Yesterday we had the developer profile of Nick Barrowclough, one of our developers using Kumulos’ backend services right now to make his apps.
Today we’re going to talk about Nick’s latest app, MyTravelTip.
It’s an app that through user input, has maps with geotagged locations of interesting places the users want to share with the wider community.
The idea came to Nick after he started looking for his next programming challenge. He wanted to make something that used the iOS MapKit, but also something useful the he could submit to the AppStore.
“ I live in the capital city of the Philippines (Manila),” he says, “There’s a lot of hidden away interesting places that just aren’t in the regular tourist guides” He had tried apps like FourSquare, but thought it would “be cool if someone made an app for sharing travel tip information…I wanted it to be focused more on a user community that add the locations rather than selecting from pre-listed locations.”
And so MyTravelTip was born.
It took roughly 4 months of development time until Nick was happy to submit it to the app store. “Every time I thought it was ready I had an idea for a new feature or improvement to the app.” he explains. He wasn’t alone in his endeavor, bringing in a graphic artist friend to design the GUI. Together they took it through several remodellings, “adding in new features and comparing ourselves to nearest competitors – what we can add that they don’t have.”
MyTravelTip was finally ready, with Nick deciding to release the app for free.
“the ultimate aim was to create something that would give a great user experience”, he tell us, and that he also wanted it to be, “actually useful, as well as building it into a community of users who regularly contribute content.”
Nicholas’ aim was for everyone to use the app, “not just for travelers but also for people who live in a city or neighborhood to share with others their best known secrets, whether it be that little hole in the wall restaurant that does great food but everyone passes by, or a relaxing little coffee shop you know of or even your favorite panorama of the area.”
One of the major challenges Nick faced developing the app was that it relied very heavily on a database that every user to access through the cloud and add to it. That’s where Kumulos came in, with Nick saying it “fit the bill perfectly with its easy to use API.”
They use our Backend to store all of the user profile information, messaging, geotagged points of interest, comments and uploaded images, and Nick tells us that without Kumulos (Backend as a Service) the project would have been “MUCH harder” to implement and “too costly”.
MyTravelTip has just been released and Nick is not expecting it to be an overnight success, saying “it’s going to be slow to take off.” He remains positive though, going on to say,“However, as that community grows and more locations are added by the users it will become an interactive tour guide for the world in your pocket.”
He encourages users to “add friends and ask them questions through the app”, and that you can do this completely anonymously, for those people who are worried about social networking and online networking. Nick also talks about the app’s “radar” feature, “you can turn [it] on to allow chosen friends to view where you were last seen on the map.”
iSoftware Developers (Nick’s app development business) are also working on two more new apps that he calls “quite unique” that will be utilizing Kumulos as their Backend. According to Nick, they’ll be in the App Store in the next 2 months, so check keep tabs on iSoftware Developer’s page to stay up to date!
If you want to check out Nick’s apps head over to his website at:
www.i-software-developers.com
If you’re interested in contacting him, use the e-mail address below
[email protected]
