Receipe for Success
I’ve never quite understood why television broadcasting, especially sports, has continued to decline in quality over the past 20 years. I speculate that the networks would rather spend money on “personalities” that actually distract from the event than enhance it. In addition, there are so many rules and regulations imposed by the FCC, networks and sponsors that I always felt watered down the experience.
Other mediums, such as, podcasts, forums, neighborhood bars or a friend’s basement; you have individuals, fans and super fans who provide much better commentatry, stats and experiences than you would ever find on the networks. These individuals aren’t shackeled by duldrums plaguing corporate broadcasting and are free to really “call it like they see it”. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a platform for these loquacious verablizers to sound off…that allowed for not just one way communication, but also given the ability to interact with their listeners in real time.
Introducing Rabble.tv
Serendipty
I knew my contract was ending last December with Life360, so around November I started to look around for the “next thing”. I got a call from Ben (CTO of Rabble and best friend) asking if I would come to Nashville and chat with the other two founders about what it would take, or even possible, to build their iOS app. I don’t need much of an excuse to go hang out with Ben and other cool people in Nashville. After spending about half a day hearing what they needed and when they needed it I headed back to Chattanooga with the green light to build the first RabbleTV app.
File -> New Workspace/Project/Design/EcoSystem, etc.
~35 days to develop…that’s what I had.
When I sat down to start cranking on the app it really began with a todo list of tasks that needed to be completed before I could actually start writing code. This included setting up the developer account, certs, github repos, workflows for testing and general design/wireframe elements. Since there was no time to waste I jumped right on my list and starting knocking things out.
Because fate loves to provide us with challenges, a few where thrown my way. These were in the form of getting the flu for almost 5 days, as well as, my wife and kids. Nothing brings development to a hault like a house full of sick people. Despite this set back I was able to make up the time. Ironcially, what caught me up was going on vacation with my wife to Tulum. We had our trip planned for almost a year and right before we left I was defintiely feeling the pressure. I had many late nights so completely disconnecting for 4 days was exactly what I needed. When I got back the saw was sharpened and was cutting faster and better than ever.
Development
Writing Swiftly with Objective-C
The entire app was written in Objective-C. Yep, that’s right…not the first line of Swift. My reasoning for this is due to the very limited time for development and right now I’m much faster with Objective-C. Future releases will incorporate Swift. I did setup the project to support Swift from the beginning knowing that I wanted to use it in the near future.
Hard Feature Decisions
The features on the web far out number the features on version 1 of the app. This was both a neccessity and a choice. The end goal of my development time was to go from version none to version one. Trying to fit all that Ben had developed for the web would have easily been 6 to 8 months of development. In reality the usage of on the phone is going to be much different than that on the web. Shocker I know!!!!
The Rabble guys were great to work with in regards to these decisions. As such, I believe and stand by the features that are supported by the iOS app. Additional features will be coming shortly.
TestFlight and Crashes
For beta testing I opted for TestFlight for beta distrubutions and Flurry for reporting and crash reporting. This was both a blessing and a curse. By curse I mean all the cursing I did when iTunes Connect had its meltdowns and a blessing when it worked. My experience was 50/50.
What’s Next
Discussions for what was going to be included also included what was going to be in 1.0.1. These are secondary, but still important features, as well as, bug fixes. I’ve also laid out the roadmap for 1.0.2, 1.1 and 1.2.
Zen and the Art of iOS Development
This has been the BEST app I’ve ever worked on. The app is far from perfect and will continue to improve and evolve (like software is supposed to), but the experiences couldn’t have been better. The work/life balance has been phenonmueal and working 1:1 with Rabble couldn’t be better.
My good friend, Jason Jardim, tweeted an article called Looking back at where it all began, the basement startup. As I look back on building the Rabble iOS app, I completely understand what the author is describing. Though I actually work in my home office, I have lots of fresh air, open light, etc…it is pretty humble and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Mute.Mic.Rabble