An Interview with Craig Hockenberry and James Thomson 
Federico and John interview Craig Hockenberry of The Iconfactory and James Thomson, the creator of PCalc and DragThing, about the earliest days of the App Store.
As Federico explained yesterday, we knew from the earliest planning stages of our coverage of the App Store’s 10th anniversary that we wanted to include interviews with the developers and designers of apps and games we love. We do interviews periodically on AppStories and knew it would be the perfect way to let the people whose lives have been affected by the App Store tell their stories in their own words. Over the course of this week, we will post one episode of AppStories each day featuring interviews on a wide variety of topics that complement the in-depth stories you can read here on MacStories.
If you haven’t subscribed to AppStories yet, you can do so with the links at the bottom of this post or listen here in your browser using the embedded players below. As new episodes are published this week, we will update this post with the latest interviews.
I hope you enjoy these conversations as much as we did recording them.
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Federico and John are joined by Team Alto members Ryan Cash and Harry Nesbitt.
https://staging.macstories.net/podcasts/appstories/episodes/69/embed/
Federico and John interview Michael Flarup and Marc Edwards about iOS app design.
https://staging.macstories.net/podcasts/appstories/episodes/68/embed/
App Store Storytime Variety has an in-depth profile of Steve Demeter, the former Wells Fargo software developer who created Trism, one of the App Store’s earliest hit games.
Demeter became the face of the App Store gold rush for many people. His game, Trism, was one of the 500 apps that debuted on the App Store 10 years ago next Tuesday. The game, which incorporated the iPhone’s accelerometer, earned $250,000 in its first two months. With 3 million lifetime downloads, many at $4.99 each, Demeter quit his job as a developer at Wells Fargo to work on a sequel, eventually pouring all of the original game’s earnings into the effort:
Lost in the shadow of his initial success and worrying about a sophomore slump, the development of “Trism 2” became a nightmare cycle of starting and restarting, creating and destroying.
Eventually, Trism’s earnings dried up and Demeter got a job at Storm8 and later, FoxNext Games. Now, 10 years after Trism’s release, Demeter is releasing its sequel, Trism 2 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the App Store with the help of FoxNext.
After all these years, it’s great to see Trism 2 launch, and the tenth anniversary of the App Store feels like the perfect time given it’s unique spot in App Store history. We’ve got special coverage of the App Store’s 10th anniversary coming from the entire MacStories team next week, so be sure to check back then.
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App Debuts On this week’s episode of AppStories, we clear up confusion about SiriKit and discuss the apps that support it.
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https://staging.macstories.net/podcasts/appstories/episodes/62/embed/
Demystifying SiriKit
It Ended with a Crunching Sound 
Federico
