This Is Your Mission

Posted by rinzai on 24 August 2010 @ 13:50 PT

We at Small Society love Whole Foods Market. Last Sumer, we had the privilege of working with them on the launch of the Whole Foods Market Recipes App, which you can read about on our company blog (Whole Foods: our most drool-inducing project yet).

So we were ecstatic when they approached us about building an app that helps people discover foods they haven’t tried before, and get on the path to healthier choices.  The result is the Whole Foods Market Missions app, and it’s available on the iTunes App Store now.

We love a lot of things about this app: it’s fun, it’s really beautiful, and it has a sense of discovery.  We also love that by using a game-like approach, people can learn about eating right in an engaging, entertaining way with close to 400 healthy eating tips and over 70 missions.  But underneath all of that is some pretty compelling technology - the store locator was reengineered in Core Data, we integrated with Twitter and Facebook, and  the app is engineered for ultimate beauty when viewed on an iPhone 4 with Retina display.

We have all challenged ourselves when it comes to food, and most of the time the challenge is to cut something out.  This app offers some balance, by adding things in that you might not have thought about, or forgot that you knew.  So download it today, and take some steps towards trying something new.

Download the Whole Foods Market Missions App for FREE from the iTunes App Store.

Visit the Whole Foods Market Missions App Product Page.

Democratic National Committee/Organizing For America - Mobilizing Voters through Mobile Devices

Posted by James Keller on 24 June 2010 @ 9:02 PT

It’s not often that small agencies get a chance to do the work that changes the world. We’ve been asked to do it twice, and that is why we are incredibly excited to announce that the apps we developed for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing For America are now available for the iPhone and the iPad. 

Designed to mobilize voters for the 2010 election season, the applications incorporate national and local news, rich video content, action alerts, as well as integration with Facebook and Twitter. 

Working with a strong technical and creative team out of the DNC headquarters in DC, this project represents how you can bring a robust app to life for both the iPhone and the iPad in just a few months. For us at Small Society, it’s also personally significant in coming full circle since our founder Raven Zachary directed the official Obama ‘08 for iPhone project in the 2008 election season for the Obama Campaign. The launch of the Obama app in October 2008 directly lead to the creation of Small Society, and it is our privilege to be asked by the DNC to help them with the creation of this new pair of apps.

OFA Blog:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/joshhendler/gGGjNY

OFA Product Page:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/iphone2010

Download the Organizing for America Universal iPhone/iPad App:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barack-obama-organizing-for/id376413567?mt=8#

DNC Blog:
http://www.democrats.org/a/2010/06/connect_with_de.php

DNC Product Page:
http://my.democrats.org/page/content/iphone2010

Download the Democratic National Committee Universal iPhone/iPad app:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-democratic-party/id376405891?mt=8

We’d especially like thank our friends at the DNC who we worked closely with to bring these apps to life: Peter Welsch, Nathan Woodhull, Josh Hendler, Lucas Fleischer, Mike Conlow, Christopher Gill, Natalie Foster… and a huge congrats to the whole team on a successful launch!

Small Society helps build WordPress for iPad

Posted by James Keller on 2 April 2010 @ 10:26 PT

When the iPad was announced in late January, the citizens of Small Society immediately began sketching, coding, building foam-core board likenesses of the device.  It was madness.  We were stoked.  And when we thought we couldn’t get any more excited about the potential of the iPad and our work in building for it, we got a phone call.

At the tail end of February, a couple of us hopped on a plane for San Francisco and headed to the absolutely lovely Automattic offices, home of WordPress, to meet with Matt Mullenweg and Raanan Bar-Cohen.  We did a rapid-fire discovery workshop, and left a few hours later, a little bit giddy, but also knowing we were in for a wild ride.

While our usual projects are several months in duration, with a strong, process-focused methodology - we simply didn’t have the luxury of time for this project.  Instead, we had just about a month to go from concept to app, with two full time developers (who were both already booked for an extended geek spring break at SXSW), and an existing iPhone code base that would be the basis for a universal app.  

