Wow! All I can say is “WOW!” The reaction to Leaflets since we launched on Monday has exceeded anything we could have ever imagined.
A big thank you goes out to everyone that tried out Leaflets and gave us a review. Without you we could not have got the word out. Your kind words mean a lot to us.
A HUGE thank you to everyone that wrote us with their praise, ideas and feedback on how to make Leaflets even better. It has taken us a while, but we’ve read every single email we’ve received.
And an ENORMOUS THANK YOU goes out to the thousands of users that are using Leaflets every day. We are humbled that you’ve chosen to add our little product into your life.
When we had the idea to make little mobile applications for the iPhone (and future “Mobile 2.0” devices) a little over a month ago we had no clue that something like this could be so big. Over the course of this week we have been reading through blog posts, notes and feedback and writing back to as many as we can.
At Blue Flavor we are big believers in transparency. We plan to post information about how we made Leaflets and answer everyones questions here on the Leaflets Blog. We also will post some of our thoughts and ideas for the future allowing you to give us direct feedback on the product we build… as we are building it.
The first question I’ll try to answer is why we decided to make Leaflets in the first place?
The initial idea for Leaflets occurred about an hour an 20 minutes into Steve Jobs keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the first I’ve ever attended. Almost immediately after he announced that Safari would be the developer platform for the iPhone, I thought back to last November’s Mobile 2.0 conference where many of the speakers and I discussed some of the obstacles facing the next evolution of Mobile. When I saw Safari in action on the iPhone I knew that it solved many of the problems we discussed, the first device I would consider “Mobile 2.0.” I knew we had to be a part of this incredible new platform and it was the beginning of something… exactly what I don’t know.
I immediately talked to my partners Keith and Nick back in Seattle and we quickly brainstormed what would, a month later, become Leaflets, a merger of web standards techniques and mobile design principles. We quickly included the rest of Blue Flavor and started working through converting popular online tasks and Web 2.0 sites to the mobile medium. Garrett started working on a back end and in a few weeks we had a rough beta.
The entire project, with a few exceptions, was done on our own time, meaning my family hasn’t seen much of me for the past four weeks. We had a couple of hiccups as our initial designs had to be scrapped after we actually got our hands on an iPhone. Many of the navigation metaphors weren’t consistent with the iPhone interface. And while we wanted create an unique experience from the iPhone we also wanted it to feel right at home.
But this background doesn’t really answer why we decided to make Leaflets?
There are many answers depending on who you talk to at Blue Flavor (or at what point in the development cycle we were). One might say we wanted to showcase what is possible on a mobile device. Another might say we wanted highlight the use of web and mobile standards. Another would be that we wanted to demonstrate the importance of the mobile context and the differences between the desktop web and the mobile web. Or maybe we just wanted to have some fun.
Sure, I agree with all of these, but for me it was something else. Recently in various speaking gigs I’ve been stating that “Mobile will revolutionize the way we gather and interact with information in the next three years.” I believe that the iPhone is the catalyst that will begin the next evolution in the Information Age.
It won’t be done by Apple or the iPhone, but by people. They will realize the benefit of immediate access to information relevant to their task or location. Their perception and expectation of what mobile technology can do will change. Which will mean how we interact with information will change as well. The iPhone is the first device to spark this type of imagination with people. The bar has been set and everything that comes after will only make the mobile medium better.
To me being a part of this revolution, even in just our own small way, is the most important reason why.
Originally posted on the Leaflets site on July 19, 2007
Good article, thanks
It’s nice to see that there are still people who are doing something for free… Thanks for article, I ve enjoyed reading.
Very nice article. Thanks