Creator Spotlight: Discover the Italian island of Ponza with the iPonza guide
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Creator Profile
Creator: Marco Feola
Profession: Apple Shop Salesman
Location: Rome, Italy
Solution: iPonza (available on iOS)
Who wouldn’t enjoy a holiday on the Italian island of Ponza? Now visitors to the small island off the coast of Naples can find tourist information on the go with the app iPonza. Marco Feola, a Ponza native who now lives in Rome, developed the mobile guide to help tourists make the most out of their visit, from ferry tickets to local nightclubs.
Tell us a little about your background and how this project got started.
I’m not a coder. I work in that world of technology, but not in the coding world. Since the iPhone came out, I was always attracted to apps and thought it could be a useful way to find information really fast.
iPonza started as a project in 2012. I started to think about an app where people from the island could list their business and services for tourists who might not know where to go. The app helps you find things like where to rent a scooter, buy a ticket for the ferry, or take boat tours of the island. It’s a really small place, so everyone knows each other. I started with a list of friends, and many people on the island were interested, and then it expanded as I added a lot more places. During the high season there’s like 3–4,000 downloads per month, which is not a lot but for a small place it’s pretty good.
How did you find the development process?
I tried many ways to develop the project, starting from plain coding, web apps — it changed many times, until I finally found AppGyver. It really helped me to finally develop what I meant to do, so thanks for that. In AppGyver, it was pretty easy for me because I had already made a Wordpress website with a lot of information. It was easy to extract the data through APIs and use it in AppGyver.
AppGyver enables people just like me, who have a little background of coding. You have to know something — it’s not Word or Powerpoint, but you can reach your goal for graphics, especially using the formulas. For me that’s the killer function on AppGyver. I’ve tried other platforms before and it was somewhat limited on the free tier. This is also important because I’m working on a low budget for this project.
Anything particularly challenging while building the app?
For iPonza, I found it a little difficult to work with data from the website and sort it out. The forum was very helpful and once I figured that out, it was only a matter of putting it all together and it worked flawlessly. I also just published updates to the iOS store making it a bit faster, so I’m happy with that for now.
What’s your main goal with iPonza?
First, I wanted to let people know more about my island. When you’re from a place, you want people to know more about it, especially when you’re from a tiny dot on the map. But I think it’s a wonderful place and people should definitely visit.
The other reason is that my family owns a nightclub there, and at the moment I was looking for ways to get their business listed on Google Maps and other places. In the latest update I also included a partnership with a website that issues tickets for ferries, so it’s easier for people to find timetables and buy tickets to go back to the mainland. There’s also a section that explains some points of interest, like special beaches and how they got their names. It also includes some stories and historical facts about the island, like why pirates went there. Tourists can find all this information while on the go.
What are the next steps for iPonza?
For the next update I want to make it completely available offline because now it looks for the data each time you make a connection.There’s some places around the island with poor connections, so that update could make the app even more useful for tourists.
As a non-coder, do you have any tips for other app builders?
I really don’t have a system other than try, fail, try and fail again. Then eventually you’ll reach your goal.
This was a little frustrating with AppGyver because it ended up being very straightforward what I needed to do. But everything is well documented, so as long as you have a good background, then you can do it.
And of course you should have an idea. You have to understand what is doable and what is not. You can do pretty much anything with AppGyver, but sometimes you will need the help of a person who knows more because integrations with other services can be challenging. Things like in-app payments, login with social media, for example, that could be more challenging for a person like me.
