Continuing with the companies I met at AmmanTT 2012, I had the chance to sit down with Gaith Kawar and Odeh Haddadin from Taktek games, the story of this venture is an interesting one, it starts back in 2008 when Gaith Kawar the current CEO and Co-founder launched a company called Zero3 Digital which is a website design and development company based in Amman, Jordan.

Gaith remembers how it all started with 3 employees. It was co-founded with his brother Yazan Kawar who is now the Creative Director. Then in 2009 a breakthrough moment happened “we were approached by a client that wanted a branded game for volvo, after doing the research and completing the game [it was designed for facebook] we realized that we can make money out of this” stated Gaith. So since he already had a ready made game Gaith decided to go look for investors and show them the game, his plans were actually to add a department as an extension to Zero3 that develops games, they weren’t really considering a separate gaming company.

“In 2010 we found an investor, and in october of that year we officially established a company and called it Taktek games“ - Gaith Kawar

After registering the company they went on to hire the team, currently they are a team of 22 people and planning on hiring 10 more by the end of the year. The core of the team are designers, developers and 3d designers/animators, with a couple of business development people such as Odeh.

Taktek team - Gaith 4th from the right standing against the wall. And Odeh 2nd from the right in the middle row.

In January 2012, Taktek announced that one of their games “My Marbles“ is expected to be published in the summer of 2012 by chilingo. If you don’t know chilingo they are the global premium game publishers (part of EA Games) that published games such as Angry birds and Cut the Rope among others. My Marbles will be available for iOS and Android (no pun intended!), however they can be ported to other platforms such as Playstation, XBOX, etc… which is something that they are looking forward to do in the future however they want to find the right publishers first.

Below is a video demo of My Marbles the game that is 100% developed by Taktek and will be published by chilingo:

They are also in talks with another global publisher to publish a second game called Replanet, they couldn’t get this game published with chilingo because each publisher has a set of requirements according to their portfolios. However they are hopeful to publish this game by summer 2012 as well, unfortunately the publisher’s name remained confidential. We’ll have to wait and see how it works out for them.

Below is a video demo of Replanet:

So with all this good news, Taktek games became bigger than zero3, the first company they founded, and in March 2012 Taktek acquired zero3, however they are both still running.

All in all they’ve raised four rounds of funding throughout the years, although Gaith admitted that the funding wasn’t secured through the normal structure of raising capital.

I asked Gaith how a company in Jordan was able to reach a publisher such as chilingo, and he simply replied “At the Game Development Conference that was held in San Franscio last March.” They went there with the target of getting both of their games published with chilingo, and they ended up meeting 18 publishers and getting 12 offers. Not bad!

Gaith explained the “long” process of getting approved with a global publisher such as chilingo. What helped Taktek is the fact that both games were completely developed “the more complete the demo is, the higher your chances are. With chillingo we had four people playing our game just to decide whether or not they would continue discussions with us or let us go.” explained Gaith.

Once the game got pushed on to higher management and all the agreements were finalized, chilingo did some quality testing and provided Taktek games with comments and feedback in order to produce a better gaming experience for users and increasing its chances of succeeding.

Although anyone can publish games on iTunes and the Android marketplace, Gaith mentioned the following advantages of going with a publisher instead of doing it alone:

1. Publisher’s feedback is very valuable
2. Bigger publishers have leverage with networks and operators worldwide, for example for Android chilingo have 300+ connections with operators worldwide
3. Publishers are going to spend money on marketing the game across different networks, including online and mobile ads as well as with their partners
4. PR, when a company such as EA games publishes a game it will get more exposure then if Taktek were to do it themselves

Gaith also added “If I had to put a price on it, I would say their contribution would be worth around 250,000 – 300,000 USD.”

Obviously publishers don’t give you all that out of the kindness of their hearts, they eventually share the revenue with the game developers. Gaith wouldn’t say how much the exact breakdown was but he did say “we get a big chunk!”.

