I became a granddad for the first time recently. I won’t dwell on all the emotions one feels, though they are many and deep. It just made me wonder what sort of world this little baby will inherit in a technological sense. Times tables and slide rules were the high tech of my schooldays. Will …
An app is never finished. Just when you thought you could tear yourself away from it and do something normal you realize it needs another touch. My beautiful fully-functional music reading trainer app looked terrific for a while. Now I know it has to be in colour. All black and white is too austere. I …
If I had to get a job then I’d choose to do just what I’m doing now – emailing the world about my app. I’ve emailed Great Britain – well lots of it – informing guitar teachers and music shops, hundreds of them. Now I’m emailing America! Yes, it’s ludicrous. Beyond reasonable. Like deciding to …
Now for the hard bit – the marketing. How could it be difficult, I ask myself, with such a beautiful product at such an attractive price? Doesn’t the latest version have full tempo control with a new handy BPM display? Isn’t the UX now streamlined to perfection? Yes, but. How to make it stand out …
In the seven years I have been coding moments of sheer delight have occasionally sprinkled the long hours spent scrambling up that old learning curve. The first time you get something to appear on screen sets you off crowing with delight. So does your first sound or that milestone first fully-functioning sequence. You get equal …
I have just run full-speed off the top of a cliff. Feedback after the iReadGuitar Pro initial Apple App Store launch invited major changes regarding UX. Lots of them. So I’ve been working flat out to produce new visuals, allocate them x and y coordinates, Photoshop alternative versions of a thousand things and then lie …
I was standing at a bus stop just earlier, on my way home from a Saturday afternoon drink in a favourite bar. It was raining and we were all crammed in under the bus shelter roof. I overheard a conversation between two lads. “I remember when we first met six years ago. I was eleven,” …
The slog of data entry is almost as addictive as coding. ‘I’ll just enter another section before I drop from sheer exhaustion.’ The sound data for the next app provides the material and structure for piling notes on top of one another to form chords. Lots of notes and lots of chords, so lots of …
Conflict reigns. My old obsession – guitaring – has a rival – coding. Surprisingly, they have a lot in common. They are equally demanding, frustrating, difficult, unfathomable and addictive. When the coding for the music reading trainer – iReadGuitar Pro – was finished recently I looked forward to a second honeymoon with my first obsession. Time to …
Links are great! They’re my latest personal discovery. I was sent one today in a text message by a young man who wants to be a good guitar player. He’d read a newspaper article about a Guitar Club I set up which is now called Guitarathon. Here’s the original article: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/julian-launches-sunday-club-guitarists/story-12069735-detail/story.html We sit around for …
