Seeking to Understand

Well, just to get this out of the way, a lot of stuff happened last week. I no longer work at Tapulous and am moving on to another iPhone company that has a very different business model and corporate culture. (Well, as far as I can tell so far… :P)

While at Tapulous I worked on a variety of projects, but for some reason never had my own - until Collage. If it ever shows up in the App Store, you’ll all get to see it. It’s a very cool new direction for one of my more popular apps from the iApp-a-Day project - and I wrote it entirely solo. Hopefully nothing was changed between the time I left the company and the time it shows up in the App Store.

For those who are emailing and asking, yes, Tapulous purchased my iApp-a-Day stuff that I did last year (which initially got their attention in the first place). So it’s all out of my hands now and no longer mine. It’s sad to leave such a body of work behind, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did it alone in the first place. The achievement still stands and I’m still proud of accomplishing what I did - even if the apps were mostly simplistic. That was never the point.. the timetable was the true challenge.

So that’s all I’ll say about that, I guess. Right now I’m in job limbo as things get into place for my next gig. It’s nice to have a vacation - it feels like I haven’t had time to just brainstorm ideas or even relax for at least a year. Ah life… what would I do without you?

Tapulous (of which I am employee #1) has “leaked” a video and rather spiffy desktop background for our upcoming game Tap Tap Revenge which should be showing up in the Apple store for the iPhone and iPod Touch next friday.

TTR was originally created by Nate True for hacked iPhone and iPods and it was a huge hit. We came along and kidnapped him, tied him down, and held his bird hostage until he agreed to work with us on a new and improved version. Luckily for his bird, he came through with something awesome. I think the video speaks for itself, but go have a look and see if it appeals to you.

I’ve been using Twitter more lately. Perhaps because my company is working on a Twitter client (among many other things)… or perhaps because it fills some deep void in my online life… or perhaps because I like pain (especially in light of just how often Twitter is down)…

I think the compelling thing about Twitter is that it can replicate, in a small way, the feeling of camaraderie of being in a room with your friends while not actually being in a room with your friends.

This past week I was in Palo Alto and got to spend some quality time with my coworkers all together in one small office - it was great. And while I’d kind of like to have that experience everyday, I’m also glad I don’t as it makes the occasions when we do all get together something more of an event. Plus, as much as I liked it out there in California, I don’t want to move.

What Twitter allows is a small slice of that in-person group experience where you can toss out jokes, random thoughts, or even bits of important information that may have little to nothing to do with what everyone is personally working on at the time. As a remote employee, that is the single aspect of the office experience that I miss the most while working alone from home. Right now I see Twitter as a potential way to maintain a little bit of that.

Incidentally, that kind of usage for Twitter essentially turns it into a lightweight email list or chat room of a sort. Although in many ways, it serves an entirely different niche than either of those. With it’s message size limit, it is virtually useless as a chat medium or as a way to express long thoughts (such as this entire blog post). However, it is perfect for the stray random thought that you might blurt out loud while hanging out with friends or as a way of sharing some funny video you just watched, etc. And since it’s not a “live” medium such as a chat room, it doesn’t carry with it the expectation that all comments deserve a response, which is pretty neat and perhaps part of it’s charm.

If you use Twitter or want to try it or whatever, you can follow me and I may follow you back. Using the web interface sucks, though, so if you really want to try it out, be sure to check out one of the many Twitter clients for Windows or MacOSX, etc. as it makes the entire thing a lot more useful.