Thats not bad if you think about it, these two games had a life cycle of five months from start to finish. So if they keep working on cool new ideas and getting them ready to be published with respectable companies, sooner or later one of them will turn out to be a big hit just like angry birds.

We then moved on to talk about why hasn’t the gaming industry in the MENA taken off and more specifically why haven’t we heard of any success stories from the region. Gaith replied saying “what is missing in the region is experience, the gaming companies here are very new 2-3 years, it needs more time. I don’t think its fair to judge us now!”  he continued to add “From our experience, we spent our first year on Research & Development – we cannot produce a blockbuster in 6 months.”

“To us we have reached an agreement with an international publisher within one year. Which can be looked upon as a success story” – Odeh Haddadin

Since it’s such a new industry in the region talent is still lacking, and this is one of the major setbacks. Gaith admitted that they hire web designers/developers and train them on game design. So whenever someone leaves its a great hassle to find replacements. “The ecosystem still needs time to develop.” explained Gaith, stating that in the past some of his designers left to start their own gaming companies, which he views as good thing because it’s helping the ecosystem. Now its a hassle to replace talent, but if this trend keeps going on in a couple of year’s time instead of receiving one applicant they will be receiving five for a specific position.

Throughout our discussion we brought up the startup scene in the region, so I wanted to know his thoughts on entrepreneurship in genreal and what kind of advice they have to offer to would be entrepreneurs in the region and Gaith’s number one advice is “Find a mentor, don’t ask your friends, ask people with knowledge and experience in the field and get their advice and input. I’ve had a lot of mentors throughout my career, I call them up all the time and talk with them to get feedback. It’s amazing you can spend hours talking and one sentence could change everything. I understand some people shy away from approaching mentors because they think that a person might be busy or wouldn’t offer help because he is famous or something, but you have nothing to lose, keep trying to till you get in touch with the person you would like to talk to.” stressed Gaith.

He continued to comment on the situation in Jordan, “People especially in Jordan are jumping in without really thinking and without having the right mentorship. You find a lot of them crash and burn after a year – I’m with jumping in, but it has to be well thought of, strategic and more realistic.”

Second tip is “get a good team, if you don’t have the full team please don’t start.” Said Gaith.

“Securing funding should be the last of your worries.” – Odeh Haddadin

When it comes specifically to the gaming industry, Gaith explained that there is no excuse for people who are serious about starting a company not having at least one ready made game. “We use unity 3D, its no secret you can download it for free because they want to help the community. So there’s no excuse for people not to have a game ready, I find it surprising when developers come in for a job interview claiming that they like games and want to work with us but they don’t have anything to show. Everything is available online, from free tutorials to forums and blogs. Had these people came in with a ready made game I would’ve hired them on the spot! The simplest thing anybody can do is just copy another game and test it, the knowledge they will receive will be huge. This is one of the very few fields where you can prove to people what you can do and not just show them a CV.” Said Gaith very passionately.

Finally, I will leave you with this sketch which is framed in Gaith’s office:

Taktek Breakthrough Sketch

Remember the breakthrough that happened with Gaith at the beginning of the story, well this is one of the first sketches of the game that the client requested in 2009. The funny thing about this game is that not only was it never published it was never purchased by the client! But in a twisted turn of events it spawned Taktek Games.

I want to wish Taktek the best of luck in the future with all of their projects and hope they can continue to come up with interesting ideas. If you’d like to stay updated with on Taktek games and other startups from the Middle East, register to receive our newsletter.

We’re back from Arabnet in Beirut and I think it’s safe to say that the event was a success. There were a number of interesting talks, presentations and most importantly startups from the region. I got the chance to speak to some of them. And we will write more about them in the coming days.

First up I had the chance to speak with Dr. Adel Youssef who has been working on location based services for more than 10 years as a senior mobile architect at Silicon Valley with Google. He is now the CEO of Wireless stars the holding company that developed the Intafeen location based app based in Alexandria, Egypt.