It seemed a bit daunting, but who doesn’t love a challenge… and, who doesn’t love WordPress?

One of the most incredible things about this project was the chance to work in an Open Source environment, which could not be more different than working on a marketing focused app for a large corporation.  We were to blog our progress, work with a distributed team, and partner with the WordPress community to get things built, debugged and out the door.  It was a blast. 

Exactly one month after our trip to San Francisco, we submitted to the App Store.  We are very proud to announce that right now, this very moment, you can download WordPress for iPad (even though most of us mere mortals won’t be able to see it on a device until tomorrow).

Now, because it was a crazy, quick turnaround, project - it is not a design-rich, feature-heavy application.  Instead, we’ve got a sturdy little app that does just what you need it to. As you may expect, it leverages what already existed in the iPhone application, but takes full advantage of the expansive screen size and presents a much more welcoming  and compelling way to write. 

For what it’s worth, we also think it falls squarely into the mantra that you find on the home page of Automattic.com:  

Inspired by you
Striving to create good
Nothing is perfect. 

We are thrilled that we were able to work with the whole WordPress team and enable a whole army of bloggers to create and publish from a native app, on their shiny new iPad, from day one.  We love writing for software for our friends.  Enjoy!

If you want to learn more about WordPress for iPad - 

What our friends at WordPress have to say about the project 
http://iphone.wordpress.org/2010/04/02/wordpress-iphone-ipad-2-4/)

WordPress for iPhone OS
http://iphone.wordpress.org/

The iPad Has Been Unveiled - Now What?

Posted by James Keller on 28 January 2010 @ 11:33 PT

As a veteran of agency life, I can say that being an iPhone™ OS-driven agency brings with it a unique set of hurdles - namely, that we have hitched our wagon to Apple’s pace of innovation, which includes newly accessible features with every new release of the OS, and sometimes, like yesterday, a whole new device.

As with all great things in life, this pace of innovation is the thing that gets us up and into the office each morning, but at the same time, it presents the most formidable challenges - creating the need for both our little business, and our client’s businesses, to stay nimble, aware and enthusiastic.

Getting Comfy with Our New Tools

Now that we have finally emerged from the post-launch haze, the Small Society team has downloaded the new Software Development Kit (SDK), the new Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), and run our existing apps through the paces in the iPad simulator.

We are taking a hard look at how well our apps will scale, and which of our clients might benefit from making custom iPad™ experiences.  Of note, we are under NDA with Apple, as are all developers - so we can only say so much about  what the future holds - but we wanted to share with you our thoughts around what details are already in the public realm.

While technically all iPhone apps will work “out of the box” on the iPad, that does not mean that most apps will look great, or even make sense when blown up to twice their natural size on a new device.

iPhone Apps Will Work Out of the Box, But is That a Good Thing?

Read More

New Year’s Resolution: More Blogging

Posted by rinzai on 5 January 2010 @ 14:52 PT

Happy New Year, everyone! At Small Society, we’ve been so busy building apps that we’ve been doing a poor job keeping our company blog up-to-date. One of my goals for 2010 is to dedicate more time to outbound communications. 2009 was a very successful year for us as an iPhone agency and we have already some exciting things in the works for 2010. Hopefully, you’ve been following us on Twitter (@smallsociety), where updates are a bit more frequent than they are here.

Expect a batch of catch-up posts in the next few weeks covering some of our 2009 news and app launches.

Support your Local Community - this Thursday!

Posted by James Keller on 16 November 2009 @ 11:06 PT

When the citizens of Small Society heard about 30 Hour Day we knew that this was something that we wanted to come out to support!

For those of you who haven’t heard, 30 Hour Day is an event where Rick Turoczy of the Silicon Florist and Cami Kaos of Strange Love Live are going to livestream for 30 hours straight in an effort to raise money for charities like Free Geek, Oregon Food Bank, and Toys for Tots.  So basically, 30 Hour Day (@30hourday and #30hd for you twitter types) is the warm, fuzzy trifecta of Portland community, charity and fun!

