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Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer's Guide

Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer’s Guide

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So… you have an idea for a mobile app and you are about to start on your mobile app development journey.

You may be a startup looking to make the next Grab or Carousell, or you may be looking to enhance your business through a mobile app. Either way, making a Mobile App is certainly something that you should at least be considering, in view of the increasing mobile usage in Singapore and around the world. At RobustTechHouse, we have worked with many individuals and companies in similar situations. We often put ourselves in their shoes to think how best to confront the myriad questions that the entrepreneur or business may be facing. In fact, we have gone down the exact same path with our product: Savvee. In this Singapore Mobile App Buyers’ Guide, we answer step-by-step, honestly (we try to be unbiased) and comprehensively (as far as we can ! Please ask us other questions that we may not have answered) (warning: 4000 words ahead !) the key questions that you may be facing based on what we have learnt.

1) Native Mobile App or Mobile Optimized Web Site?

This is one of the first questions you want to ask yourself. There is a great infographic guide here. In our experience, the deciding factor is typically whether you need to use phone functions such as the camera, GPS, the microphone etc. If you do, a mobile app is the way to go. Also, in our experience, from a User Interface and User Experience (UI / UX) perspective, mobile optimized web sites tend to fall short of native mobile apps (i.e. people hate pinching), particularly if you are trying to extend an old website rather than build a completely new one.

2) iOS or Android or both or something more?

In Singapore, Android phones command about 51% market share and iPhones (which use the iOS operating system) command about 42% (source: Netmarketshare). So the common advice is to go for both iOS and Android (and forget others such as Windows and Blackberry) when developing your mobile app. The exception is if you are have a special use case and not intending to get the masses to download your app. For example, if you are going to provide your own devices to users or if you are targeting a very specific niche group of users (e.g. lower income users who may prefer Android phones).

Of course, this does not mean you need to develop on both platforms at the same time. It makes perfect sense to develop a minimum viable product on one platform, iterate on that with feedback from users and then develop for the second platform. The general rule is that less iterations = less cost, so perfecting what you need on one platform and then extending to the other is likely to save you some dough.

3) Native or Hybrid?

This is a topic subject to much debate but we are going to stick our neck out and simply recommend Native (at least for a large majority of cases, exceptions will apply of course). The developers of hybrid mobile app tools (and there are quite a few) will tout its advantages, the key ones being lower cost and faster time to market since you can develop on 2 platforms (iOS and Android) at once. And there are articles such as this which compare various factors you may consider in making this decision.

The reason we recommend Native is based on simple economics (and perhaps also some self-interest but let us explain). Given the number of hybrid tools available (and new ones keep popping up), only very specialized development houses will spend time and resources developing expertise in them. Development houses basically need to take a bet on which hybrid tool will be in demand. The support communities for each of these tools are vastly smaller than the iOS and Android development community so customization and future proofing is hard (we know iOS and Android operating systems will endure but cannot be sure about these hybrid systems). The result for the buyer is less choice (read: less supply of development houses = higher costs for you). From what we have seen, apps developed using hybrid tools also tend to be inferior from a UI / UX perspective because of the customization difficulty.

4) Wireframing

Once you have decided the platform and tools to develop your mobile app, it’s time to “spec it out”. In general, it is best to take time and effort to think through in detail what you want the app to do and the first step is Wireframing.

Wireframing is simply sketching out each mobile app screen as you imagine it to be. It can be a simple hand-drawn sketch (these actually work quite well if you don’t intend to do much iteration). If you want to collaborate with team members and iterate, there are several prototyping tools (most are freemium) that you can use including moqups, balsamiq, fluidui and invision. These tools allow you to create buttons and move through the app as you would when the actual app is ready, so they are great for visualizing the eventual app.

Wireframing also helps you think through details such as

How will the user log in (if log in is required) – through facebook, google or by contributing a new email and password?

Where would the mobile app get necessary data – will it be provided by the user or by the administrator through the backend, or linked from some data source?

What phone functions does the app need – will it use the camera or GPS or microphone?

What integrations does the app need – will it integrate with google maps, customer relationship management systems, data presentation software or in-house systems?

5) Designing, Graphics and UI / UX

Once you are happy with the wireframe, it is time to put the flesh on the bones. Typically, you will need a designer to perform this role. Most development houses in Singapore will be able to do this for you. Of course, you can choose to hire a freelance designer or even an in-house designer. Freelance designers are available from sites such as upwork and freelancer. Behance is also a nice site where you can go through the designers’ portfolio before making your choice. At 99designs, you get to run a contest and get many designs from which you can pick your favorite.

It is useful when briefing the designer to provide some examples of existing app designs that you like. Great app designers will help you by suggesting icons and app design conventions that you may not be too familiar with. Some will even tell you what is missing in your wireframe or suggest UI / UX tips. The latter are advantages of working with the development house to complete the design as they would be able to consider the mobile app from an overall perspective rather than just the design in isolation.

The design process is iterative and may take some time. Therefore, it is tempting to want to start actual coding in parallel with designing. This is not impossible, but you would want at least 80% – 90% of your design finalized before beginning coding. Iterations cost money so as far as possible, you would want to reduce coding iterations.

6) Technical Specification Analysis

Here is where a good development house really starts to earn its keep. While technical specification is the role of the development house (with the buyer commenting and approving), it pays also to take effort to understand the technical specifications prior to the start of coding. The reason, again, is to minimize coding iteration later on. A great development house will try its best to “fill in the blanks” for you while still sticking to your overall vision.

A key component of technical specifications is the entity relationship diagram (ERD). In essence the ERD will detail the database structure; that is, what data will be stored and how it will be organized (in database tables). Going through the ERD is a good way to identify missing pieces of a puzzle (e.g. “hang on, I need to capture the age of the user”). It typically also helps the team to go into the functionality of the mobile app in such depth that it gives rise to new questions and corner cases that your team may not have previously answered (e.g. “so how far away should the user be before I send him the notification?; should this be hardcoded or should I be able to change this parameter at the backend?”).

