Looking back at 2016

It's almost at the end of 2016, we will come to 2017 in matters of day.

It's good time to reflect back what has occured on 2016. So it will make a torchlight for the next year.

Let's talk related to work and business here OK.

# App Development / Publishing

Early this year I published numbers apps on App Stores. Especially on the early year.

Polishing and updating is important. It's important to keep refresh so Apple like it.

Like-minded community. I joined it since this business is emotionally stressed, we need support right.  So joining course and community for this definitely help in the long run.

# Services

This year is Android year for servicing. I just learnt this technology last year, with Android Studio. Since the Android Studio is quite nice I can stick with it.

I am happy with the jobs, but the client usually like to drag the time so that they can think more and make some additional decision to put into the apps.

And also for iOS job as well.

Another thing is web. Wordpress informational website. It's small scale project that is cater as special projects. I need to care about hosting on behalf of clients. To be honest, I am not pushy to client to complete their task to finish up their contents. I am just wait until they can finish them. But it affects in term of completing the payment etc. Dragging this can cost client for hosting and domain.

# iRekaSoft.com Blog

I had a simplified, Apple-like iReka Soft website this year, at least the front page. It has a hero and 4 sub features item.

And also we have an iReka Soft Blog! It's somewhat important and cool. I illustrate some important piece of techs to share with many technical people.

Visit irekasoft.com/blog


# Working Space

I work from home mainly. But since I have kid now, it's a bit hard to focus only on work. So Q4 this year start renting desk at CWS MaGIC. Co-working space.

It's a wonderful space. Really. Because MaGIC is a organization that supports entreprenuership. So they have programs, days that engage the community. The communities there are cool as well. Variety of people, same minded people that have entreprenuer spirit.

# Design

Designing is important to have a successful product. Even it's small product. Designing is a co-process. But it can be the master plan. So designing can be in-out.

I learn more about Sketch. And recently bought Flinto a prototyping tool.

# Laravel

Not be forgotten is this new stuff I acquired this year. It's an important web / backend technology that developer needs.

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# 2017

For the next year. I'm still renting at CWS MaGIC, if you happen to read this, lets have meeting there. It's cozy place to have meetings.

Yeah 2017, is gonna be challenging. Many of the ideas / prototype / experimental this year need to be realized on the next year.

It's Almost End of the Year

Wow. How fast the time flies.

If you have't yet. This is our latest creation for Android app.

It's pretty slick. It will support thousand of car owners in Klang Valley to get their battery with the ease of smartphone.

It probably some barrier to have it because you need to know there is an app for that. Yeah, you just can call to the service or just Whatsapp them right? Yeah true.

But that's work on early stage of business. You know, where you can handle it. When you sell a lot, you need a system to automize it.

Yes this is an initiative to make it more systemize.

You might see it's a simple system at the front-end. Pick your location, your car and model search. All the batteries will show up. When you are ready pick the battery select your payment and bam.

The rider will come out to you. You just need to wait. 

It's because the service is already up and running. There are traditionally serving people like what normal thing does.

But it just added a layer with web system and apps.

Cool is'nt it? We will wait for the flood of downloads and orders. Thanks.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bateriku/id1149657692?ls=1&mt=8

Hello December

Lagi beberapa hari lagi nak masuk tahun 2017. Harap next year ni, lebih banyak achievement yang anda semua nak lebih capai lagi.

Tahun 2016, syukur Alhamdulillah pelbagai peluang dan challenge ditempuh sepanjang tahun ini. Tahun ini juga amat bermakna dari segi kerjaya dan personal.

Dari segi kerjaya, ada beberapa improvement sebenarnya dalam keberhasilan membuat apps. Dari segi design ada menambah baik ilmu dengan mendaftar naik course design code oleh Meng To. Memang sebelum ni rasa nak buat design baru nak take time, tapi dengan course ni lebih faham tentang design dan sepatut nya kena sentiasa amalkan. Biasakan. Dengan pelbagai tips penggunaan Sketch. So memang berbeza juga sebanyak-banyak ini.

Apa yang best kita boleh implement direct kepada project Xcode dengan plug-in yang disediakan.

Lain-lain pula adalah marketing dan peningkatan diri. Inipun course online. Dapat mentor dari negara US. Cool juga sebab banyak online webinar yang dianjurkan, boleh bertanya-tanya soalan. Selain dari boleh join group Facebook agar perjalanan perniagaan apps lebih berapi dan bersemangat dengan  feed member yang lain.

OK, dari segi personal, target untuk tahun 2017 adalah untuk boleh tulis journal harian setiap hari. Journal ni ditulis guna aplikasi mobile Day One, sync dekat Dropbox, ada juga app untuk Mac. Jadi mudah juga untuk update-mengupdate ni setiap hari. Journal harian ni sepatutnya ditulis bila nak start rutin harian, apa plan untuk hari tersebut. Pada malam nya, journal diupdate dengan rumusan dan pemikiran. Kalau boleh, boleh tulis juga plan untuk keesokan harinya.

OK blog ini, dah genap 1 tahun ditulis contentnya untuk setiap bulan at least. Memang ini benda yang disaran kan oleh mentor Asia kita. Jadi paksa diri tulis something. So far, boleh lah persistant tulis sedikit sebanyak dalam blog irekasoft blogspot ini. Selain itu memang saya ada juga tulis benda teknikal di ireka soft blog juga.

Lain-lain pula adalah networking. Dalam bisnes ni bro, referal dan networking sangat penting. Boleh je buat kerja online-online ni, tapi untuk lebih sustain dan ada balance kena juga cari local area network (atau LAN). Haha, LAN pulak. Yang saya maksudkan adalah bersua muka dengan orang yang sama fikiran, tak kisah sama ada join meetup atau gi cari co-working spaces. Asal boleh kenal orang dan buat networking. Busy macam mana pun cari lah peluang sekali-sekala.

Lain adalah invest dalam education, system dan machine. Rasa tahun ni tak beli machines (or toy) baru. Tapi nampak lebih kepada education. Kena upgrade education, baru workflow cantik. Pasal education ni, memang kena memilih. Kena kaji betul-betul worth it tak untuk habiskan masa, wang dan tenaga nak buat semua benda tu. Baca testimoni, kenal siapa mentor / guru yang nak anda subscribe tu. Yang penting kena ada proven result / result yang berkesan. Jadi tahun ini saya telah menjadi mantee untuk course yang betul-betul berkait rapat dengan kerjaya perniagaan saya, iaitu buat design app dan app marketing.

Memang cool dapat buat benda ni. Tapi paling mencabar nak siapkan app. Memang banyak competition lately, apa yang penting kita pun kena ada USP untuk bersaing. Kalau kita ini ada something unique, jangan risaulah pasti ada yang appreciate punya. Jangan suka tiru-tiru sahaja ok.

Tiruvasi ok.

OK, setakat ini sahaja coretan blog ireka soft. QS pun dah 1 tahun 6 bulan, dah pandai recognize perkataan dan pandai converse merapu sahaja, tapi boleh sebut some sukukata. Boleh faham orang cakap apa sikit-sikit. Nak suruh ambil barang cam tu OK. Cuma nak tunggu sahaja bila QS boleh bertutur macam kita ni.

