My official talk from Mobile Conference Europe 2015 is now available online. My topic was “Design as if No One is Watching.” A bit of a call to remember who we work for as designers building great products on teams. It was incredible to take part in this conference back in February. Highly recommended, if they do it again next year, that you consider attending. Special thanks to Jarek and the whole team over there for making it a wonderful experience.…
Last week, while visiting Warsaw for the MCE conference, I had the honor of also being asked to address some students at the Academy of Fine Arts. I had a blast talking with them about getting started in the indie software world. Daniel Mizieliński, who teaches this group and invited me to speak, has released the video of my talk already. I want to thank him and his wonderful students for the opportunity.…
John Saddington on the first 63 days of selling his blogging app Desk: The bottom-line, though, is that it means that it is quite possible to “make it” as an indie developer and eek out an income that is substantive and worthwhile. I hope this report, if anything, gives some encouragement to all of those that are interested in seriously (or semi-seriously) pursuing an independent app that creates great value for users and customers. You won’t get rich off of it (maybe, but… that’s pipe-dream stuff) but you…
Two interesting articles published today. The first is an announcement from Dark Sky that they have sold a piece of their company to Applied Invention. The second is a status update from Studio Neat on a recent change they made to their business model for Slow Fast Slow. From the Dark Sky piece: We’ve never done anything like this before, and any time you introduce new partners you’re taking a significant risk. In fact, I’d put the odds of Dark Sky crashing and burning in the next…
We indie developers can be a pessimistic bunch. Almost every week, there’s a new doom and gloom story brewing. One recent example: Monument Valley Forgotten Shores. Sold as a $1.99 USD in-app purchase (half the price of the original title), the new levels are insanely well crafted and allowed me and many others to rediscover much of what we loved about the game. But a few hours into the release, Monument Valley was getting some 1-star reviews from disgruntled customers. How dare they charge another $2 for brand…