7) Technology Risks

At the time of technical specifications (or in fact earlier if possible), you would also need to figure out any Technology Risks of the mobile app. Technology Risks arise when your mobile app needs to utilize a technology that is not commonly deployed (e.g. machine vision, indoor positioning, natural language processing). At this point, the development house may need to embark on some research, either assessing whether it can build the technology from scratch or, more often, looking for a suitable software development kit (SDK) or application programming interface (API) that can do the job. Some SDKs and APIs are free, many are not.

8) Hire in-house or use an outsourced developer

We switch gears from the specification process to another key decision set that the mobile app buyer needs to make: Who will build the app? First question: should you hire in-house or outsource? Here are some points to consider.

How well-resourced are you? Hiring in-house is a longer term commitment and in the Singapore context, a much more expensive option. If you are startup which has already raised rounds of funding (Congrats by the way!), then this could be a good option for you. The advantage of hiring in-house is that you will be in control of the process. You can easily cope with future iterations of your product. Your developer could be directly incentivized to create the best product for you. If you are not a well-resourced startup and would like to start with a minimum viable product, then outsourcing usually makes sense.

Are you trying to build a mobile app development capability in-house? If you are an established business and your business is not mobile app development, you are likely not going to need full time development staff and they may became underutilized after the initial mobile app development and the mobile app enters maintenance mode.

Development Risk. The idea of development risk (i.e. spending money on mobile app development only to realize after development that the product is not what you wanted) is going to come up repeatedly. Many believe hiring in-house will reduce development risk because your staff will have the same goals as you. This is not necessarily the case. To hire well, you do need to have a good technical recruitment process to find good development talent. On the other hand, development houses naturally mitigate this risk as they are likely to have refined their technical recruitment process (they know how to ask the right questions) and in time, should have weeded out underperformers (it is in their interest to do so). By having a decent number of development staff, the development house will also be able to mitigate against staff departures and handle advanced technical problems (there usually are senior developers around to help). But that gives rise to the next question: how to choose a reliable development house?

9) Choosing a Mobile App Development Company – Singapore or Overseas?

There are many mobile app development companies available to choose from (just google “Mobile App Development” or search on upwork or freelancer. There are also specialized mobile app development marketplaces such as AppIndex, ContractIQ and Clutch). To narrow down your choice, it is useful to decide whether you will insist on a “Singapore-based” developer or are comfortable with an overseas development company.

If you are comfortable with an overseas development company, you have a lot of choices from companies based in Eastern Europe to India and Vietnam. And given the choice, it is likely that you can get a lower quote than restricting yourself to “Singapore-based” developers. The trade-off for a lower cost is Development Risk. Some sites provide reviews and testimonials which help lower development risk. You can also research on previous work completed by the company and that may provide reassurance.

“Singapore-based” developers would in general have lower Development Risk. To be precise, the development company which you will sign the contract with should be registered in Singapore and be willing to sign a contract with jurisdiction in Singapore and under Singapore law. Legally, therefore, you will have a stronger contractual case against the developer should there be gross underperformance, not to mention reputational risk for the developer in the local context. There are other ways to lower your Development Risks such as tranched payment which we will discuss later.

Now to explain why I have written “Singapore-based” in inverted commas. Most “Singapore-based” development houses may have the actual developers based overseas (such as India or Vietnam). This makes the most economic sense. With a proper recruitment and staff management processes, these development houses should be able to attract and retain foreign developers with technical skills which are on par or even better than developers based in Singapore at a fraction of the cost. The beauty of coding is that it is a skill that can be learnt wherever you are in the world. Lower costs incurred by the development houses should eventually translate to a lower cost for the buyer.

Some buyers will still insist on developers based in Singapore. Clearly, this would mean a higher quote. But the more crucial question is whether this insistence will result in lower Development Risk. In our experience, we would say no. With the communication tools available today, you and the development house should be able to maintain good communication with the overseas developers. Technical capability and work ethic should not, in general, be inferior. Furthermore, if the development house has marketing, sales and project management capabilities in Singapore and is willing to be subject to Singapore contract law (so that you have easy and low cost recourse), that should further mitigate your Development Risk.

10) Choosing a Mobile App Development Company in Singapore – Factors to consider

So you have decided to go with a “Singapore-based” company. Now what factors should you consider in your choice, what questions should you ask?

Cost: Clearly a consideration but not the be-all-and-end-all. It is equally, if not more important to pay attention to non-cost factors as discussed below. (Check out our article on cost here)

Specialization: Certain development houses have particular specializations even within mobile app development. For example, some focus on game creation. RobustTechHouse specializes in mobile commerce and financial technology. We readily admit that we are not very good at game creation, because it takes specialized game design and technical skills to create great games. If the development house has a blog, it may be good to check it out to understand where their interests lie. Also take note of the tone of the blog – is it self-promotional or are they genuinely interested in the subject matter?

Portfolio, Reviews and Testimonials: Do look out for the past experience of the development house. They are a decent gauge for what you can expect to receive. Some development houses will go above and beyond “just development” and throw in (for free) quite a bit of consultation. You may be able to tell from the testimonials.

Partnership model: Some development houses have standard quotation structures that they are reluctant to deviate from (e.g. only time and material quotes). Others may be more flexible and be willing to provide a fee cap. Certain development houses (such as RobustTechHouse) are willing to take equity as part payment, which could be a nice model for startups.

Contract Terms: Look out for such terms as the payment terms (typically 15 days after invoicing, invoicing is likely done monthly as the project is being developed, third party costs (typically pass through, the buyer would pay directly for third party costs) and ownership of data and intellectual property (you would typically want to own the data and intellectual property and would want this clearly stated in the contract).

