Should you start that business/app/product?

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So, for me people like me, the following scenario happens a lot.  You get a good idea and you imagine it would be fun and everyone would love it.  The question is whether you should turn it into a start-up or at a least a serious hobby.  I mean, geez, the idea is awesome and you’d be crazy not to work on it, right?  So, should I work on this new product/business/app idea?

I like to ask myself a couple of things:

  1. Why me?
  2. Will people pay for it?

Why me?

Are you the right person to do this?  Do you know anything about it?  Can you reasonable compete in the field if other people, presumably better suited to the project, enter, too?  If so, then fine, please continue.  However, nine times out of ten, switching to a whole new industry is a bad time to also launch a new start-up or product in that industry.

 

Will people pay for it?

This one is easy to overlook.  There is very little more important than figuring out if people will really part with their money for your product.  Sometimes, those potential should part with their more. They might be well served to do so.  They might be happier and wealthier if they do so.  But unless you are really certain that they’ll buy your product, then don’t waste your time and money building and testing the product only to find out too late that people won’t actually pay for it.

Join team Rave for the DARPA tag challenge

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DARPA is at it again with their Tag Challenge. My buddie and I worked at their last one. They distributed balloons randomly throughout the country. We had a good strategy, trying the enlist people what travelled the country and could spot balloons, like truckers. The problem was that the balloons where really only in city centers, so MIT’s social network found them first. Check out our new team here.

Announcing WordPress Plugin: Elegant Tweets

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I recently starting working on making my own WordPress plugins. The twitter feeds you see on this site are a result of that – I creatively call it Elegant Tweets. When I starting working on Ascendly, I wanted to make further use of plugins, so as practice, I tried to polish up my first plugin and share it with everyone. Although I want to add more features, it does work as-in, and does not have any known bugs, so enjoy.

This plugin allows you to configure the tweet stream the way you want it. Specifically, it creates a widget for use in your themes that will display zero or more tweet feeds. You can, for example, add your own Twitter username, but, more uniquely, you can also have certain Twitter feeds show based upon the categories assigned to the current page being viewed.

Motivation: I developed this plugin because I occasionally make apps for the mobile phones. Some of my apps have their own Twitter account to announce things like updates. I wanted visitors to my website see my primary feed (@jjrohrer), but to also see the feeds for the apps, but only if they were on pages related to those apps. Now, my posts that relate to a certain app are assigned to a category related to that app. So, when a user views a page, they will see several Twitter streams depending upon which categories are in view.

 

Technical: Hacking Dashcode to Programmatically Change Deployment Directory

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I like Apple’s Dashcode more than I should.  It is a powerful Webapp creator that is a bit under-supported.  I don’t think it gets the love, or the hacker support, that it deservers.  So, I find myself trying to make it do stuff it wasn’t originally designed for.  Recently, I’ve been using it to create skins for some non-iOS mobile apps.  As part of a budding workflow, I wrote a script to copy an existing Dashcode project and have it ready for the new project, including published to the right (read – ‘new’) location instead of the old location associated with the previous project.  Well, the challenge, is that Dashcode has the concept of a “Deployment Directory” that should point to my new workspace, not my old workspace.  This article describes how to programmatically change the “Deployment Directory”

So, how can we script a solution for this?

Although Dashcode project looks like a single executable file, it is actually a Finder package with lots of stuff inside.  The trick is looking to see if the deployment path is stored in something we can mess with. It turns out the value is stored in jj.wdgtuser (my user name is jj).  Sweet!

The good news is that is stored in the .xml file – that is also the bad news.  Apple’s xml formats always sort of sucks, so getting to our variable isn’t super easy, unless you think predicate XPATH programming is super easy.

Inside a Dashcode Project

Here are the general steps I used to accomplish scripting the deployment path:

  • Ensure Dashcode is not running
  • Find the current username so you open the right .wdgtuser file.
  • Use XPATH
    • find the dict element whose previous sibling is a key element with a value of ‘DeploymentOptions‘
  • Given the above context, use XPATH to
    • find the string element whose previous sibling is a key element with a value of ‘Path’

 

The hard part here, of course, is finagling XPATH.  Here is the PHP code I used, but you’ll need to modify it for your own means:


$plistPath = baseDir($target)."/skins/{$skinName}.dcproj/jj.wdgtuser";

$xml = simplexml_load_file($plistPath);

$result = $xml->xpath("//dict/dict/string[preceding-sibling::key[1][node()='Path']]/node()");

$result[0][0] = $newDeploymentPath;

 

 

$xml->asXML($plistPath);

Here is a stab at explaining the XPATH above:

 

Hope this helps some other poor soul that wanders into the wilderness of Dashcode hacking.

New Apple Submission Guidelines and the Independent App Producer

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Recently, Apple posted, for the first time, app store submission guidelines. They are pretty specific, informative, and useful. Apple has been fairly opaque, in the past, regarding what would get your app rejected, so independent developers and producers, like myself, always lived at risk as to whether or not their new app idea would be summarily rejected. The new guidelines increase transparency and should help lower the Apple-related risks involved in creating new apps.

Ever since Apple introduced the App Store for their iPhone, there have been stories of apps being rejected. In the beginning, shunned developers would post their rejection letters on the Internet, and we would all commiserate and learn from each other’s experiences. Later, these rejection letters themselves were put under NDA, so the specific reasons for rejection became even murkier, and the fear factor rose. Some rejections clearly violated the developer terms and conditions, so there wasn’t much sympathy going around. Other rejections were genuinely surprising, and sometimes, even nuanced. These were scary. Every developer had to judge for themselves whether the time and money was going to be summarily flushed into the bit bucket. I noticed that my clients, even when developing innocuous apps, were concerned about the Apple risk.

So, to protect my apps and my clients, I have spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of years tracking the news sites, talking to fellow developers, and just generally keeping a finger on the pulse of the shifting rejections winds. I don’t think this will still be necessary…at least not to the same degree. For the first time, we have a document to read, and it is readable by actual humans, too. This frees up my time and lowers the risk of rejection. Largely now, I believe, rejected apps will be from software bugs, honest mistakes, and willful belligerence, but not random fate.

Some rules are funny:

  • “Apps that include games of Russian roulette will be rejected”

    This was a problem?

  • “Apps that use location-based APIs for automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other devices will be rejected.”  My imagination flows with what could have been.

    "The pilot just died - does anyone know how to land a plane?" - "They made an app for that, but it got rejected."

Apple is a funny company. They have a history, mostly pre-iPhone, of being slightly indifferent towards their development community. This reputation has carried over into the iPhone age, largely because of the overwhelming influx of new developers to the Mac platform. However, in my experience, it is largely undeserved. I see them making missteps, like when the original SDK was under a tight NDA gag-rule that forbade developers from talking to each other unless they worked in the same company, and the long lack of specific app submission guidelines. So far, though, they have always, even if very belatedly, addressed those missteps. The gag rule was lifted. The submission guidelines were eventually posted. This impresses me. Their reputation should be modified to: “Will do bonehead things to developers in the short run, but the right thing in the long run, and will always try to protect the end-user.” It could be worse. The company’s DNA seems good, which for Independent Developers and Producers, makes the iPhone and iPad good platforms to invest in.

Must reads for Independent App Producers:
* Apple App Submission Guidelines (Requires Developer Account)
* PR Press Release
* HI Guidelines

Post-Mortem from Upgrading my Website -or- Planning for the Long

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I recently upgraded this website. This post is about how well things went, and how this might apply to independent application developers. I had set up the products pages of my original site using Joomla, but I later added a blog to the site, which I powered using WordPress. The product pages highlight the apps that I’ve developed. As time continued, I realized that the schizophrenic origins of my site, having some parts powered by Joomla, while others were powered by WordPress, made some basic things, like tracking usage, ridiculously difficult. So, I’ve finally united the two sides of the site into a single WordPress backed site. Some aspects of the upgrade went well, like unifying on WordPress and making lists of existing urls for easy testing; other things, like forgetting certain urls, could have gone better.

