Treeter
September 4th, 2008(computer program)
A Twitter client that allows separation of tweets into conversations for viewing. How it’s implemented I only have the basic idea but I know it would be beautiful and powerful.
A bit like She-Ra.
Digital Circle - Podcast #1
September 4th, 2008I know the Digital Circle website needs a lot of work - that was talked about this week several times. In the interim, how about you spare 20 minutes and listen to this. It’s the first podcast introducing some of the things I’m working on and the sentiments of the people involved in the Digital Circle steering committee. there’s also a short on CreativeCamp Belfast which is happening this Saturday in Belfast.
Subscribe even. And give feedback.
It’ll do for the journey to work, eh?
And yes, you can hear my gravelly tones…
1000 fans? And save yourself 30%
September 4th, 2008From MacRumors:
“Hello Developer,
We’ve reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.
It may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.
Regards,
Victor Wang
Worldwide Developer Relations
Apple, Inc.”
Victor Wang, the name behind the callous rejection of the excellent MURDERDROME from the App Store, strikes again. Apple don’t have consistent rules for what applications do go onto the store. Seems they’re issuing takedowns based on whether anyone complains.
And “Limited Utility”? They have room for half a dozen tip calculators but not a Fart machine?
Anyway.
Note the recommendation.
Ad-Hoc Distribution allows you to distribute 100 copies of your app to 100 iPhones. Enterprise distribution allows you to distribute to 1000 iPhones. Neither method involves the App Store at all.
Can you see the silver lining here?
At 100 fans (for the $99 certificate), you could sell an extremely useful application on a subscription basis. Say, for instance, NetShare. And I bet you could find 100 people to pay $100 for it. Apple wouldn’t see it and you’d end up with the FULL $10,000 rather than Apple taking 30% and risking it being removed. How about $20 a month? That’s $2000 in income every month and if someone doesn’t pay up, you remove their iPhone ID from your certificate and *boom*.
At 1000 fans, things start getting interesting. Same situation - create an application that is worth $100 and distribute to 1000 fans using Enterprise Distribution ($299 certificate). You’ve now got $100,000. That’s not a bad rate and again Apple doesn’t see it at all and they certainly don’t get their 30%. The irony here is that distribution to 1000 iPhones isn’t likely to be enough for large companies.
So, you want independent application development for the iPhone? Time to lobby Apple. If you can get them to extend the Ad-Hoc distribution to 1000 iPhones and the Enterprise Distribution to 100 000, then you’ve got a real business to build. It requires constant excellence but then that’s what it’s all about.
Time to stop complaining and start talking.
Phones don’t have carbon footprints. People do.
September 4th, 2008Bernie Goldbach wrote a comment:
And accepting the iPhone’s poor battery performance by suggesting a clever work-around is fine, as long as you also accept its leading role as the phone with one of the largest carbon footprints.
My reply:
Phones don’t have carbon footprints. People do. When I’m using my iPhone I’m not using my MacBook Pro which has an 85W Power Supply.
It may seem crazy but this is an example of doing more with less. When I’m doing stuff on my iPhone (playing a game, tweeting, sending email, browsing the web), I’m not powering my MacBook Pro with it’s 17″ screen, dual core processors and kick ass graphics card - any one of which is likely to exceed the entire power drain of the iPhone.
My MacBook Pro has a 68-Watt-Hour battery holds 244800 (68 x 60 x 60) watt-seconds which equals 244800 joules. It drains in just under 4 hours of normal usage.
iPhone has a 1400 mAhour 3.7V battery. This means 1.4 Ampere-hours at 3.7 V. If the voltage remains constant (which is the real trick), this converts proportionally to Watt Hours so 3.7 V x 1.4 ampere-hours = 5.18 Watt Hours. Which means it holds 18648 joules. It drains in around 5 hours of normal usage (meaning constant usage. Standby is much better)
Can someone who knows a bit more about power check my figures? Being conservative with my power is important to me. (Point being that I recharge my iPhone using solar collectors - difficult enough in Northern Ireland)
Having a ready source of energy is important to someone who finds himself more often than not out of the office.
Chrome
September 3rd, 2008Sometimes you have to wonder at Google.
