Late last week I was able to sit down with Dan Lipert, one of the developers over at The Ministry of Apps, and just chat about various things. Hit up the full interview below.

PocketFullOfApps: Hey! How’s it going? :)

The Ministry of Apps:  Hey Aaron – good morning! Great, we are all here and ready for the interview.

PocketFullOfApps: Awesome! Well, let’s get started. Real quick, can I have a URL to the developer page of yours on the App Store? I searched “The Ministry of Apps” on the App Store and nothing came up.

The Ministry of Apps: Actually we don’t have it up yet – we are still talking with Apple and getting our account switched from individual to business. Yeah if you search Dan Lipert you can find my individual apps, also we do work for clients, which is published under their accounts.

PocketFullOfApps: Alright, thanks, I should have thought of that.

The Ministry of Apps: We are currently working on our first ‘first party’ app as well which we will be releasing this summer, but basically we are a group of developers who worked freelance previously on projects for clients and we are now coming together to work on our own apps as well as the freedom to be our own bosses and to remove the extra layer of management between developer and client.

PocketFullOfApps: Oh, I see. Cool! When you say, “this summer”, do you have any specific timeline or month?

The Ministry of Apps: Yes – we hope to have our new app ‘Cutify’ submitted by the end of this month so it will be on the App Store at the beginning of August.

PocketFullOfApps: Awesome. Could you tell me more about ‘Cutify’?

The Ministry of Apps: Sure – it’s a photography app that lets you take photos of objects and add cute and expressive faces to them.  It’s a combination of the Japanese purikura photo booths and the internet memes of anthropomorphic objects, like a carton of eggs with cute faces on them. We are focusing on making it quick and simple to use, and most importantly, full of lots of stickers to add to your photos.

PocketFullOfApps: Sounds like lots of fun. Are you planning on releasing any updates for “Cutify” in the future that would include more stickers or such?

The Ministry of Apps: Absolutely – we are going to have in-app purchases with additional sticker packs ready at launch, as well as a free additional sticker pack for users who buy the app early as a promotion.  We have plans to do free seasonal themed sticker packs as well! You can check out some concept art that we’ve uploaded to the Cutify Facebook page as well, at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cutify/170299729701312.

PocketFullOfApps: I see, awesome! Sounds like you’ve got some big plans for Cutify. Do you guys have any other apps or games planned for farther ahead in the future?

The Ministry of Apps: We plan on doing more photography apps, and we also have a free recipe app coming out for our client Eden Foods, which is an organic food distributer.  Aside from more ‘mainstream’ applications that have a wide potential userbase, we like to work on more conceptual projects using new technologies such as Augmented Reality. We really aren’t tied to a specific genre of apps, we are always coming up with new ideas for games, applications and art projects across a variety of platforms.

PocketFullOfApps: Cool, sounds like you’ve got some very exciting stuff planned for the long-term run and even the short-term with “Cutify” that should be out soon. Speaking of “variety of platforms”, do you guys make apps/games for Andriod, WebOS, or such?

The Ministry of Apps: We are open to developing for Android, but our focus is on having a high-quality user experience and we feel that its better to concentrate on the iOS platform.  Since we don’t have to worry about device fragmentation, it gives us more time to perfect the experience for the user.  Also, we all live and breath Mac and iOS so we are already intimately familiar with Apple’s platforms.

PocketFullOfApps: I see. Device fragmentation, I would say, is one the biggest issues with the Android OS, as there’s a wide variety of screen sizes and system configurations with CPUs, GPUs, and all that. As with iOS, you pretty much know what you’re making your app or game for and such.

The Ministry of Apps: Yes – that’s exactly why we are shy to Android right now.  Of course, the openness is attractive to do more experimental things and we are big supporters of open source and community driven development, but in more economic terms, the entire App Store experience isn’t there for the users or for the developers like it is with Apple.Aaron Whitfield: Yeah, and that’s another nice thing about iOS. As all the apps are in one central place, the App Store, where as with Android, there’s the Amazon App Market and one other I believe. Also, as developers we much prefer Objective-C over Java!

PocketFullOfApps: Yeah I bet.

The Ministry of Apps: And little things like the compile and build process can wear on you when you do them dozens of times a day and Apple’s Xcode makes development really smooth. (not counting Xcode 4… which is a bugfest… can you hear me Apple?)

PocketFullOfApps: Totally. I’ve played around with Xcode a little, and it’s really simple and straight forward for the most part it seems and with the built-in emulator, that’s really nice to weed out minor bugs very fast. Moving on though, what are some games you guys normally play?

The Ministry of Apps: As far as iOS goes, we really love Kairosoft’s Game Dev Story and Hot Springs Story, and the best-sellers Tiny Wings and Fruit Ninja.  We also love retro gaming and we play oldschool NES games on an old Mac Mini.  We use the app ‘WifiPad’ to turn our iPhones into gamepads as well. Our designer plays a Japanese online dress-up game called “Poupee Girl” that has an amazing ‘freemium’ business model. Also we play fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter at the office quite often :)

PocketFullOfApps: Awesome. I too love retro gaming and old school NES games, specifically ExciteBike and Super Mario Bros. for it as well. I believe I also have an Atari somewhere around the house as well. Haven’t played that thing in ages. As for iOS though, I’m a big fan of FPSs and racing games such as Real Racing 2, Jet Car Stunts, and Battlefield Bad Company 2.

The Ministry of Apps: Many aspects of retro games, like quick gameplay and simple controls really lend themselves to iOS game design, so NES games are always an inspiration.  The retro graphics style, aside from being something that we love, is also more easily accomplished by a small studio like us.