For those of you who haven’t heard of intafeen, it’s a location aware mobile social network, “Think of it as extending Facebook to real life” Stated Dr. Youssef. The application was released approximately a year ago and already has over 110K downloads. Dr. Youssef attributes the success of the app down a couple of points which are:

1. The app is localized to the region, especially Egypt, where most of the users are from
2. UX and design, the intafeen team have spent extensive numbers of hours on producing a very easy and memorable user experience, which is a must for a mobile application, according to Dr. Youssef
3. Available across major platforms

I find 110K downloads to be impressive especially since the majority of their marketing was attending events such Arabnet, targeting universities, clubs and getting on the different application stores/marketplaces to get more exposure by developing the app across all platforms.

Here’s a breakdown of some interesting numbers for the app:

1. 85% of the checkins are made by male users
2. The top 3 categories of checkins are: 40% to food outlets, 20% businesses, 19% shopping
3. Top countries: 60% Egypt, 17% KSA, 3% Libya
4. Points of interest: 362K in Egypt, 42K in KSA, 22K in Morocco, 20K in Jordan, 20K in UAE

Intafeen, also just introduced a new pilot in Egypt “the intafeen offers” with a number of selected retailers throughout the country, where users get a discount or a reward for people who check in to the same location repeatedly.

Dr. Adel Youssef CEO of Wireless Stars (Intafeen.com) at Arabnet

For now the main focus for Intafeen is “increasing the number of downloads” and if it proves to be a success they are planning to expand to other markets across the MENA with partners from different countries. The reason being “Localization” Intafeen cannot enter another market with different cultural values, the reason they’re doing so well is because they’re all Egyptians based in Egypt they have a good understanding of the market and its needs. That’s why they are looking for local people to localize the experience.

All of this sounds well, similar to foursquare, but here’s where it gets interesting. Wireless stars are planning on opening up their intafeen platform. Which is a collaborative user based application building platform. The platform will provide API’s and relevant SDKs for everyone to leverage the powerful capabilities that should allow app developers in the MENA region to benefit from Intafeen’s experience in:

1. Technology: Provide support in building apps on different platforms
2. Monetization: App developers can collaborate together to generate revenue. For example it’s easier to sell advertisements when you have 1Million users across 10 apps then to sell advertisements for 100K users on one app
3. Marketing: Again, collaboration. When the user profiles are added together a breakdown of their information can be viewed such as location, age, what they like, etc…

When I asked Dr. Youssef, why they were doing this, he replied “Because VC’s in the MENA region are not real VC’s, they don’t want to take risks” (I just love that especially after hearing a number of stories from different people complaining about the VC situation in the MENA region) he continued “we need the app market in the MENA to take off, if we don’t do it, then the big international players will come in and do it and we’ll all lose a golden opportunity”.

As we continued our conversation I asked whether or not intafeen was worried about the platform being used to create apps competing with intafeen,  to which Dr. Youssef simply answered “No, we would welcome it” that’s when he explained that the goal from the beginning was to launch the intafeen platform however they needed an application to market and raise awareness about it in order for developers to see what the platform is capable of.

Stay tuned for more news and reviews from Arabnet 2012 in the coming days, in the meantime why don’t you signup to receive our newsletter.

I’ve been wanting to use the “Arabic” Y U No Guy for a while now and I finally have the chance, I don’t think there’s a greater call to action then an illustration of guy in a Shemagh (aka Keffiyeh)! Anyways… On to more serious matters, this month has had a lot of firsts for us and we’re going ahead and adding another one. We’re carrying out a survey that should hopefully shed more light on the region’s use of web, social, mobile and how people behave online in general.

The reason we’re doing this is because anybody who tried searching for content regarding these subjects in the region probably realized how scarce the information is, and after trying many times to get information from different sources we finally decided to get it our own way.

Yes I’d Like To Fill The Survey Now

Although we’re mainly focusing on users from the UAE, all readers are welcome to fill out and share the Online, Social Media & E-Commerce usage in the UAE survey, it shouldn’t take more than 5 – 10 minutes. And here’s the best part, its FREE all the results will be published in month’s time (give or take) to everybody. It’s our way of giving back the web in the MENA region.

