interviews posts

Interviews suggest iPhone developer experience not too bad so far

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on Sep 21st, 2008

Dave Taylor wrote in to tell us about several interviews he's done with iPhone developers, and many have had less frustrating experiences than Mike Ash and Fraser Speirs.

Of 11 people he surveyed for his blog, I would judge that five had a positive experience submitting their app to the App Store, four were neutral, and two had a negative experience. The SDK received similar reviews, with six developers regarding it favorably, four were neutral, and one developer regarding it unfavorably.

Two of the developers with positive experiences said they submitted their app before the App Store was launched, and it was approved for distribution in about a week. The two developers with negative experiences submitting their app said that the most frustrating parts were waiting and the lack of communication.

The positive, neutral, and negative ratings were not a part of his interview, but were indicative of the general tone that I could determine reading the interviews. They are subjective on my part, and opinions, of course, may vary.

The interviews are interesting reading if you're considering developing an iPhone app.

Thanks, Dave!

Tags: app store, AppStore, dave taylor, DaveTaylor, developer, interviews

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, OS, Software, Features, Apple, Leopard, TUAW Interview, Developer, iPhone, Apple TV

TUAW Interview series with Allan Odgaard: The Leopard delay - does it change anything?

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 30th, 2007

Finishing up my interview series with notable Mac OS X developers is Allan Odgaard of Macromates, makers of the most excellent TextMate text and code manipulation app. Allan now joins Brent Simmons, Wil Shipley, Paul Kafasis and Gus Mueller in sharing some thoughts with us on the delay of Mac OS X Leopard, the iPhone and what it's like to develop on the bleeding edge.

Read on for my interview with Allan Odgaard.

Continue reading “TUAW Interview series with Allan Odgaard: The Leopard delay - does it change anything?”

Tags: allan ogdaard, AllanOgdaard, apple tv, AppleTv, developers, interview, interviews, iphone, leopard, macromates, textmate

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, OS, Software, Features, Leopard, TUAW Interview, Developer, iPhone, Apple TV

TUAW Interview series with Gus Mueller: The Leopard delay - does it change anything?

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 29th, 2007

The interview train just keeps on chuggin', and this time we have Gus Mueller of Flying Meat Software, developer of VoodooPad, FlySketch and FlyGesture, on board. Just like the other interviews I've done with Brent Simmons, Wil Shipley and Paul Kafasis, Gus had some great thoughts to share on the Leopard delay, whether to develop software for one specific OS, words of wisdom from a Nintendo game developer and how Apple's past behavior can hint at the possibility of the iPhone opening up up to 3rd parties sometime in the future. Amazing fact from this particular interview: Gus's mobile phone just turned 7.

Read on for my interview with Gus Mueller.

Continue reading “TUAW Interview series with Gus Mueller: The Leopard delay - does it change anything?”

Tags: flygesture, flying meat, FlyingMeat, flysketch, gus mueller, GusMueller, interview, interviews, leopard, software, voodoopad

Filed under: Hardware, OS, Software, Features, Apple, Leopard, TUAW Interview, Developer, iPhone, Apple TV

TUAW Interview series: Brent Simmons on the Leopard delay - does it change anything?

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 20th, 2007

Apple's announcement that Leopard has been delayed until October was quite the shocker, especially since we apparently have the iPhone to thank. This of course elicited nearly every response you can think of from every walk of life, but we don't often hear from what I feel is one of the most important building blocks of the Mac OS X community: 3rd party developers. Sure, developers blog about stuff like this on their own, but not everyone is down for sifting through posts about the inner workings of Mac OS X for the insightful opinion pieces on what things like a Leopard delay mean to Apple and its users. And that isn't a bad thing, especially since it inspired me to bring the developers' thoughts to you in an interview series with some of Mac OS X's biggest hitters, including Wil Shipley (co-founder of Omni Group and Delicious Monster), Paul Kafasis (CEO of Rogue Amoeba), Gus Mueller (of Flying Meat software) and Allan Odgaard (of Macromates).

I wanted to get their thoughts on Leopard, the iPhone and where Apple is headed as a company in light of Mac OS X delays and Apple's gadgets which would (or should) make great venues for their products. Thankfully, all the developers responded positively and offered some great insight on these issues. These guys have a unique perspective on the state of Apple and its products, and I'm thankful that they all took the time to lay it down as only a Mac OS X developer can.

