Ten-Year-Old Nerd Already Has Five Apps In The App Store And I Do Not Feel Good About Myself
Source - TEN year old Melbourne schoolboy Yuma Soerianto has just done what most app makers dream about: he’s impressed Apple CEO Tim Cook with what he can do. Yuma, who is a Year 5 student at Middle Park Primary School in Melbourne, is the youngest attendee this week at the Worldwide Developers Conference. He decided at age six to start learning code because he said schoolwork was not a big enough challenge. He created his first app just last year and now has five apps in the App Store.
Yuma’s five apps include the Hunger Button, which he created to help families find a nearby restaurant for dinner, and Let’s Stack, which is a game involving stacking boxes that he made after seeing an arcade game at St Kilda’s Luna Park. But the app that instantly impressed Cook today was the one he quickly made on the flight over from Australia to help his parents work out the price for goods by adding the local sales tax and doing the currency conversion when they go shopping for souvenirs on the trip.
While Yuma is the youngest developer at WWDC, the oldest developer is 82-year-old Masako Wakamiya from Japan who created a gaming app aimed at older people and based on the Japanese doll festival Hinamatsuri.
I get a little pukey when I find out athletes are younger than me. But Yumi, I’m okay with. Why? Because he’s definitely not going to peak at like fifteen. You can’t start this hot and not burn out. If he was really smart he would’ve set the bar low and continued to improve but he’s never had a job before so he doesn’t know that. Then he says, “first grade wasn’t hard”- yah think? First grade isn’t about being hard. It’s about not shitting your pants and taking naps.
I will give him credit; he’s done things at age ten that most adults will never be able to do. But if he’s going to act like an adult then he should be treated like one. You don’t get a pass because you’re ten. Let’s check out his apps:
“Hunger Button, which he created to help families find a nearby restaurant for dinner”
Um- these already exist, they’re called Yelp, GrubHub, Seamless and Postmates. You may have impressed Tim Cook but it’s going to take more than that to impress a twenty-seven year old blogger. What else you got?
“Let’s Stack, which is a game involving stacking boxes that he made after seeing an arcade game at St Kilda’s Luna Park”
Yawn. Stacking boxes? That’s not a game that’s called cleaning up. Sure, it’s probably the most addicting game in the world but still; not that cool and you stole it from a carnival. Next.
“The app that instantly impressed Cook today was the one he quickly made on the flight over from Australia to help his parents work out the price for goods by adding the local sales tax and doing the currency conversion when they go shopping for souvenirs on the trip.”
Ah-ha! Now it all makes sense. “Souvenirs,” “jet setting to far away lands,” “goods,”…no wonder he’s been able to be so successful, he’s a rich kid. You know, the ones whose parents pay their rent so they can “pursue their dreams.” He’s probably never paid a bill in his life. Other kids his age are slaving away in the local iPhone factory and Yuma’s over here living the life of Riley. He’s not a brick by brick app builder he’s a silver spoon app builder. The only thing impressive about him is his age.
Also, poor Masako Wakamiya. She’s eighty two years old and thinks she’s finally having her moment, only to be upstaged by a ten year old. What a shame.
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