SOFTA Ventures

Interesting Article on Why iPhone Will Stick with AT&T

Very interesting assessment as to why Apple will stick with AT&T as it’s sole provider in the short run. It’s always interesting to see additional facts and insights by those with knowledge. Rumors have abounded for months as to when Verizon will offer the iPhone. This article casts doubt that Verizon will ever offer this version of the iPhone on its current CDMA network.

Why the iPhone Isn’t Going Anywhere

First Home Page Text

Simple. Smart. SOFTA.

The smartphone wave is growing.

In less than a year the iPhone garnered a 28 percent smartphone marketshare, according to Apple. Recent studies show that smartphones now outsell standard cell phones.

Informa Telecoms & Media predict that while traditional handset sales are expected to fall, Smartphone sales will maintain robust growth, 35.3% year on year – Smartphone penetration will reach 13.5% of new handsets sold.

Smartphones are bringing people together. It is the next level of networking. Even established networks like LinkedIn and Facebook are seeing the value in mobile networking.

One common feature of Smartphone users is the desire to have easy-to-use, cost-effective apps.

The SOFTA Ventures team has been riding the wave of software solutions for more than 20 years, combining their marketing know how with an ability to keep technology, intuitive, inexpensive and instant. Applying this knowledge to iPhone’s and other smartphone technologies in the natural next step.

SOFTA Ventures is in the business of making smart phone smarter. Follow us on our latest adventure.

October 28th, 2009 Posted by softaventures | SOFTA, apple, blackberry, development, iphone, smartphone | no comments

Two Steps Forward and One Step Sideways

Although we are nearing completion of our first release we still have some unsettled issues.

From a software standpoint we need to complete the registration process our users will use once they download our application from the iTunes store. For that registration process to be as solid as we would like there is a key piece of data that we will need to obtain from the cell phone independent of the person doing the registration. Unfortunately to date we’ve been unable to ascertain whether that information is made available to us or not.

Our trials with testing the equipment we would need in our data center have been going on for about a week now. The device looks promising, but we’ve struggled all week to get it to consistently work. Looks like we finally isolated the problem today. A swappable part of the device appears to be bad, or at least incompatible. Assuming we have solved that part of our roadblock we should be able to make some quick progress toward our goal of submitting our application to Apple by November 1, 2009. And I think we are comfortable enough with how this will turn out that we have begun to spec our application into a Blackberry platform.

We are now rapidly approaching the point where the need to complete all the incidentals will have moved ahead of the software code. Incidentals such as landing page at iTunes, FAQ’s, support website, all are open issues that must be completed along with the code in order to have a fully functional application.

October 1st, 2009 Posted by Michael ORoark | SOFTA, blackberry, iphone, smartphone | no comments

Challenges with Progress. It’s the Yang-Yin?

Well our disappointment with Apple‘s iPhone SDK 3.1 is not going to go away anytime soon. Our technical issue is systemic to the SDK There is a wall between where we want to go within the iPhone and the SDK that can only be circumvented by jailbreaking the iPhone. And being the legitimate developers we are, we’ll leave that to the hacker apps. Hopefully Apple and AT&T will see the potential revenue here and eventually open it up.

In the mean time we have identified a couple of alternatives that will provide a decent workaround, and could quite possibly be a benefit that we wouldn’t of otherwise had if were able to ue the iPhone SDK the way we had originally intended. The benefit will accrue to us when we migrate our app to other smartphones.

As for our Iowa project that one is looking to be on long-term hiatus. Another technical issue that one of our third party technical partners was not willing to move on. Too bad too, because I was doing the coding on that one and was truly enjoying it.

But have to move on, can’t dwell on what might have been. We have enough other ideas in the pipeline that there is no downtime.

August 18th, 2009 Posted by Michael ORoark | SOFTA, development, iphone, smartphone | no comments

Progress with Challenges it’s the Yin-Yang

Saw the first pass of our Apple coding effort yesterday. It’s looking awesome. It is always a big thrill in software when you first see what started as an idea, morph into a design document, then into code and finally into something that you can actually see on the screen. And in this case the screen is on an iPhone, even a bigger thrill. Fun to be on the cutting edge again.

We are still dealing with an issue related to the iPhone and accessing certain areas within it with our code. If Apple support is not able to give us a satisfactory resolution we have begun work on a plan B for that part. Plan B would allow us to do what we had originally planned to do within the iPhone, we would just be doing it outside the iPhone app, and it would add a fixed cost component we otherwise would not have. On the positive side Plan B would give us some technology that we can use to piggyback with some other projects we are developing. Yin-Yang

Also making progress on our other project code named “Iowa” (always wanted to be able to say that) (code named that is, not Iowa). We’re dealing with some third party technology in that one too. Unfortunately their API doc looks as if it were written by Ph’ds for Ph’ds. Oh wait it was. Lots of read, re-read, re-read and re-read with it, followed by head scratching and hmm wonder what they are trying to say. But we’re plodding our way through it. Should be starting our live field testing with our first beta tester next week.

Good thing is we’re learning there is a lot we can do with the technology we’re using in Iowa. Both straight “out of the box” with our third party API’s (when we can figur them out) and even more so in conjunction with our own engines. Bad thing is our technology partner is a startup with non-existent, or at the very least woefully inadequate support. Yin-Yang

August 7th, 2009 Posted by Michael ORoark | SOFTA, development, iphone | no comments

Nothing Comes Easy

After doing extensive design and development work on our first iPhone app we hit a glitch. Seems there is a technical issue within the iPhone that might keep us from doing what we want to do. Or at the very least will force us to find a work-around. Seems others have encountered similar issues and have used non-supported APIs to get past the issue, but we are planning on releasing this through the iTunes stores so that is not an option.

Time to get creative in how we solve this. Meeting tomorrow to discuss.

Also our second project has hit it’s own technical hurdle. Waiting to hear back from one of our code providers to see if they have a solution for us. Otherwise time to get creative here too.

But that is the “fun” in what we do. We are developing in some cutting edge areas of iPhone, sms, and short codes. Problems are bound to pop up as we push what these products can do. The satisfaction of solving these problems is the initial reward, then hopefully followed by a monetary reward. We are not 100% geek, money is good too. /wink