TapLynx put to the test

We've been promoting how easy it is to use our iPhone Application framework - TapLynx - and how anyone can do it without writing any code. So I thought I might give it a try and see if the framework lives up to the promise.

I don't code but I can stumble my way around Photoshop, and there is a Mac laptop that we use for testing that already has Xcode on it. How hard can it be? As it turns out, its a bit more involved than our widget framework, but not by much.... oddly enough most of the difficulty comes from getting set up with Apple which was a bit of a surprise given how elegant their interfaces are.

So here's how it went-

1) Got my Apple account.
Any app developer needs to get an account as a registered Apple developer, and you'll need to join the iPhone developer program for $99/yr (standard program will do). If you sign up as an individual, signup is immediate, and you'll be accepted into the program as soon as your credit card clears. If you are a company, there are forms to fill out, you need proof of your business, and if you get stuck you'll be dialing an 800 number in Scotland. It takes a few weeks.

2) Got a copy of the TapLynx SDK. Free download, easy.

3) Made an app & built it.
For those of you who are ventureing into Xcode for the first time (like I did), there is a getting started guide on the NewsGator wiki. All I did was to follow the 'getting started' section to get set up, then followed the instructions in this aptly named doc "Where to get RSS content from your favorite sources", which helped me grab some RSS feeds from my blog, youtube, twitter, picasa accounts and threw them together into the configuration file. It was surprisingly easy. Then spent some time in Photoshop making a splash screen, icons, and built the app. I felt quite proud of my 45 minute investment thus far.

4) Loaded it on the iPhone
This is where I had to pay a little more attention. Apple makes it easy for you to get your app running in the simulator, and even to load the app onto a device that is teathered to your computer. When you'd like send the app to someone so they can also try it out - its called an 'ad-hoc build' and it takes several steps, but these steps are very well laid out in the iPhone developer portal.

4a - create your development provisioning profile (login)
4b - register the UDIDs (login) for any external iPhone/iTouch you want to send your application to (or skip this if you're only going to load onto a tethered device)
4c - Finally, follow the directions for creating an 'ad-hoc' distribution

So i'm now a few hours into my app (I re-did my splash screen & icon again) and i've managed to spit out a zip file with my app and a mobileprovision file that I can send to my friends and neighbors to graciously offered to look at the Frankenstein I created. After some quick feedback from them, (most said "keep your day job") I was ready to upload my app to Apple.

5. Uploaded to Apple
This process is pretty straightforward, quite frankly it was more effort to put together an ad-hoc distribution than it was to upload to Apple. But there were a few gotchas I ran into regarding having the right icon sizes & screenshots - see this doc on iPhone graphicsfor more detail on what Apple needs to accept your app.

Then I waited. Apple says that 95% of all apps are accepted within 14 days. That's a pretty safe timeframe for planning purposes but it seemed to take forever. Secretly i'm kind of glad that it takes 14 days to approve for a few reasons:

1) I'll never have to do it again. The configuration file that I filled out that determines look/feel/content in the app lives online. I can make as many changes as i'd like without having to re-upload my app. That alone is worth the price of admission in my book.

2) the longer it takes other apps to get in, the more chance I have to get noticed amongst the other apps already in there. :)

When Apple says your app is "in Review" there is nothing you can do but wait. There is no visibility into the process, which may be by design, but is likely because they are slammed & don't have time to get into a discussion with developers about their apps. Decisions are swift and App store selections are binary. You either get in or you don't. If your app gets rejected, you start over at the back of the line. So having all the flexibility of changing whatever I want whenever I want is pretty nice.

All in all, the process of building the app was fun. It was really easy - and I'm happy to report that the framework does live up to its promises. I didn't write a stitch of code, and it was quick to put together. Brent did a fantastic job.

Want to check it out? Follow this link to download the app to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Let me know what you think!

Mobile = Web 1.0 (all over again?)

The Software Business Online conference was last week in San Diego (Software Business Online - Sept 29, 2009) - I had the honor of presenting NewsGator's iPhone Framework, TapLynx, to a few hundred entrepreneurs, vcs & business development folks. The title of the presentation was actually "How Branded iPhone Applications Can Increase Your Audience Size and Produce Revenue", or "Why you should take a closer look at TapLynx" for short :).

