Approved! Want a free app??

Apple was kind enough to approve our app last week after we made some minor tweaks to it. And Frypan is pleased to offer it up to you for free today.

The Minneapolis Skyway app, for the iPhone.

The approval process was pretty simple, and the dudes at Apple worked pretty quickly. Both times it took less than a week.

What I didn’t realize is that when it is approved, it goes straight to the App store, for free. Which is cool. But we wanted to dial in the last bit of Marketing, and release it a week later (today). Some of you have gone through the “Developer Removed From Sale.” Luckily it was pretty simple to put it back on the App Store. Here’s how we did it.

1) In itunes Connect, click Manage Your Applications

2) Click the App you want to put back in the App Store

3) Click Edit Information

4) Click Pricing Tab

5) Check all the stores where you’d like your app to be available. Mauritius was an important market for us, for obvious reasons.

And that’s it. In less than two hours it was available in the App Store, and at about 4 hours it was searchable in the App Store and online.

I’ve got to Thank our most awesome developer, Jane Mitchell of Rainbow Rabbit. She’s poured a whole lot into this thing, to make it very cool and to work beautifully! She’s a fantastic developer and designer, and an awesome human!

From day one, we wanted to make something that would be valuable to both the fine folks who call Minneapolis home, while promoting the wonderful merchants who make a living in the Skyway. I feel we really accomplished that, and hope you guys think its as cool as we do!

Oh, and it looks very fresh on the iPad.

Cool story done by my new friend Anthony Carranza of Examiner.com. Check it out here !!

Frypan

Rejected!

Our first submission was rejected by apple. I am sure it had something to do with the app being way too awesome, but Apple insisted;

“Minneapolis Skyway cannot be posted because it is a feature-limited version. Free or “Lite” versions are acceptable, however the application must be a fully functional app and cannot reference features that are not implemented or up-sell to the full version.”

Sounds to me like they are having a tough time wrapping their brains around such an advanced app. Its been tweaked, and waiting review again, but in the meantime check this out!

Our very lo-fi, lo-budget promo vid:

Tools for the vid –

1) Flip Mino HD – Previously Owned – Free
2) Simfinger by Atebits – Free
3) iShowU HD Screencast by Shiny White Box – $29.95
4) Psychic City by Yacht – $0.99

Total Cost of Shameless Self-[video]Promotion – $30.94

Frypan

Mobile March!

It helps to know what you are good at and what you are not. It in turn helps to have little brothers who can pick up the slack. Thanks to Robby Holley, we were able to create a fresh business card for Frypan Digital. Five days and $72 later, through the help of Overnight Prints, we had one thousand business cards ready for distribution.

I gave one to my wife and one to my mom which left me with 998. Who to give em to next? Mobile March! If you are into mobile technology, this was the place to be. If you have no idea how to develop, like myself, there was a great Mobile Business track where only half of the stuff discussed went over my head. On top of all of the speakers discussing the newest, latest mobile trends, it was a prime place to network and meet locals with common interests. One new contact, and proud recipient of business card #3 was Steve Borsch of minnov8. They are devoted to showcasing Minnesota’s best in internet and web technology and have a very cool website you should check out.
Besides trying to build a super cool app, our main objective was to set out and learn as much as we can. We’re definately doing that.

Business Card Design: Dinner for Robby @ Saffron(dope!)
Business Cards: $72.00

The Minneapolis Skyway Open

Every year in the Minneapolis Skyway, the Downtown Network hosts The Skyway Open. The Skyway Open, sponsored by US Bank features 18 one-of-a-kind putt-putt holes by various local architect and design firms. The cool thing is, the whole event goes to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities.

Frypan Digital thought it would be a great event to be a part of. We considered sponsoring a hole, but were short a few thousand dollars needed for the corporate sponsorship (see: all of our blog posts, to see why). Instead I contacted a director of the tournament and let him know that we’d be interested in contributing any way that we could.