Sekian dulu blog post ini.

Salam App,
Hijazi

Git

Dalam banyak-banyak benda dalam software development yang penting adalah Git, source code management. Walaupun buat project kebanyakan seorang sahaja, namun adalah langkah terbaik untuk mengaktifkan git anda dalam folder yang akan dibangunkan.

Memang nak type ayat-ayat cinta git tu leceh nak buka terminal bagai. Jadi pakailah software GUI. Aku pakai SourceTree, memang dari 5 tahun lepas juga lah pakai, sekarang Atlassian kasi update itu tool, sekarang lebih kemas dan lebih mudah faham rasanya.

Sekarang ni project RND, nak kena pakai balik Xcode 7.3, kalau develop kat main machine, ada juga Xcode 8.1, akan berlaku banyak clash, jadi terpaksa install kat MacBook Air, memang dah ada pun, Xcode 7.3 ni tapi Xcode 8 dibuang sementara.

Jadi macam mana nak sync antara dua komputer ni dengan satu project. You see ada perkataan sync di situ. Kalau guna dropbox memang lah mudah automated. TAPI, tau ke macam mana automated tu function?

Kena fikir tu sebab nak buat aplikasi boleh sync, jadi kena fikir-fikirkan.

Ok, balik kepada git, aku pakai git kat main machine (MBP retina) upload/commit/push kat remote repo. Lepas tu kat MBA clone sahaja lah. Lepas tu kalau apa-apa update just commit and push ke remote server.

Since kat MBP ni tak ada functionate sangat untuk edit source code, cuma nak latest code base sahaja jadi kita rebase sahaja kepada latest commit. Takan ada conflict or anything lah, just rebase sahaja.

Menarik juga pakai git ni. Selain boleh elakan kejadian kerosakan kod, kehilangan kod, kot kot baik anda berjaga-jaga.

Memang tengah-tengah experiment itu ini, kadang-kadang perlu undo-undo. Tapi undo-undo ni ada limitnya. Dengan menggunakan git kita boleh discard sahaja file tu. Multiple files pun boleh.

Tapi kuncinya kena selalu commit dan push ke server lah. Itu pun nak kena bagi tau ke. Hahaha.

OK. Kalau apa-apa boleh check-out irekasoft.com/blog, ada aku update kan guide-guide yang bagus untuk kau belajar sedikit sebanyak pasal mobile apps coding ni. Susah sebenarnya, tu lah kena tulis supaya aku pun boleh hadam sedikit sebanyak.

OK. Check out next time. Kalau ada apa-apa soalan boleh berhubung terus dengan aku, nak tanya web ke app android or iOS. Tapi kena bayar lah. Haha.

Software Architect

Usually software is a solutions for certain problems. Nowadays software is not only can be used locally on a machine but also work on the cloud as subsciption basis. Software is important piece of technology that drives the nation forward.

Now, people want to create a software to solve problem and of course making money, which is good. But people sometime don't understand the process and the steps required to make software, which is bad. And people think with just idea, and some sketch they can might a great software build for them from a software developer.

No you are wrong. But in small cases you might get lucky.

Software for people is what they can see on the screen. Which is the visual design / user interface.

What software can make people feel is the user experience design.

Visual design is usally done by graphic designer. A good graphic designer understand the concept of the platform they want to build, they have experience on various of available software and they can emulate it to become good software.

So here come the software architect. From Wiki, software architect is a software expert who makes high-level design choices and dictates technical standards, including coding standards, tools and platforms.

Usually software architect don't do the visual design, they deal with technical stack. But they might need to use UML, graph, model, structure diagrams or so. It can be a tough job.

iReka Soft Software Architect

Here is what we want to define Software Architect as for ourselves. We are small team, and the projects are not humungous. So Software Architect term to my mind to suit the business what it should do for smaller software development.

The deliverable of software architect is not yet the final product or software but a documents with visual designs, architecture, diagrams and specifications.

iReka Soft Software Architect should combine visual design and software architecture.

Which means he/she can do the concept of the software in visual perspective with using the right user interface for particular platform.

He knows what to looking for for a particular solutions, mark it as a module. And how other modules can be interacts. 

Why We need to have Software Architect

The whole idea of having a software architect is for plan. It's so intimidating to jump right into the development, but yes when we get older and more experience, we know sometime the development can be just done, but of course there are a lot more stuff we haven't yet done, but we know where to find it. So by having proper plan, master plan we hope that it will not make the development stuck in the middle of development. Which meetings can be a cure; putting more ideas and changes, thus sometime make the software development ineffective.

Having too much plan is not good as well, but having too little plan is also not good.

So we need to having a good balance of planning of software. It's true on our own software development and also for clients.

Hello November!

November is a special month, not only because it is my birthday month, but also for this blog it has been keep updated regularly from a year ago from 2015 November. I was keeping this blog fresh at the very least every month has new content. And probably not the best content on earth to write but it is there online. Just keep the momentum going and going.

This blog is professionally, my own personal thinking about working on a iReka Soft business, which we do fundementally mobile apps on iOS. It also spread into Android apps. And website on Wordpress and some Laravel, with PHP programming.

And not the least is about marketing, building brand, business and what not.

You can track down what was happened right for the past one year, every month what has changes. And I think it was an awesome improvement from time to time.

And besides having this go-to blog, blogspot is free and might be can be eternal (whoa.. because it's free no need for maintainace, will have longer longevity), I do make more code related blog at irekasoft.com/blog, it's all about the engineering and technical. It's crazy for world of blogging technology / programming, things are always changing. Recently Swift. Swift 1, 2 and 3 are not compatible with each others.  To journal this programming, we need to declare what type of Swift we are telling you about. So reader can keep reading or skip the tutorial.

And there are plenty of tutorial sites out there that explain every single thing. But, for me I kind of bored to read all the right up, what i am looking is the code. I try to understand within the range of code. If there is function, the function should be known for itself, or have a description of what the function does and what it returns.

Yeah, blogging can be a subproduct of what we are developing at iReka Soft. Some of them are purely experiments or research, that never see day of light to be published or released on the app store as app but atleast it can be shared on the blog so we (you and I) can have some benifit from the knowledge.

And it keep changing, updating so fast. What we try to do is to summarize what we have found good / relevant on the internet so at least can be a quick reference to develop apps.

Some posts are like incomplete without proper explanation at first, but I will add later on if the subject has update or so.

So, that's about it, it's November, it's cool. Almost the end of 2016. #bestrong #entrepreneurlife

Using Sketch

I have been using Sketch app since middle of 2014 I think. And it's the tool for digital user interface which I was previously using Adoble Illustrator. Illustrator is still the tool for do complex vector illustration or what not. But for doing the user interface, Sketch is ideal tool.

From Wireframe to Mockup to Production Assets

Yes. You can do it all.

For mobile user interface. To website to. Screenshots.

