App Story

Jared Sinclair Joins me to discuss his wildly popular RSS client Unread.  Unread is one of my favorite apps and having Jared on the show was a real pleasure.

Jared is an independent iOS app designer and developer. He's made several apps, including RSS reader Unread, and popular App.net client Riposte. He started developing as a hobby while working as an ICU nurse, and made his first app called Pill Boxie, a medication reminder. He was lucky enough to get noticed and featured by Apple and good things began to happen for him. Later during a family relocation he took the opportunity to try his hand at going indie and developing full time, which has been very successful for him. He currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife and son.

Unread is a beautiful Post Google Reader RSS client. It offers support for many popular feed syncing services. Jared has sweated lots of details to come up with a beautifully designed, well performing reader app. With a goal of changing the way he used RSS from a simple triage for a read later list he never revisited, he created an app that makes reading a carefully curated list of feed articles right inside the app delightful again.

In his app story he tells us all about his clever efforts to get the main article list to display correctly and perform as the user would expect. He goes into great detail to explain some of the pitfalls and the clever solutions he came up with overcome them. He also goes into detail about his unique blend using both Core Data and SQLite to manage the data set for Unread. Leveraging each where applicable he was able to use them each where their strengths lie, and avoid the weaknesses they have that would have adverse performance impacts. He finishes by telling us how he abstracted the different sync services so adding and removing them as needed will be no sweat in the future.

• Unread Website
• Jared's Blog
• Jared on Twitter
• Unread on Twitter
• Vic on Twitter
• App Story on Twitter

• Unread on the App Store
• Pillboxie on the App Store

• JTSSemanticReload 

• Cell height caching 

Use the offercode MARS for 10% off your first purchase.

If you're an indie developer and you'd like to tell your app's story on the show, click here.

Andrew J Clark joins me to discuss his utility app, Numerical. We talk marketing strategy and his new update bringing in the % key and "Magic Brackets". 

• Numerical on the Very Tiny Machines Website
• Be sure to checkout Andrew's Jazzy New Promo Video
• Andrew on Twitter
• Numerical on Twitter
• Vic on Twitter
• App Story on Twitter
• Support Andrew & the show by using this link to get Numerical on the App Store

Special Thanks to Lorenzo Guddemi for taking care of post production on this episode. Follow him on Twitter and let him know what you think.

If you're an indie developer and you'd like to tell your app's story on the show, click here.

Some learning iOS development resources mentioned by Andrew & myself.

• Ray Wenderlich's Tutorial Site - Excellent collection of free tutorials from beginner to intermediate/advanced levels. They also offer some great expanded PDF books for sale.
• Code School - Access to a wide variety of coding lessons for a reasonable monthly fee.
• Treehouse -  Access to a wide variety of coding lessons for a reasonable monthly fee.
• And of course once you get started, and your stumped be sure to head over to Stack Overflow. If you can't find what your looking for, create a good well formed question with some sample code, and there's a great community just waiting to help you learn.

Amit Jain joins me to talk about his productivity app, "Simbol". 

• Simbol on the Cultured Pixel Website
• Amit's Blog
• Amit on Twitter
• Vic on Twitter
• App Story on Twitter
• Support Amit & the show by using this link to get Simbol on the App Store

Special Thanks to Lorenzo Guddemi for taking care of post production on this episode. Follow him on Twitter and let him know what you think.

If you're an indie developer and you'd like to tell your app's story on the show, click here.

WeyHan Ng joins me to talk about his challenging iOS puzzle game "Triangulon". 

• Triangulon on the Motileware website
• Demo Video
• Weyan on twitter
• Vic on Twitter
• App Story on Twitter
• Support WeyHan and the show by using this link to get Triangulon on the App Store

My name is Vic Hudson and I'll be your host. I look forward to bringing you the exciting stories behind many apps made by independent developers. Join me, as we meet a new developer in each episode, and learn about how & why they decided to make their app, as well as sharing insights into some of the creative user experience and design decisions that played a role in shaping the apps.

This podcast will be launching in February. In the mean time you can follow me on twitter for updates, and also follow the podcast. If you're a developer interesting in telling your app's story, fill out the form here. Also feel free to check out this little promo clip introduction to the show, myself, and the show's music.