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nirajd

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Location: Southern California

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Possibly in California

Technologies: Qt / QML for embedded, iOS and Android, NodeJS, PHP, MySQL for APIs/scraping

Site: http://app.st

Github: https://github.com/ndesai

Email: mail@app.st

We have several years of experience developing UIs and SDKs using Qt / QML for the in-flight entertainment space.

We are exploring the use of Qt / QML to build iOS and Android applications. Some of our apps use a server-side component written in NodeJS. We have a few apps on the stores right now. See our site for details. We are interested in short term/long term contract opportunities and can begin ASAP.

I think developers should consider spending $1-$10 on graphics from sites such as graphicriver to spruce up the design of their apps.

I for one am happy Apple rejects ugly applications. There is no place for them on my phone

I would agree that the Blackberry experience for app developers is indeed inferior to that of Android and iOS.

Here are my observations:

The Blackberry Vendor Portal.

1. App submission An absolutely dated interface for submitting applications. One thing that really upsets me is that Blackberry did not segregate the interface for pre-BB10 applications and BB10 applications. Throughout the submission process, I was constantly given the option to submit my Cascades/BB10 application as a pre-BB10 bundle. Even after I submitted my application as a BB10 application, I was given reports that someone had downloaded my application on their pre-BB10 device. How could this happen?

2. Viewing reports Again, a dated interface for viewing reports. Reports are only produced on-demand either as a ZIP file of CSVs or a static GIF that looks like it was exported with excel. I could imagine those who rely on BB apps as a source of income have written excel applications to process this data into a user-friendly format. Both iOS and Android have reports in beautiful charted format directly in their app portal.

3. Responding to users I had a review on my applications in which the reviewer was requesting a feature. I did have this feature in my application, but due to a ux flaw, it was not easily recognizable. I would have loved to drop the user a comment notifying them of this feature. Regardless of denying/approving the review, I think this is a fantastic feature in the Android (Google Play) model.

iOS and Android app portals are built for the common developer. As they are built for the common consumer. Blackberry vendor portal is built for the enterprise, very much like their original phones.

4. I would consider myself a "Qt/QML expert", so from a programming standpoint, I find it much easier to convert complex UI designs into working code. This is thanks to the wonderful Cascades framework with QML syntax (originally built by The Astonishing Tribe, acquired by BB a few years ago). I think it's much easier to deploy code with BB compared to iOS/Android. This is of course dependent on the developer.

5. Blackberry, prior to releasing the Z10 in the US, released an "Application Generator". This generator converted RSS feeds into running, "native" applications for BB10. This flooded the BB10 app world with garbage applications. There are still hundreds of applications on the store that are blatant rip-offs of Android applications (search Maps on your Z10 and you will see several GMaps rebundles)

6. App services like advertisements and push notifications are still not up to par as iAd or Admob, and APNS.

i've been a rdio subscriber for a while now.

+ new releases, right on time. + high quality (on wifi)

- terrible to use on my commute 1hr. seems like the app doesn't buffer data properly for low signal scenarios (pandora does!) - when a song doesn't buffer properly, i "pause" the song and play local music. when the song buffers it stops my music and starts playing. this get's ridiculously annoying. - i've noticed my battery life being drained with the rdio app running (not playing or streaming) in the background. this may have been fixed in recent updates.

imo, these guys have a lot to learn from pandora on ux

Would have loved to get a "push" notification from AAPL regarding this..

Seems like Apple is no longer signing the iOS 5.1.1 ipsw - this is ridiculous..I was hoping on downgrading to iOS5 before hawking my 4S to Google Maps grovelers.

On another note..I cannot restore to my iOS6 (beta) backup with the real iOS6..thanks Apple!

does anyone see a trend? startups' general exit is through acquisition. how can you secure customers when your potential users know that some day, your marginal revenues will require you to exit through acquisition? services getting shutdown shortly after..