Adam Blum, adam@rhomobile.

com
 Background

  iPhone
has
changed
the
game

  All
users
now
want
to
run
real
apps
on
their
smartphones

  It’s
a
huge
win
for
businesses

  Workers
are
productive
everywhere,
anytime

  Smartphones
are
cheaper
than
laptops

  They
have
senses
(sight,
hearing,
touch)
that
laptops
never
had

  But

  Its
difficult
to
write
apps
for
all
smartphones
that
your
people

have
(without
a
smartphone
app
framework)

  Good
smartphone
apps
are
different
than
good
web
apps
or

good
desktop
apps



What’s Different v.
Consumer iPhone Apps?
 get users information quickly
 make the information always available
 usually tie into some larger backend
system

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What’s Different v. Web Apps

 focus on single tasks

 less data types
 leverage the device

4
Context Sensitivity

 take users right to the data

 common metaphor: list of records at top level
 or a map with objects
 using location, time, user info to select
 but no top level lists to select the right
object type/function
 settings as an option on the tab bar

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iPivotal

6
TrackR (Koombea)

7
Limit Objects/Functions

 ideally one main object types

 no more than two or three “dependent
objects”
 limit features/functions/actions on objects

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What Not To Do: KinitoPro

all of this just to get to your

accounts? why not just use
reasonable defaults?

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What To Do: Open Health

(written with Rhodes)

take people to their objects right away. summarize data on

the device with dashboards

10
Local Data

 make it possible to use the app without

connectivity
 insure that user’s work on transactions
(Create/Update/Delete) is never lost
 automatically cache (through database or
otherwise) frequently used data

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IFusion

no local data (sync so you can access contacts

when offline)? no save to local PIM contacts?

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InfusionSoft

written with Rhodes. data is

synced and available offline.
robust set of capabilities on
each contact (tags, followup
sequence, history, action set).
save to PIM (address book)

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Device Capabilities

 smartphones have senses: sight, hearing,

touch
 don’t do myopic web ports
 you can probably use:
 GPS
 mapping
 PIM contacts
 camera

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What To Do:
Nationwide Claims App

great use of device

capabilities (GPS, camera) to
record accident info. free on
App Store

15
Rapid Iterations

 deliver small identifiable features

frequently
 use a toolset that enables rapid iteration
 Objective C might not be the best one for that

16
MiniBooks for FreshBooks

not a bad app, but fairly flat.

but could use more device
capabilities. mapping, GPS to
show close clients. could
load/save from PIM.

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RhoFresh for FreshBooks

 build on RhoHub
 run on emulator
 RhoFresh project open sourced at
adamb.rhohub.com
 userid “adam”, password “password”
show how quick and easy it is to create
an app with Rhodes on RhoHub. you
can take this app nd extend and sell it.
there are no Android apps for
FreshBooks and no smartphone apps
with GPS and mapping

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 The
Rhomobile
Components

 http://github.com/rhomobile

 Rhodes

 “microframework”
for
locally
executing
native

smartphone
apps
with
device
capabilities

 leverage
your
web
skills
to
build
native
apps


 Contains
first
mobile
Ruby
implementation



 RhoSync

 Sync
focused
on
web
service
data
(needed
in
the
age

of
SaaS)

 Allows
users
to
have
their
dasta
local
when
offline

Rhodes
Architecture

Why Rhomobile?

 only smartphone app framework with sync

 runs on all major smartphones
 first mobile Ruby
 first development as a service for mobile -
RhoHub.com.
 Questions?
 http://rhomobile.com
 adam@rhomobile.com

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