We met up with Rudy De Waele on Saturday ahead of his appearance at Mobile Monday Amsterdam (great presentation, by the way Rudy!) and he managed to convince Paul to do a quick demo of Treasuremytext via seesmic. Very impressed by seesmicing on the move (we were at de Balie); not so sure about the video replies!!
I’m taking time whilst waiting for Mobile Monday Amsterdam to get into the swing of things to post my pictures and thoughts from iPhone Dev Camp Amsterdam on Saturday. It’s been a busy few days of mobile application development in Amsterdam and I’m noticing two worlds about to collide.
Whilst we have long been advocates of mobile+web or web+mobile / integrated services (take Treasuremytext as an example), it seems now iPhone is here, more web people are starting to take mobile really seriously.
iPhone Dev Camp was a fabulous indicator of the appeal of the iPhone platform; with a sell out 120 signups on Upcoming; and a packed Mediamatic all day Saturday. So are there 120 iPhone Developers in Amsterdam? Well, no actually nearly all of these guys would like to be iPhone developers but come from the web world. They’re making great 2.0 apps with PHP, Python, Ruby, but Objective C and Cocoa; skills you’ll need to get going with iPhone seem a long way off. iPhone Dev Camp to the rescue! Peter Robinnet made everyone at home with pancakes and the fun began. The Dutch developer scene is pretty friendly, people are happy to help each other out as they start with small scale apps to learn the basics.
We’re lucky to know at least 3 Cocoa Developers (who’s earning potential at least doubled as they can now easily transition and sell their services as ‘iPhone Developers’). For people who have any Mac development skills this is a huge opportunity. iPhone Dev Camp also highlighted that there are people desperate to have their ideas realised in the App store. The web guys get it too; and know the potential of web+iPhone strategies.
Some of the guys at the event managed to learn enough to create their first ‘hello world’ level iPhone apps - and many did much better with some pretty neat ideas. We managed to get the Treasuremytext for iPhone app tested and very nearly ready!
My pictures are here, and the Treasuremytext for iPhone app will be available very soon.
I think we first discussed how ‘an iPhone Dev Camp would be a very nice idea’ with Peter Robinnet at the Techcrunch Europe meetup at eBuddy not so long ago. Since then Peter’s been really busy organising it, as interest grew a new venue was needed and Mediamatic came to the rescue. Peter’s coworking space is great but not big enough for 120+ budding iPhone developers! I’m really looking forward to the event; personally I hope to:
Meet new people incuding Cocoa and iPhone Developers - for some of our upcoming new projects
A lovely surprise today! We’re getting a free BOA iPhone faux leather case… just for being iPhone developer types! Hmm, looks like all their stuff is gorgeous. Thanks BOA!
Marco Wessel just dropped a nice surprise in our inbox! …A new version of ‘Treasuremytext for iPhone’ application! Here’s a very sneak preview. We hope to have this available soon, probably through Cydia and in time for iPhoneDevHouse Amsterdam on the 30th August. (If we can work out an appropriate reward for Marco!)
It lets iPhone users archive their favorite SMS and delete the ones they don’t want!
Treasuremytext has now been incorporated as a new Limited Company. Previously Treasuremytext was a project of Kisky Netmedia, but due to our imminent expansion we’ve split it out in to its own company; with a new board of advisors, new staff and a host of new features coming soon. Oh, and check out our company number! Surely starting with ‘666′ is a good thing!
We’ve been doing a lot of work under the radar for a couple of months and there are some exciting developments at Treasuremtext. The first of these is that we now have an advisory board. The purpose of the advisory board is to add some skills and experience to our team; specifically in the area of mobile operators, and raising finance. We’ve been looking for people who can help us develop Treasuremytext; to improve the product, to reach a wider audience and to develop links with new partners. We’re very pleased and honored to announce that Ian Hay, Imran Ali and Kerim Satirli are now on the Treasuremytext Advisory Board.
Imran Ali is a founding partner of Carbon Imagineering, a UK-based emerging technologies think tank, incubating a number of startup projects, working with media properties such as O’Reilly Media, Corante, and Giga Omni Media. Previously, Imran has been a Deputy Director of R&D for Orange UK, part of the advisory boards of O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony conference and the eComm 2008 conference, as well as a cofounder of ensembli. Imran is bringing design & innovation sense, global contacts and funding experience to the team having been a part of the success of various early stage startups. www.imranali.name
Ian Hay is Head of Emerging Technologies at Orange and is bringing mobile operator experience to the team helping us to ensure Treasuremytext is an attractive proposition for operators worldwide. Ian’s expert technical background means we’re able to ask him ‘the difficult questions’ and get valuable help and support on infrastructure and technology strategy. http://ikisai.wordpress.com/
Kerim Satirli is a 2.0 advocate, specializing in influencing user opinion. Active and influential in the European Social Media community, Kerim is bringing his experience of “being 2.0″ to the team and will be helping Treasuremytext to develop new methods of integrating SMS services into other social spaces. http://kerimsatirli.com/
We’re looking forward very much to working with Imran, Ian and Kerim in coming months.
If you want some I *heart* SMS stickers, we’re happy to oblige. Just send your name and address and we’ll stick some in the post. Send your sticker requests to iwantstickers
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