Introducing DoubleTree: Home & Away for iPad

Posted by Heather Penner on 9 May 2011 @ 11:01 PT

Sometimes the thing that makes an app truly great is something that it doesn’t do.

When DoubleTree approached us for an iPad app for its hotel chain, you could have predicted the feature list:

The ability to book a room.
The ability to check in remotely.
The ability to verify that those mints you loved were waiting for you on the pillow.

Instead, we decided to build this app around a single profound insight:

When you are a traveler, you are in more than one place at a time.

This isn’t a turn of quantum mechanics, but a result of the way mobile technology has permeated our life. You could be in a business meeting in DC, while getting MMS messages from your family back home. You could be on a train to Seattle, and IM’ing with a business partner across the country.

The immediacy of our world is getting tighter. We constantly have to reconcile the fact that we often have to be present, even when we are away.

Our latest app Home and Away for DoubleTree is based off that very human observation. It gives you a snapshot of where things are at home, and what things look like where you are going. It orients you to the time & weather in both places, gives you access to AP news, and also scans the latest photos from Flickr to show you what 62 degrees and overcast really looks like. It syncs with your TripIt account, and also scans your calendar for your next meeting.

In short, it is designed to smooth out the toll traveling can take on you by beautifully connecting you to where you are going, while still anchoring you to where you came from.

Download Home and Away from the App Store™.

iPad: One Year Later

Posted by Raven Zachary on 18 February 2011 @ 10:44 PT

I will be returning to Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this year to give a follow-up talk on the iPad entitled, “iPad: One Year Later.”

The abstract:

A year has passed since the release of Apple’s iPad, and with it, new opportunities for developers, content publishers, and entrepreneurs, have clearly emerged. We now have a proven market for a third type of mobile, Internet-enabled device – more intimate than a laptop and more expansive than a smartphone. In a follow-up to his 2010 Web 2.0 Expo talk, “iPad: Mobile Computing Redefined,” Raven looks back on the first year of the iPad – its successes and failings, as well as a look forward to Apple’s new hardware and software technologies and their inevitable impact on the market. 2011 will be an even bigger year for the consumer tablet sector, with additional hardware players, continued app and services innovation, and a more mainstream, global market for these devices.

For those of you who were present for my iPad talk last year, I looked at the new market opportunities for the iPad and my plan to live without a laptop and fully embrace the iPad. I’ll be giving an update on both topics, and explore some of the successes (and failures) of the platform.

I hope to see you there!

Getting Ready for the 2011 Holiday Season

Posted by Heather Penner on 18 January 2011 @ 15:57 PT

Wait, aren’t we just recovering from all of the 2010 Holiday madness?

As odd as it seems, in this business we live 6 months into the future, which means it’s time to get back into the swing of things… Can you feel it? the leaves are starting to turn, and Fall is right around the corner.

Here at Small Society, we take a lot of pride in our project process. Discovery, Creative, Development, and a thorough QA - that’s the way to make a beautiful, engaging, delightful app. But it is a process that takes some time.

Last summer, we had a few sales calls with major retail clients who were desperate to have something on the app store in October, just before the Q4 shopping season. Very sadly for all of us, we had to turn them away. Three months is just not enough time to design & develop an app that those clients would be proud of, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

So this year, we’re thinking about the holidays early:

If you want an app on the store for Fall, then Spring is the time to get started! And if you want a project kickoff & Discovery in Q2, then now is the time to get prepared. Think about your budget, form your internal project team, start talking to prospective vendors. And if you think the match is right, we’d love to speak with you!

Stay tuned for amazing things coming Fall 2011. They are starting now!

Announcing the Amazon Deals App!

Posted by James Keller on 11 January 2011 @ 8:10 PT

Small Society is proud to team with Amazon.com to release its latest app, Amazon Deals.

While Amazon is known for its incredibly low prices, Amazon Deals, which hit the app store today, gives customers easy access to limited-availability discounts on a wide variety of products. 

The goal was to take the Amazon.com Gold Box to the mobile space, and to ensure that deal hunters would never miss a thing, regardless of where they were:

* The app gives you a quick view of each amazing discount and fast scrolling across all of the deals happening today. 

* Drilling down into individual items shows you the list price, Amazon price, the deal price, as well as your potential savings.

* At a glance, you can find the time left on lightning deals and percentage of deals claimed so that you won’t miss your window of opportunity.

*  You can see deals by category, and get a teaser of deals that are about to happen, including the option to receive notifications when these deals are about to launch.