Timeline: You may be in a rush and would like to launch quickly. Quotes which promise a quick turnaround may look tempting but don’t place too much weight on these. It is often tempting for development houses to promise quick work in order to win the contract, but the truth is that it is very difficult to provide an estimate of the overall development process early on, especially without full specifications.

Alignment: Is the development house interested in the success of your mobile app? This question, although very important, is not easy to consider objectively. There are tell-tale signs though, such as – How responsive is the development house during pre-sales? Do they take time to understand your business? Do they provide value added suggestions and ways for you to reduce cost or optimize your approach? Do they take a robust and long-term view of the technical needs of the project? Is the development house willing to help out in small ways even before signing on the dotted line (help could include simple things like email setup to making useful introductions or links to interesting industry resources)?

Point of Contact: Are you dealing with a decision maker or sales person? As discussed throughout this article, the nature of mobile app development is fluid and particularly in post development, you would like a development house to be able to exercise some flexibility in helping you, rather than sticking to the letter of the contract. You don’t want to hear “sorry, all my developers are deployed elsewhere, your development period is over and your bug fix has got to wait for 2 months”. Dealing with the decision maker directly helps you assess if the development house will exercise flexibility down the line and indeed if he/she would allow such flexibility to be exercised quickly.

Technical Ability: Ask for the CV(s) of the actual developer(s) that will be assigned to your project to have a sense of his / her experience and technical ability.

11) Quotes and service models

As much as we would like that buyers only consider RobustTechHouse, we cannot in good conscience recommend that you only obtain 1 quote. Obtain at least 2 quotes from reputable vendors, more if you have the time, for comparison. This article contains more details on the topic of cost.

In general, there are 4 partnership models available in Singapore.

Time and Material quotes. Here development houses will quote on a per manday basis (in Singapore, this could range from S$250 to S$800 per manday). The development house should concurrently also provide an estimate of the total number of mandays that it would need to complete the project. Be aware that this is only an estimate, not a cap – so the final bill could exceed the estimate. When under a time and material arrangement, it is crucial to keep track of the amount of time (and hence the fee) that the development house has accumulated. The development house should keep you updated and also alert you as you are approaching the original estimated price.

Development houses prefer time and material quotes as it mitigates the Specification Creep risk for them. Under a time and material arrangement, buyers tend to be more circumspect about specification changes because time extensions mean more costs ! In a way, it is also fair to the development house as their costs are largely also time-based.

The estimated time chart should breakdown each resource that is needed which may typically include iOS developers, Android developers, backend developers and a project manager. As an option, you can also have a dedicated tester included in the estimated time chart.

Capped quotes: To make sure you keep within your budget, you may want to request a cap on the quote. Development houses are generally willing to consider this only if you are very clear in your specifications upfront. Significant changes to specifications may result in post-hoc changes in the cap. As to what is considered a significant change, this is generally a negotiated outcome (read: another reason to get an appreciation of the flexibility of the development house upfront).

Fixed price quotes: Very similar to capped quotes, with the only difference that there is no chance that you will be charged less than the fixed price. Therefore, fixed prices should be lower than what would otherwise be the cap. Again, it pays to have the specifications spelt out in detail before obtaining the quote, otherwise development houses may mitigate their Specification Creep risk by providing higher quotes.

Part equity payment: A few development houses will also be a technology partner in the true sense of the phrase. Particularly for startups, mobile app development is an ongoing process (e.g. how many iterations has Grab undergone?). If you want someone on your side investigating latest technologies and suggesting new builds and features on an on-going basis, this is a good model. In this model, the development house will function much like a CTO. They will be interested in not only your mobile app idea but also your overall business plan since they are sharing execution risk with you.

12) Agile development

The trend in software development has decisively moved towards agile development. In simple terms, this means that buyers should expect the developer to provide interim builds. Agile development reduces Development Risk for the buyer because you can tangibly monitor progress. However, buyers need to be prepared to test and provide feedback on unfinished products. For some not used to this process, it may come as a surprise (“hey, how come you are sending me something which doesn’t work? Are you shabby or a bad developer? Aren’t you supposed to test things rigorously before sending it to me?”).

It is usually in the interest of the buyer to ask for agile development and interim tests. We have come across many horror stories where the buyer waits for several months and then receives something not workable. Having lost valuable time, the buyer then turns to other developers to “continue” the development, only to find that the old code is not useable. In general, it is not easy to “continue” code development, particularly if the old code is badly written and documented. In order to provide a robust outcome, many developers will simply prefer to start from scratch rather than fix someone else’s mess.

13) UAT and Handover

The agile development process places less emphasis on the final User Acceptance Test (UAT). Nonetheless, it is good practice for the buyer to go through one final comprehensive test of the mobile app before signing off on it. In going through the UAT, it helps to have a checklist of all test procedures. Test both the front end and backend simultaneously. Corner cases should be tested to identify bugs.

Once done, the mobile app can be officially handed over to the buyer. This may mean deleting test data and the changing of admin passwords for security purposes to prevent developers from accessing production data. However, in practice, you would still want to allow select developers to have access to the new passwords for quick bug fix and maintenance purposes.

14) Launching the Mobile App

Before the app is ready, you likely want to have a plan to launch the mobile app. The development house should make sure they successfully list it on Google Play and the App Store. Listing on Google Play is pretty much instantaneous but listing on the App Store may take a week or so, depending on how quickly Apple reviews the App and whether the app complies with the Apple App Store rules. There are many reasons for possible rejections, which will add to the timeline. An experienced iOS developer will generally be able to avoid most of these issues.

Beyond simply listing on the app stores, you may need to consider marketing activities to attract mobile app downloads. This may involve submitting to Android app review sites and iOS app review sites. You may also consider app marketing activities. App marketing is generally beyond the purview of mobile app development houses but they may be able to help with some recommendations of reputable digital marketing agencies in Singapore.

15) Maintenance and Post Development Considerations

It is prudent to ask the development house about available maintenance plans early on, but you may not want to sign on the dotted line until you are comfortable with the development house.