Old Joomla Site

What went well

When I published the original site, mostly in Joomla, I knew that I might upgrade to a different Content Management System (CMS) at some point, and so I tried to plan ahead for that eventuality. It really paid off. The problem with changing CMSs is that the different systems represent their pages using different URL schemes. I, of course, wanted search engine results to still work after I upgraded to the new software because search engine rankings are always hard won and are important to marketing efforts, so I wanted the URLs to stay constant. I did that by using permalinks for each product page, like ‘/aboutwalletzero’ for the Wallet Zero product page, instead of Joomla’s default scheme that looks something like ‘/page.php?id=234’. So, when I moved to WordPress and when I had to recreate a Wallet Zero product page, I simple gave it an identical permalink url, instead of sticking with the WordPress’s default scheme, which looks something like ‘/page.php?page=123’. Now, search engines and anyone that has bookmarked a page, will see the right results because the url ‘aboutwalletzero’ that went to the product page on Joomla also goes to the product page on WordPress.

New WordPress based site

For mobile browsers, I used the WordPress plugin iqTouch (???). This tool pretty much automatically made the site nicely available for iPhones and other mobile devices by reformatting the look and feel appropriately for such a small screen. I had to do a little tweaking, but it was still quite easy. Plugins like this make my heart sing with glee. It would have taken Herculean efforts to make my old set-up mobile friendly. I had experimented with the neat mobify.mo (???), which isn’t a WordPress plugin, but will handle any website by doing the reformatting on their own servers. Mobify.mo is a good service that offers a lot of flexibility for the non-WordPress site, but iqTouch is working better for me. I can now mention my site at conferences and feel happy if an attendee looks at my site right then and there on their mobile phone.

Mobile Web Version

What could have gone better?

I forgot to create a list of urls from my old blog, and also forgot to put in re-directs from old blog posts on the old WordPress to new blog posts on the new WordPress. I was so focused upon the Joomla product pages that I forgot about the blog pages. I eventually remembered to fix it, but it was an embarrassing oversight.

I mainly wish I had made the upgrade sooner. All in all, it probably took several days of effort to upgrade the site, but I could have easily made the change happen a long time ago. It is the type of activity that usually doesn’t require your undivided attention, so you can accomplish most of the work when you need a short break from other projects, say, over your lunch break, or sitting on the couch during family reading time. It is hard to justify putting off upgrades that improve your brand and give your venture increased capabilities, like using the mobile plugin and visitor tracking.

Site wide visitor tracking

Implications for Independent Application Producers

Now, none of these observations are unique or insightful, but it underscores the importance, I think, for planning ahead for structural changes. For example, let us say you have developed several apps that are all listed under your company name, but if you hope to re-sell the app to another company, say, to eBay, then you need to know whether or not Apple will let you transfer the rights from a single app to another company. Technically, how would that work? Perhaps it would be smarter to list each of your apps under different accounts in order to facilitate the transfer. You need to plan ahead for these structural changes. Maybe your apps talk to your servers? Do they use a common domain name, or do they each have their own domain that could be transferred to a separate company? How about the name of your app? It might be available in the Apple app store, but what about for Blackberry and Android? If you ever want to branch out to those devices, you had better plan ahead.

Summary

The upgrade went well enough and I got a nice new look with a unified infrastructure. Planning ahead for these upgrades was the real key to success, but next time I’ll try to do a better job of remembering to track all of the urls that need to move. Planning ahead for infrastructure upgrades is also an important concept for independent application producers, for both technical changes, such as changing SDKs, and for business changes, like selling an app to another company. I just wish that I made the these changes sooner.

Open App Market is a Potential New Distribution Channel

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I’m quite interested in learning the impact of different distribution channels on the bottom line.  Elegant Words was my first Web App and was a staff pick by Apple.  Since it was listed in the Apple directory, I’ve been continually impressed by the number of users funneled through there versus organic discovery.

openappmkt.com is a new distribution channel for webapps on iPhone. 30 minutes to push Elegant Words as test. http://bit.ly/ewOnOpenAppMktThu Aug 19 14:11:24 via webJ.J. Rohrer
jjrohrer

We’ll see what happens here. The screen shots below got a little messed up, not sure why.

Oh, I need to add another 15 mins for this write up.

Elegant Words WebApp on Open App Market (Desktop View)

Elegant Words Listing from Phone

Elegant Words as Web App on Phone. Note to self: Fill blank spot on bottom

The Best Thing About iOS4 is, Wait For It… Folders

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Screenshot Front

My New Front Screen

The iPhone 4 comes out on Thursday, and a few lucky folks have already gotten theirs. As a developer, I’ve been using the upgraded iOS4 operating system for a few weeks now (but I’m still waiting for my iPhone 4 to ship) and Apple is now allowing official reviews. So here is the only thing you need to know. The most useful feature of the new operating system is the addition of Folders. This is the one features that has impacted my day-to-day usage the most.

Now, I know everyone is excited about multi-tasking, which is cool. I added it to PowerNap and Nightlight, and am working on Time-to-Read, Meeting Timer, and Time-to-Eat, since they all have timers in them. I’m just added the first round of Retina-display graphics to Wallet Zero and added iAds to start recuperating some of my investment in that app. But, these features in my apps, and others, are not really that big of deal, compared to Folders. Those other features are simply nice improvements, but Folders have dramatically improved my daily iPhone experience.

Folders do a great job of letting me get to my apps and data faster. I can now put every app I need on the first three pages, making most of them about two away, or, at most, two taps and two swipes. That isn’t bad. Since I group apps by activity, like news sites that I read regularly, then they are typically only one tap away as I switch from one app in the group onto the next app. It is good enough that I now prefer reading on my iPhone over reading on my iPad, simply because my iPad is tending to get a little cluttered.

Folders also makes it way easier to share my phone with kids. My seven year old son hoards games, which tends to scatter icons over several screens, but I can now tell him, “These last three screens are yours, the rest are mine,” and have it work out fairly well.

iPhone screenshot

Lots of games

So, what does this mean for the independent application publisher? This brings into focus the concept of app refinement. For apps, the devil is in the details, and little refinements that impact workflow create a big payoff in user experience. From a technology perspective, folders just are not that big of a deal, but it makes everyday tasks, like finding my app, more pleasant, more refined. Your app might have the coolest technology in the world, but those ‘hard-to-do’ things are not necessarily the most important. So pay attention to how people use your app and focus on adding refinements that improve their user experience. Sometimes the biggest payoffs are the easiest to do.

Behavioral Finance for Software Developers and App Publishers

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The Old Schoolhouse

I recently had my 10 year business school reunion. Being the business nerds we are, we had additional classes. Here are some thoughts from one of those:

Behavior Finance by Professor Malcolm Baker

From the session summary:
“At the foundation of finance theory is the idea that investors and managers act rationally… behavioral finance proposes a broader role for social, cognitive, and emotional biases”

Think of it as a bridge between psychology and economics. Economists, basically, work to find the underlying models that best describe how we make decisions in our lives. They don’t believe that we actually do complex math when deciding whether to buy the Tall vs. Grande, but they say, that on average, we all behave as if we were actually doing the the math. Do you wake up and think about your “Expected Utility”? You act like it. Psychologists focus more upon the times when individual act against their best interests. In other words, when their emotions or biases make them behave against the economists model. The press likes to point out the gap between the economists and psychologists, but it isn’t as wide as they paint.

One Hour Crash Course on Behavior Finance

… Read More

Why I’ll Replace My MacBook Pro with a Desktop Because of the iPad

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picture of mac pro

Power-house

My 2.0G 15″ Macbook Pro is getting a little long in the tooth. I went to the Apple store yesterday to replace an unexpected failure in the external Mag-Safe power supply. I’m now on my fourth power supply – yikes. It wasn’t covered by AppleCare – the guy behind the counter pitifully reminded me that my laptop was now over four years old. That’s at least 28 years old in computer-hardware years, and in dog-years. So it is probably time to upgrade. But I don’t think I’ll replace this laptop with another – I’ll get a desktop instead. Unlike times past, the arrival of the iPad releases me from the laptop upgrade cycle.

Happily, unlike in my old Windows days, my computer isn’t slowing-down, per se, but I’m asking a lot more of it than I used to ask. I’m doing a lot of cross device smartphone development lately, which involves running multiple simulators – tough work for any computer, let alone a laptop. The recent upgrade to Snow Leopard breathed new life into my old beast. Also, my recent upgrade to a SSD hard-drive helped, too. But my hard limit of 2Gig of RAM is killing me.

