Decisions & issues

So the webapp is prtty much complete and therefore we move onto the phpne app, then we will make the two talk to each other.

The web app evolved into something much more functional than originally intended and the guys doing the coding really did us proud, however, with the web app being more functional there are some issues and questions raised by this, in terms of the phone talking to the web app and the differentiation between the free and the paid versions of the app.

We have reached what I think is a fair decision in terms of the user and what they can have for free before needing to pay.  Hopefully it is fair for the user and of course, ourselves in terms of gaining sales of the paid app.  We are just waiting a reply from the coders in terms of what techincal issues this may raise.

Our original pre-christmas launch has fallen back by maybe upto 4 weeks due to numerous contemplative discussions regarding this and testing and tweaking of the webapp.  The next stage for me is the exciting one, where we see the phone app come to life and take the form of my original concept and visuals!

we said there would be ups and downs

...and so there is!

A little miscommunication with the brief and/or misunderstanding.  So far the phone app has been written with the assumption of a data connection (wifi or edge or 3g) whereas my intention was always to have the iphone app work offline and only connect when submitting an estimate.

I figured this may create an issue with making sure the webapp and iphone had the same data in terms of categories etc, the coding guys said they use the same data which is when the penny dropped, they have it always connecting.  This may be the way we go now that we are down the road some, but with an update to v2 for offline use and data syncing. 

My only argument against this is that if we intended it to be always connected then we would have written an iPhone web app, not a desktop webapp and iphone app.  The guys have been very good about it and are looking into possibilities of making it work offline then sending info to the webapp.

Other than this 'DOH!' moment we have been rigorously testing and amending and testing and amending and it is looking very cool in its own right purely as a desktop web app, these guys have me impressed with their speed and ability and we are thinking of them for one or two other future projects we have on the boil.

getting there

the web application is looking very cool now, everything slides and fades very neatly and it even calculates everything as it should.  Still a few little options to add and a few glitches to iron out but it is looking like a decent bit of kit now.

testing testing testing

more testing and more glitches, fix a few and find some more.

It is looking very cool in the setup section and the whole sliding fading and fading menus and options look very cool and very slick.  Once the thing functions as well as it looks I will be real happy.

Of course once the web applications works then we have to test the iPhone native application and that t works with the web application and that they talk to each other correctly.

O joy of joys, why is testing so laborious and time consuming and tedious!?

testing time

time to test the webapp side of things.  I have to say from my brief and visuals the guys have done a great job, using their initiative on things I had omitted to give direction on to create a very slick webapp so far indeed, excellent javascripts, slick mouseover events and very cool menu sliding and such. 

I am very impressed with the guys and we should definitely look in their direction for any of our upcoming projects in the future, they have worked fast and hard and so far delivered well.  They even dont like to show me anything until it is testable, so avoiding my meddling micromanaging impatient ways!

I have more testingto do thoroughly and so far can only find one little niggle, so all looking good.  The interesting part will be testing the phone inputs, then submission to the server for integration to the web app.

Making some headway

just received a link for testing the website app side of things, which will receive some testing once i get the go ahead from the coders.  Looking good now and has good capabilities. 

Time to start promoting with a hopeful launch date sometime in December on the app store (depending how the testing goes and such!)

Next up is the native phone application, looking forward to the visuals becoming reality and playing and testing, pleaselet our idea of intuitive navigation of a business app be everybody elses idea of it too!

is that the horizon moving...?

So...before, I mean earlier, in the beginning, it looked promising that everything could be up and running, phone talking to server and server recording data and then outputting pdf files for user to print, all tested and launched on the app store for mid december. 

But guess what?

December really isn't all that far away any more and I still haven't been given the web app to test, nevermind the phones native app.  It's like the horizon is moving away from me just as we feel like we're approaching it.  I may be wrong of course, I am assured confidently that things are still on schedule and I will receive a url for testing purposes any day now, shortly after which the phone native app will be heading towards it's testing.

It really hit home most when a friend asked what I would be doing in 8 weeks, 'hell if I know' was my first thought, but then they said 'it will be Christmas Eve'!  So it's that close, and we aren't in initial testing yet.

We can't pomote too heavily or market anything if we don't have it's launch date.  Sure you can put out feelers, teasers, tasters, but nothing too definite, we haven't got any screenshots yet.

So...another frustrated post by an impatient pain in the ass!

App store reaches 100,000 apps

Apple is very near the milestone of having 100,000 apps in their app store.  Whislt this is a massive result for Apple and iTunes, being the largest online software distribution model in the world, I'm not sure it is that great for those of us creating new apps.  Even more so as it concentrates strongly on games, how do the business app guys get a look in?

