IanBaird
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Q&A with Transactions app developers: Kyle Richter and Ian Baird
I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) and have a chat with Kyle Richter and Ian Baird, two iPhone developers who have come up with the game-changing Handshake app for contact sharing on the iPhone (TUAW review), then released the credit card and payments app Transactions (TUAW review) which can transform any iPhone or iPod touch into a basic point-of-sale device. We talked about how they came up with the idea of their Transactions application, and they shared their experience of developing for the iPhone. Cory: What was your vision behind creating Transactions, and why did you pursue this idea and turn it into an iPhone application? Kyle: When working with a platform that is as new as the iPhone the goal is to try and find niches that haven't yet be filled or not properly filled. While I was out jogging with Ian one evening it hit me that a lot of businesses have a need to accept credit cards anywhere. It felt like a perfect solution for the iPhone so we started to research the feasibility. Ian: One of the driving influences for us has been to take advantage of the "democratizing force" of the platform. We have Authorize.net for the higher end, more professional users who will use this app on a day to day basis. We also felt we needed to make this application accessible to the farmer who's selling his or her produce at the farmer's market. Or the craftsperson selling his or her wares at a trade show. That was the motivation for including the Paypal option. It doesn't require a merchant account. That's a *big deal*.Continue reading to hear more from Kyle and Ian about their iPhone programming experience, and advice for prospective iPhone developers.
Changes hits 1.0
Ian Baird at Skorpiostech has been hard at work polishing up Changes, the new OS X directory comparison and file differencing utility, for a 1.0 release. We covered the beta at the end of last year and the program received a significant amount of feedback from testers in the months following, producing a high-power app that makes managing the differences between files and folders a breeze. Changes is Leopard-only and leverages Core Animation and Quick Look for a refined user experience. If you're a FileMerge user, you'll probably find the power and ease-of-use of Changes to be a welcome step forward. And it fits into just about any workflow with a CLI utility, a TextMate bundle, BBEdit menu scripts, TextWrangler menu scripts, XCode integration and F-Script support, in addition to Subversion, CVS, Mercurial, git, Perforce and other SCM systems. And its support for MacFUSE mounted volumes is ready for prime time. Ian also tells us he's looking for a clever tagline for Changes (think BBEdit's "It doesn't suck"). He's given TUAW 2 free licenses to award to the best contributors, so take a stab at it in the comments! And for those less inclined to witty prose, Ian's offering $10 off of the $39.95 price tag (25%) with the coupon code TUAW, which is valid for the next 2 weeks. You can get a fully-functional, 15-day trial and licenses are available for purchase starting today.
