iPad, a tablet for all seasons

Being iPhone app developers, we looked forward to Apple's iPad announcement with great anticipation. Secretly, I hoped it would be a scaled down Mac instead of the oversized iPhone/iPod. Running the standard iPhone OS, it is not multi-tasking and the walled garden surrounding apps is still there. However, I would think with subsequent releases, this will change. With a 1GHz custom chip with loads more computing capability, why would you want an iPod or iPhone on steroids?

But it makes a lot of sense as a first release, Macs have never been the PC killer and the number of iPods / iPhones sold is staggering so why not make sure the iPad can access the 140,000+ apps out there.

The opinion around me is pretty interesting. My good friend Tony raved about it. Why? he has a Sony Reader and given that the launch price is just a little more than a Kindle, Amazon should be afraid, be very afraid. For less than $100 more, you get a sexy device that is color, has browsing capabilities, access to iTunes, AppStore and iBook. Of course, if you're a hard-core reader, you'll realize that the Kindle is better for reading outdoors and has a much longer battery life due to it's eInk technology. But humans are swayed by shimmering, colorful things and I'm sure many potential eBook reader buyers will be swayed towards Apple.

It is also a great entry level for the non-technical folk. People who have never been comfortable near computers. Now they have a personal device they can hug and hold like a book. The keyboard dock or better still, the ability to use a bluetooth keyboard is a stroke of genius. I would buy the iPad before a PC for my parents.

My son who is in the market for a netbook was disappointed. I would be too in his position. While the iPad will have iWorks, it isn't clear whether this device will be a good substitute for a netbook which is only limited by its processing power and format but in every way a full-fledged PC. No multitasking and the omission of a camera for internet chatting are serious omissions. But it is first generation so some things must wait and hopefully available later.

Nevertheless, I'm sure we'll get a couple of them in the office if only to see how we can leverage the larger format. I'm intrigued by the format. I've often felt the iPhone was great if only it was bigger.

Perhaps now is the time to ditch the iPhone, buy a very small Nokia phone or Blackberry and get the iPad. But as my son pointed out, I'd be carry 3 devices, a phone, a tablet and a Mac around with me.

For many who are die hard Blackberry users, it is an interesting device that means they don't have to give up their phone or their PC. Now even Bill can buy one without feeling guilty about ditching his Windows 7.

99c apps are not 99c songs

Somehow, somewhere down the line, we were hoodwinked into thinking 99c was the ultimate price for everything. Apple got us so used to buying songs for 99c they figured it was just a natural progression to buy apps for 99c. Given the amount of apps that have been sold, they were correct. Today over 53% of all 138,000 apps in the iTunes Appstore cost 99c. In fact only 77 of them cost more than $100.

It was a great marketing move but perhaps not so great for the small developers. The problem with 99c is that to make money you need volume. If you knew how steep the long tail curve is in the AppStore, you'll realize that the percentage of people actually making a decent living from iPhone apps is in the single digits. Given there are probably 30,000 or more developers out there, starving is the word of the day.

What continues to baffle me is to see high quality apps next to some pretty crappy ones for exactly the same price... 99c. Having developed around 29 of our apps, we know what it takes to write a good one, the effort is in the weeks if not months.

Here's why 99c apps are not 99c songs. Songs, (especially the popular artists) have the backing of some pretty large music companies who have invested thousands into each artist. The studio time, producers, promoters etc. They generally have well-oiled and well-funded marketing machines that put the faces of their artists in supermarkets, TV. There are established distribution channels, i.e. radio stations that play the songs over and over again until you end up buying. The appstore has none of these advantages unless you're an EA or already have a large brand and online/offline presence. i.e. if you're a standalone developer, the future looks bleak, better buy a lottery ticket.

At the end of the day, there are some pretty good apps languishing at the bottom of the pile. You spend months working on your masterpiece only to get swamped by 60+ apps on the same day you launched. Talk about drowning in noise. To say the good will float to the top is not correct, that is only true if there is steady state and the cream is given a chance to rise. Keep stirring the pot vigorously, nothing rises but just a whole lot of churning.