Well the good folks managing the tournament were kind enough to let us volunteer at the registration table on that Friday. They let us work two shifts that night (6 hours), which was very cool, in exchange for letting us leave a couple fliers out at the registration table promoting our app. It was pretty good self-promotion, and we met a ton of really cool people, many of whom expressed good interest in the app. Sweet !

The thing we weren’t prepared for of course was actually designing a flier and then getting them printed. I was assuming it would cost a few hundred dollars just in printing. I spent an airplane trip from Florida to Minnesota designing the flier on Apple iWork’s Pages. They had some really dope templates to choose from. So I knocked it out.

Spending a lot of time in the skyway, I remembered a few printing companies, so I thought we should leverage and promote those businesses in the printing. I called up Alphagraphics and spoke with the owner, David Skinner, who turned out to be a super cool dude, and very eager to help. We asked that he print us a couple hundred fliers, and in return they could print their logo anywhere they wanted on it. Well I called David on a Monday, and he said, “There will be 2000 waiting for you down here on Thursday Morning.” Right on Brother! No cost. The quality was awesome, and they printed both sides; back side was a one page add for Alphagraphics in the Skyway. A great connection, and a great act of generosity on behalf of Alphagraphics.

Cost of fliers: $0.00

Frypan

Image Is Everything

Isn’t that what Andre Agassi used to say, somewhere between Brooke Shields and a crystal meth habit?

Well, we needed to find an image. An image for which to build the Minneapolis Skyway App. Initial research left much to be desired, but gave us a building block. At the very least we needed a primitive guide to the eight mile maze in order to begin logging the hundreds of businesses…..and one public bathroom. Seriously, if you don’t want to have swing into Arby’s to buy a French Dip and Swiss Combo for $5.01 in order to get a bathroom token, you might want to check out the Minneapolis Skyway App. If not, you can pick up the App later and map your workout in order to burn off the 1100 calories you just slammed to get into the john. Back to the image, here is where we started. Our initial image we were running with was this one from the University of St Thomas.

Not exactly our everything, but free and good enough to get us logging some mileage and familiarizing ourselves with the belly of the beast.
We discovered the skyway has some maps of its own that were updated in July 2009. It really only complicates matters, especially when blocks are divided into buildings that aren’t clearly designated or marked. Where are you in that circle? Do they think you are the State Puff Marshmallow Man? Are you at the Orchestra Hall? Convention Center? or maybe you are somewhere at then end of the dotted line where it reads, “you are here.”

As we continued to log data through the skyway we stumbled upon Minneapolis Geographical Information Systems, or GIS. Destiny? I think so. They provided us with an image that is everything we needed to make a custom map fit and feel right for our mobile application. Check out our little preview of it below, and check the full version on the soon-to-be Minneapolis Skyway App.

Cost of Cartography: $135.79
Frypan

Minneapolis Skyway App – For the iPhone

We are very pleased to introduce the Minneapolis Skyway app for the iPhone. Not in the AppStore yet, but we’re darn close. Coding is 90% complete, Design is 90% complete, and a large part of it rests on Apple’s shoulders once we officially submit it.

The very talented Jane Mitchell of Rainbow Rabbit, having lived and worked in Minneapolis for a number of years, quickly grasped our vision. She knocked out a perfect design, and we’re pretty pumped to release this thing. Jane’s designed a number of other cool apps too; Shopaholic, Pet the Cow, gScale, and my favorite, eMaze.

The Minneapolis Skyway first opened in 1962, connecting the city’s first mixed-use building, the Northstar Center, with Northwestern National Bank across Marquette Avenue.

skyway

It has often been compared to a “habitrail for humans,” very similar to habitrail for hamsters. Every day hundreds of thousands of people use the Minneapolis Skyway; business professionals, travelers, vagabonds, street performers, and sometimes even Prince.

