From Blogger to App Developer: How to take app-making into your own hands

By Ben Putano

Many techies dream of starting a mobile application company. As a tech blogger, I want to one day make the leap from tech scorekeeper to real-time player by creating a mobile-software business and become the next Jack Dorsey. Big dreams, yes, but that’s how dreams are supposed be!

So can a blogger really cross the great divide and break into app-development? Well, the answer is yes, and John Gruber can show us how.

John Gruber, the popular Apple blogger, along with two co-founders, launched a new note-taking app on Thursday called Vesper. Vesper is a cross between a note-taker and to-do list, and John is betting that people will pay $4.99 for his first iOS development.

Erica Ogg has a great article with many details on Vesper. It has semblances to a native Apple app, including a simple-to-use interface (complete with a + to add notes), and a flat, minimalistic design that should match well with the new iOS 7 interface.  John’s two co-founders are Brent Simmons, the app’s developer, and Dave Wiskus, its designer. John calls himself the app’s “director.” So far, Vesper is boasting a 4 star rating in the App store.

Vesper allows you to save photos and prioritize notes

So how did John Gruber transcend the blogosphere to become a full-fledged developer? Here are a few factors that I believe led to his success and could ultimately lead to your own.

Persistence

John started his blog, Daring Fireball, in 2002, and began blogging fulltime in 2006. Looking through his archives and  doing some rough math, I’d say John has written over 1,500 articles. However, this doesn’t include the news summaries he creates daily.  Everyday he reads and adds his own commentary to the latest tech stories, then compiles them into a daily post.

In short, John has been blogging A LOT for a long time. After 10 years, he has built a loyal readership which he has been able to leverage upon the launch of Vesper.

Focus

It can almost go without saying that John is an Apple expert. He is a trusted voice in the Apple community and has spoken at numerous international conferences like SXSW and MacWorld.  Through his years of persistence, he has cultivated a unique insight of his favorite company.

John obtained this expertise–and his subsequent fan base–through his extreme focus on APPLE. He didn’t spread his energy thin by covering Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Instead, he became an expert in one very specific subject and tailored his blog to that particular market. John’s Apple-centric focus gave him the platform to create an iOS app whose flat-design and simplicity could blend seamlessly with the soon-to-be-released iOS 7.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to focus on Apple or Android to be an app developer. As they say, there are apps for everything–from wine-tasting to mountain biking–and being an expert in that subject will outfit you with the knowledge to build a great app for that market.

Passion

In an interview with The Verge, John said his goal for The Daring Fireball has always been to write about things that interest him. From Day One of the App Store, John has passionately followed the mobile app industry, an industry literally built by Apple. His passion for Apple resonates with millions of people around the world who read Daring Fireball.

Passion is important in blogging, but it is even more important in app development, according to John. He uses Facebook Home as an example:

There is a dogfooding lesson here, though. Does Mark Zuckerberg carry an HTC First, or any other Android phone with Facebook Home installed? Does Mike Matas? (Doesn’t look like it, judging by the “via Twitter for iPhone” metadata on his recent tweets.) Why not?

It’s always a sign of trouble when you’ve built something you don’t want to use yourself. Why does everyone I know who works at Apple carry an iPhone? Every single one? Not because they have to. It’s because they want to.

In his Vesper announcement on Daring Fireball, John said he has been using Vesper “All day, every day, for months now”. If you aren’t going to use your own app, why would anyone else? Passion for your product is just as important–if not more so–as passion for your blog.

Vesper’s flat design will blend well with new iOS 7 interface

Connections

John’s most valuable asset obtained through blogging is his industry connections. A Philadelphia-native, John met his co-founders at a conference in Montreal. Brent Simmons, the Vesper developer, is from Seattle while Dave Wiskus, the designer, hails from Denver. John never would have met these people had it not been for Daring Fireball and his involvement in the technology community.

Blogging is a means of attracting a certain group of people you want to meet. In John’s case, it allowed him network and share his App-vision with other professionals. While John is Vesper’s “director”, he needed help from people to build and design the app. Although these men are separated by distance, they were brought together by the common passion for mobile application.

Blogging is a great place to start if you want to one day make your own apps. Like John, a persistant, passionate blogger can develop the connections and expertise needed to break into the competitive app-development industry and succeed.

Remember, the key word is CONNECTIONS. Check out this article from Inc. Magazine about how to build great relationships.

And if you’re really ready to start looking into app making, here’s a great list of App-making tutorials for beginners and pros alike.

ALSO,  let’s talk, I would love to hear about your ideas on technology and business! My name is Ben, and you can connect with me on Google Plus .

Watch Apple WWDC Keynote LIVE Here:

Engadget is providing a LIVE view of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Keynote session, scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Engadget also has a liveblog so we can all add our two cents.

