Some of the biggest app blockbusters on your smartphone or tablet came from
Take Instagram, for example. The company only had a dozen or so employees when Facebook bought it for a cool $1 billion.
So who are the people working on the next big hit? We took a look at some of the best independent developers doing the coolest things in mobile.
Daniel Mendes de Oliveira of Box Fish wants to change how you interact with TV
Daniel Mendes de Oliveira works at Boxfish, a new company that is challenging how we interact with our cable boxes.
Boxfish believes there is a huge navigation and discovery problem with TV and the Boxfish app allows users to engage with the content on TV as it happens.
At Boxfish, Oliveria is head of Front End Development. Previously, Oliveria was the founder of the Brazilian company DooIT, which was acquired by Boxfish in mid-2011.
Boxfish says Oliveria is, "a true ninja of front end development." He is now based in Palo Alto, just a few blocks away from Boxfish's HQ.
Boxfish is free and available for iPhone and iPod touch.
Olli Wang turns real-world discovery into a game
Olli Wang is the developer of the innovative app, Fog of World. Together with designer Sheri Huang, he runs Ollix, a creative and active software development company in Taiwan.
Fog of World turns walking around into a game. The app challenges you to uncover a world map simply by exploring your surroundings. As you move through an area, fog lifts from the map on your mobile device. It's a great way to remember all the places you've been.
Wang says his dream is to travel around the world and be a great photographer, and he created the app to help him do that.
The app's name comes from the video game term "fog of war," where unexplored territory is grayed out. The more you explore, the more you clear away the fog.
Fog of World is available for iPhone for $4.99.
Marco Arment redefined how we read articles online
Marco Arment is the developer of Instapaper, the app that lets you save online articles and read them later on your smartphone or tablet.
Arment developed Instapaper by himself and launched the app in January 2008. It has since become a staple on mobile devices.
Recently, Arment launched an iOS app called The Magazine, which is a monthly publication about technology.
If Arment's venture into digital publishing pays off like his Instapaper success, this indie developer may be on the verge of disrupting another industry.
Instapaper is available for the iPhone and iPad for $3.99. You can download it for Android devices for $2.99.
The Magazine is a free download in Apple's App Store. Subscriptions are $1.99 per month with a free 7-day trial.
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