Plug-in

Many plug-in to extend what Sketch app can do.

Industry Standard

Great companies uses this, and some tutorial and paid course teach about Sketch.

Good Priced

At price of $99. It's a cool price that you can use for long time and also generate some income.

------

Overall it's a nice and complete solution for designer for digital products.

Ionic 2

It's somewhat real now. I'm onboarding with Ionic 2. It's a hybrid solution for crossplatform app.

It uses Cordova, PhoneGap framework.

Tips-tips Menarik Tentang Website

Walaupun semalam di MaGIC memberikan pitch tentang mobile apps, namun website juga tidak kurang penting nya untuk pengusaha bisnses. Dahulukan dulu website, selepas social media yang free tu.

Invest sikit untuk bina website. Jom kita layan member kita yang tulis posts tentang website dari WebMalaya.


1. Objektif memiliki website

+ Sebagai simbol kepercayaan
+ Profail syarikat bergerak
+ Tempat pengumpulan database
+ Portal kepada staff syarikat
+ Medium menjual yang efektif

Facebook pula adalah salah satu medium sharing yang efektif.

2. Bahagian wajib dalam website
+ Hubungi kami

+ Pakej / produk
+ Tentang kami
+ Blog

3. Fungsi website
+ Integrasi media sosial

+ Galeri gambar kepada pengguna
+ Sales funnel
+ Alat pemasaran yang efektif

Ps : Google adword tidak dapat dijalankan tanpa website.

4. Tips kuasai content marketing
+ Bina satu blog dan post artikel yang berkaitan

+ Beri satu ilmu premium sebagai pertukaran dengan database follower
+ Suap dan jaga mereka sehingga mereka menjadi tribe

+ Jurnalkan content yang anda karang di fb dan website untuk rujukan follower dan tribe anda. 

+ Jadikan media sosial sebagai tempat anda mengumpul follower dan jadikan website sebagai tempat rujukan tribe anda. Sebab FB beyond your control.

Kongsikan apa saja ilmu yang anda ada secara percuma.

+ Pilih niche
+ Fokus
+ Konsisten

New MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Touch Bar located above the keyboard on the new MacBook Pro 2016.

The Touch Bar is a Retina display screen, multi-touch input up to 10-fingers, provides dynamic interface controls for interacting with content on the main screen.

User Interface Designer with Sketch!

Design & Programming For Touch Bar

First and formost we need to userstand the human user interface guideline by Apple. The UI design that we wish to build must align with what Apple intend the Touch Bar supposed to be. Here are the highlight of the list.

• To implement Touch Bar support you need to use NSTouchBar class.

• To design for Touch Bar make it contextual, relevant, use as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not as a secondary display. 

• Strive to match the look of the physical keyboard in terms of size and color.

• Avoid use Touch Bar for well-known keyboard shortcuts. It also shouldn't controls that replicate key-based navigation such as page up and page down.

• Reflect the state consistently and accurately if the controls also have on the main screen.

• If there is secondary (or 2nd tier) control needed, make sure it's also on the Touch Bar as well, not on the main screen.

Touch Bar Human User Interface Guideline

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/AbouttheTouchBar.html

NSTouchBar

https://developer.apple.com/reference/appkit/nstouchbar

Right now we only can see the Mac but will looking forward the future to do something with the Touch Bar next 2 years or so.

_______

We at iReka Soft not only develops mobile apps, but also Mac App as well such a App Icon Resizer (AIR) that help mobile app developers to produce icons for Xcode projects.

A Look Back to Mobile Apps Business

So far I have been in the software industry is about 6 years, particularly in mobile technology. Previously, I worked at some of pioneer of mobile industry on the town. At the time, the tech is quite rare and the development cost is 'high'. There were no so ubiquitous development people on the industry. People at the university maybe didn't learn about this at the time.

There was the time where things like these are cool. We tried many cool stuff, on games, publication etc. But, if we looking back why those are flop and why some are working out, there is reason why that's happening.

Fast forward, the tech is seems to be everywhere, people can learn at many places online or offline. And students seem comtent with mobile tech development.

Many things can happened in the future.

Recently Galaxy Note 7 was shutted down. A really high profile smartphone maker close it's popular smartphone line. It's a shame after could catch up with iPhone. And actually a market creator for phablet, even Apple create phablet phone as well.

So for us learning the tools is essential. We are not creator of the tools. Google and Apple making those tools. We just really need to learn them. They working hard to make really good platform in the future.

No matter what, users is matters. What people want to download and use is matters.

Build things for the people, for the market and for the demand.

Peace,
Hijazi

iPhone 7 Price in Malaysia

iPhone 7 will go on sale in Malaysia on 14 October 2016. And the line up and pricing already be known.

iPhone 7 32GB – RM3,199

iPhone 7 128GB – RM3,699

iPhone 7 256GB – RM4,199

iPhone 7 Plus 32GB – RM3,799

iPhone 7 Plus 128GB – RM4,299

iPhone 7 Plus 256GB – RM4,799

iPhone 6s 32GB - RM2,699.00

iPhone 6s 128GB - RM3,199.00

iPhone 6s plus 32GB - RM3,199.00

iPhone 6s plus 128GB - RM3,699.00

iPhone SE 16GB - RM 1,949.00

iPhone SE 64GB - RM 2,199.00

MaGIC Co-working Space

Hola,

It has been exciting to joing awesome start-up group in MaGIC, Cyberjaya. Truely, the vibe is different.

You know, for those who do business to make something, create something, give value. The energy to do that are different.

So for start-ups we have chance to reside the co-working space with interview to make sure you are know what you are doing.

So far it's a positive energy. I can focus on doing work. Rather than being distracted somewhere.

Till then.

MaGic rocks.

BlueCloud Empire

Hey guys. I just sign up for BlueCloud Course, so what it is? It's a course that is actually really near to what I am doing and really doing, and want to succeed.

Unlinke ther online course I took many of them are about making things, make things work and what not. BlueCloud course, teaching about get a success on the App Store and Google Play.

It's start from the IDEA. We can get idea from many places, from disapointment, inspiration and others. Well, those are good, but what really matters is that the idea has the market for it? We can do some market research by looking at the current chart of paid download. You see, paid download means that people are willing to pay for the app. And it's really crucial to understand why it's getting download, and one of them is solving people's problem.

So look at the apps, and pick some of the apps that seems that you have interested into or you want to build. And... what you need to do is to read reviews. Read reviews for 2-3 stars reviews. It really shows what people are want more on the apps. There is the actual people there who want something more out of the app. They are real people. They grave for something that actually we could serve them.

Okay, what have to do is to list down all interesting reviews and jot down to a spreadsheet. And finally get the essense of the problem that user wanted. Well that's our chance to go improve the problem, and make it better. It sound like we will make something that proven that user wants, and we try to make a better product. Sound reasonable isn't ??

Well that's for the idea. Particularly, we can get the right idea. But it will come to the execution, which about all the nitty gritty of oursourcing, put on the meta-data, keywords, icons, screenshots and more.

