6th
iPhone Tech Talk Toronto
So I drove to Toronto from Chicago for the iPhone Tech Talk this year.
I took some notes.
The iPhone Tech Talk Kickoff was led by John Geleynse, Director of Technology Evangelism & User Experience Evangelist.
400 people were invited to the Toronto Tech Talk.
All evangelists are Software Engineers. John introduced the speakers.
Videos from one of the Tech Talks will be available in a few weeks.
Lots of numbers, quoted elsewhere already. But here’s one: Apps are sold in 81 countries. That is a lot of localization for a given iPhone app. List of languages: Apple is reviewing app submissions from 56 countries, “which means we’re receiving apps in these and other languages.”
“We are doing a lot of testing for the development community, it turns out.” Another attendee suggested Apple was spending money on the Tech Talks, which are free to attend, to increase the quality of developers and their application submissions. A shocking number of apps would crash on launch, etc.
Geleynse ran through some of the improvements made in the app store for developers over the past year and a half: crash reporter and logs, app genius, enabling in-app purchase, and then allowing free apps to include in-app purchases. He called attention to the quick reference guides, a new and different form of documentation which include “policy” in addition to technical details.
“Our goal is to make our platform awesome—for you.”
Ramp Champ was cited here, not for the last time, as an excellent example of how to provide in-app purchases. It’s clear, it’s attractive, and it shows how developers can sell things in their own context rather than the bland confines of the App Store.
iPhone development is “fast to market” compared to traditional shrink-wrap software. Development cycles are measured in weeks or a few months, rather than 18-24 months. (Craig Hockenberry and other iPhone developers have complained the pricing pressures in the App Store do not reward large investments yet.)
iPhone is attracting many “new” developers. As in, people who are not software engineers. Did not study computer science. Just love the product and want to make things with it. I found this surprising. When later speaking with Apple staff, many said even “traditional” developers seemed unfamiliar with the reams of documentation and examples available from Apple. Again, this was somewhat shocking. My personal impression is an experienced programmer can still do very well despite the sheer number of applications and developers—since there is a smaller number of excellent applications. More on this later.
“People are using iPhone in ways people never used a computer before.”
Geleynse ran through How To Take Your App To The Next Level, citing eighteen applications that exemplified seven qualities: delightful, innovative, designed, integrated, optimized, connected, and localized. You’ve probably seen some tweets listing these, but they are not obvious. For example, by “optimized” they don’t mean simply fast and efficient, they mean optimizing the user experience.
“The best iPhone apps are based upon good ideas.”
“You need to sweat the details. It really matters.”
Tweetie 2 was called out for its “minimal UI”, specifically the lack of a “reload” button since users could simply pull down the list when they reached the top. Of course they want to refresh! Boom, button gone.
Similarly, each app was shown with some feature that caught Apple’s eye: Peaks, ZipCar, Guitar(?), Weightbot, Things, Ramp Champ, and others. These have been discussed before, but it was still informative to see what Apple values in an application. In many ways, none of them looked like Apple products. That was very encouraging.
1112 was cited for its clock radio. You can tune it and listen to music. It has nothing to do with completeing the game, but provides a beautiful, interactive experience “just because. Isn’t that awesome!?”
Ocarina was cited for being “social based upon performance, not identity.”
“Keep your customers coming back,” again, Ramp Champ with in-app purchase.
The apps shown in Apple television commercials get about five seconds each. “Can people grok it in five seconds?”
Iceberg Reader : “Don’t switch contexts” You buy a book, it downloads in the app, you start reading it.
A project I’m working on needs to access a web API. My impression here was embedding a WebView is better for OAuth than exiting to Mobile Safari and returning to your application. (Unfortunately I later forgot to ask Vicki Murley, the Safari Technologies Evangelist, about this.)
Geleynse repeated with three points, which we’ve seen before:
- use the latest tech
- go the extra mile
- keep things fresh
The last point was repeated in other sessions: “not just bug fixes!” Apps need constant love and growth or they will die. Perhaps in-app purchase is seen as a way to provide an upgrade path without developers having to provide their labor free forever.
Apple provides UI design audits in addition to coding assistance at the Tech Talks, in labs similar to the WWDC. Except you need to sign up to reserve time for the design audit.
“We will get people on the phone in Cupertino if we need to.”
“You got a T-shirt, congratulations.”
