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So, funny story. I was in YVR waiting for a flight when I decided to get my shoes shined. The shoe shine had been reading a manga take on the bible. Just a r
by pkaler 8y ago
So, funny story. I was in YVR waiting for a flight when I decided to get my shoes shined.
The shoe shine had been reading a manga take on the bible. Just a regular guy that in another life could be a computer programmer if the circumstances were different.
He asked me what I do: mobile apps. And he went on and on about how his favourite iPhone app downloaded all of Wikipedia but it didn't work on the latest version of iOS anymore.
That app was Patrick Collison's Encyclopedia app:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/oscon-preview-how-patrick-co.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/oscon-preview-how-patrick-c...
- mgummelt 8y agoThe timing on this is odd. Patrick says he built the Wikipedia app over a few weeks in Japan in late 2007, which would have been soon after founding Auctomatic: https://venturebeat.com/2007/10/22/auctomatic-launches-better-tools-for-ebay-powersellers/ https://venturebeat.com/2007/10/22/auctomatic-launches-bette... It seems like a strange decision take take a month off after founding your startup to build a side project in Japan.
- tedmiston 8y agoFrom the article: > Then in November of 2007, I went to visit my friend in Japan for a month. And in Japan they have all of this incredibly advanced cellular technology and all of the rest. And so because of that, they had very few wireless networks, and my phone didn’t work. As a result, I actually had very little access to the Internet. I sort of realized without Wikipedia how little I really knew. And I had just got an iPhone, so I decided to try basically putting a copy of Wikipedia on the phone, so that I’d have it as I was walking around in Japan.