I’d also like to take a moment to thank the ladies at Purple PR for their great work and help on this little project.

If you like what we’re doing please fill and share the survey, if not, or have any different ideas you’d like to explore get in touch and let us know.

A new application from Dubai is looking to give consumers a way to feel good about their purchases. The application which is developed by the Dubai based Innoventa, a leading provider of integrated solutions in management and marketing focusing mainly on the internet and mobile spaces, was recently launched and is a great and simple idea for people to shop, get rewards and help a cause.

CareZone has a neat design and is easy to use. It is basically a location-based mobile app that suggests and rewards users for checking in at specific retailers that have already partnered up with Carezone. The rewards are given as coins or “CareCoins” (which go to charity) and “MyCoins” (which you can redeem at any of the partner retailers.) Users would also be eligilble to receive more coins if they make a purchase from that retailer.

The platform uses a location-based mobile app that identifies an extensive selection of retail partners participating in CareZone. Users can see messages from brands that have made a conscious decision to be socially responsible. CareZone will also come with a social media component that allows users to share their good deeds with followers, friends and family on Facebook and Twitter, thus encouraging them to support a cause through CareZone as well.

Carezone benefits both companies and consumers while facilitating support for various charitable causes. This new mobile app aims to bridge the gap between brands and consumers in a socially responsible manner.

Which is where the beauty of CareZone lies, half of all the coins collected will be donated to a charity you support in a couple of simple taps from the app and CareZone has already teamed up with a number of leading charities, including Dubai Autism Centre, K9 Friends and the United Nations World Food Programme, among many others. Also, if any users would like to support any other charities all they have to do is contact the CareZone team and they will get in touch with that charity and add it on board.

Ritesh Tilani Innoventa CEO, explained, “Mobile search and location-based software has changed the way millions of consumers decide where they are going to eat, drink, shop and entertain themselves and their families. CareZone not only places brands top-of-mind and prominently on search results, but also gives its users a direct incentive for simply visiting an outlet. Users get further rewards and benefits for their causes if they make any purchases with a partner outlet.”

CareZone is currnetly available for the iPhone and in the UAE only, however plans to expand and move onto other mobile platforms are in the pipeline. You can download the application here.

A report released earlier this month by AppsArabia and Real Opinions gives some great insight about the MENA regions smartphone usage. The research which was sponsored by RIM, which mainly aims to increase and support the developers in the region.

The research which was conducted online in both English (23%) and Arabic (77%) with almost 3,000 respondents and contains a vast amount of information regarding the region which should interest all developers and mobile entrepreneurs. Below is a summary of the report’s most important findings:

1. 49% of smartphone users expect to upgrade in the next six months, 70% in the next 12 months
2. 82% who don’t have a smartphone want one and 54% expect to get their first one in the next 12 months
3. 95% of smartphone users have apps installed
4. Smartphone users have an average of 29 apps installed, while 40% have 10 or less
5. 51% of smartphone users use apps all day long
6. 73% like downloading apps that make their life easier and 57% are interested in game apps
7. 82% of smartphone users with apps download at least once a week
8. On average, smartphone users download 6 apps each month
9. In the coming 12 months, 53% of all smartphone users claim they will be buying apps (30% said they wouldn’t and 17% were not sure)
10. In the coming 12 months,, 24% of all smartphone users claim they will spend more than USD 50 on apps
11. 58% would trade their usage data and receive targeted advertising in return for free app
12. 52% recommend apps to friends while 26% give a simple rating score for those they don’t know to see
13. 33% find out about new apps from their friends while most are discovered doing a search on their smartphone (38%)
14. Just 14% would evaluate an app based upon general media coverage
15. 62% of all smartphone users surveyed in the Middle East prefer apps to be in English while 39% of users who understand Arabic prefer apps to be in English.

