What's on Ramez's mind

embeemb: Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels..

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:02:08 +0200

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels..

Best 10 News Reader iPad Apps

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:21:00 +0200

The App Store is now full of news reader apps - or digital personalized magazines - aggregating and presenting news in an interactive way on iPad, my favorite 10 - sorted:

Reeder [$4.99] (Not a magazine, but still the best Google Reader app since 2010)
Flipboard [Free] (Best social integration, many sources and most intuitive UI)
Zite [Free] (Best recommended news)
Google Currents [Free] (Nice presentation, no social networks integration and no too many sources)
Yahoo LiveStand [Free] (Multiple users, Immersive UI, the most magazine-like and having full articles)
The Early Edition 2 [$4.99] (Nice UI, but poor customization experience)
Pulse [Free] (The fastest to load, but doesn’t act like a magazine)
Flud [Free] (just released new version with public profiles and still crashes a lot)
Feedly [Free] (Simple, but lacks the magazine experience)
Editions by AOL [Free] (limited to 3 countries, nice simple magazine concept and no full articles)

Karnak (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:45:16 +0200

Karnak (Taken with instagram)

Felucca (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:53:56 +0200

Felucca (Taken with instagram)

"I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is..."

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:48:52 +0200

““I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business.””

- Steve Jobs

Local Group Buying Sites & Aggregators

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:03:00 +0300

As I always lose count of local & regional group buying sites operating in Egypt, I have decided to put them all together into 3 lists*: group buying sites, offers and aggregators:

Group Buying:

Daily Offers & Discounts:

Aggregators:

* Sorted alphabetically, will keep the lists updated.

How to Restore an Expired iOS 5 Beta

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:22:00 +0300

As usual, I was too lazy to update my iOS 5 Beta to the new release and iOS Beta 6 was expired today, so I should download Beta 7 Update to my computer, restore my iPhone to factory settings and install the update.

For some reason, I lost all the backup files on my computer, so I was in risk of losing all data on my iPhone forever.. However, I managed to update it to iOS 5 Beta 7 and keep the data without restoring the iPhone to factory settings, how:

Call your number from another phone
Answer the phone
Click the home button
Go to Settings, Software Update
After the iPhone checks for new update, Choose Download And Install
After downloading the update file, tap Install
This will install the new update and upgrade the iOS to Beta 7
Connect your iPhone to computer via USB modem
Sync & Backup your iPhone

Note:

This only works for iPhone, couldn’t find a way to do it for iPad so far
This only works for iPhone iOS 5 Beta5+
You should be connected to WiFi
Don’t hang up the phone while downloading and installing the file, it usually takes around 10-15 min. on high Internet speeds
You should have the latest iTunes Beta release

Hope iCloud backups help fixing this problem in the future!

Old Cairo (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:20:32 +0300

Old Cairo (Taken with instagram)

More Tanoura (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 03:19:44 +0300

More Tanoura (Taken with instagram)

Cairo

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:50:11 +0300

Cairo

nevver: Typescreen

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:38:02 +0300

nevver:

Typescreen

وحشتني يا ميدان التحرير #Tahrir #Jan25 (Taken with Instagram at...

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:40:16 +0200

وحشتني يا ميدان التحرير #Tahrir #Jan25 (Taken with Instagram at Tahrir Square)

gr33ndata: Domino Effect?

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:59:32 +0200

gr33ndata:

Domino Effect?

My Favorite 2010 Apps List

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:51:00 +0200

2Do (iPhone & iPad)
Adobe Ideas (iPad)
Angry Birds HD (iPad)
AppShopper (iPad)
Birdbrain (iPhone)
Calcbot (iPhone & iPad)
ContactCars (iPhone)
Cut the Rope HD (iPad)
Dictionary (iPhone & iPad)
Dropbox (iPhone & iPad)
Evernote (iPhone & iPad)
Facebook (iPhone)
Flipboard (iPad)
GoodReader (iPad)
Gowalla (iPhone)
IMDb (iPad)
Instagram (iPhone)
iStudiez Pro (iPhone & iPad)
LIFE (iPad)
Momento (iPhone)
Moneybook (iPhone)
Numbers (iPad)
Outpost (iPhone & iPad)
Reeder (iPad)
Twitter (iPad)
Weightbot(iPhone)
WhatsApp (iPhone)
Wikipanion (iPad)
wunderlist (iPhone)

Mobile Year in Review 2010 (via themobilefuture)

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:06:27 +0200

Mobile Year in Review 2010 (via themobilefuture)

A Mobile App Story

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:41:00 +0200

All people in mobile apps market are judging it from a web goggles.. No, it’s different, totally different..

The main 3 differences: you don’t have this space of creativity to design an app on your own, you are limited with OS, hardware and guidelines.. you don’t have all the control over an app that user installs on his phone like any website, because it’s a (released) software.. working in a totally new market in Egypt that everyone is talking about but no one has penetrated it yet .. and here comes the triangle of pressure..

