At the day job , we are furiously working, in our very, very spare free time on a new app that firmly sits at the crossroads of mobile, food and the human desire to critique things. We are having a blast building everything out, and when it came time to build the prototype, I started on the normal scenario.
I fired up Xcode, created a new iOS project and started slinging ObjC around the place. After about 30 minutes into my first coding session, building, running loading in the simulator, crashing, debugging... you get the idea, I began lamenting once again the lack of "instant gratification" that non web-development has.
So I thought, could I build this prototype as a web app? The list of features are pretty limited:
The goal here isn't to make some ugly afterthought like Foursquare's mobile web app, but a gorgeous, fully realized app.
So for the sake of argument I started hammering on a prototype that targeted the webkit rendering engine, and within an hour I had a usable framework to build on that looked sexy on my iPhone.
I am about 10 hours away from having a prototype app that I can get into the hands of testers, anywhere in the world, that will function so closely to the native apps we will be building, as to be indistinguishable.
The amazing fringe benefit to this approach, is that when all is said and done, we will have a first class web version of our app, that functions and resembles its native counterparts. I want everyone, everywhere to get on this app and get hooked.
With the approach we are taking, the initial cost of development and prototyping becomes almost nothing, while our pool of testers becomes global.
Updates for critical bugs found are instantaneous, new features to be tested and vetted are available with a single CLI push command. Once all the testing is done, and we have our feature set, UI and behaviors, creating the native apps becomes simple and more cost effective.
Angels sing, unicorns frolic on rainbows of awesomeness... ponies for everyone!
Thoughts in the comments, and as always, be respectful!
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You see, not too long ago I tweeted poetic about siri thusly:
I have decided that people who downplay Siri don't have complicated, busy lives. I use it all the time, and it has become a life saver — Chris J. Davis (@chrisjdavis) April 21, 2012
And I stand by my statement. Both my wife and I have quickly integrated Siri into our everyday lives, and it is wonderful.
I have found myself using Siri mostly for two things:
I am out and about quite a lot, running errands, going to meetings, etc. I am no where near my computer or one of my iPads, but my phone is always with me. I can easily invoke Siri and in the span of a few seconds create meeting reminders, set appointments, etc.
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On May 20th, 2002 the current incarnation of Sillyness went live. It wasn't my first blog, but it is the one that stuck. In 18 days Sillyness will turn 10 years old.
What is that in internet years, like a bazillion? Looking back over the last ten years Sillyness has gone through periods of almost manic activity, as well as large stretches of silence. One can imagine the digital tumbleweeds blowing across the screens of the six people who still stop by to check on me.
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Life is nothing if not interesting.
With all that being said, I think I will be returning to my site here, and writing more. I love to write, and haven't been afforded much of an opportunity lately. I am still working on my new WordPress book, but progress has slowed as I have shifted what little writing time I have to my first novel.
That's right internets, I am writing a novel.
This month is NaNoWriMo, which I have been doing, on and off, since its inaugural year. I have been absent for a while now, but this year felt like the right one to come back. I am working on the first book in a trilogy, that currently has no name.
Book One of the "Unnamed Trilogy" is Hinterlands. In a nutshell it is a supernatural thriller that I have been working on, plot-wise, for the last 10 years or so. It deals with Vamps, Weres and Ireland.
How can you go wrong with that formula? I will be posting more about it soon, and since I am planning on publishing it, there will be a site, with art from the always amazing Anton Peck, living there. Anton has graciously agreed to create the cover art for the book.
This thing just got real up in here.
The Scripture reading was Luke 5:1 - 11. The homily follows.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There is so much truth and beauty contained in these few sentences, that to try and talk about all of them today would be impossible. So instead I am going to pull out three threads from this reading, and really focus in on them.
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The first chapter covers the initial buildout of a plugin that Integrates your instagr.am feed into your WordPress site. I will be releasing one chapter a month for the next 9 months.
Each chapter comes in PDF and eBook format, with a full code download.
As some of you may recall I conceived of this idea many, many months ago and immediately started working on it. Unfortunately life got in the way and it sat abandoned. Well lucky for you I found some time to dust it off and revamp it.
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As always be respectful or I will nuke you. The homily follows.
Today we remember the healing of the Paralytic. Many homilies have been written on this miracle, most of them focusing on the connection between physical illness and our great enemy sin.
Today, I would like to focus on two aspects of this story, the charge that Jesus gave him afterwords, as they met in the temple and the loneliness of the man.
“See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.”
You see it wasn't enough that this man was healed by God, he needed to do some follow up work. If you will, he was given a prescription by Christ that he needed to follow for the healing to remain intact.
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Well my friend, sit down for a spell, and I will enlighten you. On April 21st, 2011 I replied to a very funny tweet from @PepsiThrowback:
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This is Sillyness Spelled Wrong Intentionally. Going strong for 10 years, 4 months and 2 weeks