While the actual Livestream itself isn’t happening until December 18 and 19 (including 30 hours of entertainment, interviews, and interesting goings on) - we wanted to start the excitement, get the word out, and kick off the giving season where we knew there would be a collection of generous geeks… so….

We are proud to announce that we will be accepting donations to both Toys for Tots and the Oregon Food Bank THIS THURSDAY at Ignite Portland:

November 19, 2009
IGNITE PORTLAND 7

Bagdad Theater
3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214

Doors Open at 5:30PM
Show Starts at 7:00PM

General Admission, No Tickets
Admission is always FREE!

We know that even the most organic-home-grown-in-my-garden types must have an errant box of mac and cheese lying about, or perhaps you bought too many cans of refried beans in a regrettable Costo moment.   Or perhaps you can swing by your local Fred Meyers and pick up some crayons and a coloring book?  When you’ve got those non perishable foods and new unwrapped toys together, bring ‘em to the Bagdad, and we will take care of the rest.  Whatever you can contribute, we will be grateful.

We also wanted to give a huge thanks to the Legion of Tech who didn’t hesitate to let us set up a collection area at Ignite.

See you Thursday!

Whole Foods Market - There’s an App for That

Posted by rinzai on 14 August 2009 @ 18:31 PT

Apple has been running a series of TV commercials over the past year featuring iPhone applications in action. I’m sure you’ve see a few of these. In the past week, Apple has released a series of new iPhone TV commercials, two of which include the Whole Foods Market Receipes iPhone app icon during both the beginning and end of the commercials (“Travel” and “Share”). And while the mysterious hand does not actually tap on the Whole Foods Market Recipe app itself, it sure is an honor to be included on the iPhone during these segments.

Yahoo! Developer Network Spotlight - Small Society

Posted by rinzai on 14 August 2009 @ 18:15 PT

While I was at Yahoo! for iPhoneDevCamp 3 a few weeks ago, the fine folks at the Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN) filmed a short video interview with me about my work at Small Society. They did a fantastic job with the production of the video, especially considering that I was a bit tired and stressed during the filming, as it took place just a few hours before the start of iPhoneDevCamp 3. Thanks again, YDN!

iPhoneDevCamp 3 Recap

Posted by rinzai on 14 August 2009 @ 18:07 PT

Two weeks ago, I (along with Small Society developers Jon Wight and Andrew Pouliot) visited Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, for iPhoneDevCamp 3, the largest iPhone developer conference (other than Apple’s own WWDC). This year, we had close to 600 attendees, the largest event yet. This is our third year. The prior two years were held at Adobe Systems’ San Francisco office. I created iPhoneDevCamp in June 2007 before the release of the first iPhone - when iPhone development equated to web development. We’ve come a long way since then, and with the tremendous success of native apps and the App Store, this year was bound to be a success.

The highlights from this year included keynote presentations by Chi-Hua Chien from Kleiner Perkins (talking about the iFund, of course), Andrew Stone (Twittelator Pro), and Steve Demeter (Trism), a musical performance by BT, dozens of presentations by attendees, and 54 new iPhone apps demoed during the Hackathon.

Thanks to everyone who made the event possible this year. While we aren’t quite ready to start the planning for iPhoneDevCamp 4 in 2010, based on the success this year, I suspect we’ll be repeating the event next summer.

Oregon Business Journal: Kickin’ Apps

Posted by rinzai on 14 August 2009 @ 17:56 PT

The August 2009 issue of Oregon Business Journal included an article by Adrianne Jeffries entitled, “Kickin’ Apps: Portland’s fertile ground for mobile app development.” Jeffries did an excellent job covering the diverse and impressive mobile technology scene emerging in Portland. Small Society is included in the article, along with a number of other cool companies in the area.