Grind - Coffee Brewed Simply Now Available

 

What a journey. We remember a year ago John mentioned, "I want to build an app and I have a great idea on where to start."  Now here we are.

Grind is exactly what you'd hope for when making coffee: a companion. It's all about making sure the steps that go into making a great cup are presented to you, so you can enjoy the process without the stress. 

For us it's always been about the user. The foundation of the app is essentially outlined as a tool, one that's been built to keep you on a straightforward path when those groggy mornings are at their full capacity. The real math went into allowing you to customize your brew, and to save time Grind will remember your last brew preference.

From a design perspective Grind takes on the 'simple' aesthetic with outlined graphics and fun icons. We wanted Grind to feel good in any environment and stay easily readable at a quick glance. This was especially helpful when working with Apple Watch. As we explore (and drink) more brew options, this family will continue to expand!

We are SUPER excited to get this into your hands so go on, get this puppy on your iPhone and Apple Watch and take on coffee in a whole new way.

 
 
 
 
 

Leave the Code Alone

With all the development I've been doing lately, both on Grind and my day J.O.B. projects, I've been thinking a lot about the code I've been writing. I make a nice little API that looks great but realize quickly it doesn't appear very efficient. I think, if I added this param I could cut out some lines of code inside this function. Or maybe, adding one more instance variable to this class would cut out this loop. I want to jump right in an optimize at the cost of complicating my pretty API.

I came across an article recently by Will Shiply discussing eliminating loops from Swift code (which is a fantastic article about Map/Filter), but there was a key statement that really hit home:

Follow this handy mnemonic, Johnny and/or Janey:

  1. Is the code as clear as possible? Yes? Good. Leave it alone.
  2. Did the code even show up in Instruments? No? LEAVE IT THE F ALONE.

It's true. Until I actively prove that code is causing a bottleneck there is absolutely no reason to optimize and make the code harder to understand. Clean code reduces so many more problems than adding complexity just because it appears slow.

Will expands a bit more:

As a sidebar about optimizing: don't optimize code until you've measured what's slow — just write good code as quickly as you can, so you have lots of time at the end to make the actual critical areas fast. But when first writing code we can't help but think about how slowly it'll run, so try to think of - how big the potential data set is normally (and in the most insane cases), - how often the particular code is run, and - how fast machines are. Then, if you think there will be a problem, feed your algorithm a bunch of data in a real-world situation and get an Instruments log.

It sounds so obvious. Of course you should do measure then optimize! But in reality, it's much harder to keep myself from premature optimization so I need to be diligent about preventing myself from falling into the trap.

Thoughts on... Thoughts

 
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When we first starting thinking about this company, I always knew I wanted to have a blog attached to the site. I needed an outlet to speak my mind on certain thoughts or a place to detail some problems or successes with development. I also wanted a place for Chris to be able to do the same.

Over the past few weeks, as we launched Riled Up and continued to develop Grind, I've been jotting down little things here and there to talk about. I questioned something in the process of doing this however. Should we put all of these things in the Riled Up blog? What exactly should go into the feed? Would it be news or background about the company and what we are developing? Would it include in depth programming topics? What about design?

We could narrow the focus of the blog and say it will only be about one things, but that wouldn't be true to who we are and what we are doing as a company. We are a shop that makes things. We make designs, t-shirts, apps, websites, and basically anything else that fits our interests. So to narrow our focus and cut out a discussion on a specific programming problem I am deal with or a specific element of design Chris is working on would, I think, be a mistake.


We're here to talk about what we believe in.


So we are going to include all those things here. This will be a blog sometimes about Riled Up, sometimes about topics related to development, sometimes about design. But always it will be related to our core interests and values. We hope what we present here will give readers a little window into what we like and what we do, and hopefully have a little fun or learn something in the process.

 

Introducing the Team

 
 

As we continue to get the ball rolling here at Riled Up, I thought it would be fitting to take a second and introduce you to the team here. And we're a huge group of people over here as you can see...

Chris and I came together through mutual friends and realized pretty quickly that we had a love for making unique and helpful things. Me with the web and software development skills and Chris a designer and animator, we figured we were pretty capabale of making something special and more importantly, something that had care put in it from the beginning to the end. Because at the end of the day that's our goal: create something that actually helps you.

And that's what Riled Up is all about. So far we've got our coffee companion app Grind coming out soon and some amazing Space Icons that you can use for your workflow. There's plenty more on the way so stick around!

In Honor of our Little Dwarf Planet

 
 

If you haven't already figured it out, we love space here at Riled Up. Coincidentally, this week has been a busy week for space as New Horizons, after an almost decade long trip, performed a flyby of Pluto. 

In honor of this amazing achievement, Chris went a little spacey and decided to make a really cool icon pack all about space. From planets to space shuttles, it has it all and it's available now for purchase in our store. 

This is one of the first of some ideas we have. We not only want to build software and apps, but we also want to make some other really cool physical and digital goods like this icon pack. So keep an eye out cause you never know when we might release something new. 

Hello, Internet

This has been a rather exciting and busy few months in our lives. There have been a plethora of obstacles during the building of this company and in our personal lives, but those obstacles have only served to put us more into focus. 

So we are finally here, ready to present to the world our idea, our future; the thing that is getting us all fired up. 

Say hello to Riled Up!
 
Today we launch not just our company, but our future. A future filled with little things, tools, designs, and ideas that make our lives better, easier, and just more enjoyable. We couldn't be more exited to get started, and we can't wait to share what we have built with the world.

#LetsDoThis

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