Post development, you will want the development house to remain very responsive especially if you have questions or encounter bugs, or even worse, crashes. You will want them to fix these issues as quickly as possible or it may mean lost business to you. Providing good service post development is often what distinguishes a great development house from a not-so-good one. Find development houses who would genuinely want your mobile app to be a success.

16) Hosting Considerations

Unless you are large organization with your own servers or where security is an extreme concern, your mobile app is going to be hosted on the cloud. There are many cloud hosting services around, and the 2 key considerations are cost and scalability. Our favorite solutions which provide pay as you use solutions (reasonable costs when you have low number of users, and easily scalable if you achieve strong traction) are amazon web services and digital ocean. These offer great server management tools and we are able to be informed immediately if and when server-side issues arise and fix them.

17) Data Protection Considerations

For companies in Singapore, since the introduction of the Personal Data Protection Act in 2012, the protection of personal data has been an important consideration when developing mobile apps or website which might collect such data.

We just published a separate blog article on this, which draws guidance from recent decisions by the Personal Data Protection Commission. Rather than going through vague legal jargon or non-specific advise by consultants, we feel examining actual decisions are a better way figure out what steps are needed to comply with the PDPA.

Well, we hoped the above helped ! Feel free to chat with us for further questions or leave comments below. We will be adding more details to this article as we go along so check back sometimes. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed our Singapore Mobile App Buyers’ Guide. All the best with your mobile app development !

Brought to you by the RobustTechHouse team.

Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer’s Guide was originally published on RobustTechHouse - Mobile App Development Singapore

#android #App Programming Tag #entity relationship diagram #ios #mobile app design #mobile app development #outsourcing #singapore #UI #User experience #User Interface #UX #wireframing #mobile #app #development

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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THE FUTURE OF VC BE A BAD ECONOMY

Among them were Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, who went on to found Intel, and Eugene Kleiner, who founded the VC firm Kleiner Perkins. For example, journalism is in free fall at the moment. For one, they're more likely to know they're being mean than stupid people are to know they're being mean than stupid people are to know they're being stupid. You can also be at the leading edge of a field that's changing fast, when you have ideas, you'll be introduced to a whole bunch simultaneously. VCs are clueless? To see how, envision two things: a the inhabitants of that domain are not as likely as software people to have ideas with: the other students, who will be not only smart but elastic-minded to a fault. The situation is different in phase 1. Making things cheaper is actually a subset of a more general technique: making things easier to use. Building in Silicon Valley, what you'll see are buildings. The stated purpose of schools is to educate the kids.

0 turned out to be Microsoft's last victim? We had 2 T1s 3 Mb/sec coming into our offices. That would have focused us on finding revenue streams early. There is a positive side to thinking longer-term. It's not that people think of grand ideas. I don't think there was any deliberate plan to suggest there was a fast path out of an apartment. Tactful is the opposite of clumsy. What people wished they'd paid more attention to when choosing cofounders was character and commitment, not ability. You could just go out and hire 8 people as soon as he got a new textbook he'd immediately work out all the problems—to the slight annoyance of his teacher, since the most successful companies we've funded so far, so tentatively assume the path to huge passes through an A round, and we'll be accepting termsheets next tuesday. Most people have characteristic ways of doodling.

You don't see Google or Facebook suing startups for patent infringement. After a few days the fame wears off, and you get what you deserve. There's still a lot of languages are pervaded by this spirit. At least, it did when people wrote about it online. Who are you to write about x? Our rule of thumb is not to be vulnerable to tricks is to explicitly seek out and catalog them. She also hates fighting. The person who needs something may not know exactly what they need. The time was then ripe for the question: if the beachhead consists of people doing something lots more people will be employees rather than founders. I see someone laugh as they read a draft of an essay to friends, there are more bad programmers than good programmers. The argument for designing languages for bad programmers. There was something else I wanted more: to be familiar with promising new technologies, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles.

Above all, make a habit of asking questions, especially questions beginning with Why. Do they need another meeting with you? The key question, I realized, is how does the comber-over not see how odd he looks? Together you talk about art that I want to know how to solve it. Few know this, but that they don't get it till it happens. The job of programmers was just to take the C model and the Lisp model. So the ability to draw as some kind of conservation law, but there it is: the best way to get a free option on investing. But galleries didn't want to be popular. The idea that you could make a great city anywhere, if you want to write essays at all. Why are founders surprised that VCs are clueless? A fine idea, but you have less control over the stimuli that spark ideas when they hit it. The ups and downs were more extreme than they were prepared for.

He grew up in the country. Everyone buys this story that PG started YC and his wife just kind of helped. So when you get to the end of the liquid because you start to get cold feet. Most of us hate to acknowledge this. Around 1100, Europe at last began to catch its breath after centuries of chaos, and once they had the luxury of curiosity they rediscovered what we call the classics. The press may be writing about them as if they'd been about to. Traditionally phase 2 fundraising is to get bought or go public, and the number of startups are created to do product development on spec for some big company, and by trying to think of ideas. But boy did things seem different. Someone is going to have to come from the nerds themselves.

I want to know: which parts bore them, and those are extra valuable early on. Here's the pledge: No first use of software patents against companies with less than 25 people. Till recently I thought it might be: don't be a cog. When I look at the history of programming languages is to prevent our poor frail human brains from being overwhelmed by a mass of detail. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. I was in college I used to be in your next equity round. Finding startup ideas is a subtle business, and that's why so many startups grow out of them, it would be misleading even to call them centers. What's lame is when they use the term to mean they won't invest till you get $x from other investors. A surprising number of founders said what surprised them most was the general spirit of benevolence: One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to. Knowing where you stand.