First up (only because he was the first to reply) is Brent Simmons of NewsGator fame. Read on for thoughts from the man who brought RSS and blogging to the Mac masses with NetNewsWire and MarsEdit (which was acquired recently by Red Sweater Software).

Continue reading “TUAW Interview series: Brent Simmons on the Leopard delay - does it change anything?”

Tags: apple tv, AppleTv, brent simmons, BrentSimmons, delay, delays, dev, developer, developers, devs, interview, interviews, iphone, leopard

Filed under: Macworld, Features, Podcasts, TUAW Interview

TUAW Podcast #20: Macworld Interview with Guy Kawasaki (Extended Remix)

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Feb 2nd, 2007

Wow - you overwhelmingly asked for it, and here it is. I was blown away by the response to the 'TUAW edit' of my Guy Kawasaki interview, so the extended remix is ready for download. This one clocks in at over 55 minutes, so it should satisfy the fans of Guy in the crowd. It was an honor to speak with Mr. Kawasaki, and as you'll discover, we touched on so many more topics throughout the rest of the interview. We covered being a venture capitalist, Guy's surprising humility, what a car from Apple would be like, whether Guy bought a Wii, how he gets his blogging on and so much more. I was admittedly speechless at times around Guy, and I'm glad Laurie Duncan, who graciously came along to handle the recording aspects, was there to help me keep from stumbling. You'll hear her pitch some great questions to Guy a few times throughout the interview.

There is, however, one catch even with this extended cut: we wound up chatting with Guy for so long that the recording equipment we used ran out of juice just before we wrapped up. Don't worry - you have virtually all the juicy stuff we talked about, but I just wanted to give a heads up on the use of the canned conclusion.

With that said, you can now grab my full interview with Guy Kawasaki, which weighs in at 50MB and 55 minutes. Enjoy it from this direct link, our iTunes Store Podcast directory or our own podcast RSS feed. Enjoy.

Tags: Guy Kawasaki, GuyKawasaki, interview, interviews, iphone, macworld, macworld07, mwsf

Filed under: Interviews, iPhone, Apple TV

Apple Matters interviews Peter Rojas

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jan 24th, 2007

I have to admit: it's virtually impossible to keep up with our own Peter Rojas of Engadget and Weblogs, Inc. I swear the guy must have ripped off Michael Keaton's idea from Multiplicity to get around the way he does. Hadley Stern at Apple Matters recently snagged some time with Peter to wax poetic about the iPhone, Apple TV, and how there simply ain't no web like the Mac web.

Peter brings an interesting perspective to Apple's recent announcements, pointing out that the iPhone and Apple TV aren't necessarily ground breaking products - but they *are* Apple's classic play of doing old, stagnant things in refreshing new ways. The interview is a good read, especially if you're looking for thoughts from someone whose job it is to report on similar products from tech companies across the entire industry.

Tags: apple matters, apple tv, AppleMatters, AppleTv, interview, interviews, iphone, mac web, MacWeb, peter rojas, PeterRojas

Filed under: Macworld, Audio, Podcasts, TUAW Interview

TUAW Podcast #18: Macworld interview with Brent Simmons and Paul Kafasis

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jan 18th, 2007

On Friday of last week at Macworld 07, Brent Simmons (of NewsGator/ NetNewsWire/ MarsEdit fame) and Paul Kafasis (of Rogue Amoeba/Audio Hijack/Airfoil fame) were kind enough to unite their powers and sit down with me for an interview. For just over 20 minutes we discussed Macworld, the iPhone, the state of Mac OS X, being a developer, whether competition or web services are slowing them down and a whole lot more. The interview turned out great, but the audio needed a little cleanup. My XtremeMac MicroMemo usually does a good recording job with my iPod, but we did the interview in the large press room hall at Macworld so it picked up some background noise. It sounds pretty good now (thanks Mike!), and it should be a good listen for anyone interested in a perspective on the state of Apple and their products from two influential 3rd party developers.

This TUAW Podcast #18 weighs in at just under 21MB, and can be had from this direct link, our iTunes Store Podcast directory or our own podcast RSS feed. Enjoy.

P.S. - On a related note, our TUAW podcast is now listed in the digg podcast directory. Why not head over and show some love by digging our podcast and your favorite individual episodes?

