Disposable Phone Numbers

Ever since 24, I've liked the idea of burner phones --- phones with unique numbers that you use to make only the necessary calls and then throw away. However, it's quite expensive to throw away perfectly good cell phones, even if they're just the "feature" and not the "smart" kind... not to mention the guilt I get for adding to my carbon footprint. On the other hand, our technology isn't advanced enough yet that we can print phones on papers like in that terrible Milla Jovovich movie. Seemed like it would be a while before I could have my own disposable numbers.

That is, until I got Burner, the iPhone app that creates and manages disposable numbers! For the purchase price of $1.99, the app gives you a starting number that expires in 7 days, or after 20 minutes of talk time. Use in-app-purchase to extend the life of a number or to buy other numbers. The app also manages text messaging for each number. Very convenient. Just remember that the intention here is to create short-term numbers, so it can be quite expensive if you want a longer term solution. You might consider using TextNow or Google Voice in that case.

"Well, I'm no bad-ass like Jack Bauer, why would I need disposable numbers," you ask. Oh, I admire the naivete. Next time you think you like a stranger and give him your number, give a disposable one instead, in case he turns out to be another stalker who calls you 24-7, like the one you're having a hard time getting rid of right now. More practically though, in a situation where phone or text communication is more convenient, but the other party is a stranger, and you know this is a one-time deal, a disposable number can be, pun intended, in-disposable. Think CraigsList, AirBnB, etc. Anyway, have fun, and remember to call your mom, preferably from your permanent number.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

Yesterday, a star fell. Everywhere I looked --- my e-mail inbox, the TV, the Web, my phone --- there were news of Steve Jobs' death, and stories of how everyone already missed him. Even those who hated Apple products or thought of Jobs as a megalomaniac couldn't deny the fact that the iconic driving force behind the Macs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, etc. had influenced how we used technologies today. He had always been a role model and a great inspiration, so I too was deeply saddened.

Even though I had never met Steve Jobs, there were three things that I learned, and strived to perfect, from reading up about him and studying his products. First, simplicity. When working on a product, it had always been more than easy to say "wouldn't it cool if..." Then before I knew it, the feature list had grown ten times, and the user interface turned into a hideous beast because I had to present the features to the user. Jobs taught me that it was just as important for a feature or a button to not be there, as one to be there. Call it the art of nothingness, or the Zen Buddhist concept of ma, to truly master this philosophy would take insight --- and courage --- to say "no" to even good ideas. Easier said than done.

"Visionary" would probably be the most common word used to describe Steve Jobs. While Jobs undoubtedly had some of the greatest vision in the world of technology, so did many other brilliant engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, and the likes. I thought more defining than being a visionary, Jobs had the determination and tenacity to stay true, persevere, and execute on his vision. We had all heard of how many ideas a dime could buy, and I could not count the number of times I started working on some new concept before stopping early because I "didn't have the time." I learned from Jobs to dig deep into my gut, figure out what I really wanted, and stick with it to the end. A well executed, mediocre vision would always win against a brilliant, but half-finished, one. Of course, there would be tons of nay-sayers and opposition along the way, but some 20 years ago Jobs predicted that people today would be holding mobile devices that could show photos and play videos, then he overcame being fired from the company he created, and battled cancer --- including coming right back to work after a liver transplant, to realize that vision. What excuse did I have?

Last, but by no means least, Jobs reminded me the value of being alive. This was not a lesson stemmed from his death, but more a lesson from his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address, in which he spoke of asking himself every morning that if this were his last day alive, would he do the things he was about to do that day, and if the answer was no for many days in a row, he would know he had to change. Jobs died at the age of 56. Many, including me, thought that was simply too young and it wasn't his time. However, looking from another angle, even in the short amount of time he was alive, he had achieved more than some could ever achieve in multiple lifetimes. His advice was obviously not meant for someone who simply wanted to sit back and relax on their last day, but rather to one who had goals and aspirations. I would forever be grateful for each moment I was alive, and I would always remind myself not to squander any of it.

A thought about pancreatic cancer. I'm no doctor, and I certainly don't have any medical knowledge about pancreatic cancer, but Steve Jobs, my Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, and a few family friends, all died from complications of this type of cancer. Coincidently, these were all male (of different races) between the age of 47 and 49, who all excelled at what they did, and were probably all workaholics --- or at least they loved their work so much that they didn't mind working more than the norm. Jobs was actually lucky in that his form of cancer was treatable, although that just delayed the inevitable. Otherwise I've never heard of anyone outliving this cancer more than a few years after being diagnosed. Not to be an alarmist, but if you or someone you know is close to that age and works obsessively hard, it's probably a good idea to screen for this type of cancer regularly.