PocketFullOfApps: Yeah, I can see that for sure. Even though the graphics are 8-bit with the NES, the games are still fun. While on this subject, I was able to pickup iDOS when it was out for the short time and installed a bunch of retro games. Sadly though it was pulled from the App Store fairly quick.

The Ministry of Apps: Bummer – I’ve heard that some iOS developers and developers on xbox live / Playstation network are getting contracts to port retro games and just bundling a ROM with an emulator.

PocketFullOfApps: I’ve heard similar as well. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the future with this. Continuing on, why did you guys choose the name, “The Ministry of Apps”?

The Ministry of Apps: We were having a brainstorming session and somehow we thought of branding the company with a mustache theme.  After exploring that and the associated available domain names we decided to continue with the fanciness of mustaches but with a more chilled out name.  The Ministry of Apps has a sort of non-governmental organization vibe, but the name is definitely tongue-in-cheek.  Our original logo was a mustache :)

PocketFullOfApps: So, seen as how it was moustached theme or still is, does everyone in the crew have a mustache? ;)

The Ministry of Apps: At first two of us did, but one of our developers has shaved… also now we have a female member, so the mustache policy is on hold…

PocketFullOfApps: Ah, I see. That’s a bummer. ;) Anyway, that’s besides the point. So, all in all, how many people make up The Ministry of Apps?

The Ministry of Apps: Right now, we are 2 developers and 1 designer total.  Since we are a worker-owned cooperative, there’s no hierarchy and we are all co-owners which works well for our size.

PocketFullOfApps: Oh cool. It does seem that the worker-owned cooperative model has worked well for you. Moving on, do you or anyone else on the team have any suggestions or advice for people who are wanting to become App Store developers?

The Ministry of Apps: Yes – first things first – get an iPhone and use it as your primary mobile device.  I cannot tell you how many people I have come across who develop and design for iOS and do not own an iPhone!  Read the iOS Human Interface Guidelines as well as see how Apple applies those suggestions in their apps. Also – always put the user experience first.  It doesn’t matter if your UI looks amazing in the simulator if the buttons are too small and crowded to actually tap.

PocketFullOfApps: Yeah, getting use to the device, UI, and such is important because if you’re going to develop an app for the iPhone (or iOS in general), you want to know how the UI and OS works. As for the  user experience, that’s another key reason I think. I’ve come across apps that have great ideas and potential but the user experience flat-out sucks. Would anyone else on the team like to add anything on the question to the suggests to people who want to become App Store developers?

The Ministry of Apps: If you love the iPhone you should definitely go for it!  And don’t go to a university program or anything like that – there are so many free resources available from places like Stanford University to get you started. We all went to University for various things and ended up jumping into iPhone development on our own even though none of us have a formal ‘Computer Science’ degree.

PocketFullOfApps: Definitely. There’s plenty of free e-books and even podcasts on the iTunes Store for this stuff. Plus, Apple has well documented iOS programming FAQs (and such) on the Developer Portal which can help as well.

The Ministry of Apps: Yes – Apple’s documentation spoiled me!  It’s not often you see such great documentation presented in such a nicely designed way, but that’s Apple for you.

PocketFullOfApps: True. Apple is very good at what they do. Second to last question I have. Whew! ;) If you could have any superpower you could, what would it be?

The Ministry of Apps: Hmm! tough question! For me, if I could edit Wikipedia with my mind that would be great so I’d never lose an argument For our designer, if Adobe’s software never crashed… that would be a great superpower.  The power to keep Illustrator from crashing. :)

PocketFullOfApps: I bet. Save lots of time! ;) What about the other developer?

The Ministry of Apps: He had to run to another meeting a few minutes ago… so probably the ability to attend multiple meetings at once… which is the worst superpower of all time.

PocketFullOfApps: That would be really useful. I agree, definitely not a good choice. So, is there anything else you’d like to add before this interview if over?

The Ministry of Apps: One question for you from us – whats the best way to contact bloggers to promote an upcoming app?

PocketFullOfApps: I would say through forums and Google, and lastly affiliated sites. As for forums, there’s some people from websites on other website’s forums. And if you search through you’ll eventually find some and even regular users who may blog part time. As for Google, doing a simple search, like “iPhone blogs” or “iPhone reviews” or such will give a bunch of results. It usually depends on what size of blog you’re going for, if you want smaller blogs, go a few searches down or back a few pages. As for affiliated sites, on PocketFullOfApps.com there’s a few links on the sidebar that have links to sites that are our friend and such.

The Ministry of Apps: Good tips! We’ve found that the smaller blogs with a more curated focus or theme are really great if your app fits that niche.

PocketFullOfApps: Smaller blogs are more prompt to reply to your e-mails and such. Where as bigger sites they sort through which e-mails/apps they will take and all.

The Ministry of Apps: Yes, and having worked with larger companies, to get on the big blogs you need to have that insider access.  Smaller and less well-known companies will only get on TUAW, Daring Fireball, etc.. after they come out with a successful product, at which point its old news anyway.

PocketFullOfApps: Exactly. But, I’m glad for the bigger blogs out there, they obviously have committed a lot of time and hard work to get where they are. So, in essence, I am happy for them and their success. I do agree though, you can only get featured on those sites if you make something groundbreaking or successful or such.

The Ministry of Apps: Yup – its common sense – if you making a great product you will get great coverage!

PocketFullOfApps: Yep! Well, thanks a lot for coming out today and spending a good deal of your time to sit down and chat!

The Ministry of Apps: Yes – it was so much fun!  Thanks for having us :)

PocketFullOfApps: No problem, have a great day! :)