One of the core points I was trying to make in the presentation is that the current mobile market is facing a lot of the same market dynamics that we saw 15 years ago when the web was getting started: there are/were lots of devices getting online (data plans on phones are relatively new), technology getting simpler (anyone remember trying to establish a PPP connection on a dial up modem?), and ultimately every company needed a website, much like the rampant demand for mobile applications now. Last May there were 35,000 apps in the app store, now five months later, there are 85,000. We can only hope to continue on the same trajectory.

2009 Software Business San Diego - Walker Fenton

View more presentations from Walker Fenton.

Original Twitter-ers: Church marquees

Every digital innovation has an analog predecessor. Newspapers gave birth to radio, TV and the web, digital photography has replaced traditional film, snail mail has given way to e-mail & SMS, etc. Most of what we figure out in the digital world is an evolution or modification of an analog equivalent. No secret there.

Twitter also has a few analog parents but one stands out- they both consist of short messages that are used to make a statement, share news or attract attention, and whether you read them or not is based on being at the right place at the right time. The original twitter-ers/tweeters are Church marquees.

Let's start with the obvious. They are short form content. Twitter is 140 chars, Church marquees are limited only by the space on the sign and the size of the plastic letters.

They are both better served by attracting 'followers'. More twitter followers means more audience with which to share your wisdom/humor/self absorbed musings. More church followers means more people to absorb religious doctrines and fill the collection tray. Neither is better off in a vacuum.

They both use obscure shortcuts to 'link' to other content. Twitter-ers use URL shortners to point to referenced content. Church marquees use chapter & verse notation to point to specifc passages.

Whether or not you read the messaging depends on being at the right place at the right time. Depending on the number of people you follow on twitter and how active they are in a particular day, you may or may not see something that was tweeted because of the noise. Likewise with a Church marquee, you may or may not notice the marquee when you drive by...

With both, success depends on the quality of the lead. You will either pique someone's interest or you won't. Like any product slogan or tagline, there is an art in being able to communicate exactly what you want within a limited amount of space, and since there isn't really a way to do A/B testing in either medium, you'd better get it right, lest you'd prefer to tweet or preach into the ethereal, eternal bit bucket :)

Fun with Google Voice

I got my Google Voice invite today, a mostly free service that gives me a new phone number and allows me to route calls to a variety of places- home/work/mobile/etc. Not one to turn down a beta invite, I signed up. First step, pick a new phone number. No pressure, right? You'll likely have this number for the rest of your life, so just pick one. Sure, I want it to be memorable. I would like it to be unique. I don't want it to spell something stupid like 'asshat'. I would like it to be in my home state so others aren't making long distance calls. Good thing Google has a way to search for the numbers that are available, right?. 30 minutes later i'm not that close to picking a number, but I found some good ones.

I started with what I thought were interesting number combinations, like searching for numbers with 6 zeros in them. Those are hard to come by, but I did find one from Delphi, In:

(765) 201-0101
I figured the area code was memorable as its sequential, as for the rest of the number, you only really have to remember its a '2' followed by lots of '01's. Cool, somewhat memorable, but I wanted to keep looking.

I then tried a bunch of random words/phrases:

(530) 426-2382
(530) IAM-BETA
Soda Springs, CA

(774) 264-8474
(774) ANG-UISH
Westport, MA

(920) 474-6635
(920) IPH-ONE5
Mapleton, WI

and then tried to get clever:

(707) 469-3277
(707) 4MY-EARS
Vacaville, CA

(530) 435-5663
(530) HEL-LOME
Gazelle, CA

and finally circling the drain:

(540) 748-8887
(540) SHU-TUUP
Louisa, VA

(775) 863-8669
(775) UNF-UNNY
Duckwater, NV

Ultimately I chose to go with the obvious. Its not my area code, I figure its a number that people will use to find me wherever I am - and hey - if they are in Verona, NJ, it will be a local call.

(973) 433-6866
(973) 4FE-NTON

Try it out - call or send me a text. Let's see how Google Voice works.

2009 Colorado Hajj

Started innocent enough. Then came the weather. Seth Levine has a great write up of the adventure here, and here's the vid: