The iOS app feels like it’s intended to support casual users, people who are happy printing from the catalog, maybe dropping in snaps from their phone. On the other hand I am waiting eagerly for more “pro” features like passthrough, longer job timer, etc etc.
Hopefully in time both parties will be satisfied.
That’s what Dan said - one motivated iOS guy was all it took. But unless iOS development is the only thing the guy could do, they chose to prioritize the app over other things he might have done. Most iOS app devs have other talents. And then there’s all of the non-iOS dev attention - management, support, marketing, etc that had to have been involved. All taken away from other work. It’s easy to compartmentalize the app development but it’s definitely not non-impactful to all of the other things that need to get done to fulfill their promises.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the iOS app and MacBook settings came out the same day as public retail launch of the GF. The first is almost cliched in its need to be there for any tech enterprise today even if it does nothing meaningful. The second is all sex appeal based on the original marketing video and does nothing more than one-click entry of settings already available on the forum.
Regardless, it’s their company and they get to make the priority call 
Whenever my company launches a new device we have to split dev time between writing tools to automate instrument production and features for the device. Luckily (or not so luckily if you listen to the CEO and CFO,) we generally don’t have a giant back order at launch so the time goes into the product and manufacturing is slowly automated as features are caught up and volume increases. And yeah, we’ve planned for this by outsourcing, bringing in contractors and such and it never seems to go as well as planned. Some days I think all the quality help is locked up in jobs they like and other days the rational side of me decides developers with a deep institutional knowledge are simply that much more efficient. Until I can quantify deep institutional knowledge in a spreadsheet no one at the C-level is going to believe we can’t spend our way out of the problem (well, those years we have cash to spend.)
i suspect it’s far less about phones and far more about tablets.
Except that the GF UI works just fine on my iPad, and has since day 1. It is how I set up my Glowforge, in fact.
there may be more you can do with a native app than with a browser-based app in the long run.
Sure, I set mine up with my phone but the user experience on the actual app.glowforge.com from a small touch device was horrible. The app isn’t perfect but it’s way better than the mobile browser experience. I find it very handy for my workflow.