I was a little late to jump on the smart phone bandwagon. I resisted for years, scoffing inwardly at those who wove their way through society, heads down, engrossed in their imaginary worlds of bright screens and black plastic cases. Curiosity got the better of me, though; two years ago I finally caved and acquired an Android. It met a prompt and sudden death when it went sailing off a counter and onto an unforgiving and indifferent concrete floor. I caved and bought a shock-proof case for my next phone the very next day.
I was very sure that I didn’t want my phone to supercede my need for in-person conversations with friends, insistent that I not fade into to ranks of pseudo-social relationships predicated upon social media updates and incessant text messages. I was much more sure of my phone’s potential as a tool – a means to an end, rather than an end unto itself. I downloaded some apps, including obvious ones like a memo minder, an email platform, photo-sharing, and (of course) umpteen games featuring cats. I kept the useful ones and eventually deleted the non-useful ones. Between all of that, I wondered: how does one actually build an app?
Fast-forward to my Saturday Morning Productions days. We are working on an app. I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but I can tell you that a mind-boggling amount of work must occur before it ever sees the light of your smartphone screen. We are first faced with the fundamental quandary of “how will we stand out among the millions of apps that already exist?” How do we find our niche? It’s going to be an interesting journey. It already is. The Saturday Morning Productions team is busy brainstorming away, sketching concepts, drawing logic flow-charts, coding, and all those things that I never thought about before I had a smart phone.
It’ll be a little while before our collective brainchild is born, but our goal is to create something that you use everyday and, when you use it, you think “gee, this is cool and really useful!” We think it’s cool so far and will become more and more useful as we revise and refine our work. That’s all I can disclose for now – we don’t want to completely spoil the surprise – but before I drop more tantalizing clues, I have a favour to ask of you…
Because we’re developing an app, we’re conducting some R & D. Would you fill out our survey? Click here. It’ll take a minute or so and for every survey completed, Saturday Morning Productions will donate a dollar (up to a total of $1000) to a local charity.