What are your names? Martin Dufort (CEO), Fred Brunel (CTO)

What's your company's name? WhereCloud Inc

Where do you live? Montreal, Canada

Where can we find you on the web? http://www.wherecloud.com

And on Twitter? @mdufort, @fbrunel, @wherecloud

What apps do you make? NFB Films for iPhone and iPad, YellowPages for iPhone and iPad (with more than 2M downloads), Reportage for Twitter, LolePop with iPad-driven LoleWall

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Camera+, Path, Zite, Flipboard, Tiny Wings

How long have you been a developer? Martin: I graduated in 1984 and been developing software since then. However nowadays, my software involvement is very limited. Doing a bit of Objective-C and some Python/Tornado to support some of the applications we do.

Fred: I've been a developer as long as I can remember, started young (around 10) and graduated in 2000. I've worked in a lot of startups for the last 15 years, always being on the edge of technology (from 3D games to mobile apps).

How long have you been an iOS developer? Martin: Since the SDK was available. Fred: Same here.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? We do web development only to support our mobile initiatives, we also have done some Android development. However 95% of our work is on iOS.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? Martin: I have a MacBook Air with 2.13 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB ram and a 256GB SSD. Connected to a 24in DELL Monitor. Fred: I have the latest MacBook Pro 2011: 2.3 Ghz Core i7, 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 1GB RAM, 512 SSD. Connected to a 24in DELL monitor. I also have a 23in Cinema Display at home.

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? Martin: I use my iPhone 4 a lot. I also have an iPad 2 but given that my MacBook Air is so light I don't use the iPad as much as I want to. Fred: Like Martin, my iPhone 4 is my primary mobile device. I also have an iPad 2 of course and I use it pretty much everyday. I also have a Kindle.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? Martin: Google Nexus One, Samsung Captivate S Fred: Martin is the Android guy, I don't use any of those, even though I've been testing them intensively.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? Fred: The tools and the framework are really mature (after all, the foundation has been around for 15 years). You're pretty close to developing for a gaming console. You can make the best of the platform and make sure users have the best possible experience. I like that Apple is eating their own dog food, the way they design apps is always a great inspiration.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? Fred: The flexibility of UIKit could be improved a lot. You can see that Apple designed it for their own purpose first, and third-party second. It becomes complicated if you want to do things on the edge of the framework, but there is always a way to do it. That said, the same could be said from other platforms, it becomes very hard to make a UI framework flexible & performant in all situations. Apple is always about making compromise on the technology to ensure that the user-experience is the best.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Martin: The ability to sync content and application using a wireless connection. Support for NFC. Fred: Beyond the obvious things you can read in the rumors, I'd like to be surprised!

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? Martin: The ability for a developer to comment on reviews for applications Fred: Being able to contact the customer directly (or through a form within the App Store) would be very important, sometimes you get back reviews because the user missed something. Continue to improve the discovery of new apps (Apple should also begin to sort apps out, there is still a lot of crap in there). The user experience of the iOS App Store app is not my favourite, I think there is room for improvement.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? Martin: Calisse de tabarnack! Fred: Eh oh, fait pas chier!

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? Riding the road bike (Just got a new BMC SLX01) or cross-country skiing. Fred: It's summer! Partying with my friends, biking (not like Martin) and having good time in the city. I'm trying to keep a balance, but I'm kind of obsessed with technology, I just can't help myself to spend time reading and experimenting with new stuff outside the job (like I've always done).

What should we look for from you next? Martin: We are looking at providing a very interesting framework combining the team experience we put in all our projects. Fred: Yeah, putting our own iOS framework on the market would be our next move. It's taken from our experience building dozen of products for the last 2.5 years, as well as our experience in designing systems for the gaming industry. We like to call it the framework Apple forgot. As far as products are concerned, we're always taking some time to experiment with new ideas and build prototypes. So stay tuned!