Everyone and their mother are making stabs and what is to be announced here at WWDC today, so here is a brief collection of articles detailing what to expect at WWDC:

Forbes: WWDC: 5 Things to Look Out For

Daring Fireball (John Gruber): WWDC 2013 Expectations

Mashable: Apple WWDC 2013: What to Expect

TechCrunch Podcast: 3D Printers and WWDC

Divvy App is a One-Stop Shop for Photos

By Ben Putano

Divvy is a new app for iOS that lets you combine your social feeds to view all photos from Facebook and Instagram in one place. You can then share these photos privately with individuals or groups; or you can share pictures with people around you if you are at a concert, party, or sporting event. Divvy is unique because it combines your photo streams and offers multiple sharing options, particularly private messaging and with people around you. What else do you need in a photo app?

The best part about this story is how co-founders Jeremy Greenfield and Kayvon Olomi spread the word about their app. Traveling cross-country in a 1973 VW Van, the duo pitched Divvy in Tulsa, then the New York Tri-State area, and finally in Denver.

Originally Posted on TechCrunch by Jordan Cook

There are dozens upon dozens of apps interested in your photo creation and sharing habits, but very few focus on the consumption of photos. Meet Divvy, an iOS app that lets you combine all of your social feeds (for now Facebook and Instagram) into one collective photo stream.

You can filter between the two social networks, of course, but that’s just the start. Divvy also lets you share photos from those feeds (or your own) with individuals, groups of friends, or based on proximity like at a party or concert. See, Divvy is one of the only apps that lets you save Instagram photos in full resolution to your phone, and the same is true for Facebook photos.

And even if you don’t want to save the photos, you can click in and zoom, which is something that’s always been a slight bother with Instagram.

The Divvy team is based out of Austin, and competed in our TC Austin Meetup + Pitch-off (see pitch here), but that’s not where their journey begins.

Co-founders Jeremy Greenfield and Kayvon Olomi started pitching their idea out of a 1973 VW Camper on a trip from Tulsa to the NY Tri-state area, and then to Denver. It was a road show, if you will, but it’s also an entirely new way of thinking about sharing.

“Photos are worth 1000 words,” said Jeremy Greenfield. “I found myself only checking Facebook for the photos and not caring about status updates. Obviously Instagram is huge because everyone loves photos and it’s super easy to scan through and check up on your friends – without needing to devote all of your attention to it.”

Photo-sharing apps like Days are taking the idea of bite-sized snackable photos in real-time and turning it into more of a long-form story, and even negotiating that asynchronous sharing is more rewarding. And the idea of privacy and ephemeral messaging is obviously on everyone’s mind, with apps like Snapchat blowing up, and other private photo-sharing apps popping up like PhotoSocial.

But Divvy’s ability to both share and consume in a friendly fun environment could throw an interesting wrench in the photo-sharing space. And the founders expect to eventually add the ability to share from multiple feeds, too, to create a one-stop shop.

It’s also worth noting how well this lines up with Bijoy Goswami’s comments in his fireside chat. The entrepreneurial evangelist explained that Austin doesn’t necessarily build technological tools, but that it uses those tools to build out businesses based on passion.

I don’t know about you, but I get real passionate when I’m screen-capping, cropping, and fiddling with an Instagram picture I want to save, and my mom feels the same way every time I show her an Instagram pic and she tries to zoom in.

Divvy is available now on the App Store.

SOURCE: Techcrunch

There’s [not] an App for that, but there should be

There are over 775,000 iOS and 800,000 Android apps

By Ben Putano 

I will be the first to admit, this was a really difficult article to write because there is nearly an app for everything.

A virtual dressing room? There’s an app for that.

An up-to-date traffic report? There’s an app for that.

There is even an app to help you map the stars, planets and sun from inside your living room.

But I listened to friends, some frustrated Tweeters, and uncovered problems in my own life to determine that life would be better if these 7 apps actually existed.

1. Sleep-in-proof alarm clock

The alarm clock is literally one of my most hated inventions ever created, but it’s necessary if any of us want to keep our jobs. We all have stories of how we slept through our phone alarms and have missed important dates. The problem is, it’s just too easy to deactivate phone alarms! Personally, I resort to setting 2, 3, even 4 alarms just to be sure I wake up. Isn’t there a better way?

Well, there could be! A sleep-in-proof alarm would be easy to make and follow the same concept as Clocky–the rolling alarm clock–in that this app would get you up and coherent before you could turn it off.

The options alarm options are endless, and should be numerous on the app to fit personal preferences. The app could make you complete a math equation before turning off, or maybe it forced you to say the time outloud before shutting off. Heck, what if the app made you get up and take a pic of yourself before turning off?

No matter what, the app makes sure you’re up and aware of your surroundings before turning off. The rest is up to you!

