Monday, May 14, 2012 at 9:00 AM

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jTribe worked with Metlink on their iOS app last year and completed initial development in December 2011. Since that time we have not been involved in any further development or the rollout of the version of the iPhone app that was released on the iTunes store. We were not aware of when the new PTV (previously Metlink) iPhone app was going to be released to the iTunes App Store. We would like to make it very clear that we had no control over this update process.


Like many people we are extremely disappointed that the update has not gone smoothly, which we understand was exacerbated by infrastructure issues preventing access to travel information. We look forward to PTV rectifying the situation and the app performing the way it was designed – which is providing fast access to public transport information for iPhone users.

If you are a

• Tech startup company
• Designer
• Mobile app developer

• UX experts
• iOS developers
• Android developers
• Digital marketing experts
• GIS startup
• Designers
• Ruby developers
• Flash developers

Then apply for a desk at the OpenHub.

EggRaider is an app developed by jTribe to show case the latest in mobile technology. We combined augmented reality, Facebook and game concepts to create a local mobile app for Melbourne. With the free app kids and adults alike can explore the city of Melbourne and find hidden 3D Easter eggs that are attached to landmarks around Melbourne.

The app features a map and a radar that shows eggs around you. Once you are close to an egg you can make the 3D egg appear on the camera screen hovering in front of the landmark. You can race against your facebook friends and claim your spot on the leader board.

The EggRaider app is a showcase app that is exploring new digital advertisement techniques in a social, local and mobile environment.

Check out the official EggRaider website for more info.

TechCrunch:
Attention Melbourne: You May Now Begin Hunting For Virtual Eggs 

TheAge, SMH:
Egg hunt highlights latest in app technology

Gizmodo:
Hunt For Virtual Easter Eggs In Melbourne With EggRaider

Bangstyle:
Melbourne’s Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt

How to demo our EggRaider app

1. Open our EggRaider app and go to the Radar screen
2. Pull open the camera on the right hand side of the screen
3. Tap camera, then tap on “demo”
4. Hold your phone up to the pebble marker, and a 3D Easter Egg will appear
5. Grab it and collect your points!

Google and Apple use a traditional advertisement approach with banners in mobile apps. It seems that users don’t respond as well to this kind of advertising that works so well on the web.

On mobile devices things are different. Screens are small and giving up 10% to advertisement has often an impact on usability. Many apps don’t use banner ads anymore and rather rely on paying customers who are happy to pay for their favorite ad free apps.

We believe it’s time for a change in mobile advertisement. So we asked ourselves is it possible to create an ad network that does not suck? Maybe advertisement could even be useful for the mobile user as it may take into account local circumstances to help a user to find the right business. Maybe we could even  combine virtual ads and real ads in a smart and engaging way.

jTribe has developed a mobile advertisement platform that makes ads relevant in a local and social context. The platform uses marker based augmented reality as a key technology.

Local discovery 

Mobile apps make it very easy to discover things around us. This includes retail businesses and restaurants. The platform will hook into the need to discover our local environment.

Guided discovery

The platform can guide users to places of interest. These could include businesses who could pay to become part of a scavenger hunt game. Hidden virtual objects could be placed at those businesses for the users to collect.

Gamification

User will be kept interested using game concepts. Mini games, challenges, campaigns and quests will keep the users motivated and they can collect points and climb up leader boards. The platform can be used by apps that want to create game experiences in a real environment with augmented reality.

Loyal hunter & gatherer

Users will also be rewarded for being loyal to their favorite cafe, restaurant, museum or any other point of interest. The platform will take advantage of the user’s hunter & gatherer instinct. Hunters will be rewarded for discovering new spots first and gatherers will earn loyalty points for return visits to their favorite spots. Businesses can be buy into to a scavenger hunt. Businesses could offer prices at the shop for the user to collect or other rewards.

Social ads

The platform encourages social gaming and users can challenge their Facebook and Twitter friends to discover, collect or recommend things around them. Achievements can be shared on the Facebook and Twitter.

Mobile ads – as in movable ads

A true mobile ad is an ad that is movable. We can attach ads to any real object. An ad for a beverage could be put in pubs and night clubs using marker based augmented reality. The ad placements can be done remotely via our system without any involvement of the venue owner. The same ad can be placed many times at different locations and could be used to create campaigns.

Brand engagement

Marker based augmented reality allows us to use any logo or packaging as a marker. A user could use their phone to see hidden objects on the packaging or logo. This will create a deeper brand engagement than traditional advertisement.

