Building my first iPad app - to share or not - that is the question

Last november, I wrote a blog post about looking for inspiration to help me building my first iPad app: a Tumblr client for browsing pictures. Very simple idea. Since then, I've spent quite some time, on and off, not only about the idea itself but also on sharing to the world the process of building the application. What if someone steal my idea?

Well, this kind of thing can happen as soon as someone post about his or her work on the internet. Maybe someone is reading my blog and is waiting in the dark for my next blog post about this app so he can start coding and publish on the App Store. May be. May be not.

Building a Tumblr client is not really a novel idea. There are many available already. But the thing is they all suck. I don't like their design. I don't like using them. I want to build my own and love using it. This is exactly what I did with Ultimate Password Manager. I love using it. And many others do too!

So, I want to be proud of something that I've built. Sharing with others how I tackle the task of building this application is also useful. In order to build something and write about it, your ideas must be clear and well defined. Just the process of posting on the blog about it helps me think better about this application design and refine a lot of details. In the end, I'm winning and eventually my users will hopefully win too.

If someone is inspired by my work on this application and start on their own and eventually create a really cool and nice looking application for browsing pictures on Tumblr, then I would be more than happy to buy it and use it and tell the world how happy I am about it. In the end, whatever happens, I'll win. And remember, this is not always about money.

Keep reading my blog learn how I'm creating my first iPad app: a Tumblr client for browsing pictures! Comments are always welcomed too!

No, we're not millionaires!

Being an indie iOS developer means a lot. Some could say we are our own boss and this is great. Others would say that we get all the benefits for our app sales (minus 30% for Apple). I would say that being an indie means everything is hard work, nothing is a given. Some others think the same. See You Guys Are Millionaires Right?

For those Apple fans out there - Apple After Steve Jobs

Many of us, iOS developers (full time or indie ones like me) are first and foremost Apple product lovers and Apple followers. If you are like me, when Steve Jobs passed away, you we're in a state of shock. But now, as time goes by, we start to look forward again. And we continue to love Apple's products and Apple in general. A few weeks ago, I started a new blog. A place where I can express myself on Apple After Steve Jobs. Today, I'm happy to report that this place is now open to you all, dear followers.

http://appleafterstevejobs.com

Come. Follow. Participate. 

Enjoy.

Çingleton 2011 Symposium - a brief summary

Last weekend, the Çingleton 2011 Symposium was held in Montréal for the first time. This two day event was very enlightening and refreshing. It was about mobile application development and general trend in that field.

I attended this symposium and here is a brief summary of things that I've heard at the event.

First, the most striking thing is that as iOS developers with ideas and a desire to push limits of mobile applications, we are all part of something really big that is going on since 2007. Nobody knows if we are at the tipping point yet. It is clear that things we do now with our mobile devices is very different from things we will do in five or ten years from now. Nobody really knows.

Second, Apple legacy will be felt for a long time even after Steve Jobs passing away. What Apple does is provide users with great products and great user experience with them. And to achieve this, they are not afraid to take risks and try new things. We should too, as iOS developers do the same thing. Think design, think about the users, think about the experience should all be driving our development efforts.

Third, we should feel grateful just to be in the middle on all these technical advances and be able to make a difference. Even small ones.

Here is a few things that I've have heard on the floor at the event:

• Applications discovery is still a major problem for indie iOS developers. How do we get noticed in a 500 000 applications store?
• Android presence in the market is very real. Developers starts to think about the business value of porting iOS apps to the Android Market. Fragmentation is a real issue. More than 650 devices to test against. 
• The iPad potential in story telling application is way under utilized. A few good apps exists in that area but their cost of development make them rare beasts. 
• The analog world is more and more numerical. The use of natural user interaction models will help make the numeric nature of this world more approachable. 

Finally, here is a few photo sets from this event.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/sets/72157627919287660/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cingleton/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/foobar/6252403530/in/set-72157627786395573

Çingleton coverage to begin soon

The Çingleton Symposium is about to begin. Coverage will be posted here and over my twitter account for more up to the minute observations and remark. Stay tuned.

More info here: http://www.çingleton.com/

Booked for my first developer conference

On october 14-15, I will be attending my first developer conference in Montreal: The Çingleton Symposium. The cost is not cheap at $640 canadian for an indie developer like me but the list of speakers is awesome:

• John Gruber. Well, you know John Gruber, right? @gruber on Twitter.
• Craig Hockenberry. He is a software developer at Iconfactory, the makers of Astronut and Ramp Champ.
• Daniel Jalkut. Owner of Red Sweater Software, the company selling MarsEdit.
• Brent Simmons. Well known software developer working behind NetNewsWire and TapLinx to name just a few. Here is he blog. 
• Paul Kafasis. He is a product manager at Rogue Amoeba creating many audio oriented software for Mac OS X.

Why I decided to attend this conference? First, I wanted to hear the speakers on the challenges we face in the era of mobility and paradigm shifts that we are all facing these days. Second, I wanted be able to get closer to the developer community and maybe develop ties. Third, I wanted to use this opportunity conduct interviews with a few of the speakers as well as many attendees that are well known in the iOS development community.

I plan to blog about this event and post my impressions on Twitter during the two days event. 

I'm still alive... and well !

You know, it is summer time. As an indie iOS dev, I'm taking a time off. I'll be back soon.

Open for beta testing of your app

As I take a break from actively developing iOS apps I want to focus my attention of something else. One of the thing that I like to do is testing software. Great software. I've done it in the past for App Cooker, Grades 2.0 and a few others. So, if you are looking for serious help to test your iOS apps, I'm open to any request. Please not that I love www.testflightapp.com. (see review here: Building iPhone Apps: TestFlightApp: a complete review).

Great iOS development references

While surfing the web, I found out this wonderful list of resources for iOS developers. This list was built by Ari Braginsky (http://www.aribraginsky.com/).

• Index
• Developer blogs, general web sites, etc.
• Metrics, Analytics Tracking and Advertising
• Frameworks, APIs, Libraries, Templates, Engines, and Tools
• General articles of interest
• Memory management articles
• Review and review related sites
• Twitter users I'm following
• Development Books
• LinkedIn Groups
• Apple Information

Great place to look when starting in iOS development!

Two nice initiatives from other iOS devs

Recently, I came across two very nice and useful initiatives from two other iOS developers.

The first one comes from Mike Rundle. This guy is behind: http://www.flyosity.com. He is a software developer and interface designer. His web site is so nice and is quite fun to follow on twitter. This guy decided to create a very unique web site http://designthencode.com. The idea is very simple but sooo useful: how to turn from nice photoshopped user interfaces into the real thing: a running iOS apps. The first tutorial is still to come and I'm very anxious to have a look at it.

The second initiative comes from @robotcat (http://robocatapps.com), the guys behind the very nice weather app called Outside. They put up a blog in order to expose their tidbits about iOS app development. Their latest blog posts are about the birth of a new app called Thermo (very nice by the way) and also the latest version of Outside, version 1.2. Look for more at http://robokitten.tumblr.com/