Can that be done? I mentioned earlier that investors prefer to wait if they can. When there is some real external test of skill, determination, and luck. But restrain yourself. The right environment for having startup ideas need not be a university per se. A lot of the worst ones were designed for other people have the attitude of a governess: they try to prevent others from having time to decide by giving you an exploding offer, meaning one that's only valid for a few seconds I realized this when I read an interview with Joe Kraus, the co-founder of Excite. So is being determined as all hell. If you're at the leading edge of a field doesn't mean you have to redefine the problem. More often it was just an arbitrary series of hoops to jump through, words without content designed mainly for testability. So why do investors ask how much you could do with web-based applications. A couple weeks ago I tried displaying the names of users with the highest average comment scores in orange. What happened?

The x in Ajax is from the XMLHttpRequest object, which lets the browser communicate with the server was to ask what you wish someone else would build, so that a month was a huge interval. When I want to invest—usually because they've heard you're a hot deal. And investors, too, that school is not life. Though of course forbidding bad behavior does tend to keep away bad people, because they feel uncomfortably constrained in a place where investors want to know what the status quo for granted and start to question things. You could serve them targeted offers, and maybe charge for premium features. In fact, we've never even invited them to the right kind of person. 0 now, I have some idea what they mean. Many languages especially the ones designed for other people have the attitude of a governess: they try to prevent you from doing things that they think aren't good for you. 0 means using the web as a platform? An article about Sophia Antipolis bragged that companies there included Cisco, Compaq, IBM, NCR, and Nortel.

Thanks to Ken Anderson, Robert Morris, Jared Tame, Jessica Livingston, and Kenneth King for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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dream-in-charming · 5 years ago

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Just saw Newsies live and I have some feelings <3 <3

It just closed it’s last show here in Gilbert, AZ and I am dying to talk about it. I’ll add a page cut though since there will be many thoughts and I don’t want to annoy anyone with just a chunk of text who doesn’t want to see it. if it doesn't work on mobile, I'm sorry. I dont know how to fix it...

OMIGOD the show was incredible!

I’ll be posting pictures from the show, and of the theatre in another post, so you can see what I’m talking about (sort of, I only got a few, I wasn’t going to disturb the show).

Warning. This is going to be VERY VERY long. :)

For those of you not from AZ and whom have never been to this particular theatre, this theatre does shows in the round. Meaning the audience is on all sides of the performance. It’s a challenge but they pulled it off brilliantly!

So lets begin with the quick things.

The program is corny and I love it. It’s designed to look like a newspaper (the New York Sun) and the captions on it are funny. “Weather forecast: Cloudy, Clear By Evening”; “Miss Medda Larkin Dazzles.” and so on. The set was super basic, considering that it either had to be on the sides of the theatre, or easily moved on and off since there wasn’t really any place to keep it on. Honestly, the whole stage floor is maybe… 20ish sq ft? Maybe a bit more, I can’t find the actual dimensions. Heck the whole place only seats 350. But that aside, it worked WELL. Nothing blocked sight-lines, and anyone could see what was going on from any angle, they didn’t just play to one direction.

The who cast was INCREDIBLE! Every last one of them.

So let me talk about them now :)

The guy who played Jack was great. Insanely tall which worked well and made it easier to find him when he was the important speaker in the crowded scenes. Plus his facial expressions were the best. I loved them in “Something to Believe In”. Lily just adored him and any time he wasn’t on stage she was asking where he went, pretended to talk to him (in a super quiet whisper) when he was on stage, pointed him out in scenes, and just loved him. She wanted a picture with him after the show and he was sweet enough to oblige.

The guy who played Davey played him meek and it WORKED. Plus it helped to show his progress from the new news boy who just wanted to help his family, to the strong supporter of the Strike and voice of reason. And his voice was so melodic.

Medda. OH MEDDA. A STUNNING WOC and an amazing singer. Her song just made me smile the whole time. Please keep being amazing because damn. AH. Plus, she let me poke and prod at her costume after the show because I was curious about the material and the way it was made. Made to look like brocade, but wasn’t so as to save the actress from dying of heatstroke.

Wisel, Snyder, and the Delancey Brothers. I hate you. It’s a good thing

Les had the most adorable fluffy fringe sticking out of his bowler hat. I wanted to ruffle it. He was very talented and a great fit with Davey.

Katherine was beautiful. Though her timing for certain lines were off, and thus some of her funniest and strongest bits were lost, she still made up for it with a powerful presence and lordy what a smile. Also, the hair. Teach me!

Crutchie was tiny and adorable and everything I ever wanted for that role. Perfect. Plus, participated in quite a few dances. Done in a way where it doesn’t ignore his bum leg either like I’ve seen some shows do. They figured out a way to include him and make a point to continue to show, “he ain’t been walkin too good”. Also, Santa Fe - Prologue, “watch me run” broke me.

Pulitzer. A great demanding presence. And when he belted his final note in “Bottom Line” I got good bumps and turned to jelly. I love a voice like that. Ugh. Though his hat in the final scene…. bro, you is a rich man, you can do so much better. hahaha.

The guy who played Specs was a very good looking person, and when he took off his hat and exposed the mass of exceedingly curly locks, my heart stopped. Also very talented dancer!

All of them were SO talented (there were others I didn’t name here, the case was 23 people, I’d be here all day) The dancing was fantastic and the acting was amazing, the singing just floored me. I am so happy to have gone to see the show.

Now to talk about the scenes (skipping the filler scenes because again, time)

Santa Fe 1.0 - Crutchie. You broke me. 3 I loved it and it was a great start of the show. Just pulled me in right away. Lily too. From that moment on, she was smitten with Jack.

Carrying the Banner - So good! They had to work things around to make them fit into the smaller space, but it still was amazing. Seeing people practically above me performing was great.

Bottom Line - That final note. AMAZING. I got goosies! And Nunzio’s hair made me giggle.

That’s Rich - Medda you are one great performer. Performing for not just the audience, but the fake one for your ‘show within the show’. And teasing the one guy for “it may be rough but soon enough I’ll learn to make do” was the best. You go girl. You don’t need him!