Below is a deeper look into the report:

Demographics:

Country of origin for respondents (Top 5):

1. Egypt 14%
2. Saudi Arabia 9%
3. Morocco 9%
4. India 8%
5. Lebanon 6%

Age:

1. 21 or younger 16%
2. 22 – 35 56%
3. 36 or older 25%

Gender:

1. 73% male
2. 27% female

Smartphone Brand

For now Nokia seems to be the clear leader, however strong gains in the region have been made by Apple, Blackberry and other devices with Android operating systems.

Number of smartphones per user

 Which Brand is used mostly for Apps?

I haven’t used a Nokia phone for a while now even though I used to consider them the best. I find this chart somewhat surprising because I never expected that apps on Nokia’s were popular. I guess this could be due to the number of people with Nokia smartphones in the region. I wonder how many of these apps are paid apps?

Application categories of interest

Video, Books and religious applications seem to have more popularity in interest in North Africa than the remaining part of the MENA. And photography and communication applications have a clear overall lead throughout the region.

Application categories in terms of use

Users in the MENA are generally using communication and social networking apps the most, I added these two charts to point out that even though users might be interested more in photography apps than social networking however that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will use them more. Just goes to show the power of social apps and how people always prefer to be connected with their circles.

Why do users download apps?

Its all about convenience, mobile phones in general are very personal devices and users with smartphones are all always connected and on the go therefore it would make sense to check their phone first for anything that will simplify their lives. I know I check my email on my iPhone to avoid starting up my laptop, its just quicker and easier therefore if there are other applications that can help me do things faster and easier I would definitely consider paying money for that app.

Free apps vs. Paid apps

Free apps are clearly preferred over paid apps, however users in the MENA region will pay mostly for Banking/Finance, Travel and communication apps. If an app can help users save money or manage their money better I think that it would be money well spent. As for travel apps this is a category that can be lucrative for developers, as long as they provide  informative content for users. I recently met a startup in Jordan that are looking to develop paid traveling apps for the region we will write more about them in another article however there is a demand for these type of applications.

Number of Apps

From the chart above you can clearly see iPhone users have the most apps, so if you’re a developer or an entrepreneur with an idea it would be wise to start with the iPhone and then go onto other platforms.

Why do users delete apps?

A very interesting fact mentioned in the report is that half of all apps downloaded are deleted while one in five are bought. This should be a red flag for developers, their apps should be useful for their users and they should always update their apps with new features in order to keep their users coming back and avoid getting stagnant.

Terms & Conditions

44% of users claim that they don’t read the terms and conditions, that should come as no surprise! However I added this chart from the report because I wanted to point out something very important, users will rarely read content or long passages even if they need help to figure out how to use the app. I’m saying this from personal experience, if you’re counting on users to read more than a couple of lines in order to use an application than start over and make the design friendlier. An app should never have a “how-to use this app” section it should be easy and intuitive to use. We’ve learned this the hard way when asking for feedback from our users, they all had comments about a specific feature even though it was described in the help section. Again it’s all about user experience.

How and when users access apps

Users mostly prefer to use apps when they have free access to Wifi connections and when they have spare time, so developers should keep in that in mind and develop their apps that don’t require the use of the users data packages.

App spend

25% of the users will pay up to USD 5 on applications, so make sure to stay within that range. There is a demand for it!

App discoverabilty

When marketing your app its very important to get it submitted on review blogs and websites to get the word out and more importantly check the review and the feedback to know what you can change and what users would like to have in the app, after all you are developing app for users and not yourself.

Language

Localization is important however given the chart above English still has priority, developing apps in Arabic should be thought of however I would recommend launching in English, unless it is specific for the Arabic market.

Tablet numbers

Users in the MENA are interested in tablets, and it seems that this interest is going to increase in the future.

Tablet Brands

Important Tablet features

Users that are looking into purchasing tablets are most likely to consider internet connection, battery life and the apps available for download. Therefore apps should really cut down on the use of GPS and location services unless they are needed, because the GPS consumes a lot of power and therefore cutting down on the battery life.