Bonus Question: With Reportage, you created one of the most innovative Twitter clients we've ever seen. What are your thoughts on Twitter now trying to lead developers away from producing strict client apps? Martin: That is a very interesting question especially since Twitter is really trying to own the client application space. We are seeing this now that they have acquired TweetDeck and introduce new policies to access Direct Messages. This is putting additional burden on us to provide a compliant application. Not sure it is worth it in the end. But Reportage was and still is a very innovative and we tried to break the timeline-based reading mechanism. However the mind shift was too big. We even got a 2 mice review by MacWorld.

Merci Martin et Fred!

TiPb has been exploring issues surrounding the App Store, especially how developers can earn a living, the various attempts to market apps in a sporting manner, as well the gaming and foul play going on.

In the bright lights category, developer James Thomson (ha! spelled it right that time!) has taken a decidedly humorous approach with the launch of his updated PCalc 1.2 (iTunes link) calculator app:

I think we got off to a bad start last time with version 1.1. It was my fault entirely. I came out with this big release I'd spent months on, sent out my press releases, and not a soul ran a story with the exception of that nice Mr Gruber fellow [Although TiPb did run an interview -- thanks again, James!]. Sales were quite poor and we both said some things we regretted in the morning.

But I understand, don't worry. You're tired of the deluge of iPhone press releases, and everything you see just starts to look the same after a while. I didn't do anything to make it an interesting read and, let's face it, I'm kind of fighting a losing battle with a calculator which - I'll be the first to admit - is next to the flashlights and to-do list apps in terms of reaching saturation point on the store.

Not quite. I rock PCalc on my iPhone, with narry a flashlight in sight!

While PCalc chose humor, some others have gone decidedly darker...

Another recent TiPb interviewee, Yellow Pages (iTunes link), has a negative review plastered to the top of their app from someone (iTunes link) who also negatively reviewed a White Pages app, recommending instead the competition (which is "part of the new AT&T"). Strangely, over on phonescoop.com, that userid turns up stating an association with AT&T. D'oh! I think most of us would prefer real users giving us real recommendations, with developers sticking to promoting their own products and not wasting time worrying about the competition. B'okay?

Last up, via Daring Fireball, comes a great post from Andy Finnell of Order N on "How to Price Your iPhone App Out of Existence". The whole article is definitely worth a read, but the conclusion is killer:

There will be an iPhone app bust. The current prices simply aren’t sustainable. Either developers will crash out of the market when they discover they can’t make a living off their current prices, or the gold rush developers will lose interest and leave when they realize they can’t make a quick buck off the store. The developers left standing will be the ones who set reasonable prices for their applications.

I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is. I currently have an iPhone app in development, and when it comes out, I will price it $9.99 or higher. I’ll let you know how it goes for me.

Dieter has spoken at length about the Long Tail of App Store business, but could the race to bottom really be putting things in short order? I'd gladly pay $10 or $20 for desktop quality apps or PSP/DS quality games, especially if it feeds developers' families and ensures we, you know, actually get those kinds of apps. What about you?

Michael Alvarez is the CEO of Avantar, the company behind iPhone applications like One Tap Movies, Showtimes, Calculator AXL, Yellow Pages, AirYell, and Munch. As part of TiPb's ongoing interview series and our look at the iPhone App Store, Michael was good enough to discuss Avantar's views on Apple's new mobile platform, where it is, and where it's going.

TiPb: Avantar has a wide range of apps on the market. Most appear to focus on quickly acquiring and succinctly displaying useful information like movie times, business listings, and restaurant options. What made Avantar choose these particular apps for your initial iPhone offerings?

Michael Alvarez: You are right. Our applications are meant to be locally relevant, where we use the iPhone's GPS capabilities to locate the user and then provide relevant information in his or her surrounding area. This is the ultimate stop gap where the brick and mortar business world meets the most relevant, and targeted, digital advertising solution. And, no one is doing it better than we are on the iPhone right now.

What made us choose these particular apps is a bit of a long story. It begins with the President of Avantar's passion for everything Apple. In his youth, Mr. Adrian Ochoa's kicked off his successful career with his purchase of Apple's first computer, which eventually led him to grow a very successful advertising agency and movie production studio.

