J O N A T H A N JK . C O M

The second in the series of interviews with various Photographers and iOS Developers.  All of them develop portfolio Apps for Apple’s iPad.  This interview is with UK photographer/developer Paul Freeman of FolioBook.

PDF version can be found here: FolioBook Interview

Paul Freeman is a photographer and designer who started his career as a research scientist in Hewlett-Packard’s artificial intelligence research laboratory.  He has been involved in hypermedia since the late 1980′s.  A professional advertising and architectural photographer since 2003, his latest personal work is Space Lands (www.paulfreeman.com). His architectural work is featured at www.architecturalimages.co.uk.

FolioBook can be found at any of the links below. A PDF version of this interview can be found here: FolioBook.

Website, iTunes, Twitter, Facebook,

-

So with our first question what gave you the inspiration to write FolioBook?

I’ve been involved in both content creation and hypermedia for twenty years or so, when the iPad emerged I saw it as a way of doing some exciting new things with photography and hypermedia. A large part of it is the desire to do something really interesting with pictures on one of the coolest computers created so far.

And are you also a photographer yourself?

Yes, I’ve been some kind of a photographer since my dad introduced me to developing black and white at the age of 8, and a professional for the last few years.

Is this your first App for iOS?

No, there are a couple of others that I worked on as prototypes but decided not to release.

How easy was it to code in order to create FolioBook?  How long did it take to get FolioBook to Version 1?

In a sense it took me 20 years as I’m applying techniques and knowledge to the app that I started developing as long ago as 1989 when I first started thinking about electronic publishing. It took me about six months to learn enough about the iOS platform to attempt it. Apparently a nine year old can write apps, so its as easy as the app someone wants to create. I’m really a designer not a coder. When I say ‘designer’ I mean the internal design as well as the visual appearance. I’m more like the architect who builds the house than a bricklayer, but I can make a reasonable job of laying bricks when I have to.

You state it took you 6 months to learn enough about the iOS platform to eventually start coding for it. Is that something anybody could do or did your previous career as a scientist help you?

Let me break this down a bit. Any competent programmer can learn the basic structure of an iOS app in a couple of hours. In fact XCode can generate an ‘app’ for you in about 10 seconds, but it doesn’t do anything interesting. The thing that takes the time is understanding how to use the Apple libraries to achieve what you want to.  It took me 6 months to develop a certain kind of ‘skill’ which I needed to do what I wanted to do. I could have built a fart app in a day.

However you ask ‘is this something anyone can do’ and the answer to this is that no, not every one can do it. Good programmers tend to be born not made.  Anyone can learn the basics but not everyone can stick with it to become good at it.   Anyone can create some kind of drawing, but only Michaelangelo can create one of his drawings. Software is more like art in that technical respect than people generally realise.  In this respect it’s very different to plumbing or bricklaying.

Do you write any other Apps for iOS?

No, one is enough for now, I want to leave enough time to shoot more work as well as gaze at a computer screen.

Will you write other Apps for iOS devices? More importantly, photography related ones?

Maybe. But for the immediate future Foliobook will remain the focus, though there may be spin-offs that are closely related to it.

FolioBook is a relatively new App in the App Store. Arriving after the release of 4.2. Did coding for iOS 4.2 make much of a difference compared to iOS 3.2?  7a. What made a difference in iOS 4.2?

No, not a lot of difference except that Apple has added a few nice additions to their API which makes it possible to do more interesting things with the media. Also some of the bugs in iOS 3.2 were removed, so that helped a bit.

How long did it take to write FolioBook?

I didn’t count. Lets just say I haven’t slept much since May 2010.

Where do you want to take FolioBook with future updates, where do you see yourself in a years time?

I like to keep the plans for Foliobook fairly close to my chest, what I can say is that the current version is only about 10% of the vision I have for the product.

Quite a vision, you believe you have ample opportunity to take FolioBook beyond replicating the behaviour of a printed portfolio then?

Yes indeed.  You only have to look around the app store, eg: at something like ‘The Elements’ to see the potential.  The next release of Foliobook will include a video capability that we think is going to be ground breaking, at least in terms of  portfolio type apps.  I won’t say too much because I don’t particularly want to help competitors, but clearly an app like this has to handle many types of content not just still images. Some competing apps have given lip service to multimedia but have failed to make navigating it a pleasant experience. This will be the next step for us.

What do you as a Developer want to see in the next iPad, either to aid your Apps or just for your own pleasure?

More memory! Its quite ludicrous that there is about half the RAM on the iPad as the current iPhone 4, and that when my app starts its lucky to get 25Mb to start up in. For my own pleasure I’d like to see the device lighter in weight, with a warmer rear surface so that I can comfortably read an electronic book in bed.