App intergration

Users would prefer an expensive app that can automatically identify the device and be fully optimized for that device.

Digital Marketing

Good news for advertisers and developers, users actually prefer targeted, customized and location based ads the most.

If you’re a developer and have any comments from past experiences or would like to know more information, please let us know.

Last month I was following the coverage of Democamp Amman on Twitter and read about some really good ideas, I thought I would get in touch with some of the people that were presenting their demo’s. I got in touch with AlHudhod and got a response from Mohammed Al-Bishtawi one of the Co-Founders and he was very happy to answer a few questions to give us a little bit more insight on what he and demoed.

Background:

Q1) What is AlHodhud?

Alhodhud is a Lead company  aims to create and develop the content targeted for the Arab and Muslim children in creative and attractive modern way starting from age of preschool age -early childhood-, we provide the content to be customized in the most suitable way to enrich the childhood. Our content was implemented in many fields Smartphones, interactive boards for schools, PC’s, web applications social communities, and any other available technologies we are concerned to develop its content according to our vision.

Q2) When was Alhodhud Launched?

Alhodhud was launched on Dec 2010.

Q3) You recently demoed your iOS application “Hurofy al Mariha” in democampamman, can you please let us know more about it? And what was the thought behind it or what do you plan to achieve with it???

1. Alhodhud’s first project was “Hurofy al Mariha” launched to AppStore on 26/2/2011, this application occupies the first step of huge educational project aimed to learn the Arabic language alphabet in creative and attractive modern way targeted for early childhood.
2. the concept of this application is 28 characters and 28 wonderful animal in the framework of friendship between them, each character has a certain Arabic name related to a letter of alphabets, each character is combined with an animal where both of them (character and animal) starts with the same letter. In the App child will discover letters, related characters, animals and combination between them,  and being able to perform a sentence from two words . This Application set up the feeling of joy and happiness to the child, he will play the alphabet game, and color his preferred characters and animals.
3. we aimed to develop the child’s knowledge In a unique unprecedented way, so that the child can spend time in a useful and enjoyable way gaining the wanted benifits.
4. the most important part of our plan is to make Arabic language, culture, and content available worldwide to all Arab’s and people who are interested on the Arabic language. And we achieved a part of this since more than 20% from our users are from USA.
5. we have entered a partnership with “Baramjeyat company -for software solutions”  to handle all the technical and development issues.

Q4) Who are the main players at AlHudHod?

Main Players are:

1. E.Mohammed Al-Bishtawi (Co-Founder, business and marketing manager)
2. E.Shaima Al-Bishtawi (Co-Founder, content development manager)
3. Laura Scaron (Illustrator and Art director)

About the App:

Q1) How many downloads do you have so far?

we have more than 70K downloads of the free version which was launched on 26/3/2011.

Q2) From the twitter feed about democamp amman I think it mentioned that there were 60K downloads in the first month, how did you manage to achieve such a sucess?

We got 60K within 45 days by 4 basic elements:

1. Quality of the product and unique concept.
2. Paid version was launched one month before free version.
3. All minor details where revised based on child’s user experience so children’s feedback was excellent. Which means a great word of mouth.
4. Twitter campaign was accomplished on days of launch with an average reach of 15K.

Q3) What advice do you have for people who are launching a mobile application, what should they focus on?

1. Get a Unique concept and don’t repeat other Apps.
2. Get a Real benefit to user.
3. Simplify the Usage of application .
4. Concentrate on interfaces, and items design and artwork.

Q4) How do you think they should market it?

1. Reviews by specialists and Apps networks should be upon launch.
2. Social-Media coverage.
3. ADS on mobile (We still didn’t use that) or other Apps.

Q6) The application was developed by Barmajeyat, are you connected with them in anyway?

We are partners, We handled all content related issues and user experience, and they covered all technical side.

