iPhone Developers' Meetup

I'm looking forward to a pair of great talks (details below) and some to-be-announced demos:

Christopher Allen, author of the upcoming "iPhone in Action" book, will be joining us for our January meetup and presenting on "Web vs. SDK: which API should you use for your first iPhone app?"

From his online biography: Christopher Allen is a Berkeley, California based social software entrepreneur who has been a leader in the software industry, much of which has been centered on facilitation of online communities. As the founder of Consensus Development, Christopher initially focused on groupware, later helped invent SSL and is the co-author of IETF TLS internet-draft. More recently Christopher has been an angel investor of numerous technology startups, founder of an multiplayer online game company, and current authors his blog at www.LifeWithAlacrity.com on the topics including collaboration, security, privacy, social software and internet tools. He is co-author of "iPhone in Action: Introduction to Web and SDK Development", is the founder of the www.iPhoneWebDev.com, the largest iPhone web developer support community, is maintainer of iUI at iui.googlecode.com, a popular iPhone javascript library, and is keynote speaker and co-founder of www.iPhoneDevCamp.org where he moderates the popular Hackathon Contest.

Suzanne Ginsburg will present a user experience review of the Urbanspoon and Yelp iPhone apps. The original goal of the review was to learn more about the iPhone platform, however, Suzanne realized that her evaluation might be useful to other designers. Thus, in addition to the Urbanspoon and Yelp reviews, Suzanne will share best practices that can be applied to other iPhone apps in similar domains.

Suzanne has twelve years of experience designing software interfaces and improving usability. She has worked with non-profit organizations and academic institutions as well as technology companies like Yahoo!, Google, CNET, and Expedia. Through Ginsburg Design (https://www.ginsburg-design.com/), she currently provides consulting services in user research, interaction design, and design management.

Meetup opens at 6:30, talks start at 7:00.