Apps, Apps, Apps

The ad platform is made for mobile apps. We are currently developing an app called Egg Raider for iOS and Android to show case the platform. Apps can utilize the platform to create their own game, challenge, campaign or event app.

Things near me

Our platform is able to place virtual objects at locations and make them discoverable via marker based augmented reality. A user is able to see things close by on a map and when close enough they can use their iPhone or Android device to see 3D objects floating above the marker. They can the take collect the object and earn points. Points can be tracked on a leaderboard. Each app can have its own leaderboard.

Friends near me

Facebook or Twitter friends can be seen on a map. They can compete against each other or operate as a group and work together to discover things. Inviting friends to join a game will increase reach of the advertisements placed in the apps.

Subtitle advertisement

The advertisements will be more effective as they are more integrated into the game experience. We are curating the ads and will ensure that ads fit well into each particular game context and the user will not be exposed to ‘annoying’ traditional ads. This will create an overall pleasant user experience by placing ads sensitively and present them within a integrated user experience.

The basic NSLog is sometimes too chatty and dumps too much into the console. With more complex iOS apps we need an approach that allow us to switch on and off logging per module/class.

DLog – the must have:
First let’s improve NSLog with something better

A must logging macro is of course DLog. We add this to our project’s precompile header file (.pch):

#ifndef __OPTIMIZE__

#endif


JTLog – selective logging per class

The approach is very simple. We use a combination of DLog and a variation of DLog that can be switched on and off.

We include a macro (JTLog) into the implementation of our class files and use a constant (JT_VERBOSE) that switches on and off logging for a particular class. The macro is pretty much the same as DLog but we call it now JTLog.

We define JTLog in  “JTLog.h”

//  JTLogging.h
#define ALL_VERBOSE 0

#if (JT_VERBOSE || ALL_VERBOSE)
#    define JTLog(fmt, ...) NSLog((@"%s [Line %d] " fmt), __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __LINE__, ##__VA_ARGS__)
#else
#    define JTLog(...) {}
#endif

In a class implementation we then use it like this:

//  GameMessageService.m
#define JT_VERBOSE 0
#include "JTLog.h"

JTLog(@"Message received");


As the JT_VERBOSE constant is only local to the .m file the logging gets switched on or off for that particular .m file only.

Mix DLog and JTLog.

JTLog is good for coarse grain logging control. DLog is good for spot logging.

#define JT_VERBOSE 0
#include "JTLog.h"

JTLog(@"Update gyro");
DLog(@"Update gyro");  //  just log this


Shut up all logging before you submit to the AppStore

Modify the macro so if  set ALL_SILENT to 1 it will disable all JTLog call. This is very useful before you submit to the AppStore to make your app super silent.

#define ALL_VERBOSE 0   //  1 - force all logging ON
#define ALL_SILENT  1   //  1 - force all logging OFF

#if (JT_VERBOSE || ALL_VERBOSE) && !ALL_SILENT
#    define JTLog(fmt, ...) NSLog((@"%s [Line %d] " fmt), __PRETTY_FUNCTION__, __LINE__, ##__VA_ARGS__)
#else
#    define JTLog(...) {}
#endif

You can also set these macros in your build settings. This is slightly different to DLog as it will not disable logging in an AdHoc build if you don’t want to. I like to have log messages in AdHoc builds so I can see the output using testflightapp.com while in beta testing.

Wrong way

Learning from Apple’s sample code means that most of the time there is a default initialiser

Person *person = [[Person alloc] init];

And then you set the properties like

person.name = @"Bob";
person.age = 20;

Voilà, your person instance is initialised.

Developers may do that in various classes within their app without thinking about the bad code that they produce and how “un-maintainable” the code gets. Build a very large iOS app and you will agree with me.

Let’s look at the following scenario

Someone, adds not a gender property to the Person class. The code compiles and everything is good – or is it?

What happens to all the places where we did this?

person.name = @"Bob";
person.age = 20;

This code has no knowledge about the newly introduced property.

Correct way

It would have been better if we would have had a designated initialiser  that looks like below and all developers should have used this designated initialiser.

- (id) initWithName:(NSString*)name age:(NSInteger)age;

Person *person = [[Person alloc] initWithName:@"Bob" age:20];

Adding a new property should then replace the intialiszer with a new designated initializer that adds the newly added property to the signature.

