Clearly, Laurentian Apps developer Logan Pytyl is creating apps Sudburians are hungry for.
With more than 3,221 combined users, the third-year computer science student from the small northern town of Porcupine is building his developer credibility.
Starting out as a hobby, Pytyl created his first Sudbury Bus app out of convenience. He wanted to see if he could develop the app through self-teaching. Using books, forums and online video tutorials, Pytyl was able to create an app he was pleased with, and incidentally, 1,400 users were as well.
Currently, Pytyl has seven functioning apps — well, eight if you count his personal family chat app (which he jokes was created so his mom can get in contact with him easier), with no signs of slowing down. NorthernLife.ca sat down with Pytyl to learn a little more about the ambitious developer.
NL: I notice that your apps are all over the place, you have a textbook app, a bus app, a game. Where do you get your inspiration from?
LP: It’s random really. I develop different kinds of apps just to see if I can do it. I want to challenge myself, and creating different apps really develops confidence in my developing. Like the game I have, Plaque Attack, wasn’t a huge success because I made it too difficult. It’s heart attack themed. Basically you have oxygen and plaque moving towards the heart, and you stop the plaque from getting to the heart by clicking on the yellow plaque graphic and allow the blue oxygen graphics in. Except I made it way too hard, the graphics come at the heart too quickly. I mostly developed it to see if I could create a game app, I wasn’t too concerned with the popularity. I tried to link it to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, too, so if you click on the train animation at the bottom, you can donate.
NL: That sounds cool. Maybe market it towards nerdy bio-sci students. Tell me more about your newest app, Squealz.
LP: This is one I want to expand on. It’s a campus-specific social media app. It’s anonymous and users can post about anything going on around campus. There’s no registration, or linking it to your Facebook account, or waiting for approvals, it’s truly anonymous. Users can then up-vote or down-vote postings, gaining “cheese scores” by “squealing.” I’m hoping to expand it to other schools. Right now, it’s only at Laurentian, Cambrian and Boreal.
NL: I notice you code for both iOS and Android?
LP: Well, for social media you can’t just have one. You need to develop for both to be successful. Take Facebook for example, you need to have it available on multiple platforms. I bought a used Android phone three months ago just to learn to develop for Android.
NL: For a starter app, your bus app has a very large amount of users.
LP: Yeah, it’s funny because the posters I put up at bus stops advertising it were wrong. I said the app was called Sudbury Transit, which it isn't, so I’m pretty lucky that people found the app at all.
NL: What’s the hardest part about developing an app?
LP: Self-teaching. I wish there were courses offered in Sudbury. That would have been really helpful.
NL: If Laurentian University did offer courses, wouldn’t you be concerned with competition? I mean, right now you kind of have an advantage.
LP: I don’t really care about competition. I created the bus app because I saw the other ones that existed, and I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could make one, too. If someone else wants to develop another bus app, that’s great, more people helping people take the bus. Same thing with the other apps, I don’t really find that I’m competing with other developers, maybe for a popular social media app, but other than that, it’s more to enhance my own skills.
Right now, I want to develop my social media app (Squealz). I want it to pick up in popularity and for it to spread to different schools.
Eventually, I want to try something that involves a charity side of things.
NL: What’s your favourite part of app development?
LP: Getting it done. It’s like the computer science equivalent of building a house. You start with an idea, then there’s a design process, which is important because you don’t want to rely on thinking things up as you go, otherwise you’ll waste time deleting a lot of it. So once you figure all that out, and when you actually finish and complete it the way you want, it feels really good.
NL: And finally, the most important question, Apple or Android?
LP: I see the benefits of both.
NL: Really? Usually people are never on the fence on that one.
LP: I know. But I see the benefits of both. I thought it would be Apple, but in terms of development there are just some things that are so much easier to get done with Android. Like creating a user interface could take seconds with Android, but with the iPhone it could take days. But then, with iOS for example, I can auto-adjust text size and I can’t do that on Android. So they each have their benefits and you see the trade-off.
