Presentación en las JUTI 2012

El jueves 23 de agosto fui invitado a contar mi experiencia en el mercado de aplicaciones Android en la 13º edición de las JUTI, las Jornadas Universitarias sobre Tecnología de la información. Estas jornadas vienen desarrollándose desde el año 2000 en la Facultad Regional Resistencia de la Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, que es mi "alma máter", el lugar donde me recibí de Ingeniero en Sistemas de Información hace ya unos cuantos años.

La presentación fue similar a la que di en el meetup del NEAValley en mayo pasado, pero esta vez disponía de más tiempo así que pude ahondar en más detalles sobre la experiencia vivida con Month Calendar Widget.

A los organizadores y a todos los que escucharon la presentación en el Aula Magna de la facultad, ¡muchas gracias!

Aquí están las diapositivas:

One year of Month Calendar Widget

Today is Month Calendar Widget's birthday.

One year ago I uploaded the first version to the Android Market (now Google Play). I was somewhat fearful about a possible bad reception between users, so I made the widget available only in my home country, Argentina. One and a half  month after, I realized that we are living in a really small world and if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've lunched too late. So I made the "brave" step of releasing the app worldwide.

If somebody told me then that one year after Month Calendar Widget will be approaching 200,000 downloads, I probably would thought it was a joke. But no, it's real.

Today I'm working in the next version, to be released soon, hoping this and future versions will delight still more Android users. Stay tuned!

Presentación en el 1er. Encuentro 2012 de NEAValley

Bueno, un post en castellano al fin ;)

El viernes 11 de mayo fui invitado a contar mi experiencia en el mercado de aplicaciones Android, en el marco del 1er. Encuentro 2012 de NEAValley. Fue una experiencia muy positiva: compartir lo que uno aprende en un emprendimiento siempre es enriquecedor. También fue una excelente oportunidad de networking con los colegas del medio.

A los organizadores y a todos los que escucharon la presentación en el Café "El Mariscal" de Corrientes, ¡muchas gracias!

Aquí están las diapositivas:

I'm accepting donations

Month Calendar Widget users: first, many many thanks for the amazing feedback from all of you. The app is doing really well, approaching quickly to 200,000 downloads! I'm hearing you: I read all comments in the app's Play page and respond every email. My intention is to improve the widget based in your feedback and to keep it free: of charge, of ads, of unnecessary permissions.

But...

Mobile development is hard. Crafting a high quality Android app is really a time consuming endeavour. And there's that "bills" thing that bothers us every month... For that reason, since version 1.2.0, you can help me in keeping Month Calendar Widget a free app.

So, if you find the app useful, please consider making a Paypal donation. You can do it from the app's Settings screen or clicking the Donate button below. Thanks in advance!

Month Calendar Widget 1.2.0 is out

Finally! I've just uploaded Month Calendar Widget version 1.2.0 to Google Play. I'm very sorry for slipping the promised release date, but I had to work harder than I planned to preserve the quality of the app.

This version includes three new features (1):

• A 4x3 widget size, in addition to the initial 3x2 size
• The ability to choose the first day of week, Sunday or Monday
• A Settings screen where besides selecting the first day, you can email me, make a donation if you think the app is useful (why not?), and visit this blog

I have also verified the claim of some ICS users, that the app does not appear in  the list of available widgets. The problem apparently occurs since Honeycomb, after some important changes Google made which affect the way appwidgets work in Android. For Honeycomb and ICS users, the workaround for now is to install the app, reboot the device and only then try to add the widget to the homescreen.

In a future version I will solve this issue, alongside other nice features I'm planning to add.

Many, many thanks to the 160,000+ users that downloaded Month Calendar Widget.

Enjoy!

(1) The first two were the most requested features since the beginning. There's another one, that many people asked me to add: connecting with the stock Android Calendar. Well, I haven't made a final decision yet about this!

I'm back

It's been a lot of time since the first post. Two days after I wrote it, I started a new job with a long commute that took away a big part of my free time. For more than 3 months I had very little for my mobile journey. Now that I'm out of that job, I'm happy to be back.

I've been working hard in version 1.2.0 of Month Calendar Widget. Feeling astonished about the feedback received from its users, and spurred by its fantastic growth (more than 150K downloads now and growing!), I've put a great effort in two of the most requested features. Version 1.2.0 it's due today tomorrow (see EDIT) in Google Play!

To all who waited for updates, thanks for your patience. And to those who expected an answer to their e-mails, I'm catching up with them right now. Sorry for the prolonged silence.

EDIT May 2: Shame on me for giving an exceedingly optimistic release date, but I've just finished fixing some annoying bugs in version 1.2.0. Final testing now. Soon in Google Play!

First post

I had to fight bravely to overcome my laziness and start writing this blog. The time has come finally :)

About one year ago, I realized my career as a software professional was getting more and more boring. The opportunities to be creative with what I was doing at that time were minimal. Then I asked myself: why not explore a new field, one where I can pursue what I love most, creating useful software applications? With the technology world going increasingly mobile, it was clear that in mobile I had a fantastic opportunity to relaunch my programming career.

The purpose of this blog is to share my experience since taking that decision. I plan to post here regularly about the things I learn while creating mobile applications: what worked, what didn't, the joys, the pains, the "a-ha" moments, the roadblocks, everything around my mobile developer journey. And of course, I will write about the (hopefully great) apps created in the process. I expect this blog will also be a means to communicate with the apps' users.

By the way, my first steps in the mobile world were with Android. Specifically, I started with a humble app, published in the Android Market in May 2011, that surprisingly had a good reception: over 55,000 downloads to date, and growing. I hope it's only the beginning, as I plan to continue making progress in Android and try other platforms too.

Well, now it's time to think in the second post.

See you soon!