EskomsePush is by far South Africa’s most popular smartphone application for checking load shedding schedules. Herman Maritz, co-creator of the app with Dan Wells, joins the TechCentral podcast to chat about what’s next.
In the podcast, Maritz explains how the idea for the app came about — including its name — and some of the challenges he and Wells faced in developing it on a shoe-string budget.
He talks about the usage patterns on the app, including how it spikes massively when Eskom announces load shedding and the challenges involved in the backend in ensuring it stays up when this happens (hint: hyperscale cloud services have helped enormously).
The conversation covers why Google took the app out of the Play store (on a Sunday!), why ensuring the right schedules are loaded in the app is a time-consuming and extremely complex process (even with automation), and what’s next for the app.
Don’t miss this conversation with the co-developer of one of South Africa’s most-used apps.
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