Showing posts with label podchat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podchat. Show all posts

Thursday, 23 March 2017

Knowing your app (part 25) My story. developing an app with zero development skills.

In the past few weeks, I have been getting wonderful feedbacks on my app. It is far from what it should be but it has been doing better than I expected and i'm very grateful to everyone who has been supportive so far. Many people do not know how long it has taken me to build the app and many make several hypothesis of how I have managed on. The Idea of Just talk came to me more than a year ago. At this time I had no app development skill. I knew nothing about coding languages and how they codes actually worked. But I had with me the most brilliant idea ever. How did I know this was a brilliant idea? easy, I believed in it, I told people and I entered it in a completion. The feedbacks from people were both encouraging and depressing but I worked on the criticized points of the app improved the already good parts and best of all I was successful in the competition.

At that point it felt I have gotten a certificate that said to me confidently that my app would change the world. With this in my mind the next stage was to build the app. With no app development skills I obviously needed to find help. I spoke to a couple of people and I was advised to find  co-founder who was good with app coding. How was a fresh graduate who studied BSc economics and MSc Entrepreneurship going to find someone to join him in a crazy new project. Not being in University anymore just makes things harder as there are less people to ask questions. All I thought I had was the brain of think of the idea and that was it. Well I studied entrepreneurship at a good university so I had to do something somehow. Perhaps using the degree somehow would be a good start. I decided to begin my hunt for a co-founder. As I was succesful in my competition i had some acces to university and it's facilities so became a stalker at the computer science department at the University of Liverpool trying to find someone to join me. I spoke to a couple of people and they loved the idea but the challenges and the work was enough to put them away. Most of them were students so I didn't really get the best of help there as they had their university work to bother about also. Then I went on Facebook and linkedin perhaps a few messages to a couple of people should find me a co-founder. Fortunately I did find two people who were students. I was able to spark some interest in them, but they had university work to do and coding challenges deterred them. It wasn't totally a loss at time this time because one of them did teach me one or two things about coding. The moment I discovered I could grasp some knowledge about coding I decided to do some more learning. next thing I knew I found myself watching coding videos on YouTube.

I started learning one or two things about app development. It didn't take me long enough to learn that my dyslexia was going to become a deterrent. Reading and writing long words were just not my thing. Thus didn't stop me from writing 40 pages of words describing my app, all its features and however button should work in details though. After a number of YouTube videos it was time to start getting things done. I knew I couldn't do it alone because even after learning one language I had to code the server end anyways. I decided I would do something with my newly learnt skills and begin creating my app.

I decided to divide the development of my app into different stages. Front end, back end and Server end. Inbetween those ends I also divided into other smaller stages. I went on LinkedIn to scout for developers. At this stage I was no longer looking for co-founders as I had given up on that move and decided to do things myself. I needed to find a way to create the app in the cheapest way ever. I began messaging people I believed would be able to develop parts of the app for pretty low prices. Learning how coding works made me look and feel knowledgeable and was able to convince the people I spoke to that what I was asking for was little and didn't require much work. prior to speaking to this people I had already completed my very long description of how everything about the app works and had gone on pain to draw how the app should look. (Talk about designing skills) so yeah, I basically designed everything about my app. My brother was able to convert it from the paint look to a more realistic look on photoshop. I spoke to someone who made me a fully functional front end for a very cheap price. I went on freelancers.com to scout for developers. obviously no one very good was going to do it for cheap. If I at all did find someone who could do it for a cheap price, it would mean I was going to find someone who only just learnt how to code and was going to use my app as practice. To be fair I didn't mind so I went for it. Most of the new app developers who were happy to develop the app for a cheap price where Indians and language was a great barrier, explain exactly what you wanted was a task on its own. I had to break every stage down in very little bits so they could understand and begin developing, in many cases I've had to do some research on how to get along with certain parts of the app and teach the developers how to do it. It didn't go very smoothly if  I'm honest. I went through three different sets of developers with one set containing a minimum of about three people. Changing hands from one developer to another was also a challenge as it too about one month for some of the new developers to get used to the codes and understand where everything are.

The challenges just never stopped but I managed anyways. I went through so many even after finding the developers who are still the best till date. I have managed to create the app and made it available on the app store. updates are still flooding in daily and will keep coming to improve user experience. Just Talk, is one of a kind. none that have ever existed and I very much love all it's users. Those I know and those plenty people who I've never met. Bless you all and I wish you all the best of days.
Find us on Facebook
Find us on Twitter
Find us on Instagram

Download Now: from the app store.




.

Thursday, 23 February 2017

Knowing you app (part 10) app video

I have now been able to create a video that also describes the app. Remember, Just Talk is completely FREE it is available on the ios app store only. There have been a few complainsts about the texts in the video so there would be another video coming up soon. It would be easier to read. but for now, I hope you enjoy this video and the lovely background music by Tay iwar: zion wolf (tay edition).

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Knowing you app (part 9) back to the app screens/pages

As its a tradition to always describe the app at the start of the post, i shall be doing it again here (It gives my new users a better undertsnading about the app). Just Talk - DTJT is a  bespoke app for sending only voice messages and uses voice filters to change how you sound. It is available for free on the app store and would also be available for FREE on the google play store soon. unlike other apps, users can listen to their messages (audio messages) as many times as they please but after 24 hours they will be automatically deleted. This would also be regardless of them being opened or unopened. So if you send someone a message and they do not open it after 24 hours the message would be taken of the server and they would no longer have access to the message. New APP, additional features would be included monthly.
FREE on Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/just-talk-dtjt/id1155818503?mt=8


Last time we read about the app screens/pages we read about the ways to know what a sent/recieved message looked like, what an unopened message looks like within 24 hours, what an unoppened messages looked like after 24 hours and lastly, what an opened message looks like before and after 24 hours. As we all know at this point users can only send voice mesages to people who already use the app, As it is a messanger, it requires you to have contacts on it. you would need to send friend requests or accept friend requests (i'm happy to be your first contact, add me "keshjacobs" is my username on the app). I'm convinced you already have friends on it and you can convince new once to join you in the most innovative app just yet. in future blogs, we would learn how to add new contacts, create new messages and send new messages (although this is already availble in the app's short walkthrough tutotrial). Now, how do you listen to message that has been sent to you? Just like most apps, this app also uses push notifications. when you recieve a new message, you would get a notification saying "new audio file recieved". Click on the notification to open the app or just open the app from the app icon. The usenrmam of the sender should appear at the top of all your message or at the top of your screen with the unpened message smiley (click to find out more about the smileys in the app and what they indicate) and an arrow pointing to the left. The left arrow signifies recieved message while the right arrow signifies sent message. there should also be a short small text that says "tap to download". Tap to and wait while message downloads and when the message says "ready to play" tap again to listen to your message. However if you do not see the message, then swip down on the timeline screen to refresh the page and view the new message. Remember, you can listen to your messages as many times as you please within 24 hours from when the message was sent. Also note that all messages would be deleted automatically after 24 hours from when they were sent even if you have not opened them.


Find us on Facebook
Find us on Twitter
Find us on Instagram