Today we have an interview with Phil from Agent57 who make apps for the iPhone. If you have not had chance to look at The World Cup app from Agent57 it is the ideal way to build up to the biggest footballing event of the year. Still smarting that Scotland failed to qualify…
1/ Tell us a bit about Agent57. How did the company start and why did you enter the iPhone software market?
We started as a web development Company in 2008, but I have always been interested in software development. I always considered I would only develop for the Mac platform so I started getting to grips with Xcode, the Mac software development kit. Then along came the iPhone which seemed to be a perfect test bed. During the quieter periods, during the early days of the Company, I started developing a few frameworks that led to CarryOn and Sherlock. Then I took it a bit further and in October of 2009 I felt I knew enough to produce a commercial piece of software. I love football and thought there would be a market for a good World Cup App.
2/ How do you view the current iTunes app store model and are you optimistic for the future of the platform?
From an independent developers perspective, it’s brilliant. You do have to work hard with marketing your products but the model of the store, the delivery to end users and the payment system works well. I know there are some problems with the method of getting your App available, ie. the review process, but Apple are working on this, and we have seen the results of their efforts. We have submitted two updates so far for The World Cup; version 1.1 hit the App Store in 5 days after submission, version 1.2 was just 24 hours.
I am sure that Apple will continue to develop the App Store in the same way they have continued to promote and develop the iTunes Store. On that basis, we have to be optimistic that this will continue for some time. I have friends who are just getting their new iPhones now as if they had only been released a month ago. They are every bit as excited about the hardware, the built in software and the App Store as I was when I got my 2g iPhone, and back then we had no App Store.
3/ Do you believe the other mobile platforms are competing well with the iPhone?
Apple took a big gamble with the touch screen interface and the fact they had no hardware keyboard. It paid off, and now even Blackberry’s are surfacing with touch screens and virtual keyboards. Everybody is now trying to play catch-up with the hardware, and they’ve got a good chance of competing there. However, Apple have always produced the best user experience in terms of the man/machine interface and coming up with something that can beat a cut down version of OSX will more difficult to achieve. As far as third party software availability is concerned, I can’t see how any other mobile platforms could come close to the choice that the App Store offers.
4/ What smartphone do you use and why?
I use an iPhone 3GS. It does everything I could possibly need it to for a pocket sized device that goes everywhere with me. Before the iPhone, I used a Nokia N73 and a Palm Lifedrive (and before that a palm Tungsten). I loved all three of those devices, but the N73 was just a phone, I didn’t really use it for anything else. My Palm was my extended computer and diary. Once the iPhone came along I saw how it integrated with the desktop OSX applications, it was almost like having a MacBook with you. My contacts, calendars, IM, spreadsheets and word processing documents all came with me, all synced over the air and it just never let me down. I have more than ten friends who have iPhones now, but only one of them has an Apple Mac. Even though the others do not know how much the iPhone benefits from being part of a mobile/desktop setup, they all still love it!
5/ Has The World Cup been as successful as you hoped for so far?
In some countries yes, particularly in the UK, considering the World Cup is still so far off. In other countries no. Apart from Germany, sales to other Euro countries have been virtually none existent. Including the qualified countries like Spain and France,where the App is available in these languages, so maybe we’ll see these countries getting interested as the tournament approaches. In the USA, the greatest density of iPhone users in the world … worse than Europe!
6/ What football team do you support?
I’m Liverpool born and bred so there’s only one of two ways I can go! I’ll have to say it quietly after our performances this season, but I’m a Liverpool fan. I should give a mention too though to Tranmere Rovers, who over the years I have been watching football, I have probably seen play as many times as I have Liverpool.
7/ Anything you would like to add?
If you like football and have an iPhone … please buy ‘The World Cup’, then tell your friends. Getting the word out when there are so many apps competing for attention is really hard. If people know about it and choose not to buy it, I have no problem with that, at least they had the opportunity. One thing I want to avoid is having people approach me after July and say “That World Cup App looked brilliant … wish I knew about it before the World Cup started”.
Thanks Shaun for the opportunity to talk to your readers. I hope some of them find it interesting.
Web: http://dev.agent57.com
Web World Cup: http://bit.ly/TheWorldCup
Twitter: http://twitter.com/agent57Ltd
App Store: http://itunes.com/apps/theworldcup
