About Me

My name is Steve Roy and I was born at 323 PPM. I am French Canadian and grew up in beautiful Quebec City. Since then I have called several places home around North America. I’m currently located in Toronto. I’m fluent in French and English.

I’m an experienced software engineer specializing in native mobile development for iOS and Android. I help people stay close with their loved ones by working at Aura Home. I’m also the owner of Apt Apps, a small company that provides software design and development services. I have been making software professionally for 25 years. I also have a formal background in industrial design, having graduated from design school in 1992. I have continued evolving and applying my design skills as I transitioned to software, and today contribute to projects in design or development capacities, or both.

I have helped shaped products in many industries, including education, health, fitness, logistics, and desktop publishing. For the last 10 years my main focus has been mobile platforms. I have iOS and Android expertise, using native as well as cross-platform technologies. Earlier in my career my focus was on desktop software mainly for the macOS and Windows platforms using cross-platform toolkits. Unlike most, I also had a strong career using Java to make desktop applications. I was the author of the open-source library MRJAdapter, which was fairly popular in those days. I do still create software for macOS, using native technologies.

Over the years it has become increasingly important to me to dedicate my time and expertise to projects that make the world a better place. A majority of my daily thoughts are on the changing climate and what we must do to adapt. I am highly interested in any opportunity to use my skillset to help move the needle in the right direction.

My online presence is relatively small despite the breadth of my life experience. That is by design. I maintain control over my content by publishing on my own site and cross-posting to social media. A few years ago I quit the usual platforms in favour of more inclusive and respectful alternatives. I’m a firm believer in a better Internet where people have first-level status and sites interoperate freely. As such I keep my information away from most large corporations. I also keep my money away from large banks and am mindful that it is invested ethically.

A few years ago I switched to a mostly vegetarian diet after I looked up the hard data regarding meat production. I hesitate to use a specific designation for myself, since I do very occasionally have meat. However by and large I favour plant-based alternatives, with a fair amount of my food choices being vegan. Food production is one of the most impacting human activity and the revelation for me has been that eating more ethically does not have to involve as large changes as some would have you believe.

Do feel free to contact me about any of the above as well as other things. I will be happy to help if I can.