A person who possesses a vision and expertise in both programming and design, capable of producing an app or software that is unique and superior, has a singular, undiluted vision.
There are some well known apps and games made by one person who had a vision and attended with great professionalism and care to all the details, from programming to interaction and visual.
I was going to use "auteur" but then I read that it's used only in reference to certain film directors.
While auteur originated in the realm of film directing, it extends to that of any artistic undertaking. Here is the later definition from the OED:
2. A musician or other artist who retains a high degree of independent artistic control over his or her work, from conception to production or performance. Also: a creative artist whose work is perceived to reflect a highly individual vision or innovative approach, or is (self-consciously) presented as such. 1969–
Source: Oxford English Dictionary (login required)
It doesn’t seem to be a problem to extend the term to any creative field, including application development. Here’s an example from a New York Times article:
What Apple Has That Google Doesn’t: An Auteur
The Auteur vs. the Committee
One person is the Decider for final design choices. Not focus groups. Not data crunchers. Not committee consensus-builders. The decisions reflect the sensibility of just one person: Steven P. Jobs, the C.E.O. . . . The company that has a single arbiter of taste has been producing superior products, showing that you don’t need multiple teams and dozens or hundreds or thousands of voices.
Source: New York Times—The Auteur vs. the Committee
