Being in the forefront of receiving ideas for iPhone applications and reviewing all the project that Atimi might take on, there is a real opportunity that is obvious but not being exploited by enough publishers and IP owners right now. That opportunity is to start an application now, that will be in the app store by mid-December.

Why? On Christmas morning there certainly will be many iPhones under the tree, but more to the point even more iTunes gift certificates in stockings, as gifts, and given as the default “I don’t know what they want” card.

Applications that are live and in the app store on Dec 25th, are going to see a big spike in sales as users roam, and spend those certificates starting as soon as they get opened and while they wait for dinner to be served and are bored to death at grandma’s house. This is a huge opportunity to gain revenue that might even cover the entire cost of development in the span of a week.

Of course, to find it users will need to know it exists and that is why people need to be starting now, getting the marketing ready - contacting the blogs and getting Atimi to write the app or game with time to spare before Christmas.

Are you going to let this one slip by? There won’t be many chances like this in the future.

Posted by Scott Michaels, Atimi Vice President
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In attending CTIA in Sf this week, 2 things became totally clear. Firstly, CTIA only needs to be once a year, and this second CTIA should be replaced with an industry summit without the trade show booths as the show-floor was weak an no one was discussing anything they saw on the floor. What is really needed is more meeting space to talk.

Secondly, you can get more done by setting up home base at the XYZ bar at the W than you can by being on-site at the show. I had this discussion with quite a few attendees, who came to the same conclusion that more important than CTIA was if your corner at the W had power so you can recharge and keep showing all your demo’s and presentations.

From an Atimi perspective, CTIA was a success as we walked out with signed deals for work, the goal of any trade show. Or to put it another way, thanks to the W and the XYZ bar, since they provided more value than CTIA did.

Posted by Scott Michaels, Atimi Vice President

I’ve been reading the stats regularly, waiting for the Mac to reach 10% of the PC market. Apple now has 8% of US Market share. And Microsoft is now recognizing that fact.
In their 2008 10-K submission to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft recognizes Apple as a competitor:

“A competing vertically-integrated model, in which a single firm controls both the software and hardware elements of a product, has been successful with certain consumer products such as personal computers, mobile phones and digital music players.”

They’re commenting because of the vertical markets. Apple has the Mac, the iPhone and the iPod—three compatible hardware products. Plus, for the Mac, they have OS X and several major Mac applications. For the iPhone and iPod, they have the iPhone OS and the App Store. And let’s not forget their major music market domination with thru iTunes and their agreements with all major recording companies and movie studios.

Posted by Romel Alibudbud, Atimi VP, Sales

Casual Connect Seattle is over for the year, and was really worthwhile going to. For those that have never been, Casual Connect has something that many conferences of this type lack, which is sense of openness to helping and discussion. Conversations happened everywhere at the show - in the halls, outside and in every corner of the many networking events. The show attracts a real mix of people from single engineer companies to the big mobile brands, carriers and development teams.

After speaking on the iPhone, I talked to lots of people that asked really good questions that we didn’t get to cover on the panel. Since many people were thinking of moving to the iPhone from the other mobile platforms, many of the questions were about the development environment and the surprise answer to most was that Apple provides those tools for free. These dev teams and biz dev people have been trained for a long time that everything regarding making and deploying these games is going to take forever, and cost a lot of cash.

Here are some of the Q&A that happened after the talk:

How long does it take to get a game launched on the App store?
This is somewhat of a loaded question. We all groaned knowing some of the pain we had in this area, but at the same time - we were thinking in the timeframe of days. When launching mobile games on other platforms, people expect launches to be measured in months. The take away? While it might feel painful, its only because everyone expects more from Apple and the App store than you do from other distribution methods.

How can I prepare my code before talking to you?
This question came from a few people looking to decrease the cost of using an external vendor rather than an internal team. It does make good sense to use a team that can do the work quickly, and using your own resources first doing the preparation can do that. So what are the most basic preparation steps you can do? Really they are standard practice:

Basic preparation:
- Clean up your code - remove dead code and apply a consistent formatting
- Comment your code - a team that is going to port your code, or use it as a reference is never going to know your code as well as you do. So spend a little extra time commenting and getting familiar with it again, as you will most likely be walking through it with the porting team.
- Review your UI, against what you can do on the iPhone. How will you control your game / app? What gestures are going to make sense for your game?
- What 3rd party libs or engines do you use now? Are there versions of the same ported to the Mac already?