Most professionals know how to get from their parking spot to their desk, and a few favorite lunch spots. Most suburban shoppers know even less than that. And out-of-towners are almost completely in the dark. The few maps scattered about are few and far between, not to mention dated. I mean, is the Target Center even still there? But at its very core, the Minneapolis Skyway is a thriving pedestrian, socio-economic ecosystem, replete with banks, clothiers, hotels, art, music, jewelers (LOTS of jewelers for some reason), food, and of course, PEOPLE! Oh, and our favorite hot dog stand, Franks a Million.

We hope our App will help you explore this crazy second story world with ease, whether you’re just looking for a super sweet gold chain, or want to browse the permanent Dale Chihuly Macchia exhibit at 225 South Sixth.

The Skyway – By the numbers

Blocks : 70
Miles: 8
Bridges: 78
Businesses : 1000
Condos: 2000
Hotel Rooms: 4000
Pedestrians/Day : 200,000

Skyway Apps: 1

Frypan

Networking in 3 Steps – Landing a Developer

Step 1: Network

I’ve been working in the IT industry for a little over 5 years, primarily as a recruiter, for a company in Minneapolis called Concord USA (be sure to contact Concord for any of your Data Management, Integration, or Enterprise Architecture needs!!).

As a commissioned employee, I learned early on the importance of a strong network. Networking 101 in my book is defined as such: Reach out and connect with as many good people as humanly possible, establish a good relationship, and they’ll want to hopefully do business with you in the future.* Concord has given me an opportunity to do that every single day. It was through this work that I met the developer of our iPhone App, Jason Blood.

Step 2: Engage

Jason is one of the best .NET resources in the Twin Cities, and worked for us at Concord’s largest client at the time. The project was a huge success and Jason continued to land cool contracts at great clients around the Twin Cities. I’d reach out to him from time to time, just to stay in touch. Luckily, it was our connection on LinkedIN that informed me he was building iPhone Apps; he just finished developing uCook.

I called him to share our idea, and asked him if he’d like to be involved.

Step 3:
Do Deals

As a local Minnesotan, Jason quickly understood the vision for our app, and expressed interest in the development. Since we didn’t have a bunch of dough to throw at a developer, it was important for us to find a local resource with intimate knowledge of Minneapolis, and to structure a deal that could reap nice rewards for all parties involved, with minimal initial investment. For Jason’s fee, he agreed to a profit share, essentially a 50/50 split of all sales revenue.

This seemed more than fair to us, we didn’t have to pay a large sum up-front, and it assured us that Jason would give the development close attention, as he had vested interest in the success of the app.

*A common side-effect of networking = Getting connected to more cool and talented resources. Jason introduced me to Jane Mitchell of Rainbow Rabbit, who I’ll write more on later, and who is finishing up the design of our app.

Total development Cost to date – $0.00

Frypan

Learn stuff

I swear to you all I am not going to turn this into an app review blog. Lord knows we have enough of those already. But from time to time, a great app will come along with a clear vision, great functionality, and a wicked cool website promoting their wares. And I’m not going to dismiss such creativity; I plan on learning from it.

Winston Churchill once said, “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”

We are taught lessons and concepts and facts in school and college, from parents hopefully, and possibly a mentor. For me personally, it’s way more fun to be an astute observer, and learn from real life experiences. I’ve learned quite a bit from app developers and designers, and picked up a few more things from the good folks at Busy Cursor Software, the makers of Minneapolis’ Train Brain App. The app was developed by Andy Atkinson and designer Nate Kadlac.

Essentially the app brings the Minneapolis Light Rail schedule to life, with a very slick User Interface. It’s hard to make train schedules look sexy, but these guys came pretty close.

Most importantly , it works. But the biggest lesson I’ve learned was just how important a promotional website specific to the app is. Train Brain’s is clear and concise, looks sharp, and has a couple effective and simple features. The site basically consists of 4 sections: 1) Features, 2) Screenshots, 3) Support, 4) FAQs. That’s it. I think one of the coolest parts is their support/feedback section powered by User Voice. This allows all of their users to provide feedback or suggest ideas, and quite a few have. It’s an excellent way to stay connected with your users , so you can continually provide a rich and meaningful user experience.

