OriginStories
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Origin Stories: Dave Taylor and Band Together
Dave Taylor has been building games for a while. You may have enjoyed some of his work on Quake or Doom, in fact. He's also the developer behind the indie game Abuse (for those who remember that one). But lately Taylor has been teaching a new generation of game designers how to make games. We caught up with him at WWDC 2012 to chat about his classes and the game some of his students made, Band Together.
TUAW Origin Stories: Developer Matt Drance
Matt Drance may have learned Turbo Pascal at age 6, but didn't really dive back into programming until college. Once he did, he found he had a knack for software, which lead him to California during the dot-com boom, then at Apple for a while. Now Matt's an independent iOS developer and writes intelligent stuff over at his blog, Apple Outsider. Learn more about Matt, app marketing and more in the video below.
Origin Stories: Sonnet Technologies
Sonnet Technologies has been around for 26 years, and was founded by a former Apple engineer. I've long been a fan of their products, first with a PPC daughtercard upgrade for my 8500 years ago. In this Origin Stories I talk to Greg LaPorte about the history of Sonnet. As a bonus, check out the additional videos around some great Sonnet products. Here's a video of some of Sonnet's advanced Thunderbolt products: And here's a video of some more great stuff, including a USB 3.0 media reader and a Tempo SSD card for performance junkies:
Origin Stories: Tekserve
Tekserve is a much-beloved Apple repair and sales shop in Manhattan. Our own Mike Rose has been a customer, and profiled the shop a little while ago. In the video below, I speak with Tekserve's CTO, Aaron Freimark about how Tekserve began, and a short history of Manhattan's longest-open Apple shop. Happy 25th anniversary, Tekserve!
TUAW Origin Stories: Retro Dreamer
Today we continue our Origin Stories series by interviewing Gavin Bowman, one of the co-founders of Retro Dreamer, a great iOS indie developer that's released games like Velocispider, Duckers, and most recently, Happy Fall. In the interview, Bowman lets us in on the wild story behind Happy Fall, and tells us about his company's philosophy lately, of simply making smaller games and testing the App Store market bit by bit rather than building huge projects with substantially more risk. Thanks very much to Bowman for chatting with us at the recent MacTech conference in Los Angeles! Retro Dreamer has updates coming for a few of their apps very soon (including Ice Cream Jump), and we'll stay tuned for more releases from them.
Origin Stories: MacTech Conference
About the only time you'll see Neil Ticktin sitting down during the MacTech Conference is to eat, very briefly. I managed to get him to sit down long enough to do a quick interview about how the conference began for this week's Origin Stories.
TUAW Origin Stories: Bartender
We wrote up Bartender for Mac as a Friday Favorite some time ago, even though the app isn't out of beta. In this Origin Stories, I speak with Ben Surtees, who has been programming since he was 15. Check out the story behind Bartender in the video below, and the app itself if you're tired of menu bar items cluttering your Mac.
TUAW Origin Stories: PDF Cabinet
PDF Cabinet is one of many PDF tools on the App Store, but Cabinet features some niceties like real-time collaboration and drag-and-drop document management. It also sports a skeumorphic or "real-world" look, complete with stitched leather, if you're into that sort of thing. In the video below, we talk to Andrey Podshibyakin, one of the creators of PDF Cabinet, about how it came to be.
TUAW Origin Stories: Cydia
This was a special treat for me, being a huge fan of anyone who hacks a closed system to make it better. In this Origin Stories we learn how Jay Freeman (saurik) got started in programming and how he came to create Cydia. Cydia is the premiere "alternative" apps venue outside Apple's own App Store. Jailbreak fans know it well, and yes, you must jailbreak your iPhone to use it. But as jailbreakers know, using Cydia means having access to a plethora of useful tweaks and enhancements in iOS. If you've ever wanted more icons in your dock, or the ability to ignore a paired Bluetooth keyboard (our own Erica Sadun wrote up something for just that), Cydia's vast repositories of useful goodies will help you customize iOS to your heart's content.
TUAW Origin Stories: EleMints
The developer of EleMints, Dimitri Bouniol, started programming as a kid and picked up iPhone programming quite fast. While he's moved on from chemistry, find out why he created EleMints in the video below. Origin Stories is a continuing series on TUAW highlighting the purpose behind apps and how they came to be. If you're interested in participating, please let us know on our feedback form.
TUAW Origin Stories: Picky
Picky used to be Pod+, but since WWDC (when this was filmed), the developer has changed the name. The idea behind Picky is simple: a tool for quickly filtering through artists and songs by viewing them based on how many songs of theirs are on your iOS device. When Pod+ became Picky, the dev who created it (Charles Joseph) gave it a substantial UI facelift. The result is a simple tool for picky music listeners. In this Origin Stories, we learn why Charles made Picky. As you can imagine, he wanted to tame his own music collection.
TUAW Origin Stories: Pomodorable
If you're into time management principles you may have heard of the Pomodoro Technique. At its core is the notion of setting a timer (generally around 25 minutes) and focusing on one task for the duration. If this interests you, Pomodorable is an attractive Mac timer app that adds a few niceties, like Reminders integration. I spoke one of the minds behind Pomodorable, Kyle Kinkade, at WWDC. Kyle helped organize IndieDevLab (where we filmed the first round of Origin Stories videos), which was a great place for developers who couldn't attend WWDC to gather and learn. Check out why Kyle and team created Pomodorable in the video below and check out Pomodorable on the Mac App Store.
TUAW Origin Stories: Model Release
There are a few "model release" apps on the market. These apps have boilerplate contracts which allow a model in a photo or video to virtually sign those contracts. Model Release was created by a fashion photographer to meet his needs, however, and as such I think it's one of the best of its kind out there. After all, who understands the needs of a photographer better than a photographer? Add in a solid feature set (like iCloud) and lovely design and Model Release quickly moves to the top of the must-have list for working photographers. In this episode of Origin Stories we look at how Model Release came to be. You can get the app for iPad or iPhone here.
TUAW Origin Stories: FlipBook HD
I'm a bit of an animation fan, both finished works and the tools that make them. iOS devices can come close to the old methods of drawing, moving and capturing animation because they can simulate "touching" the objects and moving them around as your would on a light table. FlipBook HD is as much like an old light table as possible with the addition of a handy timeline and digital drawing tools. I spoke to the creator, Josh Anon, about why he created FlipBook HD. Josh also wanted to point out FlipBook HD was developed by MartianCraft, after he had created the iPhone version. Either version provides a fun tool for discovering the basics of animation while creating some of your own.
TUAW Origin Stories: Simple In/Out
In TUAW Origin Stories we look at why developers wrote the applications they sell on the store. In this edition, Simple In/Out was created to replicate the old-fashioned "in/out" boards found in many offices.
TUAW Origin Stories: Elphi
Sadly this origin story ended before it began. While at WWDC we spoke to the creators of Elphi, a smart, remote-controllable AC outlet. Last night their Kickstarter project ended almost $30,000 shy of their goal. It's a shame, since this looked like a really promising product that would have been quite useful to a great number of people. We wrote it up almost immediately, to no avail. Check out the video below to learn more (here's hoping they can try some other method of funding?). Also, check back on Fridays for more TUAW Origin Stories, where we talk about why developers create their apps.
