I recently wrote about BitBQ’s acquisition of LittleSnapper for iPhone, now Cinder, that was originally developed by Realmac software.  Being a very light LittleSnapper user myself, I was interested in who had taken interest in the application and wanted to get to know Patrick just a little better. He agreed to answer some questions I put together, including:

• Personal and company background
• Talks about the Cinder acquisition
• Talks about transferring an existing app from one company to another
• Rates experience with Apple and the iTunes Store
• Advertising tips
• Gives his favorite Mac and iPhone apps

Read after the break for Patrick’s answers.

“Please provide some general company background information”

I started BitBQ back in August to be my company to create iPhone and Mac software. Since I started it up, I’ve acquired FitnessTrack, Emergency Information and LittleSnapper for iPhone (now Cinder). I did the acquisitions as a sort of kick start, but I have a couple of my own original apps in the works.

“What is your personal expertise? Are you a software developer, business man, or something else entirely?”

I’m a software developer, something I’ve been doing for over 14 years. Ranging from Perl to Java to .NET and of course Cocoa. Writing software is my passion and I love what the iPhone and Mac platforms provide in terms of feeding that passion.

“What prompted the Cinder acquisition from Realmac Software?”

It all started with a chat I was having with the original developer about what updates were planned for LittleSnapper for iPhone and learning they were looking to find someone who wanted to acquire it. As a user who loved LittleSnapper for iPhone, I jumped at the chance. We worked out the terms and as they say, the rest is history.

“Do you personally use the ember web service?”

Yes I do. I own LittleSnapper and now Cinder and use both to upload to Ember. I don’t use it as much as some people do, but I also can’t share a lot of the screenshots and other things I grab due to the sensitive nature of the images.

“What exactly goes into transferring an application to another company, with Apple involved?”

Having done this twice now, the dance is pretty simple: unless you have literally bought the entire company, there’s nothing Apple will do. You are forced to remove the original app and upload a brand new app. It can have the same name, once the original app has been removed. I had to do that with FitnessTrack.

What that means for users is that they have to be aware that the old app is going away and that there will be a new app showing up soon they’ll need to get to continue to receive updates. To alleviate some of the pain from this transition period, I’ve now tried two approaches. For FitnessTrack, I ran the app at 40% off on re-introduction to the app store and for Cinder, I’m running it for free for 2 weeks. The audience for Cinder is a lot larger considering the popularity of LittleSnapper for iPhone, so I wanted to make sure everyone has a chance to get it before I make it a paid app.

“How would you rate your happiness with the iTunes App Store?”

That’s a tough one. There are days I absolutely love it. I have Apple taking care of all the harder parts of software delivery: collecting payment, bandwidth, installation, etc. Then there are the days it’s infuriating. Like the current issue with Cinder not being able to be installed on iPod Touches because of a misconfiguration I can’t change on the back end without Apple’s intervention.

Of late, review times have dropped significantly, so that’s making me and a lot of other developers much happier. It’s still annoying when you have any hiccup in the process because the response delays are hard to put up with.

“What, if any, advertising outlets have you used to promote your applications, and how would you rate those?”

I ran a Fusion Ad for FitnessTrack just after the start of the new year. In conjunction with that ad run, I put FitnessTrack on sale for 40% off. While FitnessTrack certainly saw increased traffic and a slight increase in sales, they did not cover the cost of the ad. Before I did the ad, I got the advice of others that had run Fusion Ads and they warned me that it takes a long and sustained ad campaign to have any effect. I still considered it a net win just for the additional exposure to an larger audience. But I won’t be running any ads any time soon, so I’m going to have to find other ways to get the word out about my apps.

“Are there any other applications you see now that you are thinking of acquiring?”

I’ve been asked this by a few people. To be honest, the LittleSnapper for iPhone acquisition came as a total shock and I certainly wasn’t seeking it out. For my first acquisition, I did reach out to Justin Williams over at Second Gear to see if he was interested in selling his apps since I knew he was very frustrated with the whole App Store situation.

As of now, I don’t see any more app acquisition on the horizon for BitBQ. I’ve got a couple of apps in development, one for the iPhone and one for the Mac, that I’m planning on getting released this year. With that many apps, I’ve got a lot of work to keep me busy.

“How long have you been using a Mac?”

I first started using the Mac in 1992 on a Classic II in my journalism class. I quickly became the system administrator for the room full of Macs ( a mix of Classic IIs and SE/30s ). Those days, I was supporting System 7 and Pagemaker 4 back when it was owed by Aldus.

During my Mac “dark ages” (OS 9 till 10.3), I went off to work on Sun workstations and Windows machines. Once 10.4 Tiger hit, I could no longer resist coming back to the Mac. With my love of Unix and great software, the Mac was the place to be. It also helped that I could do any development I wanted on the machines. That was made even easier with the switch to Intel and the release of VMWare Fusion and Parallels. Now I didn’t even need to have Windows machines around. And I’m happy to say my house went back to Mac only in 2006.

“What is your favorite Mac software application?”

Wow, that’s a hard one to answer, I have so many favorites. How about a short list? MoneyWell from No Thirst Software, MarsEdit from Red Sweater Software, SuperDuper! from Shirt Pocket Software, Today from Second Gear, Pulsar from Rouge Amoeba, NetNewsWire from NewsGator, Concentrate from Made By Rocket, Code Collector Pro from MCubed Software, 1Password from Agile Web Solutions, Tweetie from Atebits, Transmit from Panic, and finally BusyCal from BusyMac.

Ok, so not such a short list, but a list of software I use daily outside of Apple’s apps. Every part of my day is made easier because of that list of software.

“What is your favorite iPhone software application?”

My favorite iPhone app is Tweetie 2. It’s so well executed and has introduced so many awesome UI concepts. Beyond Mail, that’s the app I launch the most.

Wrapping Up

I want to thank Patrick for taking time out of his busy schedule to write up some excellent answers detailing a few questions I really was in the dark about.  Be sure to check out Cinder, for publishing to the wonderful web service Ember, now.  You can grab a free copy until March 17, 2010!

Links