Ninth Division

Touch Cam, video recording for the iPhone 3GS

Posted on 31. Jan, 2010 by andy in Apps

On Friday we announced that Touch Cam version 1.0 was available on the iTunes App Store.   Touch Cam’s goals is to make video recording better on the iPhone 3GS.  With the standard camera application, it can be as long as 8 seconds before you have started to record your video. With Touch Cam you can auto load straight to the camera and begin recording; saving as much as 5 seconds.  We made a table listing of all the videos, so the recording and the reviewing of videos are all in one spot.  All videos taken with Touch Cam are automatically synchronized with the Photo Library on your phone.

The Idea

Back in October, my friend Hasani Hunter and I were at a iPhone Developers (the 360iDev Conference) conference in Denver, CO.  During some down time we went exploring downtown Denver.  The first time we’d been downtown in Denver and I must say, nicely done Denver!  Anyway, naturally there was plenty of “interesting” things to record on video.

When the funniest looking guy on the smallest little scooter drove by, we tried to record it.  While using the default Camera on the iPhone 3GS we missed our opportunity.  Why?  It took too long to get the Video Recording (Camcorder) up to begin the recording.  After fumbling around with it, waiting for it to load, changing the settings from still photo to video recording, and hitting the record button the priceless video that would have made no sense the next day was gone.  ”There should be an App for that” I say.  As it turns out there wasn’t.

Next Steps

By the end of the weekend we had the app working.  It mostly solved our problem, but we wanted to morph it into a product.  To do that, it needed a design, a name (previously just called Camcorder), features, marketing, a road map, etc.  As the next month or two progressed we did some of this in our spare time; being we both had individual companies run with clients taking all priority.  Even a project as small as Touch Cam, required a lot more time.

After the holidays we got started and dedicated time to it.  We had some great friends of ours – Hatchbox Creative in Omaha build the icon.  We all similar inspirations for the icon.  Primarily we wanted it too look simple, since we are working hard to make the app simple.  Additionally the overall design of the app is full of blacks, grays and whites… so it made sense to follow that color scheme.  Tom from Hatchbox did a knock out job.

You may also notice a icon in there to get to the settings.  Well thanks to Erin #2 (previously of  Brightmix) we were able to have that icon for free.  Thanks again, that icon set has always come in handy!

Iterative

Instead of putting all the features we had in mind into version 1.0, we decided to take more iterative approach.  This allows us to make version 1.0 do one things really well… taking videos.  Version 1.1 is just about done and we have a roadmap planned out for version 1.2 and 1.3.  By doing this we can get it out there sooner, get feedback sooner, have people use it sooner.  So much similar to the idea of beta forever, but we still consider this a 1.0 quality app.

If you have any suggestions, complaints, ideas, thoughts in general or would like to rant/rave directly to the creators please email us – touchcam@ninthdivision.com.  Seriously, we will read them all.

Whoops, we have a bug.

Something you might find interesting is we found a bug after we bought our own app.  Some folks in our case would start throwing punches, pointing fingers, drop kicking iPhones… etc.  Not us.  It is what it is, and there is tons you can do about now but you have to wait until the bug fix is available.

Do note as of the writing of this blog post, version 1.01 has been submitted to Apple and is waiting for a review.

Lesson learned: We created the bug at the last minute and didn’t realize it.  Our first version we submitted to Apple was rejected.  We provided two features that they wanted removed as it was borderline using “private api’s” (incase your wondering, the features allowed you to have the app begin Recording without touching the red button).  I actually received a phone call from Steve at Apple (no not *the* Steve) to tell me if we removed it quickly and resubmitted it would be in the store in less than 2 days.  Which it was.   But because we rushed the fix, we didn’t test it well.  Because we didn’t test it well, we submitted the app with a bug in it.

The lesson is this isn’t web software… when you ship its done and it’s out of your hands.  Apple gets one binary in their process.  If it’s good enough, they send it to the store.  This is just like building desktop software to ship to Best Buy… it’s got to be right before you burn 2 million cd’s.  So testing becomes even more important to make sure that what you sent (everything) is what you intended on.

Video Demo

In typical Ninth Division fashion, I did a low quality, low budget, poorly acted indie video demo of the app.  Check it out ….

Tags: Apps, apps, touch-cam