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Archives for January 2012

It’s not about features…

Last week, two apps made with Kwik were awarded by two different sources. Their success not only make me proud for, somehow, being part of their stories but mostly because they are a clear examples that, having (or not) feature A or B is not the most important thing when you have a good story to tell. Every day I receive several requests about “missing feature A” or “feature B should do more than which it currently does”, etc. Last month I was in some meetups with Carlos Icaza and he mentioned in his sessions about the “benefits” of not having all 5,000 APIs provided by iOS SDK into Corona….

Interview with Beau Lambert and Adventure Works

Today we interview Beau Lambert and Adventure Works about their just released Charmlee Buttonwillow interactive book available on the iPad and iPhone. Alex) Where did it start?Beau: “A Ton of Fun” started off as a traditional illustrated children’s book about a year ago. When I saw Adventure Work’s Trip Harrison app a big light bulb turned on in my head. Adventure Works can bring books to life while still giving a true reading experience! And that is what they did indeed! Adventure Works: For us this was a great opportunity to work on a project that embodies the spirit of adventure and was just a perfect fit for our brand….

Few words about Apple’s iBook Author

Yesterday’s announcement from Apple, of a tool for the creation of iBooks, generated so many news, postings, tweets and even a blog from Carlos (Ansca co-founder): http://blog.anscamobile.com/2012/01/corona-sdk-for-ebooks-because-education-isnt-a-mac-only-privilege/. A few Kwik users sent me emails asking me to talk about it and how it (may) affects the further development of the plugin. My thoughts (trying not to be biased) below. iBook Author brings a couple of nice features that will capture the attention of many users (some Kwik users as well). Some reasons for that include: It opens a new platform for delivery of stories; Seems to be much easier to setup and publish to iBook store than app store (no…

Quick chat with Richard Smith

Today I talk to Richard, from Clarence-Henry Books, author and illustrator of Rudy and Cirrus of Karma, another beautiful storybook made with Kwik and available at the Android Marketplace. Somehow a new user of Kwik, Richard was pretty fast learning, creating and publish his first app with the plugin. Enjoy! Alex) Tell a little bit about you and your company Clarence-Henry Books is an independent micropublisher of children’s picture books. One of the goals is to build picture books into apps to help expand to different media and reach new markets. What is the “Rudy and Cirrus of Karma” about? Rudy and Cirrus of Karma is about a boy named…

Interviewing New Mindflow

Today I am talking with Rares and Anamaria, from New Mindflow, authors of the beautiful Where’s Paradise, another app made with Kwik. As you are going to see below, I really think this documentary can open your eyes for what we think paradise is. Anyways, enjoy! Alex) Tell a little bit about you and your companyWe’re a team of two film-makers/photographers, Rares Kovesdi and Anamaria Chioveanu. After graduating from film school in 2008 we discovered mobile apps as a potentially great medium to distribute our work and explore new possibilities for storytelling and new audiences. It presented itself as a good opportunity to create and distribute our work outside the…

Interview with Sabrina Costa

This week I had the pleasure to talk to Sabrina, from RSC Development, author of “Preserve”, an iOS app made with Kwik for the Brazilian market. Enjoy! Alex) Tell a little bit about you and your company? We are a team of developers (two people): Rodrigo Costa (Brazilian) and Sabrina Costa(French). We develop applications for Apple iOS at the moment and we have future plans to produce for Google Android platform, including Nook Color and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Our target is the world! Yes, we certainly have greater appreciation for all our domestic market – Brazil – but we plan to launch apps and games for all platforms not only…

Learnings from 2011

Happy New Year to you all! In this first posting of the year I would like to share the 6 top learnings I had while developing/improving Kwik. Hope you enjoy and provide your comments (agreeing or disagreeing): 6. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR PRODUCT As I mentioned in my first post at this site (Why the world needs Kwik?), the original idea for Kwik was much far from what the current product is. Honestly, although I was expecting to get success with the plugin, I was not expecting the huge amount of users in just few weeks. Fact is, I underestimate the product I was building. Suddenly I had to review my…