I am still learning about it, but already half-way to finish it. It has been interesting thing to learn, but importantly to implement it.

See you on the next post. I am an apprenuer millionaire. Bye.

Seminar Roket Emel

Pada tanggal 10 Sept telah hardirkan diri ke Seminar Roket Emel di, sangat dekat dengan kediaman ku, di Cyberjaya. Lebih spesifik Masjid Haji Fisabilillah.

Ia berlangsung dari pukul 9 pagi hingga 10 malam, dikendalikan oleh pakar marketing internet, Najib Assadok.

Jom kita kupas sikit isi-isi panas lagi beralun dalam perbentangan beliau.

KISS - Keep it Simple and Stupid

Buat benda simple dan bodah? Buat benda bodoh ke. Anggap audience anda tak tahu apa-apa, so kita as marketer is to teach them what the heck is something. Apa yang you nak ajar kat mereka dan apa yang you nak bantu mereka.

Objective Seminar

1. Nampak

- Nak bagi orang ramai nampak kita. Kena bagi tahu berulang-ulang kali non-stop. Kita hanya boleh stop bila, bila dapat WhatsApp dari Israil.

2. Kenal

- Kenali brand kita, jadi kena lah letak nama sendiri. Guardian and Watson pun jual barang orang lain, tapi still guna nama kedai sendiri. Jadi pandai-pandailah cari nama untuk bisnes anda.

3. Suka

- Bagi lah free gift, bagi value untuk orang lain. Ajar something, buat ebook mengajar.
- Kongsi tips.

4. TRUST

- Lepas step 1, 2, 3 kita nak bagi orang bagi kepercayaan kat kita. Trust take time, so sebelum orang nak beli something dari kita dia nak build trust dulu sebelum dia nak keluar kan duit. Jadi, bina keyakinan orang dengan authoriti atau kepakaran kita.


4 Perkara Wajib Nak Mula Bisnes

Orang cakap kena ada wang untuk start bisness, memang betul tapi ia bukan perkara utama. Ini adalah perkaranya:

1. Ilmu
2. Mentor
3. Sistem
4. Komitment

Benda 1, 2, 3 memang pakai wang, itulah tempat yang patut dilaburkan dahulu bro. 4 tu bermula dalam diri sendiri. Cari BIG WHY anda, baru serius nak buat bisnes beb.

4 Perkara Wajib Dikuasai Dalam Pemasaran Internet

1. Produk
2. Copywriting
3. Trafik
4. Database

Cerita Sikit Pasal Copywriting

1. Jangan menjual, tapi sharing and educate.
2. Soft Selling
3. Elakan ayat susah & skema. Guna Bahasa Mudah, 'teknik basuh otak'.
4. Guna bahasa audience. Bro, sis, mommies.
5. Scannable.
6. Emosi. Visual Auditory Kinestatik.

Jenis Copywriting

1. Masalah.
2. Penyelesaian.
3. Review
4. Benifit (Kelebihan)
5. Unique Selling Proposition
6. Sense of Urgency
7. VALUE

Tertib dalam FB Ads

1. Brand Awareness
2. List / Database
3. Sales

Okay baik, so far anda dah baca sampai sini, jadi bila jadi roket emelnya? Sabar, ini ada tertibnya.

Jadi kita diterangkan pasal Facebook Pages dan Facebook Ads, jadi pertama kalinya anda buat Facebook page, perlu dapatkan 3,000 likes seperti di sarankan oleh Sifu. Likes tu datang dari targetterd audience okay. Kalau niche produk anda produk kesihatan, cari interest orang yang sama.

Lepas dapat likes apa yang nak dibuat adalah membawa audience ke website kita. Paling simple dan mudah untuk permualaan adalah buat minisite. Kelebihannya ia amat fokus untuk pelawat beri database kepada kita. Jadi kita perlu buat win-win situation di sini, beri something for FREE but have value, in exchange kepada database mereka iaitu nama dan emel.

Dengan database tersebut kita akan masukan dalam autoresponder, dan jangan lupa bagi FREE gift anda. Jadi dengan autoresponser tersebut email akan dihantar kepada pengguna berkali kali dengan sela tertentu. Tertibnya 4 kali beri email yang ada value dan emel ke 5 baru boleh buat promosi.

Hey, kita nak bina trust okay. TRUST takes time, tak gitu?

Jadi memang kita belajar secara teori yang dipraktikan oleh beliau tapi macam mana nak praktikan, gi kelas coaching beliau.

Walaupun rasa-rasa saya boleh je nak buat semua tu. Dari segi teknikal memang kita insyaAllah boleh. Nak buat sendiri boleh jimat duit dan masa, tapi kita tak ada jerung lah. Dan juga penanda kertas periksa.

Okaylah, sampai sini saja coretan blog ini. Ia ditulis sebab untuk mengingatkan diri sendiri juga, boleh beri sedikit sebanyak tips kepada pembaca.

Uber-ify App Service

Recently Uber-ify services for everything is on rise. Uber for food, gas, car and many other things. And also brands are acknowledging that mobile app playing a role as a catalyst for their sales.

The key about Uber-ify is about real-time service and real time notification.

So, what so important having the app?

User experience. Well made app, with clear purpose and value added. Can make better user experience compared to website or mobile web.

Purchase instantly.

For product that may be being purchased one time only, web can get the job done. But the web has to behave like an 'Uber' app. Fast, straight to the point. No shopping cart, just go check-out. Simply put like a minisite rather than complex full-fledge e-commerce website.

What are the components of Uber-ify services?

Back-end, admin and mobile apps.

Start with MVP

Well, having everything in perfect condition is might take longer time and cost consuming. Having a lean product but start with the right strategy is important. Technically and operationally.

Operational has to understand how their operational works. And need to translate it into a system. A system is in on-line term can be managed on the admin and the back-end. They have the highest authority to control the system, create and remove any kind of things they need or don't need. They have to think about situation where customer can backfire them back.

The simpler is better, but make the jobs done. Which is increasing sales.

Admin and Back-end

Admin system is basically to manage the store. Prepare how much agents they has. Manage the agents accounts. Set the working hour, delivery time and most importantly the inventory.

Without inventory what would customer would like to have. Managing the inventory depends on the nature of business. Some like food and baverages require to use BOM system. Some other industries use simpler method. The admin need to manage the price for each inventory and its quantity.

Back-end system is technically manage the transaction runs smoothly and process any neccessary record for future's reference.

Admin need sort of notifications system, more than just form of email. Push notification on mobile or desktop will help. But responsible admin need need to know when they should be on stand by.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps is the window from customer to the business and the way to interact with agents. Customer not only can purchase but, the app can be personalized according to the user's tastes. In technical term, it's when user login, the data is persist, and the admin can do personalization based on user's behaviour.

Simple works better because, people are generally lazy. And by having simple easy to do purchase, sales will hopefully can be increased.

By using native mobile apps, the experience is much better than hybrid approach. And the information from is more accurate. This will prevent big loss in sending data to server which leads to bad user experience. Having a native apps not only speed up the process but lower the error compared to hybrid apps.