Design & UI angle:

Designing for web has no limits but your browser capabilities, on mobile apps, you better: match the OS look-and-feel, follow the manufacturer guidelines, accept what the SDK permits or go custom-controls-maniac
Totally new concept of designing the minimalist UI components, and putting there the only stuff the user actually needs, with special handling for touch screens and spots of touch intersection
Maintain the enormous number of screen resolutions, specially for platforms where there are different OEMs or device specs like Android and Symbian
Arabic support: fonts are a big headache, at some platforms you should even dig into system to make your app speak Arabic.
Support RTL orientation.. Not all platforms support RTL by default, you should programmatically put that button at the right and reverse that screen transition to be from right-to-left
UI building: so far the UI builders (not even talking WYSIWYG) aren’t that easy like web that a web designer can develop, it needs the mobile developer to build every single pixel of the app according to design, unless you have got a great designer with great programming skills (only found in Utopia)

Technical angle:

Working on a totally isolated digital product that you don’t have control on, except through a middle layer (API) in between
Whenever you know there is something wrong with your app because of the API, you dance happily, not because you hate the backend developer, because you know you can fix it later (even after the user installs the app)
Web developers are usually preceded by a UI designer, UI developer and followed by a tester.. mobile developers are preceded by UI designer, API Web developer and followed by a tester and a store reviewer
Releasing updates is a tedious process, some platforms manage it flawlessly like App Store or Android Market, however you can’t always make sure that all users installed the update, you will be lucky if 80% of your users hold the latest version of your product
You are not done by releasing the app, there is a big brother called store review process
You should keep an eye on device memory, making sure that your app doesn’t crash and freeze the user’s device
You should always check that there is internet connection, and that the API is up.. Or the user won’t get what’s wrong
You should keep version of the current app installed on user’s device and compare it to latest version released.. so if a lazy user didn’t update the app, he gets alerted
The app should be responsive, when the user clicks or taps, the UI should respond.. or he will think there is so something going wrong, and simply close the app or uninstall it
You are totally captured within the API of the platform, and the most common (not latest) SDK capabilities, so even if the platform provider releases a new SDK, but still the most common one is a retarded one *coughBlackBerry *cough*, you should obey
Caching: you need the app to be fast, minimize loading time and works offline, so you go for caching.. with all its awfulness: slowing the app startup time as it loads data from both internal memory and remote server, also syncing with server for new/modified/removed data isn’t always a pretty handled process
Push Notifications: believe it or not.. it’s not as easy as it sounds.. it’s server-server thing, you just use the mobile app (agent) for authentication to push server
Integrate with other apps you have no control on, like maps, media player…etc
Integrate other SDKs to support something like advertising system for examples, with every single meaning of integration headache.
Localization: this one is much like the web, but you can’t add new one on the go without releasing an update, unless you do a big chunk of work and host your localization files remotely and maintain the UI for both RTL & LTR orientations, and briefly there is no easy systematic way to do so.
Backward compatibility: you should always make sure that your app supports at least the latest OS version - 1
App signing: you can’t just put the app on a device and go, No! You should first install a certificate on your machine (most of the time not free).. And then sign the app to install it on the device
Wait for the emulator to start.. Enough said.
To track an issue: it functionally doesn’t work in the app, check the app code, no problem there.. check the API, no problem there.. check the backend web application, no problem there.. check the database.. Catch it!
Testing environment: you should be richie rich to setup a testing environment with all those devices in market

Business angle:

Answer the holy questions: which platform to target? and how many users for each in your local market? with which devices?
You should make sure that everything you need to have control on is there at the app release, because you have no way to change it after user installs the app but through updates
Cross your fingers that the apps gets approved on the anticipated time, or all your marketing planning would go in vain.
Extra effort: Prepare app description, keywords and screenshots for store, surprise!
Accept the harsh ranking, ratings and reviews of app store
Keep track of numbers, by which I mean: downloads, updates, sales, new users, active users, session length, geographical access, devices, OS, geographical distribution, users retention…etc
Maintain good relationship with users by hearing their feedback and act accordingly so they keep loving you and your app
Deal with dumb stores like Ovi or App World (why on earth doesn’t it support Egypt?!)
Sell an app in a market where buying a digital product is like paying money for your own wife to sleep with you.. It socially sounds awkward and inappropriate.
Working under a quota: your limits are the data package of the operator, aka the daily quota
Keep evolving: a new platform, a new device launch, a new OS, a new SDK, a new API for twitter or Facebook… evolve or die
Work in a handsets market where the most common: Symbian (outdated), Top hyped: BlackBerry (sucks), Most app-ready: iPhone (pricey), Top developer favored: Android (rare)
Monetize app: Ads? Egyptian Marketers don’t talk mobile apps, yet.. Paid? Egyptians users don’t talk buying softwares, ever.. Mobile credit payment? Operators don’t talk micro payments, easily.
LBS: working in a country were GPS was banned a year ago is not Ok.. Egyptians aren’t GPS-friendly yet, neither do our streets, neither do our government as well! and strangely many Egyptian mobile startups are building their business model on LBS, crazy market!
When you build an Egyptian website, you have more than 18,000,000 potential customer.. on mobile apps it’s different.. You definitely don’t have more than 60,000,000 potential customer.. Egyptians are not the 300,000 who own advanced smart phones… This represents less than 0.5% of Egyptians with mobile devices.. They are just trend setters for the time being.. Accept this fact.

The verdict: Mobile Apps development isn’t fun as it sounds from a user perspective.. some secret skills are needed to build a fairly good app, specially at this part of the world.

Found guilty for being delicious @NolaCupakes (Taken with...

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 22:20:14 +0200

Found guilty for being delicious @NolaCupakes (Taken with instagram)

"الإنسان لا يكون له اصدقاء بالفعل خارج بلده، لا يكون الإنسان هو نفسه خارج بلده ليصادق كما يجب أو ليحب..."

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:28:53 +0200

“الإنسان لا يكون له اصدقاء بالفعل خارج بلده، لا يكون الإنسان هو نفسه خارج بلده ليصادق كما يجب أو ليحب كما يجب، تتغير المشاعر. تأتي الأحزان ثقيلة وتذهب الأفراح بسرعة”

- بهاء طاهر - في حديقة غير عادية (قصة قصيرة)

Luck Street شارع البخت

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:28:43 +0200

Luck Street شارع البخت

Just for history..

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 10:12:00 +0200

Just for history..