Right before Tapbots launched Tweetbot for iPad (and Tweetbot 2), I had the privilage of asking Mark a few questions.

Of course after seeing the release I decided to bother Mark again with some slightly updated questions, touching on their latest product, Tweetbot for iPad.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where have you traveled to? What kind of music do you listen to? What are your hobbies?

I’m a 34 year-old, immature kid who’s married, has an almost 2 year-old son, and a dog. Growing up, I was part of a military family so I got to live in some pretty exciting places and had an amazing childhood. I grew up in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, and California. Since then, I’ve visited Korea twice, been to Vancouver twice (flew once, drove another), and spent a few weeks in Germany and the Netherlands.

As far as musical taste goes, I grew up listening to everything but country. My dad was a huge influence on what I listen to. We’d listen to 70’s and early 80’s rock with our headphones connected to his receiver which was sending out audio from his reel-to-reel tape recorder. I went through genre phases as I grew up, but alternative/rock is in my blood.

I like to play music as a hobby, but I pretty much suck at it. I played classical piano for 6 years as a kid. I learned how to play guitar (mainly by reading tabs) on my own, but never enough to be any good. I played the drums for about 5 years, but I’m also pretty average at that. I think the problem is me not having innate talent with any instrument and also not focusing on one. But I do enjoy playing for fun. Photography is another hobby that I enjoy, but it’s also definitely not a talent. Now that I think bout it, I’m pretty average at a lot of things. In some ways, it’s really helpful to know how to do many things, but on the other hand I’m not great at anything. I tend to pick up things that I’m interested in and drop them when I get bored. My biggest interest right now is driving at the race track. It’s a blast and extremely challenging on so many levels.  

What was your first job growing up?

My first job ever was mowing my parent’s lawn and then babysitting our next door neighbor’s two kids. Surprisingly, I did both of these starting in 2nd grade. I never had a real job until I graduated high school. The summer after I graduated, my best friend filled out an application to a movie theater for both of us (because I had no interest in doing it) and we both ended up getting the job. The work itself sucked, but watching movies for free was a nice perk.

What was your role at Oakley? What was the tipping point that pushed you to leave and focus on Tapbots full-time?

I was hired as a UI designer at Oakley. My tasks consisted of designing brochure pages, updating/improving the general site interface, and building the pages out in HTML/CSS. I got to do other things as well like design interfaces for kiosks and I also designed the Oakley Surf Report iPhone app. That was actually my first iOS app design. Paul and I started Tapbots as a hobby, but once we were making close to as much money with Tapbots as we were at Oakley, we decided it was time to leave our comfort zones and take a risk to make it on our own. While I’ll always love Oakley as a company, I think we made the right decision. Nothing beats working for yourself and building your own brand.

What’s a typical day look like for you?

I wake up anywhere from 8-10 from my dog scratching or barking at the bedroom door. I’ll spend a few minutes reading emails on my iPhone. Then I let the dog out of our room, give her a treat, and then get ready for the day. Once I’m done I take the dog for a walk and then go get myself some breakfast. I usually go to one of 2 bagel shops in the area depending on my mood and then grab coffee or a Red Bull. When I get back to my desk I’ll eat while reading twitter or a car forum. The rest of the day is usually just working unless I have errands to run. Paul and I communicate over iChat and work on tasks we have in Kickoff. My wife comes home from work with our son around 5-6 and I spend time with them until around 8-9. Then I get back to my computer, get some more work done and usually hop on Gran Turismo or Battlefield 3 for an hour or two before bed. 

Any formal design training, or mostly self taught? Where do you look for interface inspiration?

My major in college was Visual Communication. So I studied design, but it was mainly designing logos, brochures, and CD covers which was completely different than designing for the web or software. I dropped out of college halfway through once I got a pretty decent paying job as a web designer. I just felt like I was learning so much more doing real work in a medium I was passionate about. My biggest inspiration comes from Apple and developers like Panic, Delicious Monster, and Mac Rabbit. I was always looking up to those guys and wishing I could design software someday.

When you’re evaluating a new app idea, what’s involved in the research/planning?

We usually check the app store for anything similar. What’s the best app in that category? Can we do it better? We also make sure we do an app that has a high chance of success based on how much we think people would use it. We try to stay away from niche applications (though Pastebot was an exception).

Often good ideas come when we’re trying to solve problems. Is this how Pastebot came to be?

Sort of. Getting images and text from the Mac to your iPhone and vice versa was always a bit cumbersome (less so now with iCloud). Also Paul developed a Mac clipboard app called PTH Pasteboard a long time ago and I really loved that app. It wasn’t the prettiest app, but I found it invaluable to have on my Mac. It just felt like the perfect app for us to do at the time. 

