions. Blunt does-what-it-says-on-the-tin prevailed with Ampi-Apps, ahead of the boys' more vague description. "I'm bored," noted Lord Sugar halfway through reading it.

Something that didn't come out in the TV show was the specific platforms the apps were available for. Crane explains: "The producers didn't want us to just build this on one platform, so we did Android, Nokia and BlackBerry," he says. What, no iPhone? It seems the requirement to get an app approved and live the same day was a sticking point.

"We reached out to Apple and said, 'We've got this opportunity, can you help us expedite a submission?' and they just wrote back saying 'No'," he says. "BlackBerry and Ovi were super helpful, and Android were very helpful too, actually."

Perhaps the most startling lesson from the episode was the fact that you can knock up an annoying sounds soundboard app overnight, put it live and then wake up in the morning with 10,000+ downloads from around the world. Curiously, though, both apps were removed from the app stores once the challenge was completed, meaning they were not available when the episode aired last night. An opportunity missed, especially if any profits could have been donated to charity.

Crane's baffled expressions during the brainstorming session for the girls team that he was mentoring were a standout feature, though. "Filming kicked off at 6.30 in the morning, which is not my best time, and I wasn't allowed to give guidance on the app's content," he says. "So you've got these relatively neurotic young people coming out with ideas like a jelly bean counter, and you're thinking, 'Are you mental?!'. But for a young British business, the experience was hugely positive."