Conclusion

Having MVP can help business owner measure whether their business is fitted with Uber-ifying service. With marketing and technology budget, we can understand your customer behaviour. And might leads for success in app world.

There is more detail about running the Uber-ify service, but I am afraid that reader can't cope with the technical jargon, or very hard to explain terms. I will doing more write up on this matters.

How Consumers Really Find and Use Your Apps

People download apps every day, but the truth is that many of them are abandoned or never even used. New Google and Ipsos research uncovers how people discover and engage with apps—and what brands can do about it.

Apps are now an intergral part of our daily micro-moments, with people spending an average of 30 hours per month in them.  Apps play a key role in those I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, I-want-to-buy moments.

Here is the finding from consumer survey donw by Ipsos Media CT, surveying 8,470 people with smartphone.

#1: App discovery doesn't just happen in the app store

40% of smartphone usres browser for apps in app stores. Ohter are finding out about apps in all kinds of instances while using their smartphones - when they're engaged in an app, searching for another specific app, watching YouTube video, or surfing a mobile website. Search is a major source for app discovery, according to their research: one in four apps users discovers an app through search.

#2: App engagement and reengagement is key, as app users tend to lose interest

People turn to apps to ease their daily grind. And they're more likely to use them if the serve a specific purpose. Their research revealed that 2 / 3 will  use an app frequently when it simplifies their lives.

38% of surveyed people said they're likely to download an app when it's required to complete a purchase. Once they've completed that purchase, however, half will uninstall that just-downloaded app and move on.

How can brands ensure that their apps are used not just once but again and again? The simple answer is simple: Prove the value and utility of your app.

Brands can avoid getting lost in the app fog if they provide clear value. For example, Sephora app, enhanced its in-store shopping experience with an app that lets shoppers scan all products for additional information. The brand also offers in-store pickup of items purchased online. Sephora is sending a clear message that it understand what its customers want during every micro-moment of their purchase journey.

App users need an incentive to reengage with an app they've abondoned. And there are ways to draw app users back to your brand. 30% will use the app again if they offered a discount toward a purchase, and nearly a quarter of app usres would return if they received exclusive or bonus content.

source:
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/mobile-app-marketing-insights.html

further reference:
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/smartphones-so-many-apps--so-much-time.html

Foundation of Developing WordPress Website

It's common for people to start with WordPress for their own website. It's not only for blogging, which is superb platform, but also for any kind of website, especially businesses to showcase their products or services.

Well, let me discuss the foundation about developing WordPress.

#1 Plan and Sketching

From starter we will have some brainstorming, what design should we be using, what theme, what is the problem we want to solve, what is the market we want to target for and other initial planning that we would do.

Then we will sketch out the design, and planning what content we want to put inside. Planning is crucial as we want to avoid unseen issue while developing the website. Try to squeeze all the possibilities and draft a finalized sketch and repeat until we have some satisfiying result.

※ If you have the already loved template you make skip #2 #3 as we don't have to develop the website from scratch.

#2 Responsive Static Website

Then what we will do as website designer is to develop the **static website** using Bootstrap. Now, Bootstrap is a framework to make website responsive easier (and of course save time) by applying their rules. lg, sm, md, xs for each screen category, the layout will automatically changed when we resize the browser screen. And when user on the mobile phone the layout will be xs or sm. We will create the static page for all pages. What we focus here is to have the final layout on the development not the content yet. However by putting the actual content will be help too.

This phase is quite challenging because we develop new site from scratch, probably the biggest value with developing custom WordPress site. Appreciate to have the custom theme, because you are the only one who have this theme.

This will use HTML, CSS, JavaScrip and Bootstrap skill.

#3 Build the Theme

Now we have to build the WordPress theme from scratch. We will use some boilerplate to speed-up time from Underscres. (http://underscores.me) This empty theme will have the proper files, so that you have to create new file one by one. What a time saver.

Now what we have to do is to transfer the static web to dynamic theme. On this phase you have to pretty much understand the underlying works with WordPress. You have to know the syntax for navigation.

Usually on this phase the static website will break into several parts. Like for header (with navigation), body, and also footer. Also there will be reusable parts that you want to put into another file.

Each pages is devided into <name>-page.php files. So when the theme is ready, we will create new page based on developed <name>-page.php file.

Also to be aware about single.php which is for blog post. But for other type post, you can use <type>-single.php.

From here we actualy will semi-setup the WordPress, because when we develop the theme, we continuously testing out with WordPress system.

#4 Setup The WordPress (in sync with #4 Build The Theme)

This process is at the same time of building the theme. Because theme is really depending on WordPress system.

Knowing right plug-in is key. Plug-ins will help to streamline the theme code. Many plug-ins that is really good out there but we have to know them.

Here are some that I use it so far for basic good webiste. This is for website manager.

1. Custom Post Type UI (https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-type-ui/)

Use this when we want to create post, that is not tight to blog post. Let's say for resources, apps or etc.

If you want to use product for e-commerce you probably will want to use WooCommerce plug-in.

2. Advanced Custom Fields (https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/)

This is used on page where you want to put dynamic content on the website more than just word post.  This will help website owner to maintain the website if they want to change some wordings by themselves.

3. Admin Menu Editor (https://wordpress.org/plugins/admin-menu-editor/)

This for organizing the menu in the admin panel. When we hand over the website, we want the admin panel look understandable, we organize the menu according to their preference or relevancy.

4. Options Framework (https://wordpress.org/plugins/options-framework/)

This is used to add an options panel on WordPress theme.

#5 Testing & Finishing

So far by having the solid admin wise back end will exite owner to create contents on the website. But the work should not stop there, there would be more improvement for user facing features.

This can look daunting for first timer to setup the WordPress site, a lot of tasks, even you already have the favorite theme to install, many other setup has to be done to make sure your WordPress system working properly.

Investing on pro to setup the site will save time, because they already learn from the right knowledge to setup the website. It always welcomed to learn by your own the full detail, so you can setup your WordPress and become a super webmaster.

* it's quite contradict of tell about WordPress while i'm writing on a blogspot. I already just build a blog for website. irekasoft.com/blog where I will focus on mobile technology, it includes iOS, Android and also PHP with laravel because you might want to develop API to interact with mobile apps.

August Update

This month is independance month for Malaysia as we almost 59 years having such a wonderful independance.

For this month (August 2016) we have some update:

FaceClock Calendar 3.0

We finally launched this major update for this app. We rebuild from ground up to engineer for multitude of Apple iDevices from small iPhone SE to iPad Pro for best layout. The app is basically show analog clock and calendar.

New iReka Soft Blog

So we already have new blog page on iRekaSoft.com/blog. It's where we will share technical expertise so that many other can learn something about mobile tech. We touch about iOS development, Android and also about design. We have learn a lot from Design+Code course so far and that is some of the outcome that we want to share.

Others...

Upcoming apps, still many things in prototyping digital and natively. We find more inspiration to increase our drive to get things finish fast.