I’ve written about how my iPad is proving to be a fairly useful portable computer. I find myself writing blog posts, catching up on reading long articles using Instapaper, and writing presentations and business plans using Keynote. I can even do some emergency SSH’ing to manage basic server maintenance. I plan to eventually do app requirements development and wireframe moch-ups, too, once I get around to building those apps.

So the thing is, even good laptops don’t perform as well as good desktops. I’m realizing that my next computer might last a long time, longer than I’m used to in the Windows world. My single biggest desire, other than more horsepower, is a large screen with letters big enough to let me avoid reading glasses. I also know, from experience, that a very high quality monitor can last many, many years. So my need for an upgraded laptop just isn’t too pressing. My old laptop will probably serve my increasing occasional heavy-usage mobile needs. My iPad will probably serve my lite-usage mobile needs. My new desktop will likely serve my big screen and big cpu needs. My spectrum of needs (I’m needy), will get met.
iPad
I’ve been relying upon laptops since I got a Dell Latitude in 1998. I just need to last the two years of business school. That is about how long it lasted, too. The thought of moving away from laptop-land is weird. Scary. Exciting. Visions of three 30″, side-by-side, monitors are dancing through my head. Home office utopia might be near. Ahh, peace is settling across my being.

Good bye laptop upgrade cycle. Thank you, iPad.

iPad vs. Jesus: Healing the Blind and the Silver Market

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[Guest Post by my father-in-law, William Haueisen, PhD., CEO of Sterling Research Group (SRG). William agreed to share his recent experience with the iPad touching the older generation that has been sadly overlooked by recently technology innovations. That older generation is rapidly growing and sometimes referred to as the silver-market because of their under-addressed needs and under-tapped purchasing power.

About SRG: SRG designs and executes high-quality, and high-volume, customer satisfaction surveys.]

Gavin and Maddie’s great grandmother, aged 86, has suffered from macular degeneration for a decade. In earlier times she was an avid reader, sometimes with multiple books “under process” at the same time. But the macular degeneration has robbed her of any ability to read. She “reads” now only by sitting under a bright light and holding a fairly strong magnifying glass. That is until a week or two ago.

Great Grandmom lives in a retirement center so meals are always a big social time. Recently she’s been hearing her friends talk about Kindles. And while she hadn’t actually seen one, she had a feeling that it might be something that could help her read again. So we took her on a shopping trip, first to Best Buy to look at Kindles. They were interesting and she was fascinated with the idea of the thing, but unfortunately, even with the text enlarged to its maximum, she couldn’t read from a Kindle except with the ubiquitous magnifying glass. Part of the problem was the lack of contrast. But, even though it didn’t help her, she sure liked the basic idea of the thing.
photo.PNG

Next we took her to Barnes and Noble to see a Nook. No dice, not enough real estate, and otherwise the same problem with lack of contrast.

… Read More

The Killer App for the iPad is, wait for it…, Writing.

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The killer app for X. Everyone always wants to know, when a new widget is built, what it really does well. Often, it seems, it isn’t what was advertised. The killer app for the iPhone was suppose to be, according to Jobs, Making-Phone-Calls, with a heavy emphasis visual voice mail. The killer app for the personal computer, for those of us that can remember back that far, was supposed to be Cooking-Recipes (OMG!). The killer app for the iPad, again, according to Jobs, is Media-Consumption. All wrong.

The iPhone, although it needs to make phone calls, is only so-so good at it – but it is great for always-within-arms-reach-apps. Granted, there are lots of other uses for it, like games, web surfing, etc, but the Unique thing about the iPhone (and other smart phones) is that it is a little computer that you carry in your pocket that is connected to the Internet – and it does it Good-Enough(tm). I used to carry a Palm Treo 650 – which was also in your pocket and connected, but not it didn’t quite do it good-enough. It arguably did it better than others, but key functionality was really crippled if you weren’t employed by a company that could afford the Good e-mail back-end server. The Good software made the Treo very Blackberry-like. Apps were relatively difficult to install – more difficult than for a normal PC. The killer app for the Treo was the e-mail. Same thing for Blackberries. Maybe the twist for the iPhone is the ease of app installation and their security – you really can’t screw up your phone by downloading hack-apps. You could screw up your Treo, and you can still screw-up your Android phones.

So, what does the iPad do that is unique and awesome. Sure, you can read books. Sure, you get most of the benefits of the iPhone. But that isn’t unique. Browsing the web while I lounge in the living room, without having to fumble with a a mouse is truly awesome. Watching Netflix and ABC is, without a doubt, a game changer for media consumption. The Wall Street Journal app is within spitting distance of demonstrating how newspapers will survive. But, those are all, oh, how to say it, too obvious. However, when I attach my Bluetooth keyboard to my iPad, I roam to where there are no distractions, and write like I haven’t written in years (though, still, badly).

My desktop, for me, is for programming, and spreadsheets, and sort of serious endeavors. Writing, for me, is one of those things that is important to do, but never urgent. How could I ever justify writing? If I’m sitting at my computer, how can I allow myself to write when I should be programming? Well, nobody programs directly on the iPad. Nobody does serious spreadsheet work on the iPad. You get the idea. But an iPad with an external keyboard provides a wonderful, portable, low-distraction, writing environment.

I’m drafting this post at my kitchen table. I probably won’t add the links and pictures until I get back to my desktop, because rapid switching between programs, image uploads, etc., are a bit of a pain on the iPad – which is great – because I should be writing, not cropping images! The value is in the content, and thought, not the links and eye candy.

My 1st grade son and I have a semi-regular routine of going to a coffee shop, before his school starts, and we both write. Frankly, grabbing my laptop, the mouse, maybe the power supply, ejecting the external drive, grabbing the backpack, is just a bit too painful. Grabbing the iPad and keyboard, is cake. Not much bigger than my son’s composition notebook. I can grasp those two with one hand. He gets a the good influence of seeing a parent write. I get good writing time and good quality time. He gets to practice his writing and gets to see that an otherwise dull homework activity can be spiced up by just changing locations. We wrap-up by reading our creations to each other. His are more interesting.

iPad Annoyances

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I’ve been using the iPad since day one, and I thought I would categorize some things that I still find annoying about the iPad. Consider this a Dear-Apple letter for things they should refine.

1) The brightness controls are not calibrated for dark rooms. I often read my iPad in bed, at night, but the screen is simply way too bright. It is bright enough that a bed partner will need to turn away from it so that they can sleep. So, every night, I go into Settings and lower the brightness to its darkest setting. The next morning, I reverse the process. This is not ok.

2) The iPad has a bad habit of doing an unwanted screen orientation rotation when it is moved from vertical to flat. Flat, like, flat onto my lap or table top. The is really never the desired behavior, because hey! – I was looking at that!

3) The wireless-keyboard connection is way too sticky. As I write this, I’m sitting at my kitchen table with my iPad and bluetooth keyboard. Its great. If I were move to the couch to surf the web, I wouldn’t want to use my keyboard anymore that is still sitting in the kitchen. However, the iPad stubbornly refuses to bring up the on-screen keyboard until I go into settings and disable bluetooth. I would really like to just hit a button on the keyboard to disconnect it, like, say, the Eject button…
[Update] I’ll be damned – guess what the eject button does! It brings up the soft keyboard – but its only temporary. I bet there is a way to totally disconnect – hmmm.
[Update – 24 May, 2010] I’m an idiot. You can get this to mostly work by remembering to turn off the wireless keyboard when done. You do this by pressing and holding the power button for about three seconds. When you press the power button, the little green light will turn on, and then off after a few seconds, which is how you’ll know it is off. At that point, your software keyboard will pop back up. This solution isn’t perfect, but it isn’t bad. My happiness quotient just went up!

The keyboard dock I settle on

[Update – 10 August, 2010] My old wireless keyboard simply wasn’t good enough. The Apple iPad Keyboard Dock just arrived today. You know – the one the physically plugs into the base of the iPad. It isn’t an ideal solution since it isn’t as portable as the wireless keyboard, but it seems solid and has a few iPad specific keys. Most importantly, since the connection is physical, the device shouldn’t get confused as to whether or not I have a physical keyboard in front of me.

4) Don’t get me started on Apple’s official iPad case.

