Quality App Development for Quality Clients: Push Interactions

In today’s society, most of us won’t leave home without our smartphones. From social networking and shopping to sharing important business documents, we put our Smartphones and mobile apps to work every day.

Mobile apps are vital for all the smartphones like air and water. They are also effective brand-strengthening tools, creating and maintaining positive audience engagement, all the while gathering powerful data about the way users interact with a brand.

Headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Push Interactions is a developer of customized smartphone and tablet apps for businesses and organizations, specializing in Apple iOS, Android™, BlackBerry^®, and Windows^® Phone. It aims to enhance the quality of life and also to bring an idea to life through its apps. This is accomplished through the development of transaction-intensive and feature-filled mobile apps that enhance both customer retention and workplace productivity.

Push developers are among the top mobile app developers in Canada and have been sought after by global organizations such as Apple, Google, and Pixar since, Push apps are reliable, powerful, and functional, and need low-maintenance.

Let us know what Chad Jones, the founder of the company and also a pundit on the topic, has to say to some of our questions, to enlighten us about his company and mobile technology:

What made you set up the company?

I always wanted to start a software company. So, after the class was held at the 1st University Accredited iPhone Programming Class in Canada and received national attention we received a lot of calls to build apps. From there it was a straightforward task of building apps for clients following some of the principles I learned while I was at Apple.

Tell us about your first product that was launched.

The first major app we worked on was called iUsask and it was for the University of Saskatchewan. Back in 2009, the app was extremely innovative for its time. It allowed students to log in and check grades, classes and see information about campus all on their palms. It was an exciting project that involved a lot of different groups across the University of Saskatchewan campus.

The project was very successful. It also garnered national attention since it is usually places like Vancouver or Toronto where you hear about such innovations in Canada. But we did it for the first time in Saskatchewan using a lot of the knowledge I had learned when I was with Apple. Knowing the phone’s programming language and tools which are very similar to the Mac OS X tools put us ahead of the game.

What were the grounds on which you have expanded your company?

We started off by building apps and apps only. But over the time, we have found that many apps also require complex backends. We were integrating with backends from the beginning but recently we have found that we also need to build both the front end as well as the server backend whether that is an app, website, Google Home Assistant or whatever the user will interface with. We have also grown over time in skills when it comes to building both the front end experiences and also the scalability of the backends. We are believers in Google’s App Engine platform since it is scalable to millions of users when the software is built correctly.

What challenges did you face in your initial years?

When it comes to running a business, there is a lot more to it than just producing good software. Managing a team of individuals with diverse skills towards a common goal is a task that requires a completely different set of skills than writing software. There are also a lot of business skills which I had to learn which my training in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science never prepared me for. But it has been a very rewarding experience.

What factors played key roles in shaping your organization’s roadmap?

I think that my time at Apple and some subsequent mentorship I received in the early days of the business really helped us get to where we are. We have a stable and growing team that can take on very challenging projects and I always have the confidence that we will perform a great job. That is something that is hard to achieve but we have done it.

Where do you see you and your company a couple of years from now?

We continue to expand our operation and are now working with more and more U.S. based clients. I see us opening a permanent base of operations in Silicon Valley in the future to service that needs. As face-to-face can help a business relationship succeed but many of our customers are strictly remote.

Say Hi to the CEO!

Chad Jones is a former Apple Engineer who played a role in the development of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. His time in Silicon Valley inspired him to leave his post and return home to Saskatchewan to tap into the budding realm of mobile technology and the province’s high caliber developers. Upon his return, Chad taught Canada’s first university-accredited iPhone programming course at the University of Saskatchewan. The course received national attention and was featured on The National, Globe & Mail, Maclean’s, CTV News, Global News, and CBC Radio.

Chad holds a B.Sc in Computer Science and B.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan. He and his team developed iUsask, Canada’s first iPhone application for university students. iUsask’s success prompted organizations across Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia to commission Chad to develop other customized mobile apps. In 2009, Chad founded Push Interactions to respond to this surge in demand. He has been at its helm ever since.

“Push is all about creating efficient, well-designed quality software. Users care about their mobile experiences and we want to give them that great experience.”

keep in touch: www.pushinteractions.com