“Startups don’t win because of better technology or features. They win because they use this principle to unlock entirely new markets and create new user behavior to compete effectively.”

Source: The AirBnB Advantage: How to avoid competition and become a multi-billion dollar startup

Pair programming is an agile software development technique in which two developers work together at one workstation. One writes the code (referred to as the “driver“) while the other observes (known as the “navigator“). The roles switch frequently which increases knowledge sharing and the number of opportunities to review the current task.

I’ve found product manager & developer pairing requires a slightly different role for the “driver”. Instead of mainly writing code while being the “driver”, the product manager is able to “drive” by spending time with the developer clarifying desired feature or functionality detail. This allows the developer to observe, provide feedback, and continue to ask questions in the role of the “navigator”.

That opportunity to ask questions, clarify requirements, and provide direct feedback is special because it isn’t something developers always get the chance to do with their product manager.

For the product manager and developer, the role of the “navigator” is quite similar to regular pair programming as code is being written by the developer and the impact to the UI of the feature being developed is still reviewed constantly. The conversation isn’t as technical as it would be with two developers pairing but it’s important for product managers to have at least a minor technical understanding of various programming languages and pairing is a great way to progress that.

After spending a couple of days over the last few weeks pair programming with a developer, I’ve found the main benefits to be:

• Higher levels of focus on the feature/functionality being delivered
• Fewer interruptions and distractions
• When interrupted, the “navigator” (quite often the product manager) can deal with the problem while the “driver” (more often the developer) continues
• Higher levels of satisfaction finishing up at the end of a day
• Closer working relationships with teammates
• Greater knowledge amongst the team on objectives and product development plans

“The next era of Apple user interface should embrace the touchscreen and trackpad inputs that have become indelible with their respective operating systems. With a generation coming upon us that may have never seen a record player, a rotary dial phone, or even a paper notepad, these nostalgic nods to times past have not only lost their relevance, but become a hindrance. Unfettered by such real world design hangups, the sky is the limit for the future of Apple’s computer interfaces under Ive.”

George McKibbin took out the $500 runner up prize with his “Pokemon for Cafes” Coffee Monsters iPhone app that placed a digital monster inside every cafe within Australia. Once a user checks into a cafe they can view that cafes Monster and feed it items off the cafes menu. It was great to work with George as this was one of the most creative uses of the Sensis API over the weekend and was well deserved of the runner up prize.

George pitches Coffee Monsters to the judges at SAPI Product Hack Camp 2012

Shopportunity was the other team I worked with closely over the weekend and they took out 1st equal and the $5000 winners prize. Shopportunity is a mobile web based app that takes the planning out of shopping.

Shopportunity integrates with popular list applications like Remember the Milk by fetching each list item and matching them up with a Sensis business. The app’s killer feature is that it will then push a notification to you when you’re out & about and near a business that sells the item on your shopping list.

The team used Christmas shopping in their pitch as an excellent example of how Shopportunity delivers value. Imagine you have put together your Christmas shopping list of items for loved ones and when you were close to a business that sold an item on your list you received a notification or email.

Think “Golf Balls for Dad” and being told when you’re near a sports store while walking to the train station after work. Genius. This means you can carry on your normal day and still get your shopping done without planning.

The Shopportunity crew

I’m still recovering from the big weekend but super proud of both teams and the awesome products they created in just 33 hours!

————————————————–

This weekend I’ve been involved with Product Hack Camp at York Butter Factory in Melbourne.

Product Hack Camp is run by the Sensis API (SAPI) team and is a chance for developers, testers, designers, product managers and marketers to hack together new product concepts and mash some great open data sources together. There are some great prizes up for grabs for the teams that come up with the most creative products in just 33 hours.

The #sapihack twitter stream is full of great tweets from over the weekend, check them out here.

I was asked to be a Product Mentor for the weekend and 2 teams asked me to help them out as they work over the weekend. They each have a great idea and my involvement has mainly been helping them articulate those ideas clearly and agree on the scope they want to deliver in such a short period.

