- Joined
- Jul 20, 2006
(I guess I can put this here... No one's going to read it.)
I was already pretty far along in the development when when my friend Gary suggested I do it in something like Unity so that I'd only have to make the app once. This was only a few years ago (though I guess it's going to be more like 7 years ago soon...) and the term "Native Application" wasn't in common usage yet. Back then, by and large, ALL apps were "native applications." If Flutter was around back then... I hadn't heard of it. I only knew about Unity because I'd done a little work on some of Gary's games.
Like most things me-related... nofltr began with a sense of outrage. The reason why Instagram is so heavily censored is because the guy that founded it wasn't a real photographer. In order to have nudity (which is just as essential a core component of photography as it is for painting and sculpture) on iOS and Androids app stores... he'd have had to have made Instagram 17 and older. And he didn't want to miss out on all that teenager money. So the decision to censor Instagram, from the beginning, was purely financial. He didn't care about the art of photography. (As the world would find out a little later... he didn't care about ANYTHING. When he sold-out to Mark Zuckerberg for A BILLION DOLLARS... he threw an $18,000 party... but didn't give his small staff of 10-20 people a dime.
At least that's the way I remember it.
So I was constantly angered at the detriment this caused to an entire generation of photographers. But, on a professional level, I was even more disappointed at Instagram on a technical level. They had aimed low and hit a jackpot. There will almost certainly never be an iPad version of Instagram because of the little square photos and the low resolutions that it started with.
To put it short... I was one of the thousands of know-it-alls that figured I could do it better.
After I got sick with yet another mystery illness on New Years Eve 2017... I opened my MacBook and started doing it better.
Commencing the Android version in Java was a no-brainer. I'd had it in mind, for a few years at that point, to make an Android app for Sony mirrorless cameras, and though I'd stopped and started it a few times, I could never find the time.
Now, sick in bed with nothing else to do, I just ripped the guts out of my Sony app and began turning it into nofltr.
This didn't come from nowhere... I'd been programming all my life going back to the old BBS days. I was one of the first independent people to make apps for iPhone and I even taught a course in mobile development at the University of Barcelona. (My employment history is... to say the least... colorful.)
I worked maybe 12... 16... sometimes 18 hours a day in the beginning. I was typing as if it was the last thing I was ever going to be able to do... because if might have been.
In the Winter of 2017... I didn't have any health insurance, then someone identity-thefted my American Express card and racked up a huge bill. American Express then cancelled me for dubious reasons... and then I fell horribly ill.
Through all that... I kept typing. I remember the first time the photos loaded in the GridView for nofltr. I remember the intense battle to get the Messaging system to work. I remember how many layers deep you needed to think in order to even construct a message system.
"Oh it's just a text box..." but then there has to be a reply. And when you write to someone, from your phone, they have to know... instantly... on their phone... that they've received a message. How is that possible? And THEN... after that.., you have to...
I always kept up with the latest Android version. The latest SDK. The latest version of the IDE that would later be called Android Studio. This became important later on for understanding major changes, revisions and deprecations.
I wasn't gonna be like the Instagram guy... I was doing it for REAL.
I was already pretty far along in the development when when my friend Gary suggested I do it in something like Unity so that I'd only have to make the app once. This was only a few years ago (though I guess it's going to be more like 7 years ago soon...) and the term "Native Application" wasn't in common usage yet. Back then, by and large, ALL apps were "native applications." If Flutter was around back then... I hadn't heard of it. I only knew about Unity because I'd done a little work on some of Gary's games.
Like most things me-related... nofltr began with a sense of outrage. The reason why Instagram is so heavily censored is because the guy that founded it wasn't a real photographer. In order to have nudity (which is just as essential a core component of photography as it is for painting and sculpture) on iOS and Androids app stores... he'd have had to have made Instagram 17 and older. And he didn't want to miss out on all that teenager money. So the decision to censor Instagram, from the beginning, was purely financial. He didn't care about the art of photography. (As the world would find out a little later... he didn't care about ANYTHING. When he sold-out to Mark Zuckerberg for A BILLION DOLLARS... he threw an $18,000 party... but didn't give his small staff of 10-20 people a dime.
At least that's the way I remember it.
So I was constantly angered at the detriment this caused to an entire generation of photographers. But, on a professional level, I was even more disappointed at Instagram on a technical level. They had aimed low and hit a jackpot. There will almost certainly never be an iPad version of Instagram because of the little square photos and the low resolutions that it started with.
To put it short... I was one of the thousands of know-it-alls that figured I could do it better.
After I got sick with yet another mystery illness on New Years Eve 2017... I opened my MacBook and started doing it better.
Commencing the Android version in Java was a no-brainer. I'd had it in mind, for a few years at that point, to make an Android app for Sony mirrorless cameras, and though I'd stopped and started it a few times, I could never find the time.
Now, sick in bed with nothing else to do, I just ripped the guts out of my Sony app and began turning it into nofltr.
This didn't come from nowhere... I'd been programming all my life going back to the old BBS days. I was one of the first independent people to make apps for iPhone and I even taught a course in mobile development at the University of Barcelona. (My employment history is... to say the least... colorful.)
I worked maybe 12... 16... sometimes 18 hours a day in the beginning. I was typing as if it was the last thing I was ever going to be able to do... because if might have been.
In the Winter of 2017... I didn't have any health insurance, then someone identity-thefted my American Express card and racked up a huge bill. American Express then cancelled me for dubious reasons... and then I fell horribly ill.
Through all that... I kept typing. I remember the first time the photos loaded in the GridView for nofltr. I remember the intense battle to get the Messaging system to work. I remember how many layers deep you needed to think in order to even construct a message system.
"Oh it's just a text box..." but then there has to be a reply. And when you write to someone, from your phone, they have to know... instantly... on their phone... that they've received a message. How is that possible? And THEN... after that.., you have to...
I always kept up with the latest Android version. The latest SDK. The latest version of the IDE that would later be called Android Studio. This became important later on for understanding major changes, revisions and deprecations.
I wasn't gonna be like the Instagram guy... I was doing it for REAL.
