Very, very busy

Even though I didn't officially start my new work schedule I have been very busy with my new company.  Since I have made much quicker progress that I anticipated learning how to do iPhone programming I decided to try and do a series of all nighters in order to get an app on iTunes by Friday. 

Sadly, I did finish my first product but for a lot of technical reason I couldn't actually get it submitted into the system.   However, I am very happy with my work and all I really need to do now is to deal with the details of putting the product on sale.

Other than that I have started work on my company's website (app-shop.com), but its not quite ready for public consumption.  I am considering hiring a VA to help setting up the various blogs and other content I want on the site.  Also, I need some help with search engine optimization.  I plan on using GetFriday and I will let you all know how that goes.

Apple's bait: Application developers swarm to iPhone

This article was a great read for anyone interested in upcoming iPhone App Store business.  Of course, a lot of it is rampant speculation but it probably represents the best of the rampant speculation that we have.  Also, check out the Digg.com comments for this article - it is very telling what the attitudes among future users and current developers are.

These are exciting times to be in mobile development and I think we can expect a lot of drama in the next five years.  Is it going to be making millionaires or will the App Store be a billion dollar a year business?  Or is Apple simply courting developers to their platforms so the rapidly defecting Windows crowd will have shiny new desktop applications waiting for them on the Mac?

Well, That's About It for WWDC

Great conference, I feel like I learned a lot but at this point my brain is over saturated with the stuff.  It pretty exciting and I think that the people at this year's conference are going to be influencing what happens in iPhone development over the next few years; by extension what happens with iPhone over the next few years will be influencing the mobile market as a whole.

It will be very interesting to see what happens in July when the App Store comes online and when the NDA is lifted (so developers can talk about what they are doing).  From what I can see, the developers are sniffing out an opportunity fast.

For me, I can not wait to resume serious work on my own product.  But, right now this traveling has worn down my cognitive abilities (hence writing out a blog instead of coding).  I'm quite happy that they will be releasing videos of the content since its rapidly leaking from my brain as I type.

At any rate, I got a real sense that a future is being created in a way that will impact us in a big way.  Its pretty exciting to be a part of it.

Glossy Icon Hangover

WWDC is an odd combination of international vague coolness.  As I walk the through the conference I heard languages from rich countries like France, US, UK, Japan and Germany (or at least German speakers).  It all has a surreal techno-freaky vibe to it.  There is also a pinch of American Unix geeks through in.  You can identify these buys by their beer bellies and full beards.  There are also a lot of artists and designers thrown into this mix.

Also, there is an over abundance of glossy icons and snappy slogans everywhere at WWDC.  At WWDC you get weird associations like "Debug and Conquer" or for the App Store, "Applications Accepted Here".  That last one has Orwellian consequences to the developers hoping to get their creations on to the store.

However, I can't help but wonder if M$ is able to tap into this reptile brain in the same way as Apple.  I doubt it.  That being said, Apple's ability to engage non-engineer types into application development could be the key to their success in the future.  Technology and programming will be a fully realized technique when people who are not math majors can do it.

Cocoa Heads (Real Indy)

After the conference today I stopped by at a live "Cocoa Heads" meeting at the SF Apple store (Here is the link).  These guys are the real deal, all but one essentially work for themselves by writing Mac software.  The other guy is working on a real cool startup after escaping his other job working on the iPhone.  His company is basically creating a web application that looks like a desktop presentation tool.  And they created a web framework that behaves as desktop development environment to do it.

All of these guys are getting paid to do what they believe (and do rather well) directly by their customers.  It was great to see them in action after hearing them on a few odd podcasts here and there.

Was there a take away message?  Not sure, these are all guys who sort of fell into it or simply turned a hobby into a business because people took notice of what they were doing and pretty much demanded that the give their products to the public one way or another.  But, they were mostly normal guys who just decided to go for it.  So, I guess the take away message is to do what you need to do to bring your vision to the world.

Also, they all implied that you need to stay engaged with other people - customers and other people in the field.  They all worked with people who were friends...  Another interesting note is that many of them came from odd backgrounds - not all computer science, many had art and design backgrounds.

This makes me wonder if the Mac truly is the platform of the future.  The Mac platform has developers with a truly fresh perspective.  Programming frameworks are advancing to the point (at least on Mac) where talented people (who are not just engineers) can use these frameworks to create artful programs.  The things that these people are doing are state of the art in technology, but also lifestyle and vision.

Finally, to the Content!

Ok, now that the massive press of people has passed by after the keynote we can get on with the business of learning this stuff.  My first session today is at 9 and will be an introduction to iPhone development.  Of course, I have already been introduced but each time I heard the iPhone story I seem to pick up something new.  What I am really looking forward to are the detailed sessions of "Views and Controllers", "Table Views", and interoperating with other iPhone systems such as contacts and the camera.

WWDC

On Sunday I am taking a trip to California and making the biggest investment into my business so far. I am going to the Apple Developer's Conference (WWDC) - a massive gathering/training session for people who write programs for the various Apple platforms. After all is said and done I will have spent about $3000 which is about what I expect to pay for 1 week "bootcamp" seminars.

What I plan on learning is all the basics about working on the platform (everything related to what they refer to as "UIKit"). Of course, I do have some knowledge already of Objective-C and Cocoa (the main development tools), but what I really want is to spend some focused time in the most cost/time effective way I can on learning this stuff.

Networking will also be a priority and I have printed up some business cards to that end. This perhaps will be a harder skill for me to acquire, but absolutely necessary.

By the end of this conference I expect to have the skills I need to finish developing my first product. Specially, I want this:
-More familiarity with Objective-C/Cocoa
-Understanding of delegation
-How to use Camera, Mail, and UI components