It is amazing but the downside could be the difficulty in being recognised or even found, kind of like a needle in a haystack.

another SDK download

with Snow leaopard comes a new iPhone OS update to 3.1.2 and with that comes a new SDK to download, for iPhone OS 3.1.2, massive file and not massively fast to download.  The guys developing the webapplication for our iPhone native app say it is near completion for testing, so getting exciting to see something I drew and designed, operating and in a basic way, talking to data from my phone app.  The app on the phone itself isnt yet complete but that will be the real exciting part!

For now, I wait so that I can test the webapp.  Once this runs smoothly and is tested to death we canmove onto the phone app which will submit data to our server from the phone via wifi or the cellular network.

The down side is that the app store is massively saturated with apps and the more there are, the harder it is to get your app noticed, marketed well and sold in large numbers.  It could be that the massive sales of apps is becoming a less heard of story

Frustratingly slow

no updates from our coding guys and it is frustratingly difficult not to pester them while we wait the word with something to show for all the time and effort coding.  In the meantime a new update of the Apple SDK and new news of an updated iMac range and soaring Apple profits with the shares climbing ever higher.  It's funny really, about 12 months ago I recommended to anybody I could, buy apple shares now...whilst the recession was at it's lowest...anybody that listened sure could make a lot of money right now with the shares flying high.  I hope ournext update is that we have managed to test the backend of the webapp and the front end...our target launch date is mid december and we still want that, our coding guys say they are on target so it is down to trust and my struggling ability not to micro manage!

Evolution of a specification

The specification has evolved and is going to cost additional developer time, however, this is essential as two competitive releases have arrived in the app store recently, having checked them out they both get ok reports although neither do what ours will do... we have tweaked our specification so that one key element that one of the competitors can do functionally, ours wil now do.  I checked it out and it was a real pain to use the competitors app on the phone, something which i hope the painstakingly long time I spent creating visuals and re-creating them, to make it as easy and intuitive an interface as could be, will show this.  The spec evolves, which makes the web app evolve, to cope with the eveolved iphone spec, the cost evolves too!

progression and the ever growing team

Our team is growing and now has a visual designer, a network/internet specialist, a web developer, a php developer, a project manager and 2 database specialists.  It is amazing to see how things are coming together with so many hands at the pump, Isometimes forget which version of the written specification is the final one, and even that has evolved further as my next post will reveal!

coming together

I have just previewed the first incarnation of the sliced graphic for the web application side to our project.

Essentially there wil be a web app for printing things off which were first created by the iphone out in the field during the working day.  Download times looked a little slow but it is great to see things in working code rather than a large photoshop file with hundreds of layers in different groups!

Activation

today we baccame officially approved and activated iPhone developers.

So far we have nothing to submit, but we wanted to check out the tools available to us via the developers web log in and to make sure this was in place before we got too far in and for some reason were declined!

Becoming a registered developer

This took a fair bit of time, whether Apple are snowed under with requests or just not that efficient, I don't know.

I think I chased this for a few weeks though, maybe a month or more even, come to think about it.
Basically you apply to register, then the good folks at Apple Incorporated request a few documents from you to prove you are
a>real
b>an existing company
c>incorporated
One of the documents is proof of company incorporation from companies house (UK), however my family firm didn't have this as we were first registered in 1946 and it was something obscure like the working companies register or something.  this really messed with Apple and they said it wasn't acceptable (at first!!!)

Finally they did accept it after a variety of additional proof of the company's existence and a number of emails with an increasing degree if imptaience reflected in the text on my part!

Anyhoo, all is good with those nice Apple folks as we were accepted and should receive the activation code within 24 hours...this was maybe 3 weeks ago.  3 emails in the last week and no reply so far.

The Beginning

it must be a while ago now, I had this (what I considered to be) great idea for an iPhone app, and it seemed like a no brainer to me.  This was when I had the first generation iPhone.  So I made a few enquiries and didn't really go anywhere with it at first, a few visuals in Photoshop and a few sketchy pages as the specification.

Richard and I work together already on a variety of projects, internet services, web design and such and we have hooked up together on bigger projects in the past.

The first stage was to find a developer to work with that had experience with the native coding for the iPhone with ourselves handling most of the web based stuff, server space, domains, websites etc

Richard has heaps of resources and contacts so we gained a contact through one of his resources and I set about writing a detailed spec for the web app and native app along with heaps of visuals of the interface, menu's and app screens.