Is this the coolest ethnographic company yet? (next to ours)

One of the wonderful things about having customers enter you shop (iTunes) and buy stuff from you (our App) is that you discover new companies & individuals and strike up conversations with them.

Here is once such company. I'm hoping to meet with them when next on the West Coast.

Giving birth to an App.

Forget about the pain, sweat and missed deadlines of creating an App. Launching it in the App store is the scariest thing ever.

I compare it with giving birth to a child. Will it be OK? Will it be healthy? Will it be normal? Will people love it? Will people really love it? And unlike a new baby which people are tactful about, iTunes actively encourage buyers to rate the Apps and write reviews. I know very well that it takes one bad review to kill an App dead. An App in which your hopes and dreams rest.

After a series of delays I found out last Sunday (20th December 2009) that we were viewable, finally, in iTunes. And since then I have been checking out reviews which have been springing up, not just in the App store but in numerous blogs too. What will people think? What will they write? This is personal. Any harsh words will cut me to the bone.

Last night, 22nd December) I received a detailed email from someone who had bought and started to use my App immediately on downloading. His name was, Simon and he had lots of intelligent questions/comments. You can see our email exchange here.

The main point of his email was the App was quite slow. I re-read the email as a dark cloud of gloom settled over me. What if others experienced this problem? I launched the App. on my own device and started to time the different tasks. It was much faster than Simon's. I was lifted and optimistic again. So I wrote back answering each question in as much detail as I could. Bottom line, there could be something wrong with his iPhone. And there was. Do you know what it was? It was that he had an iPhone 3G which is not only without video, but also far less powerful than the 3Gs. My relief was indescribable. I have warned people on www.edlapp.com that the App works best on the 3Gs but have to admit I had no idea it would be so slow on the 3G.

Reviews and articles are sprouting everywhere. All, so far, are good. But I am only really interested in and waiting for the bad ones, disappointments and those wanting refunds. The App. killers. The comments that put other buyers off buying.

I will keep you posted but do check www.edlapp.com for regular user reviews, good and bad, which we will use to build into future updates.

edlAPP Support site

We are still working on it but have a look (and apologies for any typos)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

By the time you read this/watch the clip our App will be available in the iTunes store. Still working on what will be a fantastic support/knowledge base site for the App which will go live over Christmas. In the meantime, download it, practice with it and start running your own ethnographic explorations with it. It will change the way you work.

Once again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from us all at EverydayLives.

Something I wish I had done myself...

Some of you may already know Mike Yorke from the interviews I did with him for this here blog. If you don't, he's an award winning ethnographic film maker who runs the film module at UCL's Department of Anthropology.

In January 2010 him and his team ill be running an MA Practical Ethnographic Filmmaking Module for (if you are already a UCL student) credit or audit in the Spring Term and Easter vacation.

You will be making your own films, under supervision, using UCL equipment... You can either contact Mike here m.yorke@ucl.ac.uk or have a look at a short video of the course here. The fee is 1,300 GBP to non UCL people.

Like I say, I wish I had done this course myself but realise I could never be as good as a dedicated ethnographic camera person.