Even in the music world, only a handful of artists get valuable airtime and make a whole bunch of money. The rest are hopefuls and has-beens.

The key is not to try and create apps that sell a million, that's a nice to have. But to create apps that address a niche, a demographic who are passionate about a topic like you are and are prepared to pay 4.99 or 9.99. That is the business.

At the end of the day 99c apps are not 99c songs. Right now the appstore is akin to every American Idol hopeful, recording a song on their iPhone and posting it to iTunes for 99c. (The recent auditions in Chicago yielded 13 finalists from 12,000). If they don't let that happen on iTunes, why should it happen in the Appstore?

Great apps are not great on day one (or why there are more and more bad apps in the AppStore)

It's pretty common knowledge that unless you have deep pockets and high risk tolerance, it's really hard to market iPhone apps. If you follow the forums, advertising in traditional web channels are not that successful unless you doing it with a brand which generally means big bucks.

So the best way is to be mentioned by well known websites like New York Times, MacWorld or a raving blog celebrity. Given there are over 126,000 apps, that is like winning the lottery at best.

The reason why advertising on the web is tough is the context. Most people get their apps when they are actually on the iPhone, e.g. waiting for the bus, or having some time to kill. The first thing they do is look at the Top 25, What's Hot and New. Which means unless you're in the first 50, forget about mindshare.

In the past, updating your app meant you were actually put into the new list along with other brand new apps ensuring that at least for a day or two depending on your category, your app would potentially be seen by millions.

Now this may seem like people would be gaming the system by adding features just to get to the New list and we all did. But it wasn't a bad thing because given the 2-3 week cycle to approve apps in the past, no-one could really abuse the system. The most you could update your app was generally once a month.

There were no losers because developers were motivated to add more to the apps and users would get the benefit since all upgrades to apps are free. So for the community, it meant over time, the good apps really got better. Of course, if your app did really badly, you didn't care to update it anyway and it would sink to the bottom through natural attrition.

Late last year, that all changed. Only brand new apps made it to the new list and the updated apps were no where to be seen. I'm assuming that as the number of apps increased in the store, the number of updating apps exceeded the new apps, a problem that only gets worse as the total number of apps increases. So Apple stopped 'promoting' updated apps.

So what did that mean for developers with existing apps. Having lost one of the most important marketing channels, I believe a large number of them will stop updating their apps on a regular basis preferring to submit new ones. Worst still, since there is no rule about submitting similar apps, I believe many will and did basically reskin the same app and submit under a different name.

As a small developer, my choice when waking up in the morning is a) work on an existing app, b) work on a new app which will at least be seen by millions for a few days, c) change my existing app with a few new features and submit as a new app to get on the new list, d) make existing users pay for upgrades which is non-trivial requiring the developer to keep track of users and add a registration process.

So what's the upshot? The good apps don't get better or deeper in functionality. There will be a lot of similar apps that all do the same thing with very little depth. The number of apps increases dramatically increasing Apple's cost of maintaining the Appstore.

What's the quick fix? I agree that having updating apps swamp the New list is not desirable. But there should be another list, a Recently Updated list which does showcase updated apps. I'm sure it is a great way to resurrect tired apps, get developers a motivation to create really deep and useful apps and benefits the users because apps aren't generally great on day 1.

Here's the kicker. Great apps are generally not great on day one. Unless you're well-funded, the strategy most developers take is the spaghetti one. Throw something against the wall and see what sticks. If it sticks, make it better.

I would argue the best apps in the appstore are those that have been around at least 6 months and been updated 4-5 times. You can be sure many of the early bugs are fixed and a host of good features gleaned from user feedback are in there.

Email Signature Pro is a good case in point, it has grown with every update and 90% of the features added subsequent to the first release are from customer feedback. It meets the needs of our users because we listened. The only suggestions we didn't do were those that were not currently possible on the iPhone platform.

We have 28 other iPhones, many of them are free. Why would we spend a week updating a free app when there is very little marketing return. Unless it is a highly popular, there is no incentive.

We love the iPhone and the AppStore. But love doesn't pay the rent.