I had heard of people e-mailing Steve Jobs directly and getting personal, albeit terse, replies. I always wanted to try it, but never did because I never had a good question. It had always been my dream that one day in the near future, if I made a splash in the tech world, I would visit Jobs in Silicon Valley, and personally thank him for the life lessons. It's a shame that I could never do that now, but I'll carry on his lessons for the rest of my life. *SIGH* 7 billion people in this world, and we only had one Steve Jobs. When would we see such genius again? Oh, and since Jobs was a Buddhist, I wouldn't expect him to be in Heaven. If he didn't achieve nirvana, then, "Thank you, Steve Jobs, and may you have an insanely great next life."

iPhone 4S will be my first iPhone

I followed Engadget's live blogging of Apple's "Let's Talk iPhone" event this morning, where Apple unveiled the new iPhone 4S. Tonight, I just watched its video on Apple.com. CEO Tim Cook was the main presenter, and overall I thought the presentation was reminiscent of Steve Jobs' in terms of format. They first threw out some impressive sales and market share numbers, announced price cuts, then introduced new products and features in order of importance. And, obligatory self-congratulatory videos were sprinkled across the entire presentation. Clean, polished, and effective.

However, Cook was a lot more reserved and understated compared to Jobs, and he reminded me of those sleep-inducing old professors I had in college. Just a tad... boring. I'm sure Cook believed in Apple as much as Jobs did, but maybe it was his personality, I just didn't think he was as exciting a presenter as someone like Scott Forstall. I hope Apple doesn't think that the CEO always has to be the main presenter at their future keynotes and will give the task to someone more charismatic.

Of course, the new iPhone 4S was the focus. The critics laughed, and the diehard Apple fans were disappointed, because it was just a hardware revamp of last year's model and not a completely redesigned iPhone 5. Even the Apple stock suffered because Wall Street was hoping for a brand new phone. I think it's unrealistic to expect Apple to introduce a wholly redesigned phone every year, and as someone who has never had an iPhone before, I'm really happy with the improvements they've done and will preorder one as soon as they start taking orders on Oct. 7. With more powerful cores, better camera, new antenna system for faster download rate, and better battery life, even if it's not iPhone 5, it's still way ahead of any competion. Also, I think those of us who're tech savvy and follow these news daily forget that the vast majority of people are still waiting to get their first smartphones, so whether it's just an updated iPhone 4S or a brand new iPhone 5, it's going to sell like crazy.

The event didn't have as many "wow" factors because most of the iOS 5 features were already introduced at WWDC earlier this year. But, there were still some nice surprises. Find My Friends was interesting. It allowed a user to see his friends' locations should they choose to share them. When I wrote the app Friend Map, I actually thought it could turn into something similar to Find My Friends if it took off. People hesitated to share their locations for privacy concerns, so if people had the choice of when to share their locations and whom to share with, those concerns would be much reduced. Only problem with Find My Friends was everyone would need to have an iPhone. Maybe I should write an Android equivalent? :)

The sequel to Infinity Blade also looked nice. The graphics were obviously great, unfortunately the improvements probably were lost to all but the trained eyes. This goes back to the age-old game design question: do graphics matter that much, especially when most iPhone owners aren't core gamers? Still, it showcased the graphic prowess of the device, and I would be curious to see their claim that it surpassed the power of Xbox 360 and PS3 come true in future games. As a small aside, I remembered at the Halo 2 announcement at a Microsoft E3 event years past, the crowd cheered when they talked about dual-wielding guns. For Infinity Blade 2, there wasn't as much as a hand clap when they mentioned dual-wielding swords. Wrong crowd, and not as big a brand, I guess.

The "one more thing" this time (though not presented as such) was Siri, the natural-language voice recognition system integrated with all aspects of the new iPhone. Not only would I be able to talk to my phone to schedule appointments, check weather, look up nearby restaurants, I would finally be able to reply to text messages while I drive! I was seriously considering writing myself an app to do just that, although I couldn't find a good voice-recognition system. Here's to hoping Apple will make the voice-recognition system open to developers. Oh, and wouldn't hurt to add spoken Chinese recognition soon either.

Progress

Finally finished and submitted version 1.0 of Hookit iPhone app two days ago. I've been working on it part time since late December last year. Looking back, I've been making iPhone apps for about two years now, and Hookit, once approved, will be the sixth app in the App Store that I've developed. Three are my own projects, and the other three, including Hookit, are consulting work. Even though a lot of people -- especially those who have never made an app -- tell me it's so easy to rake in millions just by making random apps for the iPhone, somehow those fortunes have passed me by. I'm compensated a lot less now than when I had a job, yet I easily work twice as much. Still, these have been two very enriching years. I feel I have a much clearer direction of where my life's going, and I get immense satisfaction from my work.