Future plans:

Q1) How do you plan on extending the application in the future

adding one more basic feature soon, developing and supporting the existing items such as animating the cartoons, and Adding more coloring illustrations and audio effects.

Q2) Do you have plans for any other apps?

1. Yes, We finalized our next application concept, logic, illustrations, and related content. It Will be soon on the appstore inshallah.
2. Our third application will be with a different style (surprise) within two months.

After huge success and expanding reach we gained we are now going to launch free/semi free apps to distribute Arabic content as much as we can and we will cover cost via Sponsors and supporters of Arabic content.

We’d like to thank Mohammed for his answers and all of the team involved for such a helpful initiative. You can also view the presentation they used in Democamp Amman below:

Last week we posted an article about some interesting information released by Effective Measure regarding mobile internet consumption in the MENA region. Apparently brands in the region have noticed this trend and have started reacting to this consumer need by producing either mobile apps or mobile websites to connect with users on the go.

The latest company to do so is Dubizzle, they have launched their mobile website dubai.dubizzle.com/m earlier today. The design and layout of the mobile site is neat and is very similar to the site but on a smaller screen. You can see some screenshots below:

This is the homepage with the main categories of the website available along with the main functions such as search and help.

The search follows the same logic as the full site, you can filter through categories, sub categories, enter keywords and enter a price range.

The sub-category menu…

The listing page has a scroll and displays the main information exactly the same way as the full site does.

The detail page displays the classified’s information and you can view the google map of the ad directly form your mobile.

You can reply to the ad directly from your mobile

The settings page allows you to change your location…

In their latest newsletter Effective measure released some information on mobile internet consumption in the MENA region, which shows strong growths all over the region mainly in the GCC and the levant where there was a 34% increase in mobile browsing in the Gulf from March to April 2011 with the Levant just trailing with around 33% growth as you can see from the image below:

Another set of important information released were the browsing patterns of mobile Internet users in the Gulf in April 2011:

1. Mobile Internet users stayed on a webpage at an average of 1.19 minutes, 3 seconds less than PC users
2. Each session on mobile Internet lasted for at an average of 7.36 minutes, 31 seconds less than a PC session

From the numbers in the chart its clear that mobile is picking up in the region and a mobile version of your site is slowly becoming a must, because users are using smartphones and connecting with your brand on the go. In fact 3.5 Million users from the gulf are consuming the web on mobile devices that’s almost 17.5% of the entire internet population in the Gulf.

A couple of days ago we got our hands on the new Blackberry Playbook here in the UAE. The device looks sleek without any buttons on surface everything is controlled via hand gestures. It does however have a small on/off button above the screen on the edge along with a increase/decrease volume and pause play button.

When I started to fiddle with it I was lost and very unimpressed I opened an application and couldn’t figure out how to go back to the home screen and didn’t realize that in order for the gestures to work you have to start the gesture from the outer black border on the surface. In my mind I was thinking this is no iPad!

But then my friend took over and demo-ed it and explained how things work, and that’s when my impression started to slowly change. Perhaps the most interesting thing was the multi-tasking, he played an HD movie clip and opened the Need For Speed game application and they were both running together smoothly and you can easily switch between them quite easily. Now I thought why would anyone need to run a game and a video at the same time but then I realized the potential one could have running other useful applications at the same time and how quickly and easily you can switch between them.

Another neat feature is the Bridging option, where you can tether you’re Blackberry phone and instantly sync all your messages, emails, contacts, calendars and so one through bluetooth. The upside for this is that you can view your messages and emails on a bigger screen and it has more of a webmail feel to it.

However as we were testing it, I felt the size was a bit awkward it’s too small to carry or to put on your lap if you’re sitting down on a couch and we ended up placing it flat on the surface most of the time.

I think overall once you’re introduced to the gestures and get a hang of it, it’s a pretty good tablet. Of course that wouldn’t matter unless there are more apps to add value to the people with a Playbook. Or a decent app store that is supposedly going to re-open very very soon.