- (id) initWithName:(NSString*)name age:(NSInteger)age gender:(NSString*)gender;

This new initialiser should “replace” the previous one. This would lead to break the build and the developer would easily identify all spots in the code where a person instance has been initialiser – fix it – compile and submit it.

Developers who still use …

person.name = @"Bob";
person.age = 20;

… should rethink!

jTribe is currently supporting research that enables blind users to effectively consume complex information using an iPad.

The approach for the project is to develop a haptic feedback device that allows the user to “feel” information on the screen.

Apple has already some good support for blind and deaf users on iOS5 with their “Assistive Touch” technology.

Apple’s Assistive Touch

Here is a valuable article that describes how it works.
Apple’s AssistiveTouch Helps the Disabled Use a Smartphone

The Assistive Touch adds a floating button to the screen. Touching it will bring up menu options that can be used with one finger or stylus.

No matter if you need Assistive Touch or not – go and try it out. It’s under Setting -> General -> Accessibility.

2011 was an incredible year for jTribe. We have been working hard on some impressive apps and met some great new people along the way.

2011 Highlights

We started the year with some great work for the Australian Open event.

We then did more corporate consulting work for iOS and especially for Android. Some great apps came out of this for large brands. We are proud that some of those apps are in the top ten of their category in the AppStore and Android Marketplace.

We won a mobile solution contract with Metlink which required some of the best technical talent and a lot of wall space for mockups and sketches.  We found both – talent and wall space.

The jTribe office and co-working space is now buzzing with mobile developers and startups which create this unique high energy environment. We are specifically proud that people tell us that they love coming to work.

Our iOS training program is a great success and we are going to extend that to Android in 2012.

We delivered 20 apps in 2011 for iPhone, Android, iPad and Android Tablets.

We estimate that apps jTribe has developed have been downloaded more than 5 million times.

What we worked on

Looking back to 2011 we worked pretty hard. We worked hard helping clients and providing the right solution, We worked hard attracting the right people and we worked hard creating the right business structure for jTribe.

Crazy hours went into the Australian Open iPad app from everyone at jTribe and Ogilvy. The effort resulted in a successful iPad app with much media coverage. The highlight of the app was the signature panel. Tennis fans used the app to collect autographs of their favourite tennis stars.

The Australian Open iPad app was actually developed by jTribe people around the world. The core team was working in our Melbourne office. Some of us where traveling to Germany, Switzerland and Italy and did actually work partly form there to make sure we can deliver the app to a high quality standard. This was a great team effort and an awesome start into the new year.

Then we entered into work with larger corporations and provided consulting around mobile app development. Our corporate history came handy in those engagements.

We delivered a suite of learning apps for iPad and and Android tablet. Especially the html5-based app was a good test of some theories about cross-platform development. We will write about that experience in a separate blog post.

Next on the list was a challenging project to build a mobile delivery platform for public transport. We created a an end-to-end solution with a great team and a mix of technologies. The complex rules around public transport were a challenge but we manage to finish the project successfully and look forward for it to go live in 2012. Some invaluable learnings came out of the project and will feed into some exciting methodology work we plan for next year.

When we were asked to help delivering a suite of mobile banking apps we were thrilled. Our passion not only for iOS but for Android was a great benefit for the client as we could deliver for both platforms professionally and with a continuous delivery approach that is required within a corporate environment.

Another successful project was the development of a suite of apps for a real-estate organisation. Again, we scored with the combination of iOS and Android skills.

In between all this we managed to help start-ups with their ambitious plans and developed several end-to-end solutions. What we like when working with start-ups is the potential of scale. So whatever we build needs to be able to scale assuming that the start-up business becomes a success.

In between we worked on some enterprise apps. With South East Water we created an app used by fields staff. A museum solution in NSW was another in-house enterprise app we built and deployed.

With apps like Cheese & Wine and Beer Buddy we developed some apps we like a lot – who wouldn’t? It seems Apple liked Cheese & Wine too and it was feature multiple times for it’s innovative cheese wheel navigation menu.

Thanks to our clients

As jTribes consulting capabilities have been growing we got involved in some great apps for large clients in Australia. Again, we cannot reveal all the details here but still want to reflect on some aspects we can talk about.

We were honoured to work for some top brands like IBM, News Limited, Metlink, a large bank, a large realestate organisation, Education Services Ausrtralia, South East Water, and NSW Department of Education and Training.