Every project I took had been a great learning experience. First there was Wise Quotes. This was an app with a collection of over 1,000 quotations from famous people past and present. Technically, it was as simple as an app could be, but I loved it precisely for its simplicity in presentation and functionality. It taught me the process of app development and submission.

Then there was Free Falling by Good Times & Didge. A powered-up version of a TI calculator classic puzzle/action game, we got lucky that Apple featured the app, and it dominated the puzzle game category briefly, even breaking into the top 100 all-app ranking. The game was completely 2D, but I still made it with OpenGL for performance and, you guessed it, educational reasons. As someone with very little graphics programming experience, this was a nice little introduction to the field.

My other contract project at the time was PawTrotter by App Inspire. A location-based pet-related business and destination search app, a pet owner with an iPhone can use it to easily locate nearby dog parks, beaches, vets, pet stores, boardings, etc., no matter the location. During development, I became very familiar with iOS user interface programming, and the server-side component introduced me to the world of HTTP client-server app development that I had never touched in my last job. This app was again featured by Apple, and it not only stayed as the number one or two most downloaded app in the Travel category for a while, subsequent updates also often kept it high up in the chart.

Developed simultaneously with Free Falling and PawTrotter was Q Racer, a foot-racing question-answering puzzle game (you have to check out the screenshots to understand what I mean). It was released under the brand Hug a Panda (Facebook page here), my first ever startup. Co-developed with two business partners, and contracted help of various artists, the game took a lot of resources to complete. Unfortunately, the reception had been lukewarm at best. Even if I hadn't learned much technical knowledge or skill-wise, there were a lot of lessons learned about project management and market targeting.

Earlier this year I released another small app called Friend Map that allowed a Facebook user to check where his friends had checked in recently using the increasingly popular Facebook Places Check-in feature. The app would display the friends' clickable photos on an interactive map (scroll, zoom, etc.), giving the user a much better geographical sense of his friends' whereabouts, something that surprisingly hadn't been fully explored in a lot of location-based service apps. The app was released under the brand Play in Motion (Facebook page here), my other startup, and it would serve as a precursor to a location-based game to be released in a few months. Funny thing is, even though the app has been available in the App Store for a while now (and FREE, no less), we haven't officially announced it and pushed any marketing because we're still working out a few kinks. Though, please feel free to try it out and send us feedback (info@playinmotion.com)!

Last but not least, Hookit.com is a leading social networking site for athletes and fans of lifestyle sports (think motor-crossing, surfing, skateboarding, etc.). I met one of their founders in my Founder Institute class last year; they had been looking for a developer to bring their brand to the iPhone and take advantage of unique smart phone technologies like location services. I really liked what they had been doing, so even though my schedule had already been tight, I still took the job. This app would turn out to be the largest in scale I had done to date, and to complete it I would use all the experience and knowledge gained from my previous app development, but I enjoyed every minute of it (owing largely to the folks at Hookit... can't give them enough praises). When the app is approved (will definitely announce it on this blog), I think you'll agree with me that the result is a terrific app.

What does the future hold? Well, at least for the foreseeable time, my top priorities are to bring out the first game of Play in Motion, continue my working relationship with Hookit, and decide where Hug a Panda is going. Q Racer may not have found its audience, but I believe its core is good and probably just needs a target market direction change. There're a few potential consulting opportunities lining up as well, and I have many other ideas that I would love to pursue. And, Wise Quotes can use an overhaul. It's becoming obvious to me that I would never finish anything if I were to work on everything, so I've also been contemplating contracting outside help.

Whether it's easy or difficult to make money in the iOS app world, I'm sticking with the platform because it's been a great fun ride. I would be lying if I said I didn't care about money, since my dream has always been to make a comfortable living working on projects I love. However, I firmly believe that I can realize that dream if I continue giving my best developing iOS apps. Let's see where I am in another two years.

Rekindling of the love of games

I've been listening to the Brainy Gamer podcast nonstop, starting from the very first episode. I can't recommend it enough. These days I only play social games on Facebook -- however shallow or un-fun they are -- because of work and lack of time resource. Brainy Gamer has reminded me why I love the so-called core games so much (though I prefer to just call them "real" games)... You know, games like this:

How can a core gamer resist Kasumi's panty and jiggly boobs in stereoscopic 3D! Kidding aside, I probably won't buy a 3DS because based on Nintendo's track record, a new version of the hardware (taking bets on the name: 3DS Lite, XL?) is just around the corner. Let's see if Nintendo says anything this E3.

Anyway, check out Brainy Gamer.