AppEmpire. We kind of inspired with this method. This is about app business. It's whole thing more than just creating apps. You need good user experience of the app. Think about user's lifestyle that can fit with your apps. And not forgetting the marketing part, how does it looks and magnetizing user to download our apps from other competitors. Think about how do users want to use the app over and over again to gain retention and loyalty. That's important when we want to add value that we can charge within in-app purchases.

Till then. Lot of things to study, develop, execute.

OpenCV on Android

I have been searching the way to include OpenCV to Android but seems no good solution avalaible but to use a build project on github.

https://github.com/ShehabSalah/OpenCVExample

Cusomize Bootstrap Wordpress Theme on the Go!

When it comes to building websites, sometimes you need to create more complicated projects rather than simple blogs. WordPress does come with a great number of features, and with the help of the right plugins and themes, you can extend its functionality.

Loads of plugins or themes can help you do more with WordPress. You can find page builder plugins, specialized niche themes, and a lot more.

But the big question is: how do you locate a general solution that is simple enough to be usable, and powerful enough to actually let you create whatever you want, without wasting time learning a closed, proprietary and limited environment?

If that question has troubled you in the past, look no more. Today, we introduce you to a special WordPress theme: Bootstrap Building Engine for WordPress, or in short, BBE for WordPress.

Built upon the idea of contextuality, ease of use, and absence of limits, it’s the “page builder for the rest of us”.

BBE allows you to combine readymade responsive HTML components to build the web page as you want – while always retaining the ability to retouch the generated HTML code, live. Why would you need that – well, every professional webmaster, sooner or later, wants to have this kind of control – that’s why page builders have a quite bad reputation between PROs.

The ordinary page builder allows you to combine “bricks” that are not FULLY editable. With BBE, you are free to shape each and every brick the way you want.

Sounds interesting? Check out the BBE theme for WordPress right now!

8 Movies Entrepreneurs Should Watch

Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur like me, or you’re already on your way (in which I’m jealous), we all need a little motivation, something to take us to inspiration station when we are in need of it the most. Perhaps Hollywood does glorify entrepreneurship a bit, but we all know that every now and then a reminder of why we started in the first place is needed. Here are 8 movies every entrepreneur should watch to get a heavy dose of inspiration:

1. Office Space

This American comedy will always be a goodie. Office Space highlights corporate culture of a software company in the 90’s, touching upon work relationships and office politics. At the very least, this film will give you a chuckle, but I’m also fairly confident that it’ll get you thinking about leadership and team-building techniques.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include corporate culture, mentorship, career development, work-life balance, personnel retention, team-building techniques and management of information technology.

2. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

This flick is a 2005 documentary based on the best-selling book of the same name by reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, which touches upon one of the largest business scandals in American history — the collapse of the Enron Corporation. This is a must watch for the history buffs out there, or anyone looking for a thought-provoking and shocking example of modern corporate corruption.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: putting reports together, off-shore diversification, accounting, business ethics and agency problems.

3. The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada will motivate you to take the plunge, and pursue your dream job. Seriously, this movie lights a fire under my bum every time. It’s a movie that shows how to handle uncomfortable situations, how to navigate worlds that seem unfamiliar, and how hard work pays off eventually.  It’s also an interesting window into the fashion industry and will teach you a thing or two on how to work your way up the corporate ladder.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: sales and branding techniques, as well as the importance of media, and career development.

4. Thank You For Smoking

Thank You For Smoking is the perfect film for a marketing savvy entrepreneur or someone who wants to learn a few tricks on how to sell just about any product. The film tells the story of tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor who creatively spins arguments to defend the cigarette industry in the most challenging of situations. This is a great watch for those wanting to learn a few things about crisis management, corporate communications, PR and negotiation tactics.

Topics covered include public relations, marketing and advertising campaigns, crisis management, corporate communications and effective negotiations skills.

5. Erin Brockovich

This legal drama is based on the true story of a woman who, against all odds, helps win the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit. The film embodies female empowerment and underscores the importance of sticking to one’s scruples even in the face of obstacles. It touches upon themes like social responsibility, sustainable business models and gender biases in business.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: both corporate social responsibility and sustainable business models.

6. Wall Street

Wall Street is about Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), an ambitious stockbroker who navigates the economic rollercoaster of Wall Street, adopting the “greed is good” mantra. This movie is a window into corporate finance, portfolio management, investment law principles and capital markets. More telling is the story of a young, susceptible mind, showing how easy it is to get carried away with the glamorous lifestyle that accompanies wealth.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: company valuations, finance, portfolio management, investment law principles, mergers and acquisitions, business ethics, and capital markets.

7. Catch Me If You Can

Based on a true story, Catch me if You Canis a classic film that exemplifies the entrepreneurial journey. It touches upon important themes like creative problem solving, turning something good out of a bad situation, and the good ol’ hustle to reach success.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: funding, innovation, creativity, perseverance, vision, and sales techniques.

8. Startup.com

Startup.com is a 2001 documentary that examines the rise and fall of the real-life startup GovWorks that raised $60 million from Hearst Interactive Media, KKR, the New York Investment Fund, and Sapient. It’s good viewing to better understand the boom and bust of the dotcom period and serves as a cautionary tale on how friendships can easily be threatened by business partnerships.

The entrepreneur-ish topics covered in the film include: finance for entrepreneurs, growth management, capital raising, management skills, and team building.

Make Living with Mobile Business

What is my term about mobile business nowadays for me. In particularly in mobile apps which building, with hard earned skills and knowledge to develop mobile apps to help many people in the world in exchange for love and money.

At iReka Soft, we develop native (not naive) mobile apps on iOS and Android platforms to help people to solve many problem using their smartphones with mobile apps, either connected to network or not. And developing mobile apps are actually taking a lot of effort, time, patient, travel, skills and so many more to master the basic and to be able to work on any task within the range of expertise with 'industry standard' result.

PROGRAMMING

For me the key to sustain in this industry as developer is having ability to understand 'code'. I firstly learn to code with HTML for web. Then going to Flash, then to PHP. On JAD (UNiSEL) program I learn about C. Then, learn Java in Tokyo University of Technology. Then I self-taught myself with Objective-C to develop for iOS platform. Lately I also learn about Swift. It's not a secret that coding can be intimidating for someone. Yes, it can be intimidating. As far as I learn code, code is a snippet of function and it has to be place correctly within the project. Code need to be perfect from syntax error. The code has to compilable, and also as good programmer, keep the code readable and comment out where it should be, make it looked like grouping with similar flow. In overall view, code, is just line of programming syntax. And what make it works is a group of right codes being together.

Here is some fundamental about code. Code is like essay. Like this. But we want a computer, particularly compiler to understand what we are writing about. So the master of computer, created the so called programming language, and some defined rules and instructions. So as programmer can instruct computer (nowadays smartphone is equally powerful, as we call it minicomputer) to do what-ever we want it to be for us. And this thing is only limited by the operating system on how much programmer can do. But, if the programmer is super clever they might can create their own library to do more than just given framework, which may need to take super long time and effort to do that.

