Hello, my name is Nicholas Massenkoff and this is my app. Computer programming has been a hobby of mine for over 15 years, and three years ago I decided to turn my hobby into a profession. To do so, I began spending my spare time (there wasn't much as I do have a day job) taking classes, reading books and doing various software projects to seriously hone my skills as a software developer.
I grew up in a Microsoft world, but the iPhone made a huge impact on my life, and when Apple released the iPhone SDK I absolutely had to learn how to develop iPhone apps. Thus, my first mac was purchased and forever changed my life. That first mac was so superior to anything I had experienced up to date, both software and hardware, that I quickly became an Apple enthusiast.
In the beginning I was a casual participant in the booming iOS development scene. I spent free moments teaching myself Objective-C, and excitedly building small applications. I attempted to create of few serious apps, but found that for every feature I implemented I'd think of two more that I wanted to add, and nothing was ever completed. Back then that was ok, because hey it was just a hobby, but once I started focusing on becoming a software developer, I began to take my computer science self-tutelage much more seriously.
As an indy developer I try to make other people's lives easier by looking for ways to make my own life easier. When Mediocre Labs released their API for meh.com, I was excited because although I loved meh.com (and used to love woot.com), I often forgot to check what the new deal was for the day. With this API, I thought to myself, I could "easily" build an app that automatically sends me a notifcation every day with the new deal. And so, the idea for Big Deal. was born.
Once I went from the "that would be cool" to the "let's actually build this" phase, I decided to approach this project as if it were a job, as if someone were paying me to build it. I created small deadlines for myself, and focused on bringing everything I had learned about software development into building this app. I put together a list of essential features for a 1.0 release, and systematically implemented each of them one by one. Any cool feature ideas that I came up with along the way I made sure to put on a list for future releases. Building this app was a lot of fun, because of so many "a-ha" moments when conventions and idioms I had learned connected beautifully with various aspects of the project.
Ultimately I wanted this app to do only a few things, but to do them well. I worked hard to not overlook details, no matter how small, in order to create a seamless experience for the user. I still have a lot of work to do with many more features to add, but I hope that in its current state people will find it enjoyable and helpful to use.