5) On physical keyboards, I can hit the Delete key to left-delete, but I can hit, say, fn-Delete to right-delete as if I were on my desktop.

6) [new] The home button is too loud. While in bed, I’m afraid to hit it. It would be too loud for some meeting situations, too.

So, that is a pretty short list. Since, though, you can’t hack the iPad or iPhone much, unlike the Android phones, we’ll all have to wait patiently for Apple to address these. None of the above are show stoppers, and competition in the field is hot enough, that things do seem to get addressed by all of the vendors eventually.

Apple’s iPad Case is Badly Designed: How to Make It Better

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When I bought my iPad on day one, I also bought the official Apple case along with it, and the official Apple docking station (doc). I’ve already hacked up my case to make it compatible with the doc, but I’m about to get out the scissors, again.

After using this iPad combo for a few weeks, I’m having two problems, one big, one small, speaker coverage and orientation-lock blockage. The case has little holes so that sound can escape from the speakers, but, at least on mine, the don’t align with the speaker grill. The iPad fits in snugly so there really isn’t any wiggle room. The holes are simply in the wrong spot. WTF?

Secondly, and more importantly, the case has a sort of annoying and uncomfortable flange around the body. The flange seriously blocks the orientation-lock switch, and, to a lesser degree, the volume control. I’m going to hack these real-soon-now(tm).

Fix 1 (optional): Docking Station Compatibility

Fix 2: Uncage the Speak Grill

Before:
_-6.jpg
After:
_-2.jpg
_-3.jpg

Fix 3: Free the Volume and Orientation-Lock

Before:
_-2-2.jpg
After:
_-5.jpg

Now, my hacks are pretty ugly, I know. The rubberized case isn’t very easy to gracefully cut with scissors, and, truthfully, I didn’t put too much time into it. Yours will probably turn out better.

Everybody Loves Robots

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Recently, while tinkering with spare electronic parts with my six year old son, I decided to try to get him involved in a local chapter of some robots-for-kids program, but I couldn’t find anything for him. Ok, you may not be surprised, but I was. After some searching, and researching, we ended up starting a Lego based robot club at his school, which, so far, has been very well received. My son is pretty lucky to have an opportunity like this, but I wish more kids, across the country, could benefit from a engineering-focused, after-school, program.

So, I’m kicking off, under the sponsorship of Elegant Technologies, the non-profit Everybody Loves Robots. Everybody Loves Robots helps kids gain the confidence, competence, passion, and resources to make robots, and other cool stuff. Students will work in small teams with like-skilled students and a grown-up coach to go through a set curriculum of foundation projects, with the coaches helping the kids when they get stuck, and helping the kids understand the more interesting parts of their creations.

Inspired by USFirst, the new organization is called Everybody Loves Robots. Enjoy.

PS – I’m taking donations to help scale the organization, so give until hurts and don’t be a wimp about it.

The iPhone HD and iPad means Apple Hates Apps – That’s a Good Thing

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According to Gizmodo, this is Apple’s next iPhone, importantly, to me, with a screen of 640×960. There has been a lot of kvetching around the Internet about the iPhone’s new case, it’s front facing camera, etc. but I think that people are missing the cooler picture here. Since the iPad’s resolution is 768×1024, and that the original iPhone’s screen is at 320×480, then we can only draw one logical conclusion: Apple hates apps.

Yup – I said it. There is no taking it back. I dare you to disagree. Well, at least some apps. The bad apps. The unloved apps.

hero-shop-pixi.png
pre-family-verizon-device.gifOne of the iPhone’s, and iPod touch’s early competitive advantages against the Android, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry was it’s consistent development target. As a developer, a typical app that I built for the iPod touch would work just fine for the all of the iPhone platforms because they had the same input, same screen resolution, etc. If it worked on an iPod touch, then I really didn’t need to test it on, say, an iPhone 3G. Unlike, say, the Blackberry line, with several different resolutions, orientations, and input methodologies, developing for one model meant very little chance of it working on the other models. My early Blackberry development was a bit of nightmare. I screamed at Palm when, after making a game for them targeted at 320×480 on the Palm Pre, when they started shipping the Palm Pixi with resolution of 320×400. What kind of sadist company would do that to their developers? Don’t get my started on what it is like to test for a Nokia app. That fragmentation made it quite difficult to develop for them. The recent spat of resolution changes for the iPhone line, though, changes that Apple advantage (but don’t worry about Apple just yet).

pic1.jpgbb_phone_storm29550.jpgbb_phone_bold9700.jpg

Why would Apple do this? Well, partly, of course, is that they sorted of needed to get higher resolution screens for the iPad. But for the iPhones, those little screens are good enough, and Apple has never been known for introducing technology with out a corresponding and compelling uptick for the user’s experience. I think this is part of their strategy for culling their massive app catalog of the crappy apps. I don’t think you can underestimate how many of the apps in the app store basically don’t make any money. Stories abound about the app producer that spent $30,000 in development but only harvested $1,000 from the app store. There are countless more, and I know from first and second hand experience, of apps that, although costing less to develop, are only earning $100 in revenue over the life of the app. So, arguably, most, but not all, of the apps, just suck. Those developers will simply not re-invest the time and money to port them to the iPad or the higher-resolution iPhones.

This is win-win for Apple and the consumers. Apple still gets to rightly claim an un-godly number of apps in their catalog, but as the newer devices come online, those consumers will only normally see the apps designed for their device. As a new iPad owner, I really felt compelled to remove every iPhone app, except for the one or two that didn’t have an iPad equivalent and were actually important to my daily workflow.

My recent apps that I upgraded for to the iPad, Nightlight and Powernap: Forty winks anywhere meant some significant re-thinking of the app. I couldn’t just rely upon iPhone emulation mode – things didn’t look good without re-designing. Redesigning for a different screen is a big deal. The investment is significant. The looming changes in screen resolutions out of Apple is also having me revamp my whole programming workflow – something difficult for less sophisticate programmers and developers shops to pull off. Developing for the iPhone OS line just became a lot tougher.

What Apple could have done to make me think different? While in emulation mode, when zoomed in at 2x, I would have expected to see the fonts, for example, re-scaled. Imagine when you zoom-in in Safari, the text still looks awesome. Not the case for iPhone apps on the iPad. Graphic images also could also have been resampled/interpolated, like when you plop a DVD into a player attached to your fancy HD TV. Those DVDs, without extra processing, look pretty crummy. That crummy image was, originally, a big marketing angle for Blue-Ray purchases. But with good processing, a DVD actually looks pretty decent on an HD TV. Apple is a smart company – they could have done that, too, if they thought it important enough – they just didn’t.

This is all pretty good stuff. Apple wins. Consumers win. And, I think, independent developers will win because of fewer get-rich-quick developers out there trying to win the app lottery, undermining the economics. I, for one, welcome our new varying resolution Apple overlords.

iPad as Nightstand: The Apple iPad Case and Docking Station

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So I harbor fantasies of making the truly ultimate alarm clock. I’ve actually schemed about the finer points of alarm clock design since I was a kid, with my college years serving as my main inspiration. I think the iPhone and iPad can both be great alarm clocks that sit on your nightstand, but I’m running into some practical problems with my iPad – it’s case.

Yesterday I bought the Apple dock for the iPad so that it can charge overnight and safely run an app throughout the evening without draining the battery. When I brought the dock home, I discovered that I couldn’t mount the iPad onto the dock.

I have a case for my iPad and it was interfering with my dock. It is the official Apple case. A decent, even if terribly overpriced, case.
Do I need the case? I live in a house with a two year old and a six year old, so the thought of a naked iPad makes the muscles in my back tighten-up with nervous tension. Hmmm – what to do.

Ok – so out come the scissors! I expanded the cut-out in the bottom of the case where the dock goes. I also opened up a rectangular area in the back to match where the back-rest of the dock will sit. Now – the dock mounts fairly well.

So – I hope this little trick works for others. I wish the case had been designed to work with the dock in the first place – I hate hacking with scissors.
case-2010.jpg
case-2010-2.jpg
case-2010-3.jpg
case-2010-4.jpg

case-2010-5.jpg
case-62010.jpg

Nightlight now on the iPad – first impressions.