How do you determine your pricing?

We generally either stay competitive with the competition or go a bit lower. I know some developers hate the idea of “devaluing” software, but the mobile app market is just different. We’ve been very successful by keeping our app prices low. You need to learn to be agile, and be able to go with the flow of the market or you’ll end up being left behind. 

What sparked the interest in going after the 3rd party Twitter client market? Did Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie affect your launch of Tweetbot?

To be honest, we just wanted to take up the challenge. There were already a few great twitter clients out there. We wanted to see if we could make a great client with the Tapbot’s style. We never expected it to be big, but we figured it would sell well enough and the fans of our apps would appreciate it. Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie did stall the development of Tweetbot. Tweetie was a really good client. It was my preferred client on the iPhone. An app that good that people could get for free? It just didn’t seem like a good business decision to compete with that. So we put the app on hold and decided to develop a really small app that we could do in a month or two. That app was Calcbot. With all the success we’ve had with Tweetbot, it’s kind of crazy that we almost canned it a few times. I’m glad we went through with it in the end.

How do you see the market for 3rd party Twitter apps going forward?

Things seem okay for now. But I feel like Twitter is slowly making it harder for us to compete with their app. I’ll run the latest version of Twitter for iPhone and tell Paul I really like this new feature. Then Paul will reply, “Sorry, there’s no public API for that.” That’s kind of scary to me. Maybe that’s their way of slowly killing off 3rd party clients over time. But communication-wise, Twitter has been extremely responsive and helpful overall.

Congrats on the launch of Tweetbot for iPad! Things seem to be going very well so far! Is there anything you can tell us about creating a successful launch?

I wish I had a secret recipe for that. My only guess is because we are so secretive about new apps and we don’t release new apps very often. We have users that enjoy our apps and they love spreading the word about our new releases. We can’t thank them enough. Some people seem to think we have some carefully orchestrated plan when we launch, but it’s quite the opposite. We are always trying different things to see what works better.

Tweetbot should be free for iPad. And for iPhone. All of your apps should be free. Just kidding.

A part of my faith in the next generation dies a little every time I read a complaint about charging for the iPad app. But I think part of this is Apple’s fault. There are people out there who genuinely believe iPhone and iPad apps are the same thing because of Universal apps. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind Universal apps at all. They are great for some business models and apps. But an iPhone app and an iPad app isn’t necessarily the same thing. And in the case of Tweetbot, it’s definitely not the same.

Can you share some details about designing the iPad version? Was this part of the plan all along, or was it something you started after the iPhone version was already in the market?

We had the idea of an iPad version at some point while developing the iPhone version, but only if the iPhone version did well enough. The first comp for the iPad version was in July 2011 which I think was a few months after the iPhone version was released. It was definitely much more challenging than designing the iPhone app.

What’s been your favourite app to work on so far? Do you have any preference between designing for iPhone/iPod touch vs. iPad?

I love the way Calcbot on the iPhone turned out. It’s funny because it was originally an iPad-only app. The iPhone version was kind of rushed together at the last minute, but it turned out to be much better than on the iPad. I’m pretty proud of the whole animation sequence when you pull down to reveal the history tape. It was initially a nightmare for Paul to implement because it was so hard to explain.

I prefer designing for the iPhone because of the constraints it provides. Designing for the iPad is actually pretty hard for me. 

Is there anything you can tell us about the future of Tapbots? Anything in the pipeline for Mac?

The future for Tapbots is bright as long as people are still using iOS devices. I’m not sure if I would have the passion to do work for Android or anything else out there at the moment. We are working on a Mac app and I hope it opens more opportunities do continue doing more of them. 

What’s been the biggest struggle for you as an individual and with Tapbots, as a company?

At this point it is sticking with our branding. While Tapbots has been extremely successful with each one of our apps, sticking with the same general aesthetics can be hard. On the positive side, I’m iterating on our style with each app so things just get better. On the other hand, it can get boring and in some ways limiting. It also irks me when people associate the Tapbots UI with my personal “style”. My personal work tends to be fairly minimalistic which is sort of the opposite of what we do at Tapbots. But Tapbots started with a clear objective and we’ve been sticking with it ever since. Pushing the concept into a Twitter client brought a lot of criticism by a few well-respected designers and while I totally understand where they are coming from, it’s frustrating that they can’t see what we are doing. Our only options regarding the design of Tweetbot were either design the app like you see it today or never develop the app in the first place. I think we made the right choice. I don’t regret one thing we’ve done with Tapbots. We’ve been able to carve out our tiny slice of the app market, build a fun brand, and love what we do every day. Paul and I have talked about doing an app outside of the Tapbots brand so we could start with a fresh canvas. It could very well happen someday.

