Inspiration
We were inspired to make terms from our everyday connected experience. We use many applications on a daily basis that involve creating and sharing data. We think it's important as a consumer to understand what is happening to the data we create and try to work towards a transparent and easy to understand future for connected applications and services.
How it works
Terms is an iOS app that identifies the applications that you have installed on your device and delivers information about explains the services they provide and how they are using your data. We integrated a service that delivers ratings of the terms and conditions of a number of popular services. We enable the user to easily explore and learn more about the applications installed on their phone and the services they use everyday.
Challenges I ran into
Creating Terms involved the aggregation of a wide range of data not only about the quality of the terms of services being used but also in the apps installed on your phone. Delivering all of this information in an easy to read and intuitive way was one of the larger challenges involved. Exploring iOS networking as well as the Interface Builder were also some hurdles we had to overcome.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Delivering a working project at the end of the weekend has to be the biggest accomplishment. We are very proud of the level of polish we feel we were able to put into the application as well as the process we used for development. We developed the application in a very sustainable and manageable way with clear goals and milestones throughout the process. This focused approach allowed us to get more sleep than we were expecting (that is a complete lie, 5 hours was had at the max)
What I learned
Developing a functional application over the course of a weekend is the perfect way to be exposed to a bunch of new technologies and tools and have to quickly learn how to deal with them. We were not very familiar with iOS and had to learn how to use everything from the Interface Builder (which is a nightmare) to how to perform simple HTTP requests. Being able to implement these things under pressure was a very informative (and stressful) experience.
What's next for terms-app
We were hoping to be able to build a social component into Terms over the course of the weekend but that proved to be too ambitious. We would like to extend upon the app to allow for people to criticize, learn about and discuss the terms of services and practices of the applications they use. Integrating a discussion board and collaborative editing are the first steps we will likely take to help Terms achieve it's goal of helping people learn more about the tools they use
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