I never planned on you - Whoever did the art for this show to display on the screens was terrific. However, the slow progression shots to show it was being ‘drawn’ weren’t completely timed right and I could see the jumps. Granted that’s both the software person and artist in me that picked up on it.

World Will Know - I WAS WITH YOU. Like, if someone really started a strike or rally or anything with those lines and the power built into that song, I would follow them 100%. Les’s lines were lost in the overlapping dialogue during the part where they were thrown out, but that didn’t take away from the whole scene.

Watch What Happens - Her voice was great, she his the notes brilliantly, but this is where the timing bit that I mentioned above was the biggest. She seemed to have just rushed through the song. Still, a good song, she’s a wonderful singer. I would love to hear her do more. Also, the type writer broke. Made me grin.

Seize the Day - Here arrive the Girlsies too! Also, the dancing was at it’s PEAK here. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Plus this is the scene where Specs spent the most time in front of my seat. Totally okay with that. Got hit in the face with a paper by Mush. Kept it. Lily folded it up and put it in her purse. It is themed for that time period. Perfect touch.

Santa Fe - Felt a tad rushed, but not in a way that distracted or pulled anyone out of the show. Plus hearing Jack belt and Lily light up at him then whisper “It’s okay Jack, You’ll go to Santa Fe” was the sweetest thing ever. If she could have, she would have taken him there herself.

King of New York - When they danced on the tabletops I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. the tables were on WHEELS. And one of the tables I could tell only had one of the two locks, locked. YOU GONNA DIE! Also, spoons.

Crutchie’s Letter - a clever way to do it without a ton of boys. Crutchie is so smol. I love him.

WWH Reprise - “POOR GUYS HEAD IS SPINNING” Davey, you did not disappoint. Also, the way they did the painting was excellent. On the floor instead of a stand, so everyone could see it. Monopoly money? Ish?

Brooklyn’s Here - someone please turn their mics on. Please? They sounded so muffled and far away. Still good though. Watching Davey stick his tongue out at Bronx was a great growth. Also, them Brooklyn boys IS big. I’m sure Spot could take both the Delancey brothers on his own. Wow.

Something to Believe in - their expressions just MADE this song. Their smiles glowed. Also, after the kiss, Jack leaped forward to have another kiss but Katherine turned away making him nearly fall flat on his face… that the best version of that I have ever seen.

Once and For All - again, mics? What the heck? This is such a strong song that just builds to a HUGE ending. But seemed so quiet? The gal who played Mush whispered the words too, which I thought was odd. She danced past a number of times and I noticed she was whispering the words instead of actually singing. Not sure why this was done. Still, a good song, and the fact that they timed the printing press to turn on and start spinning right as the beat kick at the start of the song hit, was a brilliant visual. Made my heart speed up. If it weren’t for the odd quietness of the song, I would have been SO hyped!

Finale - was a good ending. Roosevelt was great, though his hat didn’t match his suit which made my artist side hiss. He did fit that role well though. If he gave speeches like Teddy did in real life, I’d totally listen to them all. Cruchie’s return was sweet. Jack’s HUGE hug when he came down to him was the epitome of friendship. And Race practically tackled him. They’s a great group of buddies. The taunting with the Money from Jack on whether he should get more papes was funny and showed off something that people tend to forget. They are just KIDS. Loved that choice.

Also, instead of “Newsies of New York!” they shouted “News of the Hale!” and I am living for that. My smile was huge. Thanks for adding that part, because it felt so much more personal and not just another show. Also, Roosevelt dancing with everyone at the end and his “AHHHHH GO!” face was hilarious! I was dying.

All in all, a fantastic show and I am so happy I got the chance to see it. I don’t think I’ve ever sat up, sat forward, and at so much attention for such a long time, in forever. I told them as I walked out to the cast (who stands out to say good bye after every show, they do that no matter what show they have) that they all did incredible because they did. I could tell it was rough on some of them, with red rimmed misty eyes, closing nights are always rough and so final. But they gave it their all and it was brilliant. I hope to see many of them in future shows.

Lily was begging to take a pic with Jack before we left, so we did, and it was adorable. She got embarrassed and shy soon as we got near him. I told him and the gal who played Kath that stood next to him what she said and did the whole show and how she just adored him and they thought she was so sweet. They were happy I brought her and I am introducing her to theatre. Well, I’m her mother, of course! Still, thanks for taking time to talk to her. I know she’ll love you forever.

Did I talk to Specs? No. I got way too flustered, just did a quick “incredible job” to the group of them as I passed. I am such a whimp. But then again, he’s likely taken, and/or doesn’t swing my way. Plus, how rude would it have been to just go up and (try) to flirt? Though I am bad at it, it would have been funny. Anyway, he is a person, one whom I don’t know, and I wasn’t going to be rude or creepy.

Anyway! That’s what I thought of the show.

Long text. Done.

#newsies #newsies live #newsiesmusical #arizona #halecentretheatre #gilbert #ah so amazing #closing night #personal #long block of text

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habitue-blog1 · 7 years ago

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bitcoin in coinbase

The series of words is meaningless: a random array strung collectively through an algorithm let loose in an English dictionary. What makes them treasured is they’ve been generated completely for me, through a software program device referred to as MetaMask. in the lingo of cryptography, they’re called my seed phrase. they could study like an incoherent movement of focus, but these phrases may be transformed right into a key that unlocks a digital financial institution account, or maybe a web identification. It simply takes some more steps.

at the display, I’m instructed to hold my seed word secure: Write it down, or hold it in a secure vicinity for your pc. I scribble the 12 phrases onto a notepad, click on a button and my seed phrase is transformed right into a string of 64 apparently patternless characters:

1b0be2162cedb2744d016943bb14e71de6af95a63af3790d6b41b1e719dc5c66

that is what’s called a “personal key” inside the world of cryptography: a manner of proving identity, within the identical, limited way that real-international keys attest for your identity when you free up your the front door. My seed phrase will generate that precise sequence of characters on every occasion, however there’s no acknowledged way to opposite-engineer the unique phrase from the important thing, which is why it is so essential to maintain the seed word in a safe vicinity.