More recently, he was also one of the first to get the first generation iPhone and it allowed him to envision what the future holds for a mobile Internet and the effect it will have on the advertising industry. Research and data support his conclusions of hyper-growth market opportunity in this sector. Recently, research firm Informa Telecoms & Media stated that "the mobile ad market is expected to grow to $12 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $1.72 billion for 2008." If you think about it, it just makes sense. Not everyone has a computer, but cell phones are more readily available to the masses. The population of this earth is 6.6 Billion and 3.3 Billion mobile handsets have already been sold.

When Mr. Ochoa and I learned about the plans to launch the App Store, we were in the process of ramping up our interactive yellow pages business and saw the marriage between mobile, Internet, & GPS as the perfect fit for what we had in mind. A few of our developers downloaded the SKD and begun programming our apps several months before the launch of the App Store. We now have nearly 1 Million downloads, and the rest is history yet to be discovered.

Given the diversity in Avantar's lineup, when designing user interfaces how do you weigh consistent branding/unified look-and-feel against the possibly very different requirements of each individual app?

Getting the right balance is the formula for success. It really comes down to experience, and being that the iPhone Apps are so new we learn new things through trial and error every day that help us to create that balance. We are also very thankful for excellent users who've downloaded our apps and provide us with their feedback all the time. We even had one user from Serbia who offered to redesign one of our apps and sent us all the files for free. How amazing is that?

When bringing your content and services to the iPhone, how much did you have to rethink existing presentation and interaction paradigms? Is there anything you learned from developing for the iPhone that would inform, or be carried back to, development for other platforms?

The iPhone was new for us so continue to learn as we go along. We just had to adapt our web design/usability experience and transform it into a smaller window view. Our collective experience in usability and design also help a great deal.

With 3G speed and GPS location, we're starting to see a shift in applications not just from "static" to "dynamic" but from "when" to "where". Instead of an alarm telling me it's 3pm, I can get an alarm telling me I'm passing the grocery store and I need milk. How fundamental will this change be for end-users?

Grand! Think about how much progress our two apps have made to simplify people's life:

1) Yellow Pages: No more phone book, no more searching two or three websites, no more reading through a list find what you want that's closest to you, and now you have all the information you need with a few taps of your finger including phone number, address, and driving directions.

2) Showtimes: No more calling an outdated recording for each theater, no more hunting around for information through two or three different websites, no more creating traffic jams in front of the theater to try and read all the posters and showtimes, and no more need for the newspaper. All of the necessary information shows instantly with a single tap of the finger.

Which, if any, of your iPhone apps (or feature(s) of your apps) have especially delighted you? Anything turn out even better than you first thought, or catch on with your customers more than you anticipated?

Showtimes has been as high as the #7 most favorite app, and Yellow Pages has also been a very popular app. Recently Apple published a report stating that the App Store reached it's 100 Millionth download, which means we currently receive nearly 1% of all their downloads.

Most developers are still experimenting with the business model behind the App Store. You offer both free and paid applications. Does that give you the best of both current worlds? Is there anything Apple could tweak or surface to make things even better for you and your customers?

Our strategy behind offering both paid and free apps was more experimental since no one really knew what to expect when the doors opened. It's been a great learning experience for us.

One thing I would ask Apple would be to add our own affiliate tracking links on the confirmation pages for each confirmed download. This would allow us to optimize advertising campaigns to know which source produces how many downloads, and thus increasing downloads and sales for both of Apple and us the developers.

Thanks Michael! Avantar.us is Avantar's website, and their applications One Tap Movies, Showtimes, Calculator AXL, Yellow Pages, AirYell, and Munch are available via the iTunes App Store.

The status of the TomTom GPS app may still be up in the air, but we'll still have Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions (albeit not in 3D and without voice prompts). Looks like we may to have another option, too, an AT&T-Branded "gps enabled application." So says an AT&T insider who adds that in addition to the GPS app, AT&T is also developing a "yellowpages.com mobile" app as well.

Good news? We hope so -- because our fear is that the Apple SDK user agreement prohibiting developers from creating turn-by-turn apps means that this AT&T GPS app will be our only option, an option that could potentially include a monthly fee -- our worst fear.

As though the increased monthly fees on the iPhone 3G weren't bad enough already. Say it ain't so, AT&T!