Learning Experiences – November 2015

Every Monday at Mobile Jazz we kickstart the week with a Google Hangout. This is an ideal way to bring everyone together and share what we have learned in the previous week. Once again, we’re really excited to share this with you.

How We Kept Business Running While Kitesurfing in Tarifa

Mobile Jazz is an engineering and design agency, but lately we’ve become known for our philosophy when it comes to work/life balance. Last year we relocated the office for a month on a tropical island in Thailand, and this month we did it again – in Tarifa! Business continued as usual, from our AirBnB flat in the most southern point of Spain. Check it out!

News and Facts from the Mobile Industry

#1. New Paradigms in UX and UI with the iPhone’s 3D Touch Are Coming

We’re pretty excited about this here at Mobile Jazz! The potential of the new iPhone’s 3D Touch opens a whole new range of gestures. Apart from the familiar ‘tap’, ‘swipe’ and ‘pinch’, we’ll get introduced to the ‘peek’ and ‘pop’ as 3D Touch senses pressure on your iPhone’s screen. Check it out.

#2. Kick Off Your Startup the Smart Way: Lean Startup Methodology

Within the world of startups and launching apps, in the beginning, we all operate in the dark. The very first phases come with a lot of uncertainty, and you’ll want to remove these uncertain assumptions as soon as possible. Here’s when the Lean Startup Methodology comes into play. Lean gives you a hand with quickly launching and testing, gathering data and motivation to keep on testing until your business idea gets shaped based on real user data and insights. Read more about this movement.

Increase Productivity and Make Your Life Easier

#1. Boost Your Productivity with a Tomato Timer

Do you ever have this tempting feeling of opening Facebook, checking your phone (again) or reading emails in the middle of a task that you ought to be finishing? Well, we’ve got the remedy! Check out Pomodoro timer, a simple timing technique which helps you to focus on tasks in 25 minute intervals followed by five minute breaks. It really works and helps you to stay focused all day long.

#2. Too Many Unused Photos?

Instead of storing your so beloved pictures in folders that you hardly look at, do something meaningful with them. Using Exposure, create your own photo narrative and display it on any of your devices! Try it out!

#3. Create Presentations in Seconds

This Swipe webapp is a huge timesaver for anyone who wants to create beautiful presentations in seconds. Quickly drag and drop different files: photos, documents, pdfs… and let Swipe do the rest! You can easily add styled text using Markdown too.

#4. Going on Holiday and Need to Share Bills?

There’s no longer any need to worry or faff around with papers and tickets. Splitwise is an app purposely built for sharing and managing bills with friends. No more ‘who owes money to who’ hassle.

#5. Stop Photos from Opening Every Time You Connect Your iPhone

Does it frustrate you when your Photos library opens and displays all of your pictures, every time you connect your iPhone to your computer? Well, here’s how to stop that.

#6. Beat Your Smartphone Addiction!

Check out Forest, an innovative and intriguing app to help you to stay away from your smartphone. Every 30 minutes you’re not checking your phone, a virtual tree slowly grows. And if you can’t resist, well, you’ll see what happens…

#7. Mindfulness in the Office

Boost your performance in and outside the office with the Headspace app. Daily 10 minutes meditation sessions really help to clear your mind and let you focus more. Try it out.

#8. Be a Global, Local Entrepreneur

For all entrepreneurs and freelancers working remotely, or travelling and working at the same time, check out Sonetel! Get a local number for any country in the world with international forwarding at local prices. Check it out.

#9. Easy-To-Use Button Generator

Make gorgeous, bulletproof buttons for your website or email campaign. Design them using the online tool and simply copy/paste the html into your project!

Discover useful insights in innovation, technology and business.

#1. The Ultimate PHP Development Environment

Are you still using XAMPP or LAMPP as your main development environment? Are you writing raw PHP? It’s time to change, start using Open Source projects, free services and boost your team’s productivity and quality. We’re happy to share our best practices with you.

#2. What is an MVP and Why Should You Build One?

If you’re building a product to sell for profit, your first objective should be to produce something that people are willing to pay for. This requires launching your product the moment it solves the problem. The product or service doesn’t have to be complete, just enough to prove that people are willing to pay for it. This is called your Minimum Viable Product. Read more.

Are you hungry for more? Read more on our ITB Insights blog.