What We Do

Life in the post-iPhone era (the epoch beginning June 29, 2007, when the first generation iPhone was released by Apple) has changed in many ways. A number of common physical objects and manual processes have morphed into bits of software running on smartphones. We refer to this process in general as appification. In many ways, the mobile revolution mirrors the mad rush to the web that we experienced in the mid-1990s. Every respectable organization needed a website, the sooner the better. Legions of the developers scrambled to meet the demand, and the web exploded with innovation. Today, everybody seems to be scrambling to get an app up and running, the sooner the better. The app ecosystems are literally bloated with rather ordinary apps that do little more than regurgitate the content and functionality of a pre-existing desktop website or application. At Appiarium LLC, we have a different approach to appification. First, we see the mobile platform (smart phones and tablets) as a new platform that is many ways different from both conventional phones and desktop computers. Unlike the phones that preceded the iPhone, today’s smartphones are generalized computing platforms that can be programmed to do many of the tasks that used to be done on our conventional desktop and notebook computers, while at the same time supporting traditional plain old telephony services. Mobile platforms also have intrinsic features and usage patterns that distinguish them from conventional desktop and notebook computers. First of all, our mobile devices are typically always on, and always connected to the data network. Second, they are the first truly personal and pervasive computer. That is, they are typically owned, utilized and always collocated by one and only one person. Finally, mobile platforms today are the first commercially viable context aware computers. These devices in our pockets and purses know a great deal about our context. They know where they are geographically speaking (with the help of beacons and other situated sensors they can also locate themselves indoors), they can sense motion, light, sound, not to mention a host of other more fine-grained parameters such as the current orientation of the device, on-device user specific contextual information and potentially reams of additional contextual information keyed by these device level attributes but stored in the network. Our approach to appification is to try to understand how to properly appify your particular domain in a way that fully exploits the distinguishing characteristics of the mobile platform. In our experience, the most successful mobile apps are not those that simply repackage existing desktop websites / apps on mobile devices, but rather, apps that uncover new opportunities, e.g. things that you couldn’t do with computers before the advent of the modern smartphone/tablet app ecosystems.  

Whether you are new to iOS or Android, or are an organization with plenty of app dev proficiency, Appiarium LLC offers a wide range of on-site training services, from intensive shorter get-up-the-learning-curve boot camps, to longer term multi-week courses. We can also offer deeper dives into more specialized areas such as 3D graphics programming, etc. In addition to our academic backgrounds, we’ve worked as trainers with larger corporations and government agencies, in helping learners develop proficiency in mobile application development.

Whether you’re trying to figure out how best to get your enterprise onto mobile platforms, or you’re trying to fix a BYOD headache, give us a call. While we may not be experts in your particular business domain, we do have experience applying mobile technology in a variety of different situations. We offer a free initial consultation in which we try to get our minds around your problem and determine how we might be able to help.