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Happy iPad day. I picked up my iPad at Pentagon City this morning. We made it a family outing and my six year old son was at least as excited as I was. We got in and out of the Reserved line a in about 20 minutes, so really a pretty good experience.

I like the iPad so far. Nice screen. Nice keyboard. Nice heft. Very few things to complain about.

Here are my complaints. My home button is a bit loud. A little too loud if you are typing in bed and don’t want to wake your partner. It would be too loud for a meeting, too. I seem to recall, though, that my last iphone had a loud home button, but that it quieted down with use, so take this complaint with a grain of salt.

I also resent that I can’t seem to use my old iPhone cable to charge my iPad. It’s like a big loyalty tax. What is is up with that? Correction: The problem wasn’t with the cable, it was with what it was plugged into. If I plug into my older MacBook pro, then it won’t charge, but it will charge if I lug it into the wall. What is up with that. More correction: charges sometimes on the MacBook a maybe when the iPad is turned off?

All in all, a great product, though. I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far.

I launched an upgrade to Nightlight for the iPad – check it out. Although I was stoked to have that out on opening day, I’m really bummed that I’m still having issues with getting my Powernap upgrade out the door. It’s seems to work fine for me, but apparently crashes on Apple’s test rig – arghhh. [Update: Powernap: Forty winks anywhere is doing just fine.]

I also launched a simple, but useful upgrade to Elegant Quadratic and launch a Pythagorean equation solver and generic math expression solver called Lil Math. These three are using a new technology that I’m developing to streamline app development – especially cross platform stuff. More about that later.

My Talk from Blackberry Developer’s Conference: Cross Platform Strategies + PhoneGap

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I recently returned from the excellent BlackBerry Developers Conference where I gave a talk on cross-platform development strategies.

Cross Platform Development Strategies with vendor review and PhoneGap case study

Grope Control, Better than Voice Control when Walking

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So, I’ve been designing an app that is basically meant to be used by car drivers.  It’s tentative going to have full Voice Control for enhanced usability and safety.  It’s going to be a great app. I think.

Although I can totally identify with my lead user, a salesman type of guy that drives all over town, the app wasn’t really resonating with me now that I work out of my home office and spend most of my ‘commute’ either walking, biking, or on mass transit.  My automobile time is often with wife and family, so Voice Control would be terrible in-effective over the dins of a car full of talkers.  So what about me?

I’m a big fan of Apple’s new Voice Control, but although society apparently now accepts hearing one side of a phone conversation from people walking down the street, are they ready to accept that somebody saying, to no one in particular, ‘Next Item’, ‘Back’, ‘Postpone’, ‘Play songs by the Shin Shins’, isn’t a little crazy, or at least a little socially inept?  I’m not ready to be that bold trend setter.

Some grope motions we can recognize

Some grope motions we can recognize

So, how can we interact with our mobile devices while walking down the street?  If I presume that I’m wearing headphone, then I can image holding my phone in my pocket and using my phone for input if my app is giving me adequate audio feedback.  The phone could say into your ear “Your next appoint with Mr. Smith is in 15 minutes.  Tap once to acknowledge or tap twice to remind you again in 10 minutes.”  I’m excited about this and can image a whole set of utilities and games that I can use while moving around the city.  I’m calling this method of input “Grope Control,” though I’m hoping to get suggestions for a more politically correct name.

For the sake of completeness, I’ve started to enumerate some common input and output methods and came up with some names for some of the combinations, namely Classic Control, Voice Control, Grope Control, and Spy Control.  I like to name things.  I think the introduction from The Non-Designer’s Design Book put it well when it’s introduction concluded that “Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control.”

[TABLE=2]

We’ll ignore mouth and nose as useful output options, though its fun to think about.  Hmm, my phone smells musky, and tastes bitter, it must be time for my 3:30 appointment.

[Table=3]

[Table=4]

[Table=5]

Implications for the app producer

  • Know your user personas.  How and where will they be using your app? Ask yourself whether you want to limit your app to a single I/O combination, or do you want to allow, and budget for, multiple IO combinations?
  • You might also plan on spending some extra marketing effort in explaining and showing the benefits of your non-classic I/O options.  Can you imagine the virus buzz you’ll get as the first Spy Control app published.  Can you make a killer YouTube video to go along with it?

Implications for the app programmer

  • You’ll simply need a solid gesture library.  Apple is clearly working in this direction and now has a built-in and refined “Shake” detector.
  • Have a standard voice control browser for your platform would be useful.  You can test your voicexml stuff at voxeo.com’s site before putting into your app.
  • What would the voicexml equivalent for SpyControl be?

Implications for the DoD

  • Patent 6899539 addresses putting a trackball onto a weapon to provide (http://bit.ly/Patent899539) some mechanism to get feedback into a computer w/o taking your hands off of a weapon, say, your rifle.  The trackball approach presumes that your see a screen, which means you are not focused on your target.  Fundamentally the soldier needs more combat appropriate input methods.

    Image from patent with rifle and trackball

    Image from patent with rifle and trackball

  • Software robustness: If, say, a screen is damaged or, untrusted, should there be another input method available to the operator?

Voice Control is the new Touch, almost.

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I’ve been playing around with my new 3GS for a few days now.  As you might know, it has some built-in automatic speech recognition (ASR) capability that Apple brands as Voice Control, good for making calls and operating the iPod.  There is now, however, no programmer interface to allow its system to control 3rd party apps – bummer.  I’d bet, however, that we’ll soon see Voice Control as a core iPhone capability for all apps – perhaps next year.  When will it come to the PC?  The future is murky. Importantly, though, the basic iPhone technology works pretty well.  Better than anything else I’ve used.  A thousand times better than the built-in bluetooth voice dialer my last car had.

For the first time in years, I found myself exploring my music collection.  “Play songs by Johnny Cash” begets “Playing songs by Johnny Cash,”  and then the classic crooner laments about love gone bad in Memphis.  This is even safer than using the in-car stereo because I kept my eyes on the road the whole time.  I found myself calling people.  Of course, driving while distracted is bad, but it was actually practical to call the house and tell the kids that I was on my way home without having to take my eyes off the road.  When ASR works well enough, you’ll want to use it. And use it in circumstances that were previously off-limits or much more dangerous.

There is a related technology in the iPhone called VoiceOver.  Designed for people with vision impairments, this uses a text to speech (TTS) voice synthesizer and basically verbalizes what the person’s finger is touching.  When you swipe between app screens, you’ll hear “Screen 3 of 11” followed by a listing of every app on that screen.  Touching an app like PowerNap, prompts “Power Nap, double tap to launch.”  A double tap, anywhere on the screen, then launches the app.  This system works too, but not well enough. Among its various drawbacks, it still requires a lot of tapping.  So, although you don’t need to use your eyes, you still need to use your hands.

ImgDeviceVoiceControl1

Key Technologies

  • Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
  • Text To Speech (TTS)
  • Automatic or Semi-Automatic Voice Transcribing – for recording voice memos, and converting them into text.

Implications

… for the application producer

  • If your app would likely be used by somebody walking around, then start thinking about Voice Control now, while still in your design phase.
  • Improved voice control, with high quality voices and better recognition, may be worth an in-app purchase/upgrade.
  • With the Silver Market (retiring baby boomers) increasing, their eyes getting worse, their fingers hurting more, then maybe Voice Control is the way to  bring/extend apps to that huge market.

… for the developers

  • Think about Voice Control early in the design phase.  Don’t count on being able to elegantly retrofit your eye & finger focused app into both eye & finger and ear & voice.  Don’t believe me?  Then ask yourself how many of the mouse & click focused apps were easily ported to the iPhone’s finger-based system?
  • Jump-start your mind by testing out some existing apps with Accessibility turned on.  It was an enlightening experience for me.
  • Open-source SDKs here are seriously lagging behind the commercial implementations, but they might be good enough to act as a preview or teaser, and allowing  only serious users to purchase the upgrade.
  • The commercial implementations are just now starting to think about licensing their SDKs.