That non-public key number is then run thru two extra transformations, developing a brand new string:

0x6c2ecd6388c550e8d99ada34a1cd55bedd052ad9

That string is my cope with on the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum belongs to the same circle of relatives as the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, whose price has increased more than 1,000 percentage in just the past 12 months. Ethereum has its very own currencies, maximum appreciably Ether, however the platform has a much broader scope than just money. you could think of my Ethereum deal with as having factors of a bank account, an e-mail address and a Social protection variety. For now, it exists handiest on my computer as an inert string of nonsense, but the second I try to perform any kind of transaction — say, contributing to a crowdfunding campaign or vote casting in an online referendum — that deal with is broadcast out to an improvised global community of computer systems that attempts to confirm the transaction. The results of that verification are then broadcast to the wider community once more, wherein greater machines enter right into a form of opposition to carry out complex mathematical calculations, the winner of which gets to report that transaction within the single, canonical file of each transaction ever made in the records of Ethereum. because those transactions are registered in a series of “blocks” of records, that record is called the blockchain.

The complete change takes no more than a couple of minutes to complete. From my perspective, the revel in slightly differs from the same old exercises of on line life. but on a technical degree, some thing astounding is taking place — something that would had been inconceivable only a decade ago. I’ve controlled to complete a cozy transaction with none of the conventional establishments that we rely on to set up believe. No intermediary brokered the deal; no social-media network captured the data from my transaction to higher goal its marketing; no credit score bureau tracked the activity to construct a portrait of my economic trustworthiness.

keep studying the main tale current remarks Adam Dadeby January 28, 2018 that is a totally exciting, big-photograph article. plenty to bite on...thank you.

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Stephen Archer January 27, 2018 Conspiracy concept: internet neutrality is a hazard to first stage protocols and so, at the behest of large money from second stage, net neutrality...

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maintain analyzing the principle story

And the platform that makes all this possible? no one owns it. There aren't any project traders backing Ethereum Inc., due to the fact there's no Ethereum Inc. As an organizational shape, Ethereum is a ways closer to a democracy than a non-public organisation. No imperial chief executive calls the pictures. You earn the privilege of helping to influence Ethereum’s ship of nation by using becoming a member of the community and doing the work. Like Bitcoin and most different blockchain systems, Ethereum is extra a swarm than a formal entity. Its borders are porous; its hierarchy is intentionally flattened.

Oh, another issue: some individuals of that swarm have already accumulated a paper internet worth inside the billions from their labors, as the value of 1 “coin” of Ether rose from $eight on Jan. 1, 2017, to $843 precisely three hundred and sixty five days later.

you may be willing to disregard those adjustments. in any case, Bitcoin and Ether’s runaway valuation looks as if a case study in irrational exuberance. And why ought to you care approximately an arcane technical leap forward that proper now doesn’t sense all that distinctive from signing in to a internet site to make a credit score card price?

‘The Bitcoin bubble can also ultimately emerge as a distraction from the proper importance of the blockchain.’

but that dismissal could be shortsighted. If there’s one element we’ve learned from the current history of the internet, it’s that apparently esoteric choices about software program architecture can unleash profound international forces as soon as the technology moves into wider stream. If the email requirements adopted within the 1970s had included public-non-public key cryptography as a default putting, we would have prevented the cataclysmic e mail hacks that have anybody from Sony to John Podesta, and thousands and thousands of regular customers might be spared routinized identity theft. If Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the arena wide internet, had protected a protocol for mapping our social identification in his authentic specs, we might not have facebook.

The authentic believers at the back of blockchain structures like Ethereum argue that a network of dispensed accept as true with is one of those advances in software structure on the way to prove, ultimately, to have historic significance. That promise has helped gasoline the big bounce in cryptocurrency valuations. but in a way, the Bitcoin bubble may additionally in the long run emerge as a distraction from the authentic significance of the blockchain. The real promise of those new technologies, lots of their evangelists believe, lies no longer in displacing our currencies but in changing a whole lot of what we now think about as the internet, whilst on the same time returning the web global to a greater decentralized and egalitarian device. if you believe the evangelists, the blockchain is the destiny. however it is also a way of getting returned to the internet’s roots.

once the foundation for utopian desires of infinite libraries and global connectivity, the net has reputedly end up, over the last year, a accepted scapegoat: the cause of just about each social unwell that confronts us. Russian trolls smash the democratic device with fake information on fb; hate speech prospers on Twitter and Reddit; the good sized fortunes of the geek elite worsen income equality. For lots of us who participated in the early days of the net, the previous few years have felt almost postlapsarian. The internet had promised a new sort of egalitarian media, populated by small magazines, bloggers and self-organizing encyclopedias; the facts titans that ruled mass tradition inside the 20th century might supply way to a more decentralized machine, defined via collaborative networks, not hierarchies and broadcast channels. the wider lifestyle would come to reflect the peer-to-peer structure of the net itself. The web in the ones days changed into infrequently a utopia — there had been monetary bubbles and spammers and a thousand other troubles — but below those flaws, we assumed, there has been an underlying tale of progress.

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davidegbert · 7 years ago

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Moto Z2 Force hands-on: a light and agile specialist smartphone

For a time after Google’s sale, there was a sense of “normal” within Lenovo’s Motorola. Okay, maybe that analogy ended up the wrong way for many in Chicago.

That sense also trickled down to its smartphones, too. Some plain ‘ol plain ‘ol. A middle road between a valley and a mountain. When you think back to the 2015 Moto X releases, the second set under Lenovo’s reign, you had Style or Pure Edition, you had Force and you also had Play.