Unscrambling the egg

I can't believe I haven't blogged this year. It has been crazy. There's definitely a new sense of optimism in the city and with our clients. Feels like everyone woke up on 1 Jan and realized they are a year behind. In just two weeks, we've hit some great milestones in our consulting work, found some long lost friends and made a couple of new ones. Not to mention some new opportunities on the horizon.

But that has nothing to with unscrambling the egg. The title probably should have been something like "Software development is a non-linear activity". But that would be boring.

I read a book about magicians a long time ago. Every year, they would gather for a contest to see who had the neatest trick. One particular one did the most simple thing, he scrambled an egg and proceed to unscramble it, drawing gasps of amazement from his peers.

The story has always stuck with me. Unscrambling the egg is the holy grail. Whoever can figure it out will unlock the secrets of the universe.

I digress once again. Looking back at the last few months, it is interesting to see even with years of software development experience we still get it wrong when it comes to estimation. Most of the time, we get it right to within days. Usually the pragmatic estimate is the average guess of Tony and myself. He tends to be more conservative and me, well let's just say I've often said "how hard can it be?".

But there is always that one feature that looks like an iceberg. Looks pretty simple but in reality as you get close you realize 90% of the work lies hidden. Which leads to the maxim, if you going in at a fix price, charge as much as the client will bear otherwise, your effective earnings will be one sixth of what you thought it will be. A better way is build a relationship with your client and bill on a hourly basis with an estimate of the final outcome. That way, you don't end up cutting corners to save time and the client pays a fair price. End of the day it is a win-win, you get to earn a fair wage and the client gets a quality product. The thing I learnt over the years, is to be open with the client and share the issues. You'll be amazed that they are actually quite understanding if they feel like they are part of the problem. What they don't like is surprises, especially nasty ones.

But software development is sometimes like scrambling and unscrambling an egg. The 80/20 rule is often more like 90/10. You get 90% of the feature in 10% of the time and then hit the wall. This is when you're unscrambling the egg, i.e. it takes a lot lochrome://intouchlink/content/buttons/itl-second-home.pngnger, and sometimes not possible. That last 10% could be a simple change to the way the user interface works or restoring a saved state in a multi-input wizard.

I remember the time a team of 40 developers stood around for a couple days while one developer had to fix a particulachrome://intouchlink/content/buttons/itl-second-home.pngr nasty Windows related bug. The problem is it is not linear and proportional to the time you took to do the first 90%. The last mile is often the killer. Ask any marathon runner...

So next time you hit a wall in whatever you do, remember how easy it was to unscramble an egg but it is difficult if not impossible to unscramble one.

A belated Happy New Year!

One minute to midnight

New Year for many means a new start, closing an old chapter, a time for resolutions, a festive point of the year. For me, it has always been anti-climatic. Perhaps, it is because no matter how hard we wish or hope, hardship in December tends to follow its course in January. Resolutions are quickly broken. Winter is a little harsher and the reality of January sets in. Whatever was tough on 31 December, didn't magically disappear on January 1 or 2 or 3 for that matter. Humbug.

Until last year.

An opportunity save a tiny life changed all that. A gift to both the boy and me. Looking back exactly one year later, it is one of those moments where 30 seconds either way would have surely meant he would not see a day in 2009 and for me, it meant each New Year would continue to be a humbug event. I still shiver every time think of that defining moment.

New Year's eve will never be the same again. It has become a reminder to me to be grateful and humble. Yes, we are indeed the masters of our destiny and yet our ship is dependent on the favorable winds of fortune.

I still strive for success, financial security, worldly goals and other aspirations. But I am now reminded more so on this day, that the most worthy thing I can ever do is how I can save or change a life.

Each day dawns and presses upon me the stresses of the day. I forget the best questions I should ask before I rise from my bed.

• Whose life can I make a little easier today?
  
• What kind words can I convey that will sooth a soul?
  
• Which words of encouragement can inspire actions that exceed expectations?
  
• What gesture will strengthen a relationship?
  
• Which burden can I lessen by lending a patient ear?
  

