Scott Weiner, Founder
Weiner Family Studios
ACT: How’d you get your start in technology?
SW: When I was 17 I worked in a small computer store as an “expert” in Atari and Commodore computers. My job was to learn all the software so when people came in with questions I could help them. One of the packages was a database program called DBase. One day a gentleman came into the store and asked for help on a DBase consulting project and I helped him finish it. He was impressed and asked me to join him in forming a company. WIthin a year I was Vice President of Development and building commercial software for medium to large companies. It was a great experience and later I ended up going back to school to study business and computer science. It was there I was introduced to NeXT Computer, the company Apple later bought and based the current Mac and iPhone technology on. I went to work for them and fell in love with the technology and approach to software.
ACT: Why did you start Weiner Family Studios? Why “A Family Matters”?
SW: Even though I work hard I was determined to be a parent actively involved in my kids life. I decided early on that we would combine my skills with my family’s interests so we started doing community art projects and producing short movies, mainly with the town schools. These projects were produced by Weiner Family Studios and were truly family efforts. We aimed to inspire a generation of children to pursue creativity and arts as well as science. A few years ago I started experimenting with iPhone development. I hadn’t realized how similar it was to the development I had done at NeXT over a decade prior. So I began looking for a “learning project”.
One day I was out to dinner with my family and the server was taking a long time and my three children started getting jumpy. To quiet them down I saw my wife give them an iPod Touch to play with. Soon their heads were looking down at the games and not up at us. This upset me because I realized we were using technology to disconnect rather than connect as a family. Later I told my wife my concerns and she brilliantly told me instead of complaining why don’t I write an app to address my concern. That is how A Family Matters was born.
The idea is simple, wherever you are with your family, use the mobile app to help start interesting conversations with your family. For instance if you are at a restaurant maybe the app will ask you an open ended question like “If this was your restaurant what would you name it?” Or perhaps it will give you a group activity like “Guess your server’s favorite color and when they come to the table see who guessed right”. It’s so much more fun then the tried in true conversation of “How was school today?” — “fine…”
If you are in the Doctors Office, it may open up discussions to help you with your child’s fears of doctor visits. The app has over a thousand ideas now and my children helped me come up with and test them all. We even have ideas for things to do while standing in line at Disney World! We continue to evolve the modules and are currently researching modules for Preschool, Special Needs like autism and issues concerning military families. One of the most rewarding parts of writing the application is hearing from educators and therapist telling us how the app is helping with communication issues with their students. We will continue to pursue working with schools.
ACT: What role does technology play in family?
SW: Well, technology is unavoidable in our society. I find it is positive when it connects us. For instance video phones allowing distant grandparents to see our children grow or apps for sharing family memories. It can also be powerful when it helps us learn in new and creative ways such as puzzle games. My 9-yr old plays chess with his grandfather remotely on his iPhone. This is a wonderful example of connection. Where technology is less positive is where it causes us to disconnect from others or we become too dependent on it. Like anything else finding balance is the secret to healthy use of technology. One way we find balance is we don’t have a problem with our kids playing video games but we don’t allow them to do that until they have finished their school work and additionally have done something creative or educational or charitable and even then it is very limited. I think when we find technology replacing our parenting or pulling us apart it is not good but when it brings us together or inspires us or is used as one of many forms of recreation it’s great stuff.
ACT: What are some of the obstacles you face as a developer that you wish you could change? Are there resources you would recommend?
SW: Mobile application development is exploding right now and there are a huge number of apps of varying quality. It is hard for consumers and apps to find each other. So marketing becomes more complicated then the technical issues. Yes you need to build a great app but then you need people to know about it. When I was first starting I was struggling with this and I discovered a small group of moms that had built a group called Moms With Apps. I became the first “Dad with Apps” when I joined the group and as we grew we became a great resource for people building family-friendly apps. We help each other with understanding marketing and promotion and technical issues. We also provide moral support with a very open and nurturing environment. So if you are building apps for families definitely check us out at www.momswithapps.com.
As a US-based developer, I look towards the future and see healthy competition from all over the world. It’s important that we have all of the tools available to us that developers in other countries have. For instance, currently there are limits by carriers on download sizes. This impact what I can deliver to my users and is an early warning sign of a problem with Spectrum, the total amount of available frequency range available for mobile voice and data. I’m concerned this spectrum crunch is growing and without the allocation of additional spectrum, the United States may lose its lead in mobile app innovation. I hope to grow my company and remain competitive around the world, and this is one area where the government partnering with industry could help.
The other struggle for mobile developers is to choose what platforms to support. Building an iPhone app is very different than building an Android application or Windows mobile app. So developers have two choices: either pick a platform or write code to support multiple platforms. On a single platform your challenges are to decide which platform will be best for you. That decision comes down to what development language/tools you prefer and then what app economy you feel you can be most successful in. Even if you settle on one platform you still have to keep up with all the operating system versions and various devices. This is less of a struggle on the iOS platform since Apple does a good job of controlling hardware and operating system integration. In the Android space it is far more complex, with various hardware vendors having different devices of all shapes and sizes and even their own layer on top of the operating system. So the developer needs a lot more testing equipment. Other platforms have their own difficulties.
If you choose to support multiple platforms you have to write multiple versions of your application which can be a huge effort or you design a cross-platform frameworks or you have to leverage an existing one. For instance if you are developing a game, Unity and Corona are examples of cross-platform tools that allow you to design your game once and then deploy on multiple platforms. There are many more examples of tools to help you with cross-platform development. Many of these tools have limited functionality so you need to research carefully to determine if the tool you pick will meet your needs.
Whatever your development choice, the challenge for developers is to have enough testing resources in the form of hardware and expertise to fully test their apps on every variation of operating system and phone and tablet they plan to support. I would love to see a services that tests your apps on multiple platforms for you, this would be invaluable to small, independent developers. MomsWithApps members will help each other with testing but we don’t provide a formal, comprehensive service and I think that is what is wanted.
ACT: What advice do you have for people looking to build family-friendly apps?
SW: First, talk to MomsWithApps. There are so many mistakes we can help you avoid as an early developer. Second, don’t get into this to be rich, do it because you have a passion for helping children and families. I hope you do hit it big but you can tell which apps were made with love and they are my favorite. Third, try to add to the conversation, don’t just be a copycat. There is a glut of apps so we need apps that fill in holes or take a unique look at a problem. I would like to see more apps that use math concepts, support problem solving, facilitate parent/educator/child interaction and communication, and apps that encourage exploration. My main message is do what you love and in my case it’s all about the family.