I am writing this post hours before Apple’s big announcement, and it seems that the rumor mills are finally slowing down. We can expect a new Apple TV (will it support Apps??), and the iPad HD. Things will be faster, higher resolution, and more RAM. From a developer perspective I think the most important aspect is the RAM. Yes the speed and resolution will also enable us to make more complex apps, but the RAM means we have a bigger playground for our code. I will post a more detailed reaction to the event later today…
Security and your Mobile App
There’s an interesting perspective when it comes to mobile apps, people writing games don’t necessarily think about security. Enterprise app developers must consider security in their apps. And if you are developing social apps, security is even more important, there is no faster way to kill a social platform than to violate your users trust and security (unless your name is Facebook).
If you are writing a game, do your players care that they can get in and hack your high scores? Probably not if it is a stand alone game, but if it has leader boards and multiplayer, you don’t want to allow this… it will ruin the game play and lose you gamers.
How do you handle security?
Windshield Time
Years ago I worked for an experienced data processing manager. The fact that the job was in data processing should indicate the I am now an experienced IT professional. My manager would come up with these complex development problems and never give me time to actually think about how to come up with solutions. After months of getting more of these problems and not having time to actually come up with creative solutions, I snapped. I approached my manager and said how do you think I can come up with the right solutions if you never give me time to think through the problems.
This is when he explained to me that I had plenty of time to work on these problems, my one way commute was over 45 minutes on a good day. I should use this “windshield time” to think thru the problems. I realized he was right and suddenly found I had almost 2 hours a day of just think time.
Now a days many of us work on our apps at home, nights and weekends, when is our windshield time?
Sustain a bull – Apps?
Was grabbing my daily coffee at my favorite coffee shop BeanTraders, and saw a pamphlet on the counter for the “Sustain a Bull” program. David and Christy, the owners, have evidently joined this program to help support local businesses. (For more information go check out their website at Sustain a Bull.
This got me thinking, are app develops a local business? Let me suggest that they are… Here are my thoughts:
- Most developers are small teams
- small teams tend to be co-located
- Revenue from apps comes to the local community
Yes, these are over generalization, but getting started to develop apps is not hard all you need is a pc or a Mac, and a device to test on. There are many online free and cheap tools to help you get started. And the 70% of the revenue goes directly to the developer, at least on the apple app store.
I will think this out even more and post more soon.
The Gauntlet has been thrown
Ok, not sure why today is asking for more than one post, but TechCrunch has thrown down the glove! They are challenging our east coast startups – here .
It’s posts like this that showcase the problem that we here at triangleappshow are trying to address. While we love techcrunch and their all things tech and startup focus, we believe that the east coast deserves the love. Not all startups are in SF. Even they admit it, but for some reason the East Coast startups are a bit quiet. We don’t think that is really the case, but because of the massive juggernaught that is the podcasting and videocasting community in California, east coast startups don’t get the love.
Make your voice heard!
The Smoffice Competition
Was digging thru my feeds this morning on all things RTP, and saw this great article about a new competition. Go check out SMOffice where they are running a contest for any Startup who wants to get started in Durham, NC. You get the world’s smallest office for 6 months free and a free condominium for 6 months too, just a short 10 minute walk from your new Smoffice.
I love this idea, they are giving away a 20 square foot office inside of a really great little hangout on Main Street in Durham. You will be minutes away from over 70 other startups, and the world famous Durham Bull’s Stadium, where you can check out some great baseball games. Also, within minutes you can walk to Duram’s new DPAC and DAC venues for great national and local performers. What more could you ask for?
How about access to venture capital, and an incredible community of local App Developers? I will be following this contest closely.
Apps are your personal engagement with customers
I used to be a “Webmaster” on a few different websites, back in the early internet days. I designed and posted the website for a light opera group I sang with in Atlanta. Back then, the fact that we had two columns with a menu on the left, and scrolling content on the right, was pretty impressive. I hand coded every page, and learned a lot about html. A few years later, a bunch of tools came out that made it so “anyone” could design a website. Note it doesn’t say code a website. I took my well made, hand coded website and imported it into a tool. (The name of tool doesn’t matter, just realize that it was a popular name brand tool). The site went from about 2mb of total content, to about 40mb of content. This was when 99% of all websites were accessed via modems. The tool had built a set of standard templates and took my carefully managed images, duplicating them across directories and pages. This made it “easy” for the tool, but ruined the site for people visiting it.
I personally worry that with the mad rush to get applications on mobile devices, many companies will opt for the easy path. And as such we will see a backlash against the platform because of cookie cutter, bloated apps. Companies need to see the value of the mobile platform as an extension of their brand into a very personal setting. You don’t tend to take your laptop with you to bed, or to the bathroom, do you? But you do read and play games on your tablet or phone in both of those environments.
People carry their phone with them in a very personal way…don’t you want your app to be personally engaging?
Are app factories worth your time?
I was listening to a story on the news the other day, and at the end the section was sponsored by a local app factory. This got me thinking. How much value do companies get out of app factories? Are they really just delaying the time when their developers need to get up to speed on app development?
Is this just the same pattern of the mid ’90s when companies said, we need a website, and so they outsourced it. Only to realize that they got a cookie cutter website?
Local App Spotlight – Downcast
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Probably way too many podcasts. When I am traveling on business, I tend to blow thru my iPad data plan in a week. Additionally, AT&T recently informed me that I am in the top 1% of data plan users of my unlimited iPhone data plan. In order to keep up with all these podcasts, I discovered a wonderful podcatcher app a while back, <a href=”http://downcastapp.com/”>Downcast</A>. Last summer I reached out to tell the makers of this app that I had seen them pop up multiple times on iPad today and various other TWiT podcasts. I found out that the developer was local! What a great surprise. I had a chance to meet him at the Durham Public LIbrary and try to put together the a draft episode of the Triangle App Show podcast. Unfortunately, I didn’t have good microphones and so that episode may never be shown. It sounded pretty bad.
Well Seth McFarland (the developer of Downcast), did some major upgrades in late fall/early winter, which makes Downcast an even more powerful podcatcher. When Apple introduced iCloud many app developers were trying to figure out how to leverage this cloud based storage. Seth enabled synchronization of your podcasts, playlists, and the position of play across your iPhone and iPad. This has only improved my podcast listening habit. Great Job Seth!
If you have a favorite app developed by a local developer, why don’t you drop us a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Is the Triangle really an App Hotbed?
I was reviewing a study that I heard Leo Laporte talk about on MacBreak weekly, that claims that the App Economy has created 466,000 jobs in the last few years. The article can be found on cNet. I downloaded the report from TechWeb and saw this graphic – 
.
According to this study North Carolina doesn’t even rate in the top 10! Come on app developers.. make your voice heard!