We also loved working for our non-corporate clients which include some startups and private app developers.

We definitely enjoyed working with all the attendees of our iOS training courses in Sydney and Melbourne.

People @ jTribe

We are excited about the new people we could attract at jTribe.

We hired Dougal who is looking after technical aspects of mobile web. His experience in building Rails apps and HTML5 apps will be great in the new year when we start engineering of hybrid apps that combine the best of native mobile apps and html5-based content.

We got Janet as our producer on board in 2011. She is the one who gets things delivered. I cannot imagine how we could have survived without here in the last year. Mastering client requirements and the delivery process around iOS apps and Androids apps up to the submission process make Janet an invaluable member of the jTribe team.

We hired Gerald who helped us building the public transport solution as a contractor. Now, as a permanent member of jTribe Gerald will help us building great iOS apps.

We hired Anita who will be working on iOS and Android apps in the new year. Welcome!

Our work depends a lot on specialist contractors which joined our team temporarily in 2011. Thanks to Ray, Andrew B, Alex J, Jeff, Jonny, Frank, Terence, Luke K, Linden, Nick B, Ben, Rich, Kasper, James, Alex T, Andrew W, Maricar, Wayne, Marc L, Sebastian, Thomas, Ronja, Sarah, Louise.

We had someone leaving jTribe. Patrick, our business partner in Sydney, is no longer with jTribe. A serial entrepreneur, Patrick is now focusing on his other enterprises. It was a great ride and it was good catching up with him in Sydney for dinner this month.

Partners & jTribe

Thanks to our partners jTribe could expand into new areas or industries.

In 2011 we partnered with Odecee to provide mobile consulting services into the financial services sector. Appsperhaps provide us with great user experience services. Tim from NET101 was a great mentor for us around digital marketing. Growingdata helped us to expand our integration platform into .NET. Partnering with Monash University increased our R&D capabilities. We will be working with Navy design in Melbourne to produce apps with most awesome user experience and design.

Android heated up in 2011

jTribe did commit to Android from the very start of our mobile existence. The year 2011 gave us a glimpse into the future of mobile projects. More than 30% of our work was Android-related. We feel that 2012 will be an incredible for Android and jTribe is well prepared to help our clients delivering Android apps.

Start-ups & jTribe

We cannot give too much away as some of these projects are top secret but we want to reflect on some of the work we did with start-up businesses.

This year we found ourselves becoming technical partners for new startup businesses. These projects are fun as they allow us to provide the whole spectrum of mobile solution consulting.

One start-up engaged jTribe to build a mobile social network platform. Again, this was an end-to-end solution with a strong back-end component and an iPhone app. Think instagram plus foursquare plus a secret ingredient. We cannot wait to see the app launching in 2012.

Another project was an end-to-end retail solution including an iPhone app, a website and integration to a payment gateway and a content management systems for retailers to manage products. Technically, the project used our full breadth of skills like ruby, Objective-C and added some new skills like MongoDB. The product is finished and the client is currently planning the launch.

For Madewell, we built the initial version of Yumtable – an app for last minute restaurant booking.

For Invoice2Go we built the Android app. A very useful app for any business. We are pleased to see how popular the app is and how successful.

Touch and feel

We are excited about some serious research we are involved in.

The iPad opens up a whole new world of possibilities for blind users in interacting with digital media in a way that is intuitive. I am very excited about our work we do to help visually impaired people using touch devices to access digital information.  The research is around adding tactile feedback so a user can feel the information. For the next 2 years jTribe will be actively contributing and co-funding a research project and will be working with Monash University, Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and other partner organisations to create apps for blind users.

Kids and Educational app

We love to learn and we want to help kids to learn. For Education Services Australia we produced a whole suite of apps for iPad. Our kids were great testers. This way my kids understood also what I do for a living – which is a valuable side effect.

Spreading our knowledge

Our iOS training series was a great success in 2011. With trainings in Melbourne and Sydney we have given many keen new iOS developers a good start into the exciting world of iOS app development.  I have to admit that teaching was the most rewarding work form me in 2011. Seeing how the scholars soak up the information and build their first iPhone apps is a joy.

We are extending our program and there will be Android training courses on offer in 2012. We hope that this will enable new Android developers to build successfully apps for the Android Marketplace.

What’s going on in 2012?

Let’s save that one for another blog post. There will be some surprises and some exciting things happening as we never rest pushing innovation and fostering a great work environment for our people.