Daniel Hruska With the growing base of Czech iPhone users, the number of developers and companies involved in creating applications for iOS is also growing. One of them is Brno The Funtasty, from whose workshop come, for example, recently released applications Hotel.cz or reviewed by us Trainboard aka train departure boards for iPhone. We talked with Lukáš Strnadl about what it's like to create applications in the Czech Republic.
Could you briefly tell our readers how The Funtasty came about? What led you to start it?
Many applications look simply ugly, and at the same time, I did not like the approach of some developers to their clients. Even before I started The Funtasty, I went through a lot of face-to-face meetings and realized that not many people know how to be nice. It could be compared to banks, where you don't feel at your best, and I thought that was a shame. As a designer, I wasn't comfortable looking at ugly apps, and because I wanted and want to continue my work, I started The Funtasty. Here we strive to make apps that work and look nice. They are based on details, on a nice user interface. When it comes to our clients, I try to get along with them more like a friend than a style Here's your invoice and goodbye.
What position do you hold at The Funtasty?
I don't want to say the director directly, because that sounds quite ridiculous in a company with five employees. (laughs) But yes, I try to manage the company in some way and mainly I draw everything. I don't let anyone else touch the design of our apps.
Was it difficult to find the necessary people, especially programmers? From my five-year experience at the Faculty of Informatics, I know that not all of its students are in favor of the Apple brand.
Um… it was. Before I started a company or even started doing anything, I spent my evenings doing nothing but browsing LinkedIn and trying to make connections through referrals from colleagues I knew. It took me about a good month to find someone to actually work with. And we're always looking for more iOS and Android developers. I would be very happy if one could be found, because there are very few skilled ones, preferably from Brno... or I look where they are not. (laughter)
What does your company's five-person team look like?
Our company consists of four people and me as the only designer. Then the majority are iOS developers and now also Android developers, actually female developers. It currently deals with projects that we have on Android, and of which we have more and more recently. We will have to try to cover it more.
You are not trying to create applications only for iOS, or rather it is apparently not possible in the Czech Republic...
Exactly. At the beginning, we tried to make applications only for the iPhone, but from a business point of view, it is not very good. Someone could certainly argue the opposite, but the offers that came to us spoke for themselves. As for Trainboard, for example, we definitely do not plan to release it on Android. It's our project, I'm a customer myself, so we could decide to keep it iOS only. Unfortunately, you can't explain to clients why stick strictly to iOS when its share is 30% compared to 70% of Android.
As for Trainboard, whose idea was it?
One of the colleagues came up with it. We've just been playing with the "fold effect" animation, which is actually the animation you can eventually see in Trainboard. We just liked it, and in addition, we had a slightly freer calendar at that time, so we somehow "greased" Trainboard in the evenings. We were all the more pleased that he won in January FWA Mobile of the Day, which, if I'm not mistaken, only about five Czech applications succeeded.
In addition to your own applications, do you also create custom applications?
We don't make many of our own apps anymore. They were good at the beginning, to get a feel for how everything works and to make a name for ourselves a bit. I'm not saying we won't do them again. That's fine when you want to really go crazy and say to yourself: "I just want an application that will be like this." Because it is not always well received by the client. After all, when you do it for yourself, no one tells you how to do it or that it should be different. At the moment we have five, six projects and they are all things for clients.
Do you try to find customers yourself or do they come to you on their own?
Now we have a few clients who come back to us, which is just nice. It works quite well for us Dribbble, where we post a few pictures of what we are currently doing and it makes for quite an interesting amount of work for a certain foreign clientele every month. Plus people come to us on referrals. At this moment, we are not particularly looking for clients. Rather, we focus on those who come after us.
Can you reveal who The Funtasty is working with?
The biggest order was probably with Leo Express, but at the moment it is the Hotel.cz application. Everything was created on the Allegro project, which is called App Pool. We also made an application for Allegro and it offered us further cooperation at Hotel.cz. Of course, it provided us with data, and in three months Hotel.cz was created, which I think is the best. We are currently finalizing the Passbook integration for it, and I reckon that an updated version should be in the App Store within a week or two. Passbooks will be automatically synchronized, which means that if you change your reservation, it will be beautifully reflected in the Passbook itself. I'm really looking forward to that. Many developers do not integrate Passbooky and it is a shame that nothing is being done about it. They would suit many applications. I don't understand at all why Czech Railways or similar companies don't get involved.
I totally agree with you on this. I only buy train tickets online, but they are sent to my email in PDF format. Here Passbook would definitely suit.
We are trying to discuss this with the carriers, but for now it is very distant music of the future. I think that when we come out with Hotel.cz and the clients see how it really works and find out that it's actually not a bad thing at all, maybe the situation will improve. After all, airlines are a shining example of how Passbooks work really well. For example, Ticketon has Passbooks here.
I will not forgive the question, which is quite hot at the moment. How do you like iOS 7?
I didn't want to be influenced by the first impression. Even after three days, I can't think of anything else. iOS 7 is not pretty. The whole system seems very inconsistent, incomplete, complicated. For example, the gradients used on some icons are from bottom to top, while others are the other way around. The colors are… I haven't found a word for it yet. I was quite surprised by the new rounding radius of icons that will touch millions of apps. At the moment, the upcoming system does not work well for me. In my opinion, Apple has taken a step to the wrong side, and I just hope that I will not be as disappointed in the fall as I am today.
Thanks for the interview.
I also thank.
I would like to ask. Do your apps work with VoiceOver? If not much? Would you be inclined to adapt them for VoiceOver as well? E.g. with Trainboard, it reads the trains, but only from which platform they depart without the departure time. It also seems to me that there are one or two unlabeled buttons that VoiceOver is unable to identify.
Hi Karl,
when creating applications, we try to use default elements, which has a lot of advantages. E.g. will maintain compatibility with VoiceOver technology. For the mentioned elements, the graphic form played a big role, which outweighed the functionality, but in the next version we will try to extend compatibility to the remaining elements in the application.
Thank you very much for this answer.