Apps We Love: Bejeweled |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 06.11.2012 @ 1:00 pm
The App: Bejeweled
The Device: iPhone
The Price: $0.99
Why We Love It: There’s a reason why Bejeweled has been downloaded 500 million times since the game’s initial creation in 2001. It’s one of the most addicting puzzle games ever made, a game that can be played anytime, anywhere. It’s the kind of game that can be played for thirty seconds or for an hour. It’s pretty much the perfect game for smartphones.
App Spotlight: Netflix |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 06.06.2012 @ 3:00 pm
The App: Netflix
The Device: iPhone/HTC Incredible
The Price: The app is free, but a subscription will cost you
The Basics: Surely you know about Netflix. In fact…surely you use Netflix. After all, it is the year 2012 and you know how to use the internet. What was once a rent-DVDs-through-the-mail service has evolved into a digital streaming service, with an impressive selection of ready-to-watch movies and television shows. Since you could now watch movies through an internet connection with no need for a disc, a mobile app was inevitable. I’ve used the Netflix app on both Android and iPhone and both versions are just about identical…but is that identical experience good or bad?
Q & Answers: The Customer Relationship |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 06.04.2012 @ 1:00 pm
(Every week, Rocksauce Studios CEO Q Manning will answer your questions about app design, app development and the mobile industry.)
Can you describe a healthy customer relationship? An unhealthy one?
A healthy customer relationship at Rocksauce Studios is one where we’re both mutually beneficial, both respectful of each other’s ideas and one where we are deferred to as the expert in what we’re good at, which is app design and mobile development. The customer is looked at as the owner and master in regards to their own industry (which the app is built to work with and for, of course). A good client will give us the feedback we need right away and let us know any specific details that we need to know about the project. For example, if we were designing an app for pilots, they’d supply us with information about FAA regulations, where to find certain documentation and what rules there are and what rules there aren’t.
International Business is a Trial By Fire |
Faith Goh | BUSINESS | 05.30.2012 @ 5:00 pm
Before I became a UX designer at Rocksauce Studios, I literally lived and worked all over the world. I was born in Singapore, but I moved to Beijing, China when I was two. I was there for about 15 years, but then I moved to Savannah, GA to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design. Although I’ve spent most of my time since then living and working in the United States, I spent two of those years working in Singapore.
If you want to run a successful company, you’re probably going to have to deal with clients and customers from other countries. Business is global and while learning how to work on such a large stage can be bumpy, it’s not as difficult as you probably think it is!
Your Startup (and you) Need Structure! |
Kyle St. Romain | BUSINESS | 05.29.2012 @ 11:10 am
A lot of people talk about the idea of starting their own business, whether that is a mobile app or a manufacturing company. I say go for it. I love the enthusiasm and vigor entrepreneurs bring to the conversation. However, many people enter into new ventures without any formal business structure. Lawyer 101 says to get everything in writing and have all interested parties sign it, especially when it comes to a new business. I’m sure the Winklevoss twins and that other guy whose name is hardly worth remembering still cry at night thinking about what they could have done differently.
So you have a new idea, you have a team together, and you’re going to make a killer app that gets you rich or you’ll die tryin’. Stop! Before you go any further, you want to get organized: who is doing what, how much everyone contributed, and how much they get. The easiest way to do this is to organize a business entity, which can come in the form of a Limited Liability Company (LLC), Corporation (either C or S-Corp), Partnership (limited or general), or, if you’re going at it alone, a simple sole proprietorship may work just fine. For my money, I vote LLC and here’s why:
Talksauce: Death to App Rip-Offs! |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 05.25.2012 @ 11:18 am
(Talksauce is the Friday editorial where Tapsauce editor-in-chief Jacob Hall talks about something that’s on his mind. His brutally honest opinions don’t represent the views of Rocksauce Studios, but hopefully they’ll give you some food for thought!)
