The App Business is what many people would call a perfect location independent business. You can do your work from almost anywhere in the world. That’s the theory at least. My wonderful wife challenged me to put this theory to the test. So for the past several months we’ve been traveling around New Zealand and Australia.
It’s been a fantastic trip! And for the most part the location independence worked out really well. Time zone differences were a challenge. Especially after the southern hemisphere switched to winter time when the northern hemisphere changed to summer time. Phone calls with customers in Europe were difficult to schedule at a convenient time. But having a few very early morning and late evening calls is a small price to pay while traveling the world.
I’ve learned a lot about staying connected with mobile phones, and finding decent Internet speed and reliability in remote locations. I will be writing more about this in the future. I even got a peek at the ‘dark side’ by picking up a cheap Android phone and used it as my main phone for several weeks.
Long travels is a good time to catch up on reading. If you liked my earlier recommendation of Daniel Suarez books, then you are going to love the Singularity Series by William Hertling. Both authors write about technology dystopias in the near future. They both have a strong technical background so the stories are absolutely believable. As a tech geek it always bugs me when authors use computers to make leaps that you know are not feasible.
(Note: I just noticed that there is a #AmazonVacation campaign going on at the moment. I guess the goal is to boycott Amazon so that the Department of Justice can sue Apple again to restore competition in the ebook market. Or something like that. So if you don’t want to click on the Amazon links above, here’s a link to the iBookstore instead.)
Anyway, great books if you find yourself on a airplane ride in the near future. Like if you’re going to WWDC.
I will of course be in San Francisco next week attending both WWDC and the fantastic AltConf. Hope to see you there!