The legend of Big Head (Adobe's secret weapon)

Creating a game for the iPhone, Android or Facebook takes a good idea as well as some software knowledge to pull off your project. Most of it happens for me using the Adobe Creative Suite, that being Illustrator, PhotoShop, Flash and After Effects. Many years ago while completing a fairly intense project for TV, my friend Dave Richmond and I  constantly needed answers to meet our deadline. Our questions were answered by reading the Adobe After Effects classroom in a book or experimenting. It seemed like they thought of everything, but how? We concluded Adobe employs a genius with a giant swollen cranium called "Big Head". He is paid to think of everything. When he gets an idea his head swells to gigantic proportion with relief provided only by rapid code writing. 

Big Head runs on a concoction made of Red Bull, Mountain Dew and Snickers Bars blended with organic digital information and Clearasil. He sips this hi-tech smoothie through a hollowed out Slim-Jim processed meat silly straw. Dessert is low calorie as not to gain weight or raise cholesterol. Usually he has a Tic-Tac, Pez or piece of diet gum.  

His spine is the shape of a question mark, haircut designed with a teriyaki bowl and hedge clippers. Big Head's only exercise is thumb twiddling in-between renders, playing video games and bending for Twinkies dropped from the employee vending machine. In school he was in Math Club and played tuba in the band. Bullies still take his lunch money even to this day. 

The only reason he leaves his desk is to refuel or eliminate dragging the ball and chain that tethers him to his work station. No one has ever seen his face. They say he wears 1" inch thick rimless glasses and a standard issued lab coat. Recently he has developed a tanning program to fake the appearance of having an outside life. 

Don't confuse big head with tech support, he is much bigger than that. His side gig is approving knowledge posted on Wikipedia. He speaks multiple languages. Unix, C++, Actionscript 3.0, Java and Linux as well as enough Spanish to order an enchilada at his localTaco Bell. All in all he is a digital version of the most interesting man in the world… minus the interesting. 

He wears a bluetooth headset, but he never talks to anyone on his iPhone. His intellect doesn't allow for audio conversations. You could describe him as a digital slave. The key to his ball and chain hangs on the wall in front of him, yet he chooses not to use it. 

Thanks to Big Head I have the tools to create my animations resulting in the soon to be released "Corporate Bull game. It started in a sketchbook, took shape using Illustrator and PhotoShop, then animated in Flash. 

The new CS5 is unbelievable. The innovations are mind blowing. For Big Head that is a bunch of brains flying across the room.

New business card

I was in Irvine and visited the App Store for my first meet and greet with an iPad. Interesting to hold. It is exactly as described, somewhere between an iPhone and a laptop. I put Smackum! on one of the test iPads and gave it a play. In regular mode it is better to play with your index finger instead of your thumbs. If you had huge hands it would work, but Smackum! is better on the iPhone. I gave out some of my cards and got some of the employees to download the lite version. One thing I am finding out is that everybody wants it for free.

We watched a great film called, "Boardheads" and had lunch with some friends. Meeting some new folks I realized that I didn't like my business card. It doesn't reflect what I am doing now. I drew a caricature of myself and used a futuristic background that I created years ago. I went back and created a futuristic vehicle as well.

I had just printed my cards with VistaPrint.com. I started t order my new cards through them as well. Two colors/two sides. They charge for everything. 5.99 per design per side (just for the upload) It came out to almost $60 for 250 cards. I wanted to use .eps files for clarity and not pay through the nose. I tried a number of sites but settled on GotPrint.com.  250 two-side color cards delivered for $22 bucks.

Old School App Marketing

I have decided to go old school and ask people to try my app one by one. I have designed a simple card that I have shopped around for printing. Online is definitely the way to go. My experiment will start with 500 cards. That will set me back about $25. I think I will use Vista print. What they do is basically give the cards away then kill you on the shipping.

Apple announces iAds to promote new apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

In the old days when you released your app you were featured in the "New and Noteworthy" section of the App Store. People would create an app, then re-release with new versions to be found and continue getting exposure. I was under the impression I would be featured for a week releasing the Paid and Lite versions concurrently. This is no longer the case.

Apple just announced iAds. They will be part of iPhone OS4.  They have figured out a way to do interactive content that will play without leaving the app. Apple will give developers 60 percent. This is an interesting way to get the word out about a new app. Expanding the App Store or allowing others to create mini stores was what I thought they would do. This way would create more revenue for Apple than just expanding the store. Hopefully that will happen soon.

Apple also just announced that approval times will be shown to developers on iTunes Connect so they will know how long to wait for approval. Supposedly 96 percent get approved within 14 days.  That sounds about right these days. Multitasking will also be added making the iPhone more user friendy.

I am interested in hearing more about iAds. Promotion is a huge issue that is stifling developers up to this point.