You can view videos of how it works below, we edited the video (poorly I’d say) and we had to remove the sound because there was to much going on in the background since this video was taken in an office in Dubai Media City:

Day two of the event at twofour54 in Abu Dhabi, which held 3 different sessions running in parallel. The first session covered Blackberry development the other was covering development for Symbian and the last (the one we attended) was the iPhone iOS basics.

The key speaker was Amir Jahanlou from SAE Institute Dubai, he specializes in developing apps and 3D games. Amir started off with explaining the advantages of developing for mobile which include independence and exposure he mentioned that there are over 225 million users on iTunes of which around 12 million users are actively buying apps. Therefore there is an audience worth capturing.

Another important fact that was mentioned is that now developers have a wide range of resources to learn from unlike the early days of mobile development where everybody was a beginner, now there is a vast library of video tutorials on Youtube, great deal of books, forums and of course the Apple developer portal.

Developers considering to develop applications for iOS need the following tools:

1. Xcode
2. A MAC OS machine (Or a Mini Mac, which provides you with everything you need to start developing apps at a cheaper price)
3. Developer account from Apple

And that is pretty much it, Although it is important to test an app on an actual device before going live it is not needed because you can still develop and launch an app without a device, but that isn’t recommended. However to test the app on a device you require an Apple developer account.

There are alternatives to the Xcode, however Amir recommended everybody to start with it, because it is a neat and integrated tool that is very powerful, the other development tools are:

1. Flash CS5
2. Airplay SDK
3. Unity 3D
4. Dragonfire

The drawback with only using Xcode is that it will not be of any help if you want to develop on any other platforms. This is where the Airplay SDK comes in this SDK can be used to develop on cross platforms enabling you to develop an app on iOS and then deploy it on virtually any other platform. However there isn’t to many resources just yet for developers to utilize that is why Amir suggested to start with Xcode and start getting into Airplay for the future.

Amir then went about demonstrating how simple and powerful Xcode is by building a couple of simple apps for the iPhone, and then using the simulator to show the entire audience the result. This went on for a couple of hours since it was very interactive and members from the audience were participating in the development of the apps. Since Xcode doesn’t have any sample code you can download and view some sample code from the Apple developer portal.

Also a very important note that was mentioned in many blogs earlier last week is that there is no garbage collector which can be more time consuming for a developer.

According to Amir 20% of the Appstore’s 350,000 Apps consists of simple apps such as the ones he developed in front of us in the session. So quite literally anybody can develop an app given all the tools above are available.

After Lunch, the discussion became less technical and more focused on the iOS interface design, how to make money from and how to market an app.

The neat thing about the iOS interface design is that it is timeless. The design since the first generation has been the same and not been changed, unlike the other platforms. And developers have to keep that in mind the guys at Apple have put a lot of thought and effort to develop this interface so think twice before changing or using a different elements.

Some tips and advice about User interface:

1. One thing on each screen
2. Minimum screen elements
3. Easy to tap on buttons, leave good spacing between elements
4. limited preferences, don’t give the users to many options or customization options, just give them one really good option that the majority of the people will like it and now how to use it.
5. Limited drilling, by which you shouldn’t categorize your content to multiple levels where the user would have to keep drilling through pages and sections to get the information they’d like. Instead use the table design and a search box.
6. Consistent designs
7. Guided interface

Finally Amir discussed how to market and make money from apps and made it clear for all that as a developer it is good to aspire to reach the success of Angry birds, however you have to be realistic with your expectation and it was stated that Angry Birds developers had developed hundred of apps before they got to Angry Birds and most of them were complete flops.

It is also important to keep publishing apps, you may not make money from one however if you have a number of applications the total may add up as well as gaining a wealth of experience. Once an app is ready for launch you have to market it by every mean possible on social networks, getting the word out on blogs and review websites, forums and even advertising on the local paper if your app is relevant. Developers have to remember in order to be considered as a successful application and/or developer your app has to be downloaded at least 43,000 times.