… for R&D and DoD

  • Imagine mobile applications that are useful w/o hands or screens. We’re used to thinking about the field utility of such systems, but what about the non-combatant, or at least those not all the way on the front line.
  • To following this line of thought, haptic feedback is just coming to the consumer space – so if you can’t imagine soldiers chatting away all day to their PDAs, can you imagine them gesturing to one, without ever seeing the screen.
    •  

      hand signals

      Not sure these are quite the right commands

  • For application survivability, if the screen is damaged, say, by a bullet, shouldn’t the software still be able to function via alternative input methods, like voice?  It might not be as efficient in some cases, but perhaps it would be better than nothing.
  • Low power consumption: software capable of voice control wouldn’t need a screen.
  • Weight: No screen equals lower weight.

Technical: Scroll Home after Input Completion in Mobile Safari

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I’ve been experimenting with PhoneGap, a nice UIWebview wrapper for iPhone, Android, and ~Blackberry.  Since the development happens in javascript, you spend more time working around the limitation of UIWebView.

I ran into the following problem.  I have several input fields on a page.  As the user moves to each input field on the iPhone, the screen rightly scrolls to the next input field.  When the user has finished entering their data, the screen only partially scrolls back home.  I got around this with the following – I hope it helps someone…



//****************************  jKeyboardGotDismissed() & jKeyboardGotShown() -BEGIN- ******************************
// This snippet give you a reasonable way to detect that the user is not currently input data.
// Motivation:  On the iphone, when inputing data, the soft keyboard pops up.  When the keyboard is dismissed, it doesn't
// usually scoll back to the original position.
//
// I know this is kludgy.  There is probably some slick way to detect that a input box lost focus, but that it had
// moved on to onother input box, or not - but I couldn't find any examples.  This uses a timer, and seems to fall
// into the good-enough category.
//
// Insturctions:
//  Copy this block of code into your script
//  Modify jKeyboardGotDismissed() & jKeyboardGotShown() as desired.
//
// Use Cases:
//      Make sure the screen has scolled to 0,0 after the user finishes inputing data on the iphone
//          add something like " window.scrollTo(0, 0) " to jKeyboardGotDismissed()
var bStoppedInputtingUnlessSomeoneTellsMeOtherwise = true;
var enumKeyboardStateThereGone = "Gone";//There, means the keyboard must be visible, "Gone" means it must be hidden
function _jFocusTypeHelper() {
if (bStoppedInputtingUnlessSomeoneTellsMeOtherwise == true) {
if (enumKeyboardStateThereGone == "There") {
enumKeyboardStateThereGone = "Gone";
jKeyboardGotDismissed();
} else {
enumKeyboardStateThereGone = "Gone";// why twice? Just so enumKeyboardStateThereGone will be set before the function call.
}

} else {
if (enumKeyboardStateThereGone == "Gone" ) {
enumKeyboardStateThereGone = "There";
jKeyboardGotShown();
} else {
enumKeyboardStateThereGone = "There"; // why twice? Just so enumKeyboardStateThereGone will be set before the function call.
}

}
}

// This function gets called whenever the keyboard is  dismissed.  feel free to modify it
// Motivation: I wanted to make sure the screen scolled back to the right spot after the last input
// Known Limitations: 1/4 second delay before jKeyboardGotDismissed is notified.
function jKeyboardGotDismissed() {
//alert("The soft Keyboard just got dismissed (if, in fact, this device has a softkeyboard)");
window.scrollTo(0, 0);//Scroll home after the keyboard is dismissed.  Delete this line if you don't want that to happen.  @TODO: Add smooth scrooling
}

function jKeyboardGotShown() {
//alert("The soft Keyboard must have just popped up (if, in fact, this device has a softkeyboard)");
}

document.addEventListener("blur",function() {bStoppedInputtingUnlessSomeoneTellsMeOtherwise=true;setTimeout(_jFocusTypeHelper,250);},true);
document.addEventListener("focus",function() {bStoppedInputtingUnlessSomeoneTellsMeOtherwise=false;_jFocusTypeHelper();},true);

//****************************  jKeyboardGotDismissed() & jKeyboardGotShown() -END- ******************************

So, how would you use this? If you put this code in your page, it should just magically work.

Future of Newspapers and Journalism?

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So, talking about the future of the newspaper industry is what all of the cool kids are doing.  Some have said the that the better question is not whether the newspaper industry can be saved, but whether journalism can be saved.  Ok, but let us talk about the newspaper industry.   Can the New Yorks Times, Boston Globe, and LA Times be saved?  It’s like asking whether Kodak, Poloroid, and Fuji Film can be saved.  Or Xerox.   The answer is that yes, they can be saved, but they look very, very different than they appear today, and even then, only if they are willing to go through the transformation.

As an experiment, I’ve started a discussion regarding what a mobile version of Boston.com should have here.

By the way, Apparently Arriana Huffington (sp?) has started a foundation to sponsor lone journalists – which is cool, and a start.

iPhone App Store Sales Optimization by Tracking Ads

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So, you’ve just put your killer app on the on the app store. You celebrated with some Schramsberg. You sadly watch your sales asymptotically approach zero when users discover that you haven’t ‘quite’ got it right. Now, you’ve fixed that one outstanding issue and you’re ready to re-invigorate your money machine.

Ok – Not that you no longer have that new-app bump, you have to get your app re-recognized the old fashioned way, through marketing. That’s marketing, with a lower case ‘m’. Probably viral marketing, reviews, and advertising. So, as some rich manager said, “If you can’ measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Measuring advertising efficacy is a problem on Apple’s app store, because you can not, until now, measure the effectiveness of different advertising channels because they only report total sales, and not their referring source. In the 9 months that I’ve been developing iPhone apps (let’s birth this baby!) I’ve focused on executing as many experiments as possible, but I’ve only been able to do one advertising experiment at a time because it was too difficult to distinguish the effects from a particular advertisement from other factors, such as normal weekly fluctuations. Now, the smart guys over at Mobile Orchard has released a clever trick to track effects of individual back to individual sales. Check it out. I’ll update this post with my own results as I get them.

Mobile Orchard also has a good article on getting your app reviewed. Although I haven’t pushed reviews, yet, everthing that I’ve heard does indicate that it is a very personal process process. Although most sites keep a journalistic separation between the money and the review, some do not. And remember, these people are only human. Perhaps a good way to think about this is like getting a job where you have to get your resume recognized and have it stand out apart all of the other resumes.

How do you get your resume to stand out? Well, I think the first step to think beyond the resume. When I was still a cadet at the Air Force Academy, I was pretty miffed when I didn’t get a prestigious summer job at the school that I thought I perfectly qualified for. I was perfect on paper. After that job went to the other guy, I went to the decider to figure out what happened. He was too tactful, so I had to read between the lines and finally figured out that I had totally misunderstood, up to that point, the hiring process. You see, up to that point in my life, I had been chosen for things based upon “Who is the most deserving?” School admissions, for example, is, I think, a good example of that. Hiring, in contrast, is based upon “Which one will make my life easier?” It makes sense.

I believe that the getting reviews is sort of the same. The reviewers, deep down, want the most popular site possible with the least amount of work. Don’t be in denial about this reality.

Making money on the iPhone App Store

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If you haven’t read it yet, Pinchmedia recently release a good report/slideshow on the market dynamics of selling products on Apple’s app store.

You can see it here:
Title: “iPhone AppStore Secrets – Pinch Media”
Link: http://www.slideshare.net/pinchmedia/iphone-appstore-secrets-pinch-media

I have about 10 published mobile apps at this point, and although I think the Pinchmedia presentation is great, and validating, I still think that they see the world through a certain prism that filters much of reality.
From my own experience, I had created my deck on lessons and experiments of publishing on the app store. I’ve identified about, oh, twenty experiments that i’ve performed, with more to come, and put them into this short slidesow. Since it contains a lot of confidential information, I’m saving it for in-person meetings, so contact me if you’re in the Boston area.

So here are two charts from my deck:
An with pretty decent staying power.
screenshot_04.png

An app with less staying power.

screenshot_05.png

I’ve put about 10x the energy into the second app. The interesting question is, or maybe the next question is, “What make the linear decay app” vs. “What makes the exponential decay” app? I think I know the answer. I think other people know the answer, too. I think that the answer knowers aren’t talking.

Now, knowing the answer, and monetizing the answer, are, of course, two differing things….

Wallet Zero Launch

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I got a wonderful email from Apple today telling me that my “app is ready for sale.” So, Wallet Zero launches today. My partner, a very sharp HBS grad, has really helped guide this along. This app could be quite successful.

