Sunday, September 4, 2016

Week 1 Outside the Classroom

Our homework for the weekend was not anything too difficult. We really had a maximum of four things to do.
  1. Read "Tarantinoing Our First iPhone Application"
  2. Work on our list of problem spaces with our partner
  3. Order the two textbooks we need
  4. and finally, this "outside the classroom" blog post
The article we needed to read was really interesting. It was a first hand account from a man named Codie about designing an application from scratch for the Apple iPhone. He talks about teaming up with three other guys for their university class and having to design an app as a group. Right off the bat Codie states that as a group, they had set themselves up for failure with the app they were trying to design, something they call Lec which records lectures but allows you to tab certain parts of the recording. He also talks about a second app they created called Time Match. Codie talks about how they designed Lec and why it was not working out, which is when they started really putting together Time Match, so they'd at least have something to hand in at the end of the year...we've all been there before. Finally, Codie explains how he figured out how to make Lec work, getting his influence from another app meant for grocery shopping. I think it was smart how Codie starts off telling the reader their application was not working at first and concluding with how they were finally able to make it work. Also, the fact that he got the idea on how to make Lec work from another app that is more or less a grocery list shows how inspiration for any successful idea can come from just about anywhere.

I was able to add a few more ideas to Max and I's list of problem spaces but it is starting to get really hard. We still need a few more ideas but I am confident we can come up with them.

Of course, the textbooks have been ordered and thank God they were not too expensive (yeay to being a poor college kid).

I'm excited about this first project but I have a feeling I may struggle with it here and there. Working with a partner will either help or just make matters worse but I am going to keep my fingers crossed!