BB10 Development: Ready, set, jump?June 12, 2012
It has now been over a month since I was at BB10 Jam in Orlando and I haven't jumped into BB10 development yet. I had released my Flix app for PlayBook at the start of the conference, and I have been busy trying to work with users who are having issues to get them resolved. It has been a reminder that any time you create something that has a Windows app component of any complexity, you are opening up a can of worms since a Windows app might run fine on one person's computer but not another's. And as a small independent developer, I don't have access to many different Windows machine to test on.
Now that things are settling down, I'm looking forward to jumping into BB10 development. Cascades, QML, etc. My work on Flix has actually been a nice transition, since it has been my first NDK app. It has thus afforded me experience with the Momentics IDE, the NDK, etc.
I must admit that transitioning to BB10 development feels somewhat "unnatural" as a PlayBook developer who has developed a good revenue stream on PlayBook. What I mean by that is that there is a lot of incentive to keep cranking out PlayBook apps and to continue to capitalize on what has been a fantastic financial opportunity. Switching to BB10 development means that I won't be releasing any new apps to users for months. If BB10 is launched in October, that means June, July, August, September, and October will be void of new launches and new revenue. And I tend to be pessimistic/conservative about tech time estimates. What I mean by that is that although the public seems to be all caught up with "October" being the magical month, I would actually be surprised to see BB10 that early. I think it's much more likely that it will be released in November or December or January or February. Heck, if it were launched in March it wouldn't be a big surprise. You can't snap your fingers and pull a whole new generation of product out of a hat, and RIM can't afford to release it half baked. So things will take time. Circling back to my original point here, it's a somewhat tough pill to swallow that launch is quite a ways off, and so it is unfortunate to divorce ones self from the fun of pumping out an app, releasing it, and getting the positive reinforcement of revenue and user feedback.
More than waiting for BB10 to be released, starting BB10 development means shifting gears to a learning mode. That's the way I started with PlayBook development too. If you consider that I started coding way back in November (?) 2010 for the free PlayBook offer, it was a full 8 months from when I started learning to when I started seeing any reasonable income from my BB development efforts. At the time it wasn't any worry because it was just fun recreational coding, and an opportunity to learn. But now that my development context has also become very much about the fun of producing revenue, it's a strange feeling to set that aside, take a deep breath, and put one's learning hat back on.
All that said, I love learning, exploring new things, etc. And the BB10 tools look fantastic, so I couldn't ask for a better context in which to learn.
I have the summer off of work (June/July/August) to spend time with the family and our new little addition Hazel (born June 1). Hopefully there will be some time in the coming weeks to start playing with the BB10 tools.
One final thought is that it's tricky for a developer like me who likes to "fill in the gaps" of productivity/utility functionality, not knowing what first party use cases will be solved in the BB10 platform. For example, should I put significant effort into the "sync" use cases? Or will BB10 have that all baked in? A lot of effort could be wasted by devs creating things that RIM itself is working on.
Secrets to App World SuccessMay 10, 2012
A month or so ago I wrote this article. My hope is to encourage other developers to be as successful as they can if they can learn anything from my experiences this year:
Link to articleI'm presenting these ideas at the KWBBDev group meeting today.
BB 10 Jam, etc.April 15, 2012
I was excited this week to get an email from RIM offering to fly me down to Orlando and put me up at the Hilton to attend BB 10 Jam. I'm also excited to be getting the BB 10 Alpha device to start developing BB 10 apps. Obviously my top priority will be getting iTunes Sync up and running, but I don't expect it will take much work. From what I understand, the alpha device screens will be the same resolution and pixel density as final devices, and will have the same ports, just not in the same places as final devices, etc. Of critical importance is the screen, especially for development. Knowing that it will have the same screen characteristics as final devices is great!
I submitted iTunes Sync to the
App Circus competition. There are 3 prizes each worth $25,000, and only 9 competitors so far -- even if there are 50 apps by the time of the conference, that's a pretty small pool of competition for such large prizes! Given that iTunes Sync has been the top purchased app of the apps so far in the competition, who knows?!
Yesterday I finally enhanced iTunes Sync to create your iTunes playlists on your PlayBook. The feature is currently implemented for Windows/PlayBook, so if you have a Mac and/or are using the phone version, the feature has yet to be added. Hopefully App World will approve this update soon, I'm sure lots of people will be happy to get it! That's one of the neat things of having about 25,000 customers: You can spend a few hours coding on a Saturday and a whole lot of people can see, download, and appreciate your efforts.
A couple of weeks ago RIM released my
success story, which is great. I enjoy getting the word out about what a great opportunity App World development is.
This week I attended my first mobile event, called "MoBeers" here in Waterloo. It was wonderful to meet people face to face and chat, such as RIM's Alex Kinsella. He strikes me as being a great person for his role. I also saw Alec Saunders there but didn't meet him. Also nice to catch up with a couple of former Navtech employees. As a person who works from home, it's energizing to be able to chat with people in person! All the more looking forward to my time in Orlando, which is coming up fast!
Also of recent was meeting Mike Kirkup, former RIM developer relations person (at Navtech hockey of all places), and Wes Worsfold, president at Motek, and leader of the KW BB Dev group. I'm planning on giving a talk on May 10th to the KW BB Dev group of my experiences.
older >>