This question is in two parts: Considering how new your FolioBook is, I’ve already seen FolioBook vs PadPort in discussions and Google search results. You have a competitor with a similar feature set. How do you see yourself differentiating from your competitor/competition?

It’s interesting you mention PadPort because I only became aware of their website shortly after launching Foliobook in August 2010.  I don’t consider them a serious competitor at this point as their feature set and usability is behind either Foliobook or Portfolio for iPad. Their intent seemed similar to ours, but when I came across them they had no software only an idea and a nice website/logo. It seemed to take them a long time to get to market, so I wondered if their aspirations rather outstrip their ability. I’m quite disappointed with their current release as it is buggy and doesn’t support portrait orientation.

I should point out that while Padport seems to have converged independently on a similar-ish interface idea that there is at least one other app which seems to plagiarise the basic presentation of Foliobook. While imitation is a sincere form of flattery, such developers should expect to face very robust competition.

Foliobook by the way was the second app in the market after FlexFolios and was the first app that tried to put the images first. Of the competing apps I see, Portfolio for iPad is a serious contender at the moment. The developer of that app has focused on getting the nuts and bolts right.  There is a general misapprehension that software is all about having a really unique idea, but an idea isn’t much use if the execution of it is poor. So far none of the portfolio apps are what I would consider ‘great’ and this is much to do with the details as the basic idea. My focus is on making Foliobook ‘great’ but that will take a little more time.

But also, How do you see this market developing as we go forward? How do you see yourself differentiating from the competition in the future when there will be more competitors?  One reaction is to drop the price in order to compete and/or develop for another platform.  Are you concerned about the ‘race to the bottom’ and copycat apps affecting this class of applications? What do you think?

The differentiation will not be by cutting prices but by increasing value. Good apps will become more expensive, there won’t be hundreds of them because they require more investment than ‘joke’ apps like you find on an iPhone. Once an app is good enough it can charge double or treble what Foliobook costs today. To reprhase… how is it that people buy Apple laptops for twice the price of generic laptops running Windows?  Clearly price isn’t the right variable to focus on.

Are you a one man operation or is this a group effort?

It’s a group effort. When possible I spin off chunks of work to collaborators, but I have to stay in control so this is done fairly carefully.  I involve other developers when necessary and also a graphic designer as well as a usability consultant. In addition we have a couple of business angels beating on the door offering investment funds which we may need in future. And of course I have a cadre of top photographers who act as a focus group.

Where are you based and where have you seen the greatest uptake of FolioBook at the moment?

I’m based in the UK, the US is the biggest market. There are more iPads there than anywhere else, ‘Simples’!

I found the built in Photo Application lacking anything for a Pro Photographer, others will feel it’s good enough. Were you concerned of your App’s uptake by other Photographers before committing yourself to creating FolioBook?

No. Originally I developed it for myself as I wanted a way to show off work. Actually I developed a couple of different demo apps, showed them to some top advertising photographers over a coffee and they wouldn’t let me leave without promising to turn Foliobook into a product.  Some of the ideas in the other demo apps will be added to later versions of Foliobook.

Can you explain anything about the creation process behind your app? Did you involve other photographers or even editors to ask what they would want in a digital portfolio that attempts to replicate the printed portfolio and its presentation?

Already answered in part. However as a professional photographer trying to raise my profile I have a lot of experience with showing my work to agents, art buyers etc. So I know first hand about what is needed.

How do you see FolioBook existing alongside a printed portfolio?

I know some very highly paid photographers who have not sent a printed portfolio out for two years. For established people, often a web-link is all thats needed. Theres no rule. For some people there will be no point in spending £2000 on a pair of books bound by a craftsperson in Clerkenwell, it won’t get them the job.  Obviously it depends on to whom and in what context you are showing the work. In some cases you will be laughed out of the room if you don’t show a print portfolio, in other cases it just gets in the way and costs a lot of money. Also, increasingly the sort of people who need those expensive printed books will have to include motion in their portfolios, and until they figure out how to print a movie onto Photo Rag, the iPad will be the best option.

And just wrapping up, anyone notable who is using FolioBook?

Some top photographers using it include Michael Prince, Julian Calverley, and Brian Smith, though there are quite a few others of note who I haven’t asked for permission to mention their names. When the motion capability is added I think there will be some pretty interesting people who start to use it. The Foliobook Hall of Fame is a good place to see some of the fantastic work people are showing with the app.  http://www.foliobook.mobi/hall-of-fame/

-

FolioBook at the time of writing is priced at £4.99 and $7.99 on the Apple App Store.

A review written in conjunction with this interview can be found here.

-