With that said, we’ve secured our app domain for two years from GoDaddy for $21.74.
Now we just need content and design…

App Website – $21.74

Frypan

How we Google

Google and its offerings continue to grow and expand every day. Almost all of its product offerings are free, which Frypan loves. It’s an interesting model, and one we won’t get too deep into here (though we all have a lot to learn from Google.) They’re able to offer these free products, because 99% of its revenue is generated from its advertising programs; roughly $10 Billion a year (only $112 Million in licensing).

Some of Google’s best products have come from what they call “Innovation Time Off.” All of their engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (1 day a week) on projects that have significant interest to them. Luckily for us, almost 50% of Google’s new launches, and some of its most popular services were hatched under this program; Gmail, Adsense, Google News, etc. In my mind, Innovation Time Off looks a bit like this:

But whatever – they make real, useful, cool stuff without using the term “cloud.” (yet)

Our needs are pretty basic. Since my business partner and I live 55 miles away from each other, we’ve leaned on Google Apps to stay in touch and collaborate online often.

We email on Gmail

We chat on Google Talk

We use Google Maps to find out where we’re going to have our next Fulton Beer

I use Google Reader to catch up on all my blogs so I can get smart …Sidenote – My Favorites:

Mobile Orchard
Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategist
No Identity Blog
Tapity

And most importantly we use Google Docs

We have spent many a night collaborating on “documents” to shape our ideas, and compiling data on “spreadsheets” to help realize those ideas. It’s a wonderful tool, the real-time collaboration features are fantastic, and the in-document chat has been invaluable. Essentially we can both work on the same project, at the same time, share it with our developer, and talk about it all while watching 30 Rock from the comfort of our own homes. Pretty sweet. By comparison, Microsoft Office Small Business is about $450.

Business Software – $0.00

Frypan

7 Thank you notes in 7 Days – The iPhone Developer Program Enrollment!

Steve Jobs must have had fantastic parents. I’m assuming a lot of his commitment, will power, and unwavering dedication to his craft are intrinsic, but Mom and Dad are no doubt responsible for showing us how to ride a bike, chew with our mouth closed, and write a thank-you note. Well, seven days have passed, and I just received seven thank you notes from Apple (by email). My mother would have certainly made me hand write them and post them by mail, so I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. But it is 2009, so at the very least an email will suffice.

We recently enrolled in the iPhone Developer Program, and I’d like to briefly show you how it all went down.
We decided to enroll in the Standard Program, under our company Frypan Digital.

November 20, 2009 – Day 1

I went to the iPhone Developer Program website, chose our program, typed in some stuff, and clicked “Enroll Now.” Seconds later I received my first Thank You note, with our Enrollment ID.

Thank you for your interest in the iPhone Developer Program. Your enrollment request has been received and is being processed

7.5 hours later I recieved my second Thank You note, asking me to fax our articles of incorporation. No problem.

Thank you for your assistance.

Thank you,

iPhone Developer Program

Feeling good, I fax our articles of incorporation

November 23, 2009 – Day 3

On the third day we receive our third Thank You from Apple.

Thank you for submitting the information we requested to continue with your iPhone Developer Program enrollment

November 24, 2009 – Day 4
Day 4 we start off with a phone call from Apple verifying our phone numbers. Dude finished convo with “Thank you.” Thanks , dude.
Then we promptly receive another Thank you.

Thank you for applying to the iPhone Developer Program.
We have reviewed the information you submitted when you initiated your enrollment request and are now ready to instruct you on the steps required to continue with the enrollment process.

We are instructed to click thru and agree to some stuff. Cool.

November 26, 2009 – Day 6

Thank you for applying to the iPhone Developer Program. To activate, simply click on the Activation code link below

Umm….ok, it’s Thanksgiving…we get it. I click thru to pay for it.

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!

November 27, 2009 – Day 7
Done! Enrolled! Finished! Thank you?
Sure, one more for good measure…give it to me…

Thank you for joining the iPhone Developer Program.

All told: 7 days, $106.21

You’re Welcome,

Frypan