Each team is required to pitch & demo their product idea to a panel of judges at the end of the weekend so a lot of my time has been providing feedback and recommendations on how they could run the demo and talk about their product idea in a way that highlights it’s potential.

As a Product Mentor, I was also required to give a short presentation to attendees about product development or management. The broad theme of the presentation was “How to make great products that are successful”.

Presenting to the Hackathon crew…

I decided to dig into the common patterns that successful products follow leading up to their launch. Instagram’s launch story is one that very few people are aware of so I decided to use them as a case study.

I received some great feedback on my presentation so thought I’d get it on Slide Share and pass it around. Enjoy!

Source: Mashable

On the iPhone, we added a feature we call ‘Private Listening’: when you’re playing sounds through the loudspeaker, simply hold the handset up to your ear as if you were taking a phone call and the audio will be re-routed to the phone speaker. Private listening is ideal for listening to private messages, or for sneaking a listen to some great new sounds without letting others know what you’re hearing.

You can download Soundcloud for iPhone from the App Store here.

The speakers and attendees were all incredibly engaged, like others said, out of 400 people I only saw about 4-5 laptops out during talks, I barely noticed people looking at their phones, most people were talking or taking notes quietly on paper. I was actually a bit dismayed after my talk because there was so little chatter about it on Twitter. If you’ve given a talk at a technology conference in the past few years you’ve probably noticed you get real-time, instant, and often scathing results from your talks but if you could imagine a room of 400 people hanging on your every word, very few of them were bored enough to break out a phone and jot down a comment about my slot…

Read more: XOXO review by Matt Haughey

View XOXO on kickstarter here.

This is interesting to me because for the last 14 months I’ve been busy helping build this company from scratch, for the Qantas Group.

“There are many different ways to use foursquare. I check-in mainly to keep a personal log of where I’ve been. I rarely use it to view where my friends are. I find the iPhone push notifications too intrusive whilst I only launch the app to check in.

This leaves my usage unbalanced, friends are broadcasting but I’m not listening. I’m more likely to notice a friend is nearby from twitter or instagram than from foursquare.”

Dan Williams.

Couldn’t agree more. Arrivals for Foursquare is a brilliant.

Kirsten Alexander:

“Open Field is at the finish line, and it’s wonderful. This is due to the fact twenty-eight women from across the globe agreed to donate their time and talent to contribute an article, photograph or video, and were then put in the hands of two talented designers. The end result is a beautiful publication that makes for terrific reading.”

Due For Release In 2012 - http://www.openfield.com.au

Focus: It means saying no, not saying yes.
Simplicity: Make complex things simple.
Courage: Don’t hang on to ideas from the past even if they have been successful for you.
Best: If you can’t enter the market and try and be the best in it, don’t enter it.

Once you’ve added a computer to your iTunes Match account, new icons will appear. Apple have a good support page up which explains each iCloud status icon:

iTunes Match: Understanding the iCloud Status icons

The old publishing models of web and print are “irredeemably broken,” with publishers requiring ”urgent re-examination of everything that constitutes a media business.” The concept of Lean Back 2.0 is relatively simple — the use of tablets and e-readers is growing at the expense of print and web.

Andrew Rashbass, CEO of The Economist Group.

• “Native vs. Web?”
• “HTML5 is the FUTURE!”
• “The App Store is just for distribution!”
• “Android is taking over and all the screens are different sizes!”

Heard it around the traps lately? Same. Here’s my rational as to why I’ll vote for native app development over developing a mobile web app (and putting it within a wrapper for distribution via the App Store or Android Marketplace). My opinion might change over the next few years, but these reasons are for now.

Offline/low connectivity access:

If a user has a poor connection (or none at all) and your application is HTML within a wrapper, most functionality of the app will almost always be unusable. If your app has important functionality like personalisation, that experience is unacceptable. Content should always be available for viewing offline or when a user has a poor connection, something which is difficult to achieve via anything other than a native app.

Clearer error messaging:

Error messaging on the mobile web (and within a wrapper) can be unclear and frustrating for users. Within a native app, notification windows can be used to clearly explain to a user what is wrong. Options can then be provided to a user at the touch of a button.

