030 : A carefully crafted app launch with Jeremy Olson

Jeremy Olson Tapity It’s easy to look at somebody like Jeremy Olson and think, “wow, this guy came out of nowhere and just dominated the app scene!” His created his first app, Grades, while still in college, and it won him Apple’s prestigious Design Award in 2011. From there, he founded Tapity, an app development company that just launched its newest app Hours. He’s also the co-author of the popular App Design Handbook.

But creating a beautiful product is only one step in the process of releasing successful apps. In this interview, Jeremy takes me back to the beginning, and shares how he used a journal-like blog to make industry connections and build an audience before he even knew what he was doing. He also talks about turning app releases into launch events, which explains why Hours was covered by almost every major tech news website.

With over a million apps in the App Store, app success really is all about the launch. Jeremy shares exactly how he does it.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:22 — 39.7MB) | Embed

029 : Novice No Longer goes back to apps

I was still working retail when I truly felt what it was like to be a novice. I was just starting the second chapter of a book on Objective-C (after two other books and a video course couldn’t help me) and the words were beginning to sound like gibberish. I just couldn’t make it any farther in my journey to learn programming.

Each of these resources contained a small disclaimer in the intro: some prior programming experience required. At that point in my life, I had done a little HTML and CSS, and figured that experience was a solid foundation for learning more advanced programming with the right guidance.

But nothing made sense. And it wasn’t a matter Googling terms I didn’t understand — I didn’t even know what I should be Googling or how to determine a helpful answer. Everything I read went over my head, and it was impossible to sort the helpful information from the advanced stuff that I really wasn’t ready for yet.

That’s when I discovered Programming in Objective-C by Stephen Kochan. It taught a language I was interested in learning, and didn’t require any prior programming experience. I didn’t need to learn C before tackling Objective-C. The book simply started from the beginning. It was for novices like me.

Programming teaches you a new way to think. Yet even after finishing that book, I still remembered what it felt like to be in the dark. When I talked to other people interested in learning to code, I saw them in the same place I was years before…and I wanted to help.

That’s why I launched Novice No Longer, to help people build apps even if they had no prior programming experience. I launched the podcast in order to further this goal. Over time, the podcast drifted away from this vision, and became more a business/entrepreneur/lifestyle design podcast. It’s been amazing, and I’ve had some amazing guests on the show, but it’s time to get back to the original vision.

I’m taking a break from the podcast for a short while for the revamp. When we return, we’re going to have some top app developers on the show, like Jeremy from Tapity and Dan Councell from Realmac Software.

Is there someone you’d like to see on the show? Let me know.

I’m also introducing a brand new segment to the show, called Ask a Developer. Each week, I’m going to play a question asked by you, the listener, and my guest and I will do our best to provide an answer. It’s a chance to get your biggest questions answered by the masters.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:33 — 7.0MB) | Embed

026 : How to hire a coder without learning code

Dann Berg You have an idea for an app. Maybe you’ve even made some sketches or you have the full wireframes done. Now it’s time to hire a developer…but you don’t have any idea where to begin.

In this episode of the podcast, I share exactly what you need to do to get an app in the app store. We start with your mockups then move into finding a developer, communicating with that developer, and submitting your app. This is the entire process.

If you’re ready to finally get that app in the app store, listen in.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:32 — 28.6MB) | Embed

025 : From Crash Bandicoot to a smarter inbox with Dave Baggett

How many unread emails do you have in your inbox? If you went all the way back to the very oldest unread email, do you think you’d actually need it? If not, why is it still there? When are you going to do something about it?

Email itself first came on the scene circa 1993, alongside Windows NT 3.1 and massive brick phones. Since then, our computers have evolved substantially — and just look at our smartphones — but our email inboxes remain mostly just a big dumb bucket.

Dave Baggett is using machine learning to bring your inbox up to speed. He’s the founder of Arcode, creator of Inky email client (iOS, OS X). Dave shares the interesting story of how Inky came to be, starting with working on the first two Crash Bandicoot games and then joining a travel startup that would end up taking over the industry (and eventually get acquired by Google).

He’s got an interesting story and a fresh take on email. It’ll make you think about your own projects differently.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:58 — 45.0MB) | Embed

Win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference!

MoDev UX Conference in DC

One lucky reader will win a free ticket to the MoDev UX conference in Washington, DC this month! That’s a $799 value, and all you need to do is tell me why you want to go — I’ve got a form at the bottom of this post. But first, I want to tell you why I’m going and why you should want to go, too.

Why are conferences important?

Once of the first books I bought when I decided to quit my job at The Verge and start freelancing and working on this website full-time was Deduct It!: Lower Your Small Business Taxes by Stephen Fishman. Up until that point, my knowledge of the United States tax system was practically nonexistent, and I got the book to make sure that my first small business venture got off on the right foot.

But reading Deduct It! had unexpected consequences beyond simply understanding the law: each new chapter gave me a ton of new ideas for growing my business.

I was expecting a book about tax law to be extremely boring, but it read more like an instruction manual for kicking ass in small business. By learning the laws pertaining to certain types of purchases and income, I discovered new assets to buy and revenue streams I never even considered.

They say that the best way to learn a new language is through total immersion. That’s exactly what happens at conferences. And speaking this new language is the best way to think differently about your own projects and problems.

Why should I learn UX?

A computer science degree doesn’t teach how to code — it teaches how to think. Students still need to independently study individual programming languages, but the computer science background makes learning new languages much easier. When you already understand the concept of a linked list or an array, it’s easier to learn how to write them in Ruby, Java, Objective-C, or any other programming language.

Similarly, user experience teaches a different way to think about problems. Learning a new method for structuring a website or app will reveal user problems you never even realized existed.

Novice…no longer!

I define a novice as a person who doesn’t know enough about a topic to even ask the right questions. I was a novice when I decided to make my first iPhone app, and remained a novice for much longer than was necessary due to my stubborn desire to learn how to code all by myself and never ask for help.

But I’ve learned that it doesn’t actually take very long to exit the novice stage. The best way to do it is to find someone who knows more than you and make them talk about the topic of interest. Listening to the way these “experts” talk, and the specific points they make, is truly the real fast lane out of novice-dom.

Alright, so gimme my ticket

Ah yes, the free ticket to the MoDev UX conference!

The people who run the MoDev conference have been kind enough to give me two tickets — one for myself and another to give to one lucky reader. You’ll have access to all the workshops and the entire conference for the full two days. That’s a $799 value.

All you need to do is fill out the form below. You have until midnight on Thursday, May 8th. I’ll be contacting the winner on Saturday, May 10th.

Good luck, and I hope to see you there!