Earlier this week, I briefly wrote about an app called I’d Cap That, a comedy application for the iPhone that placed random hilarious/vulgar captions under the pictures you took with your phone. As far as apps made for 15 year old boys and people with the sense of humor of 15 year old boys (like yours truly) go, it’s a ton of fun and was rightfully dominating the top of the charts in the app store. After playing with it on a friend’s iPhone, I grabbed my Droid to see it was available across the aisle.
It wasn’t, but someone wanted very hard for me to think it was. The top search result was an app called Piccap, but in parenthesis next to the title was “I’d Cap That.” Not only was this a blatant rip-off of I’d Cap That, it had the audacity to use the original app’s title as some kind of sub-headline to ensure it got the downloads from people searching for the version only available on iPhone. At the risk of being hyperbolic, the people behind Piccap deserve a nice hard slap to the face and Google deserves an equally hard slap for letting that slide.
Don’t Sell the Product, Sell the Brand! |
Daniel Burres | BUSINESS | 05.23.2012 @ 3:14 pm
Whether you’re trying to find a hot fashion accessory, hunting for your next vehicle or searching for a company to bring your app idea to life, we have all had our fair share of run-ins with sales professionals. Naturally, some have been better than others. We all know what makes a bad salesman, but what differentiates those who are simply good at selling and those who are great at selling?
The key is simple enough: good salespeople sell a product, but great sales people, well, they sell a brand. True, selling the product is important, but it is just a piece of the overall puzzle. In my 10-plus years of selling experience, I have seen firsthand what it takes to sell a brand.
App Spotlight: Quipper |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 05.23.2012 @ 9:00 am
The App: Quipper
The Device: HTC Incredible (Android)
The Price: Free
The Basics: Quipper is an app built for two different perspectives: those who want to learn and those who enjoy a good round of trivia. The app consists entirely of user-created quizzes, with subjects ranging from the Renaissance to 1970s television. Quipper can function as a study-aid , letting you research a subject or create a custom quiz of questions you need to study (and which can then be used by everyone else also studying the subject) or it can be a wonderful time-waster/road trip tool, where you pick a subject and see just how much you know (because there’s nothing sweeter than proving to your girlfriend that you know the name of Richie Cunningham’s older brother).
The Examination: Conceptually, I’m deeply in love with Quipper. I don’t think it’s where it needs to be quite yet, but with some updates and technical massages, I think it has the potential to become a truly essential app. I’m certainly not alone in thinking this, since the app recently raised a boatload of funding. Right now, Quipper feels like the first draft of something truly great.
Inside the Design Studio: DaySince Number |
Chris Lindenmayer | APPS | 05.17.2012 @ 1:00 pm
Welcome back to Inside the Design Studio, where we take you behind the scenes and give you a quick glimpse at the app design process! Today, we’ll be teasing DaySince, an upcoming Rocksauce Studios app. We can’t tell you what it does quite yet (but you will soon enough), but after the jump, you can check out the creation of a piece of art — a number, if you want to get specific — in Illustrator. Whether you’re genuinely interested in app design or just want to see hours of work sped up to a brisk 45 seconds, you should definitely hit the jump.
App Spotlight: Gifture and Jittergram |
Jacob Hall, Editor-in-Chief of TapSauce | APPS | 05.16.2012 @ 9:00 am
The Apps: Gifture and Jittergram
The Device: iPhone
The Price: Free
The Basics: There is no such thing as a new idea in the app world. Everything has been done at least once (usually about ten times, if you want to be completely honest), so it’s not so important that you think up a great idea, it’s important that you think up a way to refine and perfect an existing concept. In today’s App Spotlight, I’m going to take a look at two apps that, on the surface, appear to do the exact same thing: create instant GIFs by taking a series of pictures and stringing them together. It’s a great idea and it’s the exact kind of thing that has the potential to catch on with smartphone users. But like the Highlander, there can be only one! Which of these two apps takes this golden idea further?
The Examination: Well, I can answer that question immediately and directly: although Jittergram certainly gets the job done, Gifture is the more successful app in every way.