For example prior to iOS 3.0 there was no Push Notification service on iOS. So how could programmer can ever do that. Well, almost impossible. Unless they had work for Apple, but as normal and rational developer, they will wait for the technology to get adapted properly by the OS. And in short programmer is capable to do many things, as it's inside the range of what the OS can support. See what is your app's intention and make research if the OS support it or not.

Well, that is what about programming and coding for us. It's really expensive and hard to learn, because things can get really boring, and frustrating when we don't have the right knowledge or good mentor. Nowadays the resources is more and have more quality, easier to understand, and have sense of humour to (like RayWenderlich.com). Besides that there is lot of good website providing tutorials and also Udemy sites that have course at good value. We are lucky to have tons amount of resources online.

BUSINESS

Business is come from human which has problems. When there is problem, there is a need solution. Some of the key problem that human has is laziness. It's worth to innovate to make things easier and faster. And another problem human has (or might not a problem) is to incline towards beautiful object or design. So by having a good combination of both: solving human's problem plus having good beautiful object people will tend to purchase or to use the product. And of course there is a lot others reasons or factors why people use particular products.

It's super crucial for a business to create product that has demand or market for it. Without it, there will be no value transition between them.

DEVELOPING

As for me, I tend to develop things that is solving my problems. And about things that might be solving some other person's problem. Well, sometime I can't reach the real people who has the problems. And I most of the time make assumption they would like this feature and this, and this. It's be able to cut short the time and development time but I don't know was that really what people might need. Anyway by implementing analytics we can measure engagement of user, but only can be known afterwards.

Well, it can be said as hit or miss.

For doing business I can not do a lot of miss. I might have some success but, having a lot of miss is somewhat painful and demotivate my work for next project. I really want to have a good project from one to another. Small success can lead bigger success. Some apps that I created have good number of downloads but some other are not. Even, I thought it's better from previously created apps (which has better downloads).

MARKETING

To percieve what people want. Know the market. Reach the audience. Let them know. Let them asking. Let them fall in love, and so on.

Having to know what people want is pretty easy. Look at the market. There is tons of products that actually solves people's problems. Especially look at the top downloads. We can understand what is the trend, and what thing that people are looking.

Many of our downloads might come search. Search on particular keywords will bring our apps to the customers. When people look for a thing for solving their problem, probability to get relevant result is there.

DRIVING THE MARKET 

This thing can, actually can might change your life if you know how. But fundamentally the products has to be good enough to make people happy.

... this topic in on investigation ...

CONCLUSION

Making an app can be making an assets if we publish it on our own, but there is stake on it. Will it hit or burn. It happen for many developers and mobile business owner. Thing maybe can be developed but there is need a lot of energy to build it, need inspiration and drive to make it happen.

In other way, developing for people in-front of us is safer. This category is clientele. They might or exactly know what they want. It might not solving any problems at all, but as developer we want to solve clientale's problems anyway. By working for clientele is good, helping them to achieve what they want or dream about.

Life is go on. And for iReka Soft, apps for life.

#keepitup #dontgiveup

iRekaSoft.com Internal Web Update

iRekaSoft.com is build using WordPress. And it's supposed to be a blog website. But since beginning I use blog 'post' as app. And now, eventually when I want to use the website for blogging, there is mental block there. Until now.

In WordPress there is a lot of useful plug-ins. One of them is CPT-UI or Custom Post Type User Interface. So what it does is to use post as another 'type'. I created a new type called 'app'. Then, by using (another plug-in http://stephanieleary.com/code/wordpress/convert-post-types/) Convert Post Types, I transform all the post become 'app' type. By changing it, the page irekasoft.com/apps blank for a moment.

So there is a required skill to query newly created 'app' posts and properly show on apps page. And tadaa it works. What changes here externally is at the URL. So by addressing the app previously for example irekasoft.com/faceclock will become irekasoft.com/apps/faceclock. So it literally break all the URLs which I published many of the places especially on the App Store app page.

With this snippet at function.php it will redirects the old URL to the latest URL with /apps/. So this solution is by far the best I can get. At least no dead URL from previous link.

So you have it. The latest iteration of iRekaSoft.com. It's a long journey since it was build up. The back-bone is same but the UI has been changes wonderfully to modern responsive layout build with Bootstrap.

If you need custom apps or web please don't hesistate to fill up this form at irekaweb.com/inquiry.

Upcoming App Update : FaceClock Calendar 3.0

It's actually looks very familiar from current app, but I had reiterating the view mapping from ground up, to be able to mapping well with all iOS devices, from 3.5" screen, to 4", 4.7", 5.5" to 7.9", 9.7" and iPad Pro 13". 

I am not cater for each screen perfectly per inch but rather to use screen's aspect ratio. 

Refer to figure above, that is the rough sketch of the clock and calendar mapping according to screensize. Each screen can be divided into blocks. The number of block is based on aspect ratio. As you can know on iPhone, 4", 4.7", and 5.5" screen has the same aspect ratio which means the mapping can be satisfied with one same rule. So what is the rule. Basically to tell the clock which position it should located in coordinate form. For example for vertical iPhone 6, it's 4x7 blocks, for clock is (x:1,y:1,width:2,height:2), and calendar is (x:0,y:3,width:4,3). The coordinate and grid size will automatically adjusted according to actual screen size. 

By doing this I can fit the widget in all condition that has been presetted. But what if Apple announce new device that don't being currently supported aspect ratio. Honestly I don't know. Surely breaks the view mapping.

But so far what I see is the aspect ratio is very consistent and already matured, you may see the next gen iPhone will have the same aspect ratio as now. As well goes to iPad. So don't worry too much.

This FC Calendar is on going process, it's on testing, and it's bit nervous to release because it is a new project from ground up, but we need to make it backward compatible from previous update. Meaning, we have to preserve user's NSUserDeafults, so that new app will have the same behaviour like the current app has in term of settings.

This utilities aka widget app with this grid system will be evolve into more widgets in the future. I love how it being engineered to be more flexible than rather using fixed width and heigth as what I did, and have simple condition between iPhone 3.5" and 4", and now there are so many devices to support natively on iOS. But for other cases we can just use Autolayout feature, which can solve multi-screen type problems. 

So wait the update on the App Store soon.

App Update

Here are some updates from iReka Soft with apps we just published and updated.

Nota Magnet (Android / iOS)

This app is note took from IMKK courses and have some declaration and useful tool. For Android we have implemented push notification, to get latest news and updates. It is also integrated with back-end to get some news.

Muslim Phrases (Android)

Collection of phrases in Arabic for conversation that can be copy paste on messenging apps.

Amazing Places (Android)

Simple app that show amazing places around the world. Data get from our back-end. Integrated with Google Maps, so you can know exactly where is the amazing place that you are looking at.

Guess Emoji (iOS - updated)

This app is developed quite 2 years ago. But just updated because just found the solution for bugs, (critical but on iOS 8 onward) with objc_selection.

Alphabet Flash Card TV (Apple TV)

This is Apple TV app that show words from A to Z, mostly using animals. Also have voice over from synthesizer. It's good for baby to learns words.


