In the five years since the birth of the Apple App Store, many budding entrepreneurs have harnessed the innovative technology to build brands and businesses of their own.
Team Showcase is one such project; bringing together a team of events industry specialists, business professionals and technology experts to develop and launch a series of apps designed to make everyday life that little bit more convenient.
In late 2008 Australian Lance Stewart, relentlessly frustrated by getting stuck behind crowds on London’s busy tube platforms, hit upon the idea to develop an app to make the process less arduous.
At the time the iPhone had only been available in the UK for 12 months, and apps were just becoming a talking point. Mr Stewart compiled a list of iPhone developers and contacted Pieter Raubenheimer, who had just created his first iPhone application in Cape Town. The pair created Tube Exits, an app designed to advise users which train carriage to board in order to arrive closest to your desired platform exit.
Released in mid 2009, Tube Exits has been rolled out to Paris and Berlin, and has been downloaded over 200,000 times globally.
Tube Exits iPhone app
Mr Raubenheimer moved to London to join Mr Stewart and the latest addition to the team Ian Kershaw, who had been heading up various IT projects at travel website Travelocity.
The apps they created in the wake of Tube Exits followed the ‘genuinely useful’ theme, from PayByPhone, borne out of their frustration from using coins for pay and display car parking, to Flying Flowers, which allows users to pay and send flowers safely and securely.
Their latest project is Showcase, an event app platform for the trade show and exhibition industry, which aims to help busy organisers, attendees and exhibitors to connect and network all year round.
Mr Stewart said: “We are reinventing event apps. Event organisers can have an app for a fraction of the time and cost of a bespoke app and, best of all, it enables delegates and exhibitors to connect face to face and do business more effectively.”
And while the appreneurs are building remarkable businesses, it's worth remembering it's all down to Apple, and that Apple now make the weather for countless developers.