In the hustle and bustle, I forget that,

• Smiling is irresistible
  
• The best gift is a hug
  
• A kiss is never given in vain
  
• Find good in others is the prelude to praise
  
• To be grateful for small mercies
  
• True giving has no reservations
  

Today, I am reminded of these things. Every minute of our lives should be lived as if it is one minute to midnight. We cannot choose our destiny, but we can choose the legacy we leave behind.

Tomorrow we can say Happy New Year! Should we not wake up each morning and declare Happy New Day!

• If you had one breath left, what would you say?
  
• If you could gaze on one last thing, what would it be?
  
• If you could receive one last kiss, who would it be?
  

If you had only one minute to midnight, how would you live?

Making people take the stairs

How do you get people to take the stairs instead of the elevator? How do you encourage people to throw their trash in the bin instead of the floor? It turns out if you can't pay people to do it, at least make it fun.

The Fun Theory initiative by Volkswagen did just that. It's a competition to encourage people to come up with ideas of how to make things mundane, well, just more fun. Some of the ideas are indeed wonderful, like making stairs look and sound like piano keys making it fun to use them instead of the elevator next door.

Parents understand this concept very well. It's easier to make a chore into a game than simply make their kids do it. Of course the caveat is once the novelty has worn off you have to find new ways to keep them engaged.

But it did make me think why most managers are not trained to think this way. When I ran software teams, there was only one objective to be a successful leader (note, I used the word lead and not manage on purpose). The objective to create situations where the team could and would initiate the tasks themselves because of the following reasons:

• Passion - the overwhelming desire to want to do something because of a force within
  
• Creativity - the result of a challenge that is often extremely difficult or seemingly impossible
  
• Fun - the sense of achievement and the execution of the task that makes you smile no matter how tough it may be
  

Of course to do so, you have to empower and part of it means making sure they understood and were aligned with your intent. The primary reason we hate letting go? they may do something contrary to our intent. If they are aligned, you can be sure they often come up with even better solutions than you could think of on your own.

My job then? was to Inspire, Initiate and Imagine...

Their job then? was the same to Inspire, Initiate and Imagine...

It's takes a lot of guts for a master to become the apprentice but if you reach that point, you have either lost your job to your protege or made your company infinitely more powerful.

Looking out the window

This is my first official break from work this year. I'm staring out the window onto the slopes of Mont-Saint-Anne, one of the most beautiful mountains in Quebec. Not having touched the keyboard for 3 days is definitely a foreign experience, confirms my condition as a workaholic.

I have noticed how times have changed. Just a few years ago, arriving at a hotel, the first thing the kids would check was if they had a television in the room. This time, the first question was do they have Internet access. I resisted for 2 days amidst protests, you would have thought we were putting them on bread and water.

Today they are out tubing at Valcatier while I catch up on email, checking out iTunes accounts etc. It also means I get to catch up on my blogging that has fallen the wayside. Not that I didn't want to. I had a ton of thoughts but there never seem a good time to quietly put them down concretely. You may say I'm too much of a perfectionist to be a good Twitterer. Saying something flippant and off the cuff is not my style unless it is a bad joke to annoy my kids.

Skiing, even as badly as I do, is an amazing pastime when you get to do it on a large mountain. For an hour (because I'm particularly slow), you get to see the world seemingly frozen in time. The snow damps all noise and if you happen to stop at a spot all by yourself, the silence is pretty amazing. For that moment you can imagine what it would be like to be the last living thing on earth.

The slopes are relatively empty this year as are most restaurants. I hope for the sake of the locals it is because we are a little earlier this time, getting here before the peak season. Perhaps it is a sign of the economy being tougher than we all care to admit.

Happy Holidays!

Making your blog memorable - step 3

People love stories because stories stick. They are tangible and the details are concrete.

A 5 year old can tell you how many pieces of candy he has left because he gave 2 to his friend and dropped 3 during his Halloween trick or treating. But he couldn't probably remember the mathematical equations that support his logic.

Urban legends are novel and unexpected but invariably they happen to people just like you or me and the events no matter how far-fetched are real.

We remember fables and parables because they are a) stories and b) contain real objects and people.