Advanced:
Re-factoring - take your current work and separate it into what can be used cross-platform. Game logic, or other code that can be in C, or C++ is easier to use on another platform than having it mixed in with your UI code.

Have any more questions? Feel free to contact me and we can discuss you project in depth.

Posted by Scott Michaels, Atimi Vice-President

Early this morning an electrical fire due to an explosion in a vault a couple blocks away from the Atimi office in Vancouver had us lose power for all of today with no real resolution from the fire department as of yet.

This outage is affecting everyone in our vicinity, including hosting companies such as Peer 1 who’s redundant power also appears to have failed.

For everyone looking to contact us, use your direct phone numbers for the rest of today, and for tomorrow just to be sure. Our email is down, as its hosted in the area as well.

Thanks to customers whom enjoyed the slightly dark but still productive meeting this morning on-site, and we are all looking forward to getting our connections re-established as soon as possible.

The official outage page from BC Hydro is the best place to look for updated info.

Update 1 Tuesday July 15, Noon:

Power has still not been restored as of noon today and the estimate is not till late this evening.

Update 2 Tuesday July 15, 9:15pm:

The Atimi office is still without power, and the crews are working overnight with an 80% chance of power in the morning. Not really that great of odds, but what can you do.

Update 3 Wednesday July 16, 7:30 am:

Power is restored and our email, voip and general happiness levels are way up. Thanks to everyone during this downtime, and to the City of Vancouver - thanks for working all night to resolve.
Posted by Scott Michaels, Atimi Vice-President

In the midst of releasing the iPhone applications we have been working on, and fielding the calls for new apps I have started preparing for the upcoming Casual Connect conference in Seattle in a little over a week. As the premiere conference for the casual gaming market, I am really looking forward to meeting everyone that has been on this ride the last weeks, and to talk to everyone attending about what it’s like to develop these games and applications.

My session is on July 24th at 11 am and I am in good company, as I’ll be on the panel with Tom Hubina from Amplified Games, Mick Donahoo, Freeze Tag and the panel is led by Lou Fasulo from, Vivendi Games Mobile.

If you will be attending and want to schedule a meeting do contact me beforehand and I’ll do my best to meet up with everyone who is interested.

Posted by Scott Michaels, Atimi Vice-President

Atimi’s President, Steven Gully recently did an interview for the National Post about the iPhone 3G, the Apple App store and the rise in the Mac market.

You can read the entire article here.

Rogers has finally posted their rates for voice/data plans for the iPhone. They’re not great, but they’re an improvement on the rates for previous plans. If you check the fine print, you’ll find that you don’t have to give up your existing Rogers voice plan—you can just add data.

My only contention is that you have to sign a three-year contract to buy an iPhone. You don’t have to for a BlackBerry? Or any other smartphone.

I certainly hope the G3 technology stays current for a while because I’m going to get an iPhone regardless of the long-term commitment. See you in the lineup on July 11th.

A couple of us from Atimi stopped by Vancouver’s new Apple Store in Pacific Centre on the way back from lunch the other day. Looking around at the cool hardware and accessories was like jumping into a time machine.  There are so many new products to check out and you’re actually allowed to pick them up and use them, without assistance or supervision. We were like a bunch of kids in a candy store.

After the crowd moved away, I got to touch and feel the new MacBook Air. It weighs almost nothing. It’s sleek. I want one. There are about 10 iPod Touch music players on tables that you can take for a test drive. The interface is almost cooler than the sound that comes out of the 350 dollar headphones! Almost.

After I got to play with everything, I decided I’d have to go with the new iMac and an iPod Touch (if my credit cards weren’t racked already). I’d love an iPhone too, but it was conspicuously absent…

I was quite impressed with my first MacWorld. From a trade show perspective, it was well organized. The keynote with Steve Jobs was great, you can taste the excitement in the air. As he knocked off each accomplishment everyone was nodding their head in delight, especially with the iPhone stats. Wow, really? 4m units in 200 days or 20,000 a day! These figures boggle the mind. Way to stick it to the nay-sayers Steve. The video rental with Apple TV was cool but the response was mild. The MacBook Air was delightful, when Steve took it out of the interoffice envelope, you could see the smile on his face. I wouldn’t mind having an MB Air but I’m not desperate for one. Despite all the great accomplishments, new products and services, I think everyone kept waiting for the famous “oh by the way” line…which of course didn’t happen. I don’t know, despite the seemingly disappointed crowd, I was still impressed by the company, the products and the lead man, Steve Jobs. Come on guys, give him a break, there’s always next year.
- Edoberer - Atimi staff writer