It’s Mobile Monday here on my blog and this week’s featured mobile developer is Brad Crafton who created Friend Trend. Finally a way to filtre out trending topics on Twitter unrelated to you!
1. In about 100 words, what does your app do?
Friend Trend is an app that puts a new twist on Twitter trends. Other apps allow you to see the general trends of the Twitter community at large, but only Friend Trend parses tweets to generate the trending topics from JUST your friends. When you don’t have time to read all of your timeline, Friend Trend is a quick way to see what your friends are tweeting about, and just read the tweets on the topics that interest you.
2. Why did you create this app?
I was interested in getting involved in programming iOS apps as a hobby, and was looking for a good idea. A friend on Twitter tweeted about how he would love a way to do this very thing, which gave me the spark to start development.
3. What tools did you use to build this app?
The app is developed using the standard Xcode/Objective-C tools provided by Apple. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I relied on some open-source code such as MGTwitterEngine from Matt Gemmell to provide the Twitter functionality back end.
4. Tell us a bit about yourself.
By profession I am a fully-accredited actuary, and I work full time at a company which develops actuarial software for the insurance industry. That job takes up a lot of my time, but being a “coding geek” at heart I was interested in learning how to code iPhone apps on the side. My strengths are definitely more on the algorithm side of programming than on UI. I relied on my husband’s artistic talents to design the Friend Trend bird mascot which appears on the splash screen and also shows up in random places in the app. While I am proud of the functionality that the app provides, I am definitely working towards a cleaner, more modern look in future updates.
5. What’s your favourite hang out spot in Toronto?
My standard hang out place tends to be Starbucks! It’s a place to grab the MacBook and walk to on the weekends when I have work to catch up on, but still feel like getting out of the house! The caffeine addiction probably has something to do with it too!