Tuesday 30 January 2018

Engineering Difficulties

Hey. It's me Hijazi, from iReka Soft. I just want to write something when I do project, I often face difficulties in software development. And, it's stressful, time consuming, blurred, some dizzyness and sometime become negative like giving up.

I actually face some here, I am updating the 'Nightstand' app. I think I published 2 years ago, but I decide to update for iPhone X, and update with recent API, which is UserNotifications. I wanted to replace the old implementation to the recent API as it's more flexible and predictable.

Back to the title, I am facing difficulties, well I am not want to tell what about is it, but how do I gonna handle it.

I will take more time on those problems. Research it, testing it, write code just for testing this and that to make it work as expected.

If I have difficulties when I with a team, it's quite hard when you being requested for another thing, changing stuff. Well, on this particular time, things can be more stressful, because you are in the time to fix stuff that are not working properly, and being asked to do more other thing, well, this is a disguise cost, if it does not complex at first but quite complex on implementation. It can be trap sometime. So be careful guys.

OK, so I am gonna be debugging this app while enjoying watching YouTube.

Regards,
Hijazi

Monday 1 January 2018

Welcome 2018!

Hello 2018. Well we have just entered a brand new year - 2018. And it's just like what we have expected, in about 12 months coming we will enter 2019 :)

As business person, it's important to reflect and set better goal for this year and of course to target for more, not to resting our laurels. Like bicycle we cannot stop to cycle otherwise it will fall.

Firstly, I am really grateful with what I have right now. Family, businesses, friends, assets, knowledge, skills, health, mind, network and many other little things.

Next it is to propel the works and make it valuable. Because I am in the international / global business, I am aware that the players and competitor are around the world. It's super competitive business and definitely not going to be easy. People are not in this area are kind of not understand, how as businessman has to withstand the challenge.

Despite all the challenge, we, I still have fun, balancing the hard work with enjoyment, relaxation while doing good work.

# A Lifestyle Device 

Well this is not an overstatement but as a reminder for me that the smartphone is something that people own it to improve their lifestyle in essence.

Smartphone basically trumps normal laptops in sales. Smartphone especially from Apple are quite expensive. And when people bought a 'expensive' smartphone, they will think many times to buy a laptop. Many people will happy just only using smartphone. Well it's a market for normal user want to have more with their smartphone.

# Trends. Character. Maturity of the Mobile Software

Mobile software is super big. In term of usability, features, share-bility, user experience, in general it's getting better and better. Big companies jump in, indies also come in, me included, into bringing best apps to the market.

Trends on software nowadays is providing software as service - or SaaS. Simply put as a subsciption to your software by monthly or yearly. On app store perspective here i can say, well i make an app that i sell out outright for $1 forever, I can make more money by charging $1 / year. So I make more money every year people are keep subscribing on it. However to create a software that people willing to subscribe is a challenge. There is a way to do that.

Another thing to mention is characteristic of the app. Some app can be funny or have animal-related theme like Bear or Yak. I am not sure why but it seems to easier to pick up by Apple. I can do some experiment on that as well. Fire-up some illustrator.

# Motivation

Motivation is motive + action. This part it's bit scary but we will through it somehow.

OK, now just let expect 2018 to be a great year. Here now I am still Apple huge customer. I bought many last year latest products. And this year Apple definitely launch yet new products like new iPhone, iPad, Macbook, Apple Watch etc. It's a testament that they are keep improving even-though we thought their products already the best. They keep do the RND and produce even better product. For me it's something that I am learning from them and I do that.

OK, have a awesome year of 2018, I love you all, keep smiling :)