Tags: audio hijack, AudioHijack, brent simmons, BrentSimmons, interview, interviews, macworld, macworld07, mwsf, netnewswire, newsgator, paul kafasis, PaulKafasis, podcast, podcasts, rogue amoeba, RogueAmoeba, tuaw18

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family

iLounge interviews, um, everyone about new iPods

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Sep 17th, 2006

Ok, maybe not 'everyone,' but they certainly made the rounds to a healthy portion of companies who have just about anything to do with the iPod. iLounge asked for general reactions of the new products from the likes of Griffin, Altec Lansing, Pacific Rim, Targus, TechRestore and even the Chief iPodification Officer of iPopMyPhoto and iPopMyBaby.com. Plenty of other companies sounded off with reactions, and (of course) just about everyone got a word in on the status of their products, whether they'll work with the new iPods (save for the shuffle, many products should be fine) and what they have coming down the pipeline. While some of the reactions may be packed with more marketing than genuine answers, it's still a good overall 'state of the iPod universe' article, providing a nice communication channel between the accessory manufacturers and their adoring fans. I haven't seen a post like this before from iLounge, but I hope they keep 'em coming.

[Update: Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge let us know in the comments that they actually have been doing these types of posts for a while, and they even have an archive. Thanks Jeremy!]

Tags: accessories, economy, ilounge, interview, interviews, ipod, reactions

Filed under: Software, Apple, Universal Binary

Apple talks with developers about audio Universal apps

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Jul 18th, 2006

The Apple Developer Connection has posted a short feature consisting of quotes from several well known audio programmers and how the move to Intel has affected their products and their development process. It isn't shocking to find that these programmers are excited about the performance gains that they are seeing in the Universal versions of their code, some even contend that this raw performance may open the door to new features.

Check out the whole article for more information.

Tags: apple developer connection, AppleDeveloperConnection, audio programs, AudioPrograms, interviews

Filed under: Internet

AOL refreshes Netscape as social news site with a twist

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 16th, 2006

AOL yesterday relaunched the aging Netscape.com as a social news site (yea, like digg) but with a professional journalistic twist. Check it out. Anyone can sign up, submit and vote on interesting stories from across the web in a wide range of categories from politics, money, television, technology, health and even 'do no evil'. Going above and beyond the social news bookmarking concept, however, is a staff of journalists, including TUAW's own C.K. Sample III and Fabienne Serriere, who will follow up on some of the stories and dig deeper by nabbing interviews, posting related links and keeping users informed as the situation develops (on a side note, we finally figured out why C.K. and Fabs gave us that 'we'd tell you what we're working on, but then we'd have to kill you' bit a while ago).

Why are we telling you about all this since it isn't specifically Apple-related, you ask? Well, we should probably tell you the project was headed up by Weblogs Inc.'s CEO, Jason Calacanis. Granted, Weblogs Inc., including TUAW, are owned by AOL, but we could still call it crummy if we wanted to - fortunately, that isn't the case. We think it's a great concept that you should go have some fun with. Still, if you're looking for some Apple-specific details before you fire off a flaming comment, how does 'full-Safari compatibility' work for you? In fact, I think the site actually looks surprisingly better in Safari than Firefox.

Tags: beta, bookmarking, follow up, FollowUp, interview, interviews, journalism, journalist, netscape, news, social, vote, voting

Filed under: Internet Tools, Interviews

Hawk Wings wraps up "Talking Mail.app" series

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Mar 27th, 2006

Hawk Wings, Tim Gaden's blog about all things Mail.app, has been running a series for the last couple months in which he chats with various developers and "iCelebrities" about the ups and downs of Apple's default email client. The list boasts around 20 interviewees ranging from Brent Simmons (of NetNewsWire fame), Rob Griffiths (of MacOSXHints and Macworld), John Gruber (of Daring Fireball), as well as devs of all sorts of handy utilities like Textpander, FlickrExport and much more. In the series, Tim asked these individuals a well-rounded set of questions that make for good brain food, such as: what plugins they use, their favorite/most hated thing about Mail.app and the one thing they'd tell the dev team if they could.

Conveniently, Tim put together a roundup post linking every interview, so head on over to Hawk Wings and get your learn on with various "iCelebrities" and Mail.app.

Tags: Hawk Wings, HawkWings, iCelebrities, interviews, Mail, Mail.app, Talking Mail.app, TalkingMail.app

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