What’s been the biggest source of exposure for Tapbots? The App Store? Reviews? Social media? Word of mouth? Any tips for other developers looking to grow their app business?

Twitter has always been really big for us. Much bigger than Facebook at least. Getting well-known blogs to talk about our app is also key. Given our track record, getting the word out has become easy, but it wasn’t always the case. I think with your first app, you really need to have something different and unique to get that initial buzz going. With Weightbot, it was really different from anything else on the store at the time…especially in that genre of apps. 

What have you failed at in life, and how have you learned from the experience?

Everything? I think you have to fail to learn and get better at something. There’s really no way around it. The trick is to accept failure as a part of the process and know that by trying again, you’ll do just a little bit better. I just wish I learned that at a much younger age. I used to be so afraid of failure that I wouldn’t want to try in the first place. That’s just not a healthy way to live. I missed out on many great opportunities because of this.

Any advice for anyone looking to get into the iOS app business?

Be original and take risks. (In the app that is. I can’t be responsible for financial risks!)

If you aren’t a designer, hire one (for the app icon at the very least).

The right sound in the right spot can go a very long way.

What’s your hardware/software setup look like?

I have a 6-core Mac Pro and a 15” Macbook Pro. I used to use an iMac (which was great, btw), but I just needed all the extra internal hard drive space and wanted a more powerful GPU for a bit of gaming on the Windows partition. I run Mac OS on a pair of striped SSD’s, data on a 2TB drive, 2TB drive for Time Machine and a 1TB drive for Windows. The Macbook Pro just has an SSD drive and I only keep a couple apps that I need along with my data from Dropbox.  I also have a Drobo with 6TB of space for all of my archival data. It goes quickly when you have a lot of raw photo and video.

On the software side, I tend to stick with mostly Apple software. I use Photoshop for 99% of my design work. I know Illustrator very well, but don’t use it as much these days since most of my work is around designing software. For web work, I flip between Textmate, Espresso, and Coda. I should also note that I’ve always been a Safari guy ever since Apple first released it. I cringe every time I open Firefox and Chrome just smells funny on the Mac. Haven’t figured out what it is yet.

For task management I use Reminders in iCal for personal things (mainly because it syncs with the iOS app), The Hit List for personal projects, and Kickoff for all of the Tapbots projects. 

Do you have a favourite 3rd party, indie-developed iOS app?

Checking what’s on my iPhone…There’s Delivery Status Touch, Screens, Verbs and…well that’s about it as far as indie goes (not counting our apps of course). I don’t use too many other apps to be honest. But just to make it more interesting (or maybe not), I also use Path, Instagram, and Facebook.

A little off-topic, I know, but when did cars and racing become a part of your life? For me it was before I could walk. Has it always been a huge passion for you?

I don’t know where my passion for cars came from. My dad was into cars, but he never had a nice car himself. He always drove cheap clunkers that never died. His favorite car growing up was a Datsun 280z. It wasn’t until maybe 7-8 years ago that he bought his first sports car, the Nissan 350z. But when I was a kid, he took me to a lot of Monster Truck and Tractor Pull events. We washed his cars together and he taught me all about basic car maintenance. Not very interesting, I know. When I was in 2nd grade, I was in love with the Lamborghini Countach. Had posters on my wall and did a whole paper on the history of the company. That’s about all I can remember about cars and my childhood.

When I was old enough to drive, I was stuck driving hand-me-down cars from my parents. My first car was a 1986 Toyota Corolla. And no, not the fancy RWD one that has a cult following. It was the boring front-wheel-drive sedan. The first car I bought on my own (and brand new) was a 2000 Celica GT-S. That was the first car where I was truly excited about the car I was driving. Wasted lots of money on mods (including upgraded flywheel, clutch, and LSD). My biggest regret however is not having someone around to push me to attend a track day or autocross event. All of that mod money would have been much more valuable learning how to really drive. I can’t wait to teach my son about cars and get him started on the right foot.

If you could spend a few hours over dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?

That’s a good question. I honestly have no idea. Maybe Phil Schiller. We could talk all night about Apple, software, and cars. Yea, that would be pretty awesome.

Lastly, if you could do anything with your time (if money was no object), what would it be? 

To drive on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. If that’s not grand enough, I want to drive on it many many times. If that’s still not enough, I want to drive on it many, many times in an M3, 458 Italia, Exige, Cayman R, GT3 RS, and a Lamborghini Superleggera Balboni. 

You can follow Mark on Twitter, and if you haven’t already purchased every app that Tapbot’s makes you can check them out here. His Flickr is also worth checking out if you’re into cars or photography.