I realized recently that I haven’t really blogged about much work related here. So I figured I’d wrap up the last couple years, then maybe keep this updated a bit more in the future.

A couple years ago, give or take, I was working on Facebook apps at Condé Nast. I got interested in what was then referred to as “iPhone OS” development [now iOS development], so I started working on a very simple prototype of epicurious that tapped into the recipe search capabilities of the website epicurious.com. It was ugly, but functional. More importantly, it proved that writing iPhone apps wasn’t rocket science.

Wired Product Reviews

The first real iPhone app I built was Wired Product Reviews. It was released in time for the holiday season 2008. Essentially it provided access to the curated product reviews on Wired.com. Here’s a short demo:

Epicurious

A short time later, I developed the iPhone version of “Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List” that you know & love. We were honored to have it featured in an Apple commercial under “apps for dining in” [now that i read that last phrase, it can sound a little funny out of context]:

Some more praise for Epicurious can be found here.

Concierge

In the summer of 2009, I developed the Concierge.com Postcard app, which allowed you to apply a variety of frames to your photos & share them with your friends.

GQ Magazine

Shortly thereafter, I was joined by a couple other developers to build our first foray into digital magazines: The GQ Men of the Year iPhone app, aka the December 2009 issue of GQ Magazine. We delivered this issue & the following January+February issues as 3 separate apps. In February, we launched a version that included the ability to buy issues within the app. I’m proud to say we’re on our 10th issue!

iPad

After the iPad was announced at the end of January 2010, 7 of us hunkered down and developed iPad versions of both GQ Magazine & Epicurious. We were proud to be a part of the launch of the iPad – Epicurious was featured prominently in launch PR, e.g.:

On top of that, we were flattered to be pointed out by Steve Jobs himself at the iPhone 4 keynote announcement:

On a personal note, being not only included but mentioned by name in Jacqui Cheng‘s “Top 6 iPad apps the Ars staff is dying to check out” made me rather giddy.

Glamour + Vanity Fair

Since then, we’ve launched two other magazines on the iOS platform: Vanity Fair and Glamour. I particularly loved their respective promotional videos.

Vanity Fair’s features editor-in-chief Graydon Carter & actor Kelsey Grammer

Glamour

This Glamour video features the always lovely Kristin Chenoweth

Style.com

While I didn’t do much for the Style.com iPad app, it was developed by some very nice coworkers of mine, and it shouldn’t be overlooked

Until next time

That brings us about up to speed! Enjoy & stay tuned for more.

Most of the past few months, I’ve been developing the Epicurious Recipe & Shopping List iPhone app for my employer, Condé Nast Digital. It’s finally been released to the public! You can download it here. It lets you search the entire 25,000 recipe database, plus a special cooking mode & also create shopping lists! If you like it, leave us a nice review in iTunes — it goes a long way!

If you like, read this recent press:
New York Times [app of the week!]
Epicurious
Gizmodo
Wired [disclosure: another Condé Nast Digital property]
Twitter

Got a review on i2i//mediahub from the blogger over at hyku.com:
http://hyku.com/blog/archives/001457.html

Not terribly glowing … but a review nonetheless