The app provides all of the great information that makes Amazon.com such a great shopping experience, including access to Amazon.com Customer Ratings and Reviews, as well as the clean and simple checkout experience customers have come to know and trust. 

Finally, the app also lets you share specific items via email, text, Facebook, and Twitter; so your friends won’t miss out on the Three Moon Wolf Shirt when it goes on sale.  

Download the Amazon Deals app today, and keep a lookout for something special.

Grateful for a strong 2010, and giving a little back.

Posted by Heather Penner on 5 January 2011 @ 14:21 PT

2010 was an amazing year for Small Society. We grew by 50%, moved to new offices, and got a slew of interesting & exciting new clients. And we are only now approaching the end of our second year!

We love what we do, we have awesome co-workers, we work near great food carts and the Apple Store. The universe has been good to us, and so we knew that this was our opportunity to give back.

In short: We allocated $10,000 of our 2010 profits for charitable donations.

To start things off, we donated $5000 to The Mangrove Fund (now merging with the Voice of Haiti). The Mangrove Fund is founded & operated by our lawyer, Bill Pierznik of Alto Law. Bill is not only a great lawyer, but is also a great person - he pours all of his spare energies into rebuilding orphanages and setting up basic health services in Haiti. He and his wife have been doing this since before the earthquake. Bill told me that our donation will go directly to a sanitation project that will help save many people from the scourge of cholera as well as other parasites.

Next, we allocated another $5000 to be distributed by group vote. Each employee of Small Society had the opportunity to nominate 2 charities, and then cast a vote for 3 (encouraging people to vote beyond their own nominations.) The top 5 winners got $1000 each. We had great nominations, and a chance to learn about each other’s passions. In the end, we donated $1000 each to:

* Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette
* Project Pooch
* Mercy Corps
* Smile Train 
* Oregon Public Broadcasting

What a great opportunity to end the year on a high note. Thanks again to every member of our extended Small Society family, and to all of our business partners, for helping make this possible.

Whole Foods Market Recipes for iPad (and iPhone 4)

Posted by Raven Zachary on 17 December 2010 @ 15:57 PT

Small Society is excited to announce the release of the extremely popular Whole Foods Recipes app for the iPad.

The app, available today, brings the key functionality of the iPhone app to the iPad allowing users to search for recipes, get suggestions based on what you have on hand, locate Whole Foods stores. Added to the app are gorgeous new visuals, and the ability to share recipes via email, Facebook, and Twitter.

The release of the iPad app also coincides with an update to the iPhone version, which brings users Retina Display support, improved Voice Over controls for enhanced accessibility, and deep social networking integration.

Discover healthy food, and share your favorite recipes. Download the Whole Foods Recipes app today.

Save where you live - from your iPhone

Posted by Raven Zachary on 4 October 2010 @ 17:50 PT

The paper used to come on Sunday morning thick with coupons, glossy inserts, and deals all printed on paper. The promise was that with a little close examination, you could see literally hundreds of dollars in savings on that next trip to the grocery store. Those deemed not worthy ended up in the trash or underneath the feet of your childhood hamster.

Oh my how things have changed. 

So when Small Society was approached by the publishers of the Chinook Book, the goal was not simply to get people to buy the book or to give exposure to participating vendors; the goal was to help them transform the future of their business and make it mobile.

A bit of background: the Chinook Book is an institution in the Pacific Northwest. For a decade, people have used it to support sustainable businesses, discover new ones, and to save a little too! It’s also a fundraiser for local community organizations and schools.

Our challenge was to take a brand that had huge appeal, and make it more useable, more local, and more accessible than a book hiding in your glove box. But in order to do that, we also had to change the behavior of people who were used to the familiarity of paper coupons. 

The app we designed takes the book and puts it in your pocket. Not only can you search the Yard and Garden category for a deals on those organic vegetable starts, but you can click the Near Me tab to discover the eco-minded mom and pop store or yoga studio a mile from your house that you never knew existed. And of course, you can redeem coupons straight from the app, and see how much you have saved over time.  

Getting to this simple execution was no small task: we performed usability testing on an early prototype of the app to test our design decisions (a rarity in the mobile world). We solved the tricky issue of how to present and redeem single use coupons with some solid design thinking and a great creative insight. We gained an understanding of the potentially awkward interaction of a person showing their phone to someone behind the cash register, so that we could make the whole thing a beautiful and seamless experience. And so far the response has been positive and overwhelming.

Find the Chinook Book on the App Store and discover some amazing local sustainable businesses.

This Is Your Mission

Posted by Raven Zachary 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/