After taking a (mostly) break from developing new features in Jagimo in order to do the business plan and marketing, I’m going back to development this week. There are some key features that I think would really enhance the Jagimo network.
I’ll need more than a week to do this stuff, but I gotta get started. Maybe there will be a big release at the end of September.
I’m not saying that an idea isn’t worth something, it’s just that there are lots of ideas out there. I get a few each week. People always come up with ideas for apps and think they can make a quick buck by getting a partner to develop it for them. This is not unlike the days of the Internet boom, when people had ideas for Web sites.
It is common now for someone to get an idea for an app and seek out someone to develop it for them. But most developers do not want to work with someone who only brings an idea to the table. Developing an app is a lot of work, not just programming. After a few months of long days and no weekends, while the idea guy keeps telling you how to do it, is no way to start a business partnership. Imagine a guy who has an idea for a movie script. He teams up with another guy who writes the script, gets the actors and crew, shoots the movie, edits it, and takes it to market. How much was the idea worth? Idea generators always overvalue their idea and undervalue the work it takes to make it. An idea by itself, IMO, is not worth 50% of the final product.
So if you have an idea for an app, and you don’t have money to hire a developer, my suggestion is to learn some part of the app development process and execute it. This does not have to be programming. There is also design, marketing, and business to do. If you can bring something more to the table than an idea, it will help you get development partners that last without battles.
I’m still having trouble with programming the tossing music. This is a replacement for the beeping, which has had mixed reviews from users. Some people really hate the beeping, especially when in public. Some people like it. So, I wanted to add an option for tossing music instead of beeping.
There are three options for the music to play in Jagimo: play a specific song, play a random song, play the default Jagimo tossing music (some silent film stuff, like in the demo video). If it is playing from the users’s library, it uses MPMusicPlayerController. If it’s the default music (a sound file embedded in the app) then it uses AVAudioPlayer. Sounds simple enough right?
The problem is that these two ways of playing music are handled differently by the iPhone. For example, MPMusicPlayerController will ignore the iPhone’s silent switch because it is playing through the iPod. This is not good for Jagimo, because we don’t want people’s phones to start playing music unexpectedly when they catch a jagimo. So I have to check for the device’s silent switch mode before playing. But what if they turn the silent switch on or off while the music is playing? Well, to account for this I have to check the state of the silent switch every second as the timer ticks away. The same goes for the volume by the way.
Furthermore, if the user is already listening to music, I don’t want Jagimo to play its music instead of the user’s. So I need to check the state of the iPod before starting the music. Add to this the options of turning sound off completely and setting the volume dynamically and you have a bit of code that ends up being a little more complex than I’d hoped. I still expect to be able to release tossing music soon, but it’s on the back burner for now.
I have written an article for QuantNet.com that will be posted in installments. Installment one is up today. It doesn’t mention iPhone or Jagimo, but it talks about my experience at Baruch’s MFE program leading up to the creation of Woern/Jagimo
From Financial Engineering to iPhone App Development
Jagimo is the app store’s first and only social brainstorming game. Users toss ideas. Random people catch and add to them. Together they create cool and creative mashups.
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So I submitted the app on Friday at 5pm. It was “In Review” at 8pm. And today, I just got notice that it was approved for the app store at 7:30pm. That is the quickest turnaround–four days including the weekend.
I sent a new version of Jagimo to Apple for approval last Friday. Last time the app was “Waiting for Review” for a week before going to “In Review.” Then after a few hours, it is approved; and a few hours after that, it’s up in the App store.
This time Jagimo went straight to “In Review” after only a couple of hours. However, it did not get approved a few hours after that. Here it is Tuesday and I haven’t heard anything yet. After the first version was submitted, it was “In Review” over the weekend before being approved, so maybe it will be like that this time. But I’m wondering if it really is in review or whether it will take another week before it’s approved. We’ll see.
Masako and Richie have joined Woern. Masako will be responsible for doing all the design work and Richie will do writing and editing. This is good because until now, I’ve been doing the “design.” The designs are pretty lame. I’ll post before and after screenshots of the designs. Richie already helped with the patent application, app store description, and all the writing inside the app and Web site.
Technically, Ernesto and I could have done this too, but their expertise in these areas provide a much more professional look to Jagimo.
I received verification from the patent office about our provisional patent application. Jagimo is now officially “Patent Pending.” It was a pretty involved process but LegalZoom helped.
I think it’s a good process to go through because it forces you to really think through the technology and all the ways it can be used.
We now have one year to file a utility patent. Then, if that’s approved, we get the full patent protection for 20 years. We’ll see.
Ernesto and I started a company called Woern LLC. The company will specialize in “Light Application Development.” These are applications (apps) that have a small technical footprint and typically perform a simple, focused purpose.
Jagimo will be our first app. For now, we’ll only have it on iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). Hopefully we’ll be able to develop it for Android soon.