Wallet Zero is designed to solve the problem of the physical wallet. The problem, other than the dearth of money in it, is that is just too thick. Among things that fill it, are a plethora of loyalty cards, gym membership cards, frequent flyer cards, etc.. Wallet Zero tries to get as many as those, as possible, out of your wallet and onto your iPhone. It is just that simple.

The technology:
For cards that have a barcode, we reproduce that barcode. For those without a barcode, we just show the account number. We also show the support phone numbers for each of the cards.

I’ve had pretty good luck with scanners being able to scan the barcode, but your mileage will vary. Scanner technology seems to vary by region. The CVS by my old house in Florida could read it just fine, but the CVS across the street from me here in Boston can’t scan the barcode, so the clerk enters it manually.

Each barcode is different. We’ve been steadily going through every popular loyalty card and matching the bardcode. This process includes matching the barcode “font” as well as check digits and a few other tricks. It’s a hassle and a lot of work, but it’s great once it’s built.

This is my first free app that isn’t meant to drive sales to another product. The business revolves around back end sales to businesses. This should actually also provide an even better experience to the end user. This first release of the app is mainly a reality check, but I’m hopeful of launching some great upgrades in the near future.

[Update] Wallet Zero is now a Top 50 Lifestyle application!

[Update] The coolest part here: When on the iPhone’s App Store, if you start typing ‘wallet’, it auto-completes to Wallet Zero!

Different Proportions: Are these proportions statistically different?

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Coming back to the app stores soon…

Use this to know whether the results of your survey about two populations have a statistically significant difference between them.

Example Usage
=============
A hotel operator routinely survey’s customers and wants to know whether the guests that arrive at night are less likely rate “Recommend” the hotel than her guests that arrive during the day shift.

+—————+—–+————————————+
| Population | n | # that would “Recommend” the hotel |
+—————+—–+————————————+
| Night Arrival | 100 | 67 |
+—————+—–+————————————+
| Day Arrival | 230 | 175 |
+—————+—–+————————————+

Answer: There is not a statistically significant difference at the 95% level (but there is at the 90% level)!

Ok, I’m curious. Update me when you launch this:
Full Name
Email

You’re email won’t be sold, pestered, etc.

Features
=========
* Engligh wording explaining the results
* Pretty arrows indicate which group has a statistically higher response rate, if any.
* Unique “Detailed Results” for the thurow checker.
* Detailed Results Show:
** Shows Actual Inputs to help verify calculations
** Show actual level of significance (say, 75%, instead of your desired 95%)
** Converted response rates to percentages
** z value
** Inverse Cumulative Distribution Function (aka: z from the normal table at the ‘95.00%’ significance level)
* Web Citations
* Suggested Book Links

Note: Requires Internet Access

Known Uses
==========
* Analyzing results of a survey

Known Audiences
================
* Market Researchers
* Survey Administrators
* Statisticians
* Operations Researchers

References
==========
CliffsNotes.com. Test for Comparing Two Proportions. 3 March 2009

StatTrek.com: AP* Statistics Tutorial: Hypothesis Test for Difference Between Proportions. 3 March 2009
http://stattrek.com/AP-Statistics-4/Test-Difference-Proportion.aspx?Tutorial=AP

Web Tools
======
Testing for Statistically Significant Differences Between Two Proportions
http://app.eleganttechnologies.com/php/app/eg/prod/html/BigDeal.php?StrTarget=Web&EnumSource=Iphone&SnAppleDevice=XXX&EnumOutputFormat=Web&EnumAction=Web

Polaris Marketing Basic Statistical Testing Calculator
http://www.polarismr.com/education/tools_stat_diff_prop.html

Kindle Books
============

Paper Books
============
Books: CliffsAP Statistics (Paperback)

Survey Resources
=================
Sterling Research Group
http://bit.ly/19jqus

Elegant Quadratic

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Quadratic
—
Solve the quadratic equation. Simple. Refined.

 

 

This little app solves quadratic equations for you.  Really.  That’s it.  It works.  It is pretty.

Q: What is a quadratic equation?
A: If you don’t know, then this is the wrong program for you.
Q: Hey – I really want to know.  I think I remember, but I’m not sure.
A: Given an equation in the form of ax^2 + bx + c = 0, then solve for x.
This is available for the following:
Desktop Web (Safari Only)
iPhone App Store (Coming Soon)
iPhone/iPod touch Web App
Android Web App
Android Native
This little app solves quadratic equations for you.  Really.  That’s it.  It works.  It is pretty.Q: What is a quadratic equation?A: If you don’t know, then this is the wrong program for you.
Q: Hey – I really want to know.  I think I remember, but I’m not sure.A: Given an equation in the form of ax^2 + bx + c = 0, then solve for x.  This is available for the following:
Desktop Web (Safari Only)iPhone App Store (Coming Soon)iPhone/iPod touch Web AppAndroid Web AppAndroid Native

Elegant Quadratic on iPhone

Elegant Quadratic in Mobile Browser (click to run)

Elegant Quadratic on Android

Elegant Word of the Day

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Elegant Word of the Day
—
Read every day. Great for everyone both kids, and libiophiles, alike.


I picked 365 words for you from a list of real words looked up by real people. The words come from my own dictionary history, from users of ElegantWords, and from suggestions by my friends. Definitions come from the across the Internet and from the my server’s Wordnet dictionary, ensuring you get a broad and modern range of definitions, usages, and contexts. See synonyms, usage samples, and original sources. This uses the same rich definition engine used by ElegantWords.

iPhone Screenshot 1

iPhone screenshot

iPhone Screenshot 2

iPhone screenshot: Word Details

iPhone Screenshot 3

iPhone screenshot: Wikipedia(tm) entry (if applicable)

Lil’ Math

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Lil’ Math
—
Read every day. Great for everyone both kids, and libiophiles, alike.


This little app solves simple math problems for you, like 2 + 3, or, if you feel daring, 2 + 3 * (4+2 -8/2). Really. That’s it. It works. It is pretty.

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Elegant Words: The Ubiquitous Dictionary

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Elegant Words
The Ubiquitous Dictionary


 


This is not your father’s dictionary. Words come from the across the Internet and the server’s dictionary, ensuring you get a broad and modern range of definitions, usages, and contexts. See synonyms, usage samples, and original sources.

Perfect for when you are reading a book – never skip a word just because your paper dictionary is too far away or because your computer-based dictionary would mean too much of an interruption from your main task – reading. Keep it handy while reading in bed, on the bus, on the couch, but not in the tub.

Some Reviews
==========
“This is much more practical and functional than the other dictionary apps”

“The pairing of the word definition with other online references like Wikipedia is a nice touch.”

Unique Features
– See word popularity. Hint: “Ubiquitous” is #1
– See how many times a word has been looked up by other people.
– Get your definitions from multiple sources, including Wikipedia.
– Touch the word’s source to visit the web site that originally defined the word, such as that word’s Wikipedia page.
– See how many times you have already looked up a given word.

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iPhone screenshot: Looking up 'elegant'

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iPhone screenshot: the many definitions of 'fear'

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iPhone screenshot: one definition of 'fear'

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iPhone screenshot: another definition of 'fear'

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iPhone screenshot: The Wikipedia(R) entry (if applicable)

Time to Read

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Time to Read
—
Read every day. Great for everyone both kids, and libiophiles, alike.


Mark your daily reading times with just one tap on this reading timer. You can mark your time as your read. Perfect for daily reading goals that new readers often have in school. This combines empowering your children, like other mark-your-time devices, with the convenience and cool-factor of an iPhone or iPod touch.

For fun: see your lifetime total!

Features:
* Pick your goal
* Big buttons for little fingers
* 3 ways to alarm: Sound (when available), Vibration (when available), and Visual.
* Show when this session started
* Show total elapsed time
* Show time remaining
* Remembers where you left off when returning to the program
* Allows your to keep reading even after meeting your goal to show extra reading
* Big visual marker when meeting your goal for easy display to guardian
* Lots of support options

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Elegant Torch: The nightstand companion

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Elegant Torch
The nightstand companion
Three little apps in one – book light, nightlight, and power nap timer


What is this?
Elegant Torch was built to live next to your bed. You’ll find a booklight, a nightlight, and a timer for taking short naps. Great for both everyday use and when sleeping in unfamiliar rooms.