The same for the Moto Z — Force, Play and salt and pepper. It was able to get back on the map in a limited sense, thanks to a lot of positive consumer sentiment on Moto Mods — they were the primary motivator for anywhere between 80 percent and 95 percent customers in a brand perception survey. But the bulk of buyers were Verizon customers. They are a strong pool, but thanks to an exclusivity clause, the phone couldn’t pick up much of a draft in the US unlocked market. The Moto Z2 Play may be relegated to a similar fate.

In 2017, Motorola is effectively counting on one phone (and several modular accessories) to help it regain its prestige in the US market. That phone is the Moto Z2 Force.

Okay, so we should probably begin with a literal hands-on, right? Well, the 7000-series aluminium unibody might lend a sense of premium build quality, but the darn thing is super-light for its mass at 143 grams. This is not an iPhone 7 with a 4.7-inch screen at 138 grams. We’re talking about a 5.5-inch quad HD display. And this thing has a Snapdragon 835 in it, too (all the specs you need are in this post). What we’re saying is that this is one hefty muscle phone in a svelte bar.

Personal note: in my rush to film all the video coverage we need with my colleagues Adam Doud and Adam Z. Lein, I was running around like a maniac with the phone in hand. It felt like a fin through the sea, but part of it was because it was actually thin at 6.1mm. I can’t definitively say I love or hate it, though. It’s just there. Akin to its rather plain looks, it’s like a canvas waiting to be covered.

Even with any Style Cover connected magnetically to the back through those pins at the bottom, those things don’t really add so much weight. That connection is secure enough to keep things attached until you intentionally want to peel off a Mod and perhaps slap on another in just seconds. One thing you can’t accuse the Moto Z2 Force of is being unwieldy. It can be as large as you can bear, though. Check it out with a Moto 360 Camera Mod on. By the way, we’ll get to those Mods in a minute.

If you’re a fan of the headphone jack, the good and bad news is that you have 3.5mm adapter to USB-C for that. That display? It’s of the super-versatile AMOLED variety and we were able to see it get adequately bright, we have initial doubts on lower brightness output. The power and volume control buttons are little nibs that might confuse you just a bit as they’re all the same size. Less confusing is the fingerprint sensor below the display, set in from the rest of the surface. It’s touted to make positive scans within 750 milliseconds — a tad slower than sensors on other recent phones.

We move back up to the display to cover another claim from Moto: the shatter-proof Shatter Shield display. It debuted on Verizon’s DROID Turbo 2 as a five-layer stack of polyurethane that took a little effort to scratch, but could not shatter as it was not brittle glass. The phone itself might get bricked by your clumsiness before the screen tears. And throughout the duration of the event, the trio of Moto Z2 Force devices at the drop demo station toughed out dust bite after dust bite like champs. It’s needed assurance for the ambiguity we feel about the build, not that it’s at all incompetent.

The software department, if you know Moto the way we do, is fairly clean on the design and bloatware front. But the OEM is a sucker for added features and they’ve been a boon to us all this time. Take the chop-chop gesture to turn the flashlight feature on and off or the double-twist to get to the camera, stat. One-button navigation through the fingerprint sensor is back from the original Moto Z: swipe left for “back,”down for multitasking, press for “home” and hold to lock the device. This mode of movement seems best fit for when you’ve laid your phone down on a desk, but we’d quicker use a traditional navigation bar.

The dual 12-megapixel cameras work in tandem to provide color and monochrome data for hybrid images — much like how a modern flagship from Huawei manages its dual sensors with Leica-enhanced software. The usual trick of software-induced bokeh is included and there was also some boasting about low-light macro performance. A cursory play with this camera wouldn’t do it justice, so look out for our Real Camera Review soon.

As if the phone wasn’t eclectic enough, we got to play with two new Moto Mods at the launch event in New York: one basically transforms the phone into a Nintendo Switch-like, the other brings 360-degree video recording to the device.

The broad and expansive Gamepad swaddles the Moto Z2 Force with its flanks of axial joysticks (not the resistive gliding kind of vogue) and shoulder buttons… well, they’re more like pads and we’re not exactly hot on them. The left side features a D-pad and the right side has an ABXY pebble button array. It’s a comfortable pad that’s nice for getting through transit or long periods of boredom and the ergonomics aren’t too bad. There’s also no issues with Bluetooth since all the data needed goes through those pin connectors at the back, so reliability should be way closer to 100 percent here. There’s a supplementary battery within that pad — and the phone needs it, too, with its minimal 2,730mAh cell built-in.

The Moto 360 Camera Mod sticks a couple of cameras on top of the phone and brings 360-degree capture in 4K to users. Four highly directional microphones on the phone add to the experience with 3D Sound recording, too. Complementary software lets users crop in for 2D images and add visual effects to whatever they shoot. It also lets content makers take advantage of 360-degree livestreaming. We noticed that framerate is generally on the lower side with a few drops, but we’ll hold full judgment before a final review and software updates.

Only the camera Mod is available for pre-order at the moment, by the way, and at a steep $299.99, too.

And that might be the thought that kills the chance of a person buying the Moto Z2 Force. Pre-orders are available today from $720.

Yes, multi-year financing is available from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon. Sprint, by the way, has a two-for-one leasing deal going on right now. And yet some will take that price up higher. That same Sprint network? It prices the phone at $792 or $33 per month over two years. Verizon takes it up to $810 or $35 at its monthly EIP rate.

If people perceive that it’s an expensive phone that needs some expensive toys they might use once and never use again, we may not have a deal, here. Obviously, Motorola is interested in getting passengers on the boat and is offering a free InstaProjector Mod, but all those bulky mods still take up space — by sheer necessity, the mods cover the entirety of the phone’s surface with some going even further than that. Translate that to a backpack or purse and they’re competing with clothes, makeup and other electronics, even.

Lenovo has its work cut out for it. We do, too. Pocketnow has full coverage in the coming days and weeks with a full review, comparisons and more. Stay tuned.

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