The First Few Steps

In January 2007, Steve Jobs took the stage at MacWorld and dropped a bomb:  Apple was releasing a cell phone.  But not just any cell phone, but a touch-based device that works as an iPod and internet communication gizmo, all in one.

If you were like me, you knew this was going to be big and you couldn’t wait to get your hands on one.  And if you were really like me, you would have to wait for your cell phone contract with another, non-iPhone carrying provider to expire so you wouldn’t have to deal with a seemingly draconian “early termination penalty”.

Fast-forward to July 2008.  The App Store was opened up for business, and a few short months later, NDAs expired allowing a deluge of information to hit the internet.  Sometime in August of that year, I was driving around Austin, Texas with a friend thinking off all the things that we could do with iPhones.  That conversation soon evolved into what could we create with the iPhone.  Ideas literally erupted from our heads as we drove the eight hours back to the city of New Orleans.  The next week, he and I would get our iPhones, and be hopelessly addicted.

A month later, I would make the jump and get a MacBook Pro.  The iPhone got me hooked on Apple, more so than the handful of iPods I had been through.

In March of 2009, I finally started working on an original concept for an app, which would become That Movie Game.  I spent weeks learning as I went, picking up Objective-C documentation while twiddling around the SDK.  I found a few websites with tons of resources that I worked with for a few months.  Juggling a full-time + overtime job while trying to create the greatest movie trivia game (believe me!) does take time. But eventually, I stopped adding features and hit the submit button, sending version 1.0 to Apple in July.

I expected a rejection after hearing the countless stories of other developers.  Weeks went by – the status was still ‘In Review’.  What torture!  I eventually developed a case of the swine flu that knocked me out of commission for over a week.  But alas – in the middle of the worst I’ve ever felt in my life – I received notification that my app was approved!  That Movie Game was out in the App Store for a day already and had sold three copies, one sale coming from overseas!

I wrote Facebook status updates and told my friends but left further marketing on the shelf.  I eventually created a website for the app, but it is more like a placeholder.  The important thing was that I had a goal – an original iPhone app design, implemented and released – and I achieved it. Although there are over a hundred thousand apps out there now, I’ve set myself apart by realizing a personal goal that took plenty of time and energy.

Now it’s time to move again.  Expect to see more out of this blog, with continuous updates and features.  Get ready for an expanded, visually overhauled That Movie Game and a new, free app that I’m going to create that will be a “thank you” to everyone out there.