Yah, but why?
I tend to read in bed. Shortly after buying my seemingly all-powerful iPhone, the batteries in my traditional book light ran out. I was left in the dark. I tried to use a free flashlight app on the iPhone as a substitute book light. It worked almost well enough, except that it kept going into “Sleep” mode, leaving me in the dark. I developed Elegant Torch to be my new bedtime reading buddy.

Book Light
The Book Light simply turns your device into a book light (aka: flashlight, torch, nightlight, reading light etc.) and there’s also a timer so can see how long you’ve been reading. This is pretty much a bright white screen. It is simple and stable. That’s it. Little else. It’s meant for people who read books with a book light. If I turn up the brightness all the way on the device, then the light is slightly brighter than a typical small book light, but not as bright as the larger book lights. I find it particularly useful as a back-up book light. Nice if batteries in your primary book light run down or if traveling without a book light. It also makes a great emergency flashlight (which is surprisingly useful).

Timed Nightlight
The Timed Nightlight dims after a preset number of minutes. You can change its brightness and color. It can be used, for example, when you are at a hotel, or if your light switches are far away from the bed. It can also be used as a little bedside reminder. I often lose track of time when I’m reading a good book in bed. I sometimes look up and see, to my horror, that 3 hours have just slipped by, destroying any chance of a full night’s rest. Starting the Timed Nightlight will give you a clear but quiet indication that it might be time to go to sleep.

Power Nap
The Power Nap is designed to wake you up from a short sleep. It’s the alarm clock for people too busy for alarm clocks. Say you have 30 minutes before your next class or before your next plane. You would love to catch a few winks, but you don’t want to go through the hassle and risk of setting up a traditional alarm clock. The Power Nap has just two controls. The first control sets the time from 1 to 60 minutes, so there is no risk of getting your AM & PMs mixed up. The second control lets you perform a sound check to ease your anxiety that your device might be muted. The timer visually counts down the time remaining for extra feedback and peace of mind.

Time to Eat: Taming the Kitchen Timer

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Time to Eat
Taming the kitchen timer
How much is this meeting costing the company? What about costing society?

I designed TimeToEat to help bring a little calmness to the kitchen. When I cook big meals, I’m typically tracking a several things at once, like the sauce on the stove, the sauce next to it, the dessert in the oven, and the wine chilling in the freezer that I forgot to start chilling properly earlier in the day. TimeToEat has four distinct countdown timers, plus a summary screen to track each one.

Unique Feature
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* Four countdown times in one application.
* Each timer has its own screen.
* A front page gives summary information.
* Navigate to each timer by either tapping the dots at the top, by swiping, or by the right-arrow on the front page.
* Enter a note for each timer, like “Sauce” or “Rice.” This note is also shown on the front page.
* Easy Start, Pause, & Restart, even on the summary page.
* Keep track of when you started a timer.
* Keep track of elapsed time, even if you paused the timer.
* Displays the Completion Time to quickly help you plan other prep times.
* A “Test Your Alarm Button” on every page to help avoid the otherwise real risk of not hearing an alarm on accidentally muted device.

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Meeting Timer: Time is Money

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Meeting Timer
Time is Money
How much is this meeting costing the company? What about costing society?

Everyone knows that time is money. And everyone knows that meetings can be a total waste of time. As such, meetings can waste a lot of money. But just just how much? Download this app to find out.

Here’s how it works: Start the app at the beginning of a meeting. Spend a few of those pointless minutes guessing the Hourly Cost Per Attendee. Enter how many people are in the meeting. Then watch the running total grow as the seconds tick by. Instead of doodling on your note pad, you’ll be able to watch your product’s price increase and your bonus pool decrease.

Every meeting you attend will be added to your Lifetime Total, so instead of analysing your colleague’s new facial hair, you’ll be able to think about what you really could have done with those wasted hours. Perhaps you could have improved your own productivity, learned Mandarin, or built a house from scratch.

And every meeting added by every Meeting Timer user will go into a World Wide Loss Total, so instead of resenting about yet another meeting, you can solve the current global financial crisis.

Just don’t show this to your boss, because he or she will probably stop calling pointless meetings. And then you’d have to work!

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iPhone screenshot: Changing average charge

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iPhone screenshot: for British Pound locale

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iPhone screenshot: for Euro locale

Nightlight: Gracefully lighting the night

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WalletZero – zero clutter, zero worries, convenient savings
Nightlight
Gracefully lighting the night
A simple but effective nightlight that automatically shuts down when its time to sleep. Perfect for when visiting a strange hotel and need a little light before getting into bed. It is elegant.

A simple but effective nightlight that automatically shuts down when its time to sleep. Perfect for when visiting a strange hotel and need a little light before getting into bed. It is elegant.

Features
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* Device stays awake while counting down, then powers down after specified duration.
* One-Touch timer start.
* Set timer for up to one hour.
* Set brightness.
* Set custom colors.
* Works in landscape mode

Happy sleeping,

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iPhone screenshot: a different background

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PowerNap: Forty Winks Anywhere

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WalletZero – zero clutter, zero worries, convenient savings
PowerNap
Forty Winks Anywhere
Take a short nap without fear of oversleeping. The power is in its simplicity.

I designed the PowerNap alarm clock specifically to let you take short naps away from home. In the library, for example, I don’t want to bother my fellow readers by needlessly setting off an alarm when a simple vibration may have been adequate, so PowerNap vibrates for 25 seconds before sounding an audible alarm. While waiting in the VIP lounge at the airport, you don’t want to accidently have the wrong AM or PM setting, so PowerNap limits your times from between one and 60 minutes. Lastly, you don’t want to miss the alarm because of a muted phone, so PowerNap provides a “Test Alarm” button for testing volume. It’s great while waiting for class, while waiting for a plane, or while just resting your eyes before the next big thing. PowerNap lets you catch 40 winks anywhere.

Get some rest,
JJ

Try it Now! Seriously – this works (no sound).

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iPhone Screenshot: Waiting to start

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iPhone screenshot: Showing the silent option

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iPhone screenshot: Mid Nap

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iPhone screenshot: some backgrounds

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iPad screenshot: Picking images on the iPad

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iPad screenshot: Rain background (my backyard)

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iPad screenshot: Settings

Wallet Zero: zero clutter, zero worries, convenient savings

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WalletZero – zero clutter, zero worries, convenient savings
Wallet Zero
zero clutter, zero worries, convenient savings
Take all of those barcoded keychain cards and wallet card, and make them disappear into your phone.

Tired of clunky plastic tags on your key chains? Sick of digging through hoards of plastic cards in your wallet? So were we.

WalletZero is designed to organize and store your favorite membership or loyalty information on your iPhone – neatly arranged and just a touch away.

To get started, select your program and enter in your barcode number. A scan-worthy barcode will be reproduced and stored on your iPhone for easy use again and again. No barcode? We also store major airlines and hotel membership info – so you can keep it all in one spot.
In the News & Blogosphere: Infinite Wallet Space for Loyalty Cards

Roadmap
One of the most needed features is the ability to create a custom card and barcode for stores not in the list. Although there are some provisions for that today, richer, more robust wizard would be useful. I’m starting to explore options and might use some barcode generating software from Softmatic to supplement the existing server based system. The Softmatic software is linkware, so, here we go: Barcode Software provided by Softmatic

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Alternative Access

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I tried posting to this blog via my Treo 650 by sending an e-mail to a super secret email address. It didn’t work. I suppose that I’ll resolve the problem at some point, but regardless, the concept rocks. Imagine having a flash of insight while waiting in line for movie tickets. You whip it out, and jot down your thoughts.I suspect bi-directional communication would work better – sort of like cached Outlook access for those power travels that catch up on their e-mail while sitting on the plane.Amazon’s new Kindle calls to me – I love that it bypasses the computer altogether, yet still allows the computer to play an, optional, role.palmOne Treo 650 PDA Phone (Unlocked)Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

[update 2/2009: I’m writing this update from my iPhone. This is the future. Rich smart phone apps are changing everything regarding how people imterect with the data that matters. What Blackberry did for mobile e-mail, The iPhone is doing for all the other personal data]