Yesterday they launched Chrome, a new WebKit-based web browser as a BETA for Windows. That’s not surprising considering that Android chose WebKit, S60 chose WebKit and, to be honest, unless you’re really into the politics of the Mozilla guys, you’d choose WebKit too. It’s lean, it’s fast, it’s where all the cool kids are.
Anyway. The real ‘new’ feature of Chrome as opposed to other web browsers is the idea of process proliferation. The Chrome application itself is really a process manager for Chrome sub-processes which spawn to handle a single page or tab each. This is a bit like the way Apache deals with increasing traffic by spawning new processes so the idea is not new (and I proposed that Apple should do something similar for the FTFF problem). The added benefit is that a single tab can crash out and not affect the rest of the tabs - it’s a shame that that alone is the ‘killer feature’.
Obviously it’s going to be attractive to some due to the ‘new and shiny’ but the minimalist interface might not be enough for some and my Twitter stream has been filled with people complaining about it not working as planned. And of course, it’s Windows only…
I’m currently playing with it as my default browser on Vista and will likely develop an opinion as time goes on. It feels no different to Safari to be honest which, in a way, is a big complement. Still leaves me wanting to try it on Mac OS X - Vista just isn’t to my taste.
So, there you have it. Download it (for Windows) or spend a few minutes reading about it in the Google Chrome online comic.
5 year Plan
August 31st, 2008Somewhat inspired by Ian Robinson’s declaration of his 5 year plan. I can’t really separate things like Home/Work (which is probably a bad thing) but here’s some things I hope for:
- learn to program. Seriously. Find a mentor who has infinite time and patience. Learn some cocoa and get something out there so someone other than me will run some code that I’ve written.
- lose weight and keep it off. I used to be a lean, mean fighting machine but I’ve definitely gotten a little fuzzy around the edges. But now getting to age where I feel like I’ll have to be careful.
- take up photography. Properly. By watching the blogs and tweets of others, I know what I’m meant to be looking for but the step of getting into Aperture/Lightroom and working with HDR and the other acronyms seems like a big step.
- convert the garage, the basement and the attic. Maybe not me personally. But get them all done. And plan the extension. Yes. And keep one of them for my geek crap.
- retire. Not seriously. But wouldn’t it be nice…
So, go on. Make it a meme.
CENSORED
August 30th, 2008
Image credited to Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore’s seminal work, Watchmen.
Wikipedia says:
Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels”, an annual feature of the magazine since it was founded in 1923.
Vivendi Games Mobile out the door?
August 29th, 2008PocketGamer writes:
It’s an open secret that Vivendi Games Mobile isn’t long for this world, at least in its current form. Newly-merged parent company Activision Blizzard recently described it as a “non-strategic business unit” after all.
…
With Activision Blizzard now the world’s largest games publisher, it’s hardly a resounding vote of confidence in mobile that it sees no need to have an in-house mobile division. Vivendi Games Mobile has recently seen big success with its Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D game for iPhone.
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D was really successful but you have to ask what is success for a mobile game?
Desktop games these days are built with a huge budget and command huge profits. A mobile game would, in theory, be built with a smaller budget and due to the lower prices command much lower profits.
Is the mobile division unprofitable or just not profitable enough?
Anyone got cool technology?
August 29th, 2008…and fancy demoing to four universities in Northern Ireland?
The dates are from the 3rd to the 12th of September.
We’ve got a couple of cool things, in the areas of 3D visualisation, biological monitoring and games but we could do with a few more. The idea is to demo technology and science to kids who are currently doing their A-Levels. Whether you work in hardware or software, you must have something cool to show off.
In the clouds…
August 29th, 2008Ian Landsman tweeted:
I have a feeling many business iphone apps my come full circle back to just iphone optimized web apps.
The USEFUL data is either in the cloud or being collected and SENT to the cloud.
This is why apps like Google Docs are not going away. They’ll morph and change and become even more capable and sophisticated but in essence, the cloud is where the storage, the processing and the real bandwidth is.
Look at some of the cornerstone Web 2.0 apps. Youtube for instance is a player which relies on a powerful automated postproduction workflow. Docs is a lightweight web client for some powerful processing behind the scenes. More and more we need to keep our data safe and as can be seen recently, data on devices is non-secure. Keep your data locked up. Keep records so you can revoke access. And increase bandwidth and coverage to mobile devices so that there’s less need for aggressive caching.
And don’t design crap UIs