Offshore Apps

I think that's it for now, we are also developing apps for physical businesses that are in progress. Stay tune.


21 July 2016
Hijazi

Learning Journey with Android

I cannot emphasize more on how much we should keep up to date with the latest knowledge as an technopreneur in mobile technology.

Last year, I started to learn Android more seriously, and really to start back with new tool Google provided, Android Studio. It's far more superior than Eclipse. I was attempted to develop on Eclipse but I couldn't bear with the sloppyness, contrasts to Xcode. Well, I am well verse in Xcode for about 5 years now. Xcode is still a mature and robust tool for developing apps for Apple platform.

So why Android? Well in mobile arena, Android is the most popular OS by numbers, we can see majority using Android. In short, when many people use it, it's important. And it's opportunity to solve problem for those who are using them.

So to cater this needs, I decided to learn Android, I took course on Udemy by instructor from Spain. He has soft tone that I can follow him throught. One memorable moment when while I learning the Android part, my wife is about to deliver our first baby. The course is seperated by short video so it's easy to digest and to look back which part you want to revise.

Besides taking course, I at first learnt from i-programmer website, which I follow all the tutorials. So after completed the tutorials I took the Udemy course.

Exprerience Learning Android

From my background of developing iOS apps, with MVC, modal view controller and I play a lot with VC (view controller), in android there is no VC. And the file organization is like web development, cannot be rearrange. And on Android we will have components like Activity, Fragment, Adapter, Modal and so on.

If you want to learn Android from iOS perspective, here is my take; Activity is like a modal of View Controller, and if you want to put View Controller's view inside the modal View Controller you have to use Fragment. Fragment is a smaller component that can resides inside Activity. Activity own your whole window, that's why I refer to modal View Controller.

Navigation style on Android is always like to open modally. When you back you close the modal window. So it might sound a bit easier.

When passing data between Activity we use Intent. Unlike iOS, we pass data by putting the value to the next properties we want to open but not in Android. We call an Intent to open desired Activity. And we also add extra information on the Intent (with a key) so that the opened Activity will have some information about the intent's extra string information.

Push Notification is much more less trickier than iOS, on server side because no certificate for sandbox and production. On Android it treat equally. Another workaround with push notification is using third party like OneSignal, make it easier to send push notification for promotion easily.

Submitting to Google Play

Submitting to Google Play is wonderful. Just after serveral hours the app you published will be avalaible on the store. It's more straight forward, you just need to sign the APK for Google Play.

Summary

Android is really important for mobile in the future, as it's become as good as iOS in term of functionality, and the fast adoption on devices, tablets, TV and many other things you can imagine is capable to running Android. So to understand and to learn this platform is crucial and will help more people in mobile industry.

** I hope can write more on Android progress so far **

Rangkuman Keynote WWDC16

WWDC 2016 telah memperlihatkan versi terkini kepada 4 platform yang tersedia dari Apple; watchOS, tvOS, macOS dan iOS.

Di mulakan dengan watchOS, Apple mempercepatkan masa melancarkan aplikasi dalam peranti boleh pakai mereka. Selain itu, terdapat beberapa tema jam yang baru. Juga aplikasi terbaru 'Breathe' untuk membantu orang bernafas dengan lebih dalam. Juga pengoptimasi kepada pengguna berkerusi roda. Juga ada fungsi SOS jika ada kecemasan boleh aktifkan fungsi tersebut.

Kemudian, tvOS, sistem operasi bagi Apple TV, apa yang baharu adalah sokongan Siri kepada pembangun pihak ketiga. Dan juga 'single-sign on' untuk TV network, masih belum diadapt oleh provider tempatan.

OS X, kini dikenali sebagai macOS, pada tahun ini di beri nama timangan Sierra. Apa yang baharu adalah Siri untuk Mac, anda boleh tanya pelbagai perkara kepada komputer Mac anda, dan jawapan persoalan tersebut boleh didrag-drop kepada dokument yang sedang anda kerjakan.

Platform yang terakhir, iOS, platform yang paling banyak diperbaharui. Dimulakan dengan 'pengalaman pengguna', lock-screen, notifiction center, dan action-control kini berwajah baru, banyak mengoptimizekan penggunaan 3D touch.

(http://9to5mac.com/2016/06/13/ios-10-features-developers/)

Apple juga dilihat menambahbaikan dari segi pengalaman untuk app Photos. Kini gambar yang ditangkap akan dianalisa dengan pengecaman wajah, scene dan objek. Lebih menarik terdapat fitur 'Memories' yang menggunakan teknologi visi komputer untuk menyatukan detik-detik menarik kepada satu movie-clip yang anda boleh kongsikan dengan keluarga dan rakan.

Ada beberapa perkara lagi yang diupdate dalam apps Maps dan iMessage, juga app terbaru Home. Sebab saya jarang saya gunakan saya skip part tersebut. Anda boleh mengetahui lebih lanjut dalam website Apple.

Untuk para pembangun aplikasi iOS, pelbagai API baru yang diperkenalkan seperti integrasi dengan Siri, HomeKit, iMessage, maps extension dan pelbagai lagi.

Di akhir segment keynote WWDC 16, Tim Cook memperkenalkan sebuah app yang berbentuk pelajaran pengaturcaraan yang di namakan Swift Playground untuk iPad. Ia digambarkan sebagai untuk melahirkan 'the next generation of developers'.

App yang terbaik diperlihatkan dalam WWDC ini saya kira. Anda boleh belajar koding Swift dengan gembiranya dengan menggunakan iPad. Ia ditunjukan boleh belajar konsep asas dalam pengaturcaraan, tersedia dengan modul pembelajaran yang menarik.

Pembelajaran direka tanpa memerlukan pelajar menaip kod, tetapi boleh drag-and-drop dari pilihan yang disediakan untuk menyelesaikan tugasan. Ia mirip Scratch dan App Inventor.

Untuk pengguna yang sudah mahir, boleh juga menulis kod untuk Swift Playground ini dengan menggunakan keyboard iPad yang dioptimisasi untuk pengaturcaraan.

Diperlihatkan juga, app yang lebih kompleks yang boleh di jalankan menggunakan aplikasi tersebut. Dalam kes ini adalah Physics Emoji.

Apa yang menarik tentang app seperti ini adalah ia dapat menggalakan kanak-kanak bukan sahaja dapat bermain game dengan iPad tetapi juga belajar sedikit sebanyak bagaimana hendak membangunkan game. Ia memupuk minat sedikit sebanyak untuk belajar pengaturcaraan di mana masa depan banyak kerja-kerja akan di'automate'kan dengan kuasa coding.

Sekian dulu rangkuman ringkas WWDC16. Banyak lagi perkara lain yang boleh diulas lanjut, tapi app Swift Playground for iPad adalah satu yang menarik perhatian, dan ia mungkin app yang sangat penting untuk pendidikan IT, dan sains komputer.

** Sumber dari Apple WWDC 2016 keynote 'live stream' pada awal pagi 1:00 am, 14 Jun 2016 (waktu Malaysia).  **