Update!!

Thanks to Tracy from iOSaffairs.com, we indeed uncovered an app to shake you out of sleep. FreakyAlarm allows you to take a picture the night before and then forces you to take the same picture before the alarm will shut off. Or you have other options like solving math problems or brain teasers. And it’s only $1.99! Worth it?

2. Athlete-Identifier for live sporting events

Obviously not a catchy name, but bear with me. Imagine an augmented reality  app you could use while attending a basketball game. While looking through your iPhone camera, each player would have that identifying ring around their feet like you are playing NBA 2k13.

Moreover, you could click on the player and pull up athlete stats and other pertinent info. You could even point your camera at the scoreboard and attain game, venue, and league info. Could this replace the in-game program? I don’t know, because this does not yet exist. If it did, I could see it being sold in sporting venues for around $3.

3. Drunk Text Blocker

This request is straight from the annals of the Twittersphere, undoubtedly from mornings after regretful words were sown.

There are a few promising apps like Drunk Text Savior and Oops! App, but the former doesn’t actually stop you from texting and the latter is just for Android. Either way, no one has gotten this highly-sought app concept quite right.

The perfect drunk text blocker would give allow you to designate certain phone numbers to block, and allow you to do so for a designated amount of time (8pm-8am for example). Once the Blocker is set, you can’t call, text, or even see this person’s number, thus removing all temptation to commit a social no-no.

The PERFECT app would also extend this service to cover your social media sites as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Although I like to think my most embarrassing thoughts are said aloud and not via text (is there an app for that?), I would gamble to say there would be many willing to drop $0.99 on such a useful tool.

4. Golf Range Finder with accompanying lens

Olloclip 3-1 camera lens. What a golf range finder app could look like

This one is for my dad because I’ve seen him struggle over different range finder apps and he ultimately caved and bought a $300 handheld device. For those who golf, you know how valuable it it to have the exact distance of a fairway bunker, (as if you could control whether or not you hit it there), but the handheld devices are the only thing that offer point-and-shoot handiness.

I can imagine a functional range finder app would include an additional lens akin to the Olloclip lens (shown above). Through this lens, you could pinpoint exact distances. I would honestly pay $100 for this app and hardware, seeing as the handheld devices can be upwards of $500.

5. This Place in History

Faneuil Hall, Boston- 1903

Imagine you’re looking at Faneuil Hall in Boston–now a bustling downtown marketplace, but once a brewing pot of colonial resentment and American patriotism (‘Merica!).

Now, imagine viewing Faneuil Hall through your phone and seeing what  looked like in the 1770s. Yes, it would be an artistic depiction, but you could scan the Boston streetscape and see what it looked like in the past, complete with historical points of interest.

Then, you can travel through time to the 1860s, the 1920s, the 1970s–viewing the city through the eyes of someone who once stood where you did.

This app would utilize augmented reality technology again, and I can imagine it’s coverage would first extend to historical cities like Boston and New York. I would absolutely pay $10 for this app, especially if I was planning to vacation there soon.

6. Virtual Car Engine assistant

Huh?

This app could be the savior for every auto-inept guy like me. When something goes wrong with the ol’ Camry, I pop the hood of the car and stare blankly into rubber-and-alloy mass until I cave and call a mechanic. I do this as a vain display of manliness, and I would appreciate an app that helped me out as I blindly explored my engine block.

I could see a car service provider like AAA eating this idea up. Imagine an augmented reality app  that gave you a virtual directory of your engine parts and what each part did. This way, if you’re stuck with a broken-down car, you can sit on the phone with a mechanic as he talks you through which parts to check. The app could also tell you how to change your oil or jump your car.

You could even imput symptoms your car is experiencing, and this app would suggest problem areas and show them to you.

This app could become an essential tool for road warriors. As a traveling man, I would pay at least $5 for this app.

7. Highlight Anything

Like a Virgin by Richard Branson

This app would alleviate a personal frustration of mine. While reading several on my iPhone and iPad, I loved being able to highlight key points and save them to look at later. The problem was, after leaving the iBook app and reading on the web, I would try to highlight everything, but to no avail.

The Highlight Anything tool (the name is free!) would be an overarching application that allowed you to tap and highlight anything on the web or social media. The highlighted segments would be saved to a clipboard for your viewing later. Simple, useful, and I would absolutely pay a couple bucks for it.

Your Thoughts

What do you think of these apps? Would you buy them? What other apps would make your life easier?

Are you an entrepreneur? 

Are you interested in taking on any of these challenges? Have at ’em! The more innovation, the happier we will all b.e

Don’t know where to start? 

If you are new to the entrepreneur game, you should take advantage of seasoned, helpful small-business vets who want to help.

My friend Eric Wagner is one of those people. Get in touch with him- he’d love to hear from you!