Push notification functionality:

When developing a native app you have access to the full push notification functionality of a device. With the recent updates to notifications on iOS 5 and how Android has handled notifications so well in recent times, this is something that cannot be overlooked. Getting important information to users without them having to use the mobile web is critical.

Overall performance improvements:

It’s quite clear that through building a native app there are significant increases in performance across the whole app. This can range from the initial loading of a splash screen and onto the home screen, right through to the rendering of core content pages.

Full suite of gestural interactions (swipe, pinch/zoom etc):

It’s fairly self explanatory but by going native you get all the touch interaction gesture features which make mobile apps fun and so easy to use. These interactions are often classed as “polish” as if it’s a negative thing, but I believe it’s these experiences which keep users coming back to applications (that do it well) over and over.

Device integration:

Native apps allow better integration with all the functionality that a mobile device presents users. GPS, the camera, voice recorder and tapping into a users contact list are examples of capabilities that can be directly hooked up with the front end and capitalised on.

Bottom line:

The success of any application is almost 100% dependant on user engagement. The way to engage users is to create great experiences. How many successful apps do you use are available via the mobile web and not an App Store?¹ Would Foursquare, Instagram, and Flipboard have been so successful if they had simply delivered a mobile web app in a wrapper? I doubt it.

(image credit)

—————————

1. Worth noting: I’m not suggesting that native app development is the only way to move forward. Your mobile web app and native app should compliment each other.

(via Carter Digital)

“By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticise others work and belittle their motivations?”

(source)

I was recently working for an organisation where “The Business” (I hate that term, but I’ll stick with it throughout this article as that’s what they’re commonly referred to at said organisation) wanted to take their separate iPhone app and iPad app, and merge them to create one “universal” app for the App store. What they didn’t realise was, it’s not very easy. I’m going to try explain how I believe it can be done in a few clear steps, using XE Currency as a case study.

Going Universal:

It makes sense to go universal when beginning development for iOS. The benefits are clear. When a user searches for your company name or brand name in the App Store, only one app will be returned in search results. Once they’ve downloaded your universal application, the app can determine what device the user is on (i.e. an iPad, iPhone 4, or iPhone 3GS) and launch the correct experience. It’s also easier with a universal app to manage updates and roll out new features to all users, no matter what their device of choice is.

The Issue:

Unfortunately a lot of organisations have an issue where users will search for their app by name, via the iPad App Store app, or via iTunes, and both their iPhone and iPad apps are returned in results.* Why? They probably built their iPhone app within a year or so after the 3GS was released and the App Store was launched. Then along came the iPad, so they went and built an iPad app in a separate code base. The two apps are not related to each other in many ways, apart from the fact that they may be served from the same build box, or use the same API or something.

The organisation then tries to be clever and name their iPad app with some distinction from their existing iPhone offering, using terms like “HD” or “for iPad” in the name, but the icon, description, and features are usually very similar. This is the root cause of the issue.

The Solution:

So, when “The Business” asks to go “universal”, what can you do? Basically, it comes down to 4 steps:

1. Identify the app with the the highest amount of downloads.
2. Add the code from the less popular app to the code of the more popular app – this is now your universal app.
3. Release an update of the universal app, with a new description that explains the change (update the icon and screenshots too if necessary).
4. Update the description of the less popular app advising users to remove that current version of the app and download the new universal app, which is now available.

Why does the number of downloads for each app matter? Because the app you choose to not be the basis of your universal app will lose support over time (bug fixes, new features etc) and will therefore need to be deleted by all the users who have that version. In order to use your app again, those users will have to then search for your universal app and install again. You want to inflict that hassle on the least amount of your users as possible, hence selecting the least popular of your two apps for removal.

Case Study:

The lyrics at the end of Michael Jackson’s 1983 classic “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin” come directly from Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango‘s 1972 disco song “Soul Makossa”.

The lyrics are “Mama-say mama-sah ma-ma-coo-sah”. Makossa is a Cameroonian music genre and dance.

(Wikipedia)