Even though someone may love your blog post, it may not be memorable enough to repeat it. Notice how viral stories are always simple. The Mentos experiment for example. Everyone knows what a Mentos mint is and what Coke is too. If it were about mad scientists sprouting chemical formulae, regardless of how wonderful the effect was, the story would not carried because the message bearers would simply forget the details.

Step 3 is a natural progression of the earlier two steps I talked about, keep our messages simple, unexpected and now in Step 3 concrete.

Experts have a hard time convincing the masses unless they are talking to peers because they have transcended the concrete. For them, the interesting part is how to take a thousand concrete events and predict them with one abstract theory. Unfortunately, the rest of us on the other side of the fence can't make the mental leap to their level of abstraction because we neither have the experience, knowledge or perhaps we really don't get excited about the same things as they do.

Next time we blog, we should ask ourselves are we explaining our experiences or conveying our message with Mentos and Coke or using complex scientific formulae that may make us look smart but at the end of the day far less memorable.

How many people would prefer a simpler web?

I do.

It's a question that continues grow more prominent in my mind over the last few months. Developing for the iPhone taught me to keep things simple. There are only so many things you can do one screen and since you have to tap with your finger, there are only so many hotspots available. While you can scroll on the iPhone, the objective for me is not to require the user to do so.

It's harder than you think. Simple is hard. The rule of web entropy is that like the bedrooms of our teenage sons, if left alone, simplicity usually ends up in chaos.

Nothing is more evident in today's websites and blogs. Given that the resolution of screens are increasing, people are adding more and more, links to flash based ads, double row tabs, links to other websites. Probably only 5% or less on any given webpage is relevant to the topic at hand. The rest is fluff and represents the paranoia of web designers and blog owners that you'll go away without consuming more content.

As web publishers we should think web cuisine, not web buffet. A little content done well goes a long way in getting that user back. A bad buffet really makes no one happy. The consumer learns to filter rapidly. If you asked me what I saw on any given page, I would struggle to tell you beyond the content I was looking for.

So why do we do it? Because the technology allows us to.

That is not to say it is a good thing.

Perhaps it's age but I grow tired of content overload. What I do seek is relevancy and experience. We have yet to learn how to take a white piece of paper and put just enough content to satisfy our hunger.

With that being said, I should heed my own advice and stop right here!

Hopefully Web X.0 will be a simpler, kinder web.

So you think you can dance

That's name of a very popular TV show that finds the country's most popular dancer. One of the best parts are the auditions. Like American Idol, there are clearly people who not talented but nevertheless stand in line for hours for a chance at stardom.

We are all alike. I remember as a child, watching an action movie and for the next week, every kid who went to the movie wanted to be that hero, donning capes, swords and pretend guns.

Nothing's changed really. We still watch TV ads and buy stuff that promises we'll cook like an Iron Chef or make renovations like Mike Holmes. Last week, I accompanied my wife to an art store. It was like Christmas was early. Every shelf had crayons, pastels, paints of every shade and color. Hundreds of books showing you how to draw perfect pictures and paint beautiful landscapes. Air brush kits, projectors that could project any image on any wall, the list goes on an on. I wanted to draw again, paint again.

Then realized that anything I bought would sit on my shelf at home like many other things I bought in the past in the spur of the moment.

It was all aspirational.

That was when the penny dropped. Most of what I feel in life is aspirational. Something lit a fire and emotionally I wanted to do something. In reality, when that moment passes, nothing would be done.

So now before buying something, I make the mental calculation, is this aspirational or inspirational. Aspirational means it got me excited but I either wouldn't have the time or the talent to follow through. Inspirational meant I was capable of finishing what I will start. It is a call to action and there is a happy conclusion.

Of course advertisers appeal to our aspirational side. The people who show off makeup are the most beautiful people in the world. Toyotas are driven by racing drivers. The food is cooked by chefs. "Buy this and you could be like me, rich and famous."

Aspirational means, don't buy that snowboard for myself because I saw my son do some pretty neat stuff on the slopes the other day. Inspirational means try that new recipe for breakfast because there are only 3 ingredients and I can actually cook it.

So next time you pull out your credit card, ask yourself.

Is it aspirational or inspirational?