June 2008 – Page 8

Firefox Mobile Concept

Via GeeksAreSexy we are shown a potential demo for Firefox mobile. ( Original Page here including embedded video) I like it. It’s learned something from Safari mobile and yet has extended beyond it. It brings us well into the realm of ‘gesture based computing’. This has been around for ages but always with contextual clock … Continue reading “Firefox Mobile Concept”

Via GeeksAreSexy we are shown a potential demo for Firefox mobile. ( Original Page here including embedded video)

I like it. It’s learned something from Safari mobile and yet has extended beyond it. It brings us well into the realm of ‘gesture based computing’. This has been around for ages but always with contextual clock wheels rather than attempting virtual manipulation of itiems. Firefox mobile’s ‘throw the page’ actions are the same muscle memory as turning pages in a book (and should have been on the Kindle rather than any other platform.

Thumbs up!

When marketing a new product

Telling everyone how good you are compared to a competitor is not a good way to start. This is why Venture Capitalists roll their eyes when people claim their new project is going to be “[FaceBook|Google|Office] but better!” The Samsung Instinct adverts are all about “Instinct versus iPhone”. This tells you two things: The Samsung … Continue reading “When marketing a new product”

Telling everyone how good you are compared to a competitor is not a good way to start.

This is why Venture Capitalists roll their eyes when people claim their new project is going to be “[FaceBook|Google|Office] but better!”

The Samsung Instinct adverts are all about “Instinct versus iPhone”. This tells you two things:

The Samsung Instinct team are more worried about iPhone than any other phone. Even phones which already have 3G and GPS. That tells us they think other smartphones running Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Symbian are irrelevant. And did you notice the wait in this video while they wait for the Instinct to catch up with the Maps application on iPhone? That delay is going to be part of your day, every day, every minute you use that phone. There’s probably a reason why they don’t show the web browser launching in this Internet speed test video
The Samsung Instinct team are not very clever. Apple has added these touted features. It’s great to have the technical superiority for a few weeks while you launch a new phone but seriously – iPhone has been out for a year and this is the best you can do? I am actually looking forward to seeing an Samsung Instinct in the ‘plastic’.

I jumped on this train because frankly, AndroidGuys jumped on it first. It’s not an Android phone but that doesn’t matter. Come on guys! What’s te point in telling us all about closed has-been platforms where the only thing innovative is the advert????

What else do you need to know about the Instinct?

It has a 2 GB MicroSD memory card included. You can upgrade this to 8 GB for more money and there’s only one memory slot so you have to juggle your media. I love doing that. (the iPhone starts at 8 GB built-in and goes to 16GB, all built in).
Screen resolution is 240×432 pixels. It’ll be great for the movies and TV you can get on it. (iPhone is 480Ã—320. That’s a big difference.)
It has the same 2 Megapixel camera as the iPhone (which means you’ll need to carry another phone unless just snapping drunken pictures of mates.)
There is no information on the OS powering it or the availability of third party apps. (Even Bushmen of the Kalahari know about the iPhone and the App Store).

There you go. It beats the iPhone (June 2007) in the two areas that the iPhone (July 2008) will just fix. That’s fabulous. Well done to Samsung for pulling this out of a hat.

Apple really has gotten the mobile phone manufacturers in a tizzy. You have to laugh.

XCake.org

The site is up. It’s for people interested in Cocoa and geographically on the Island of Ireland (North and South). http://xcake.org There’s just a Wiki there at the moment. More to come if there’s a perceived need for it. Related posts: XCake 1st Meetup XCake.org is now back up. Dublin XCake.org Meet, Thurs 26th March, … Continue reading “XCake.org”

The site is up. It’s for people interested in Cocoa and geographically on the Island of Ireland (North and South).

http://xcake.org

There’s just a Wiki there at the moment. More to come if there’s a perceived need for it.

BarCamp Belfast this coming Saturday!

I got this from Andy McMillan, the organiser of BarCamp Belfast 2008. L I N E U P 9:00 – 10:00 – Session-setup (registering) & networking 10:00 – 12:30 – Morning sessions and workshops 12:30 – 2:00 – Lunch (provided) 2:00 – 5:00 – Afternoon sessions and workshops 5:00 – 5:30 – Wrap up and … Continue reading “BarCamp Belfast this coming Saturday!”

I got this from Andy McMillan, the organiser of BarCamp Belfast 2008.

L I N E U P

9:00 – 10:00 – Session-setup (registering) & networking

10:00 – 12:30 – Morning sessions and workshops

12:30 – 2:00 – Lunch (provided)

2:00 – 5:00 – Afternoon sessions and workshops

5:00 – 5:30 – Wrap up and clean up

5:30 – late – Pub

The lineup for speakers will be available on Saturday morning after everyone has registered their session.

P R E M E E T
Since we have a lot of people coming from out of town, a meetup on Friday evening has been suggested. Anyone interested in a few pints should head along to McHughs for a few drinks on Friday at 6pm. Plan to make it an early night, though!

S P E A K E R S
The idea behind BarCamp is that everyone that attends also talks. Well under a quarter of the registered attendees have also registered a talk – theres still plenty of time to put something together. Everyone can find something to talk about, it doesnt even have to be long or insanely detailed – have a think about it, fire any ideas up on the wiki, and if you need any advice or questions answered, just fire me an email.

T E C H
Yep, we’ll have projectors available in both rooms with standard DVI connections. A few DVI to VGA adapters will be knocking about for those bringing Macs, but it’s still a good idea to pack a spare. Free wireless internet will be provided on the day, and we’ll try to have power strips running along the seating for laptops, etc.

R E Q U I R E D
If anyone has any spare wireless routers, please bring them along. The router(s) I have available are likely to go on fire once they get any serious traffic going, spares would be useful!

P U B L I C I T Y
If you’re attending or talking, please do all you can to plug yourself and the event on any blogs / social networks you frequency. Tell your friends, spread the word as much as you can! Anyone who has already blogged, I’d love to read what you’ve written, and if you’re planning on live-blogging or twittering like a manic, please let me know!

S T R E A M I N G
The conference will be streamed online – full details will go on the wiki as soon as I get ’em.

C O N T A C T
I haven’t been able to find email addresses for Paul Dundas, Paul Browne, Philip Orr, Florian Hollerweger, Paddy Donnelly, Peter Armstrong, Conor McCluskey, Daniel McLaughlin, Danielle McDougall or Michael Kitchen. If you know any of these people please forward this email on to them.

Any other questions, email Andy – or send him a message on twitter @goodonpaper.

Hope to see you all there.

Developer Technical Support

This weekend I was ‘called out’ by Michael B. “Wave” Johnson who has a list of credentials as long as your arm (not least that he works at Pixar and wil Shipley think he’s awesome) because I made a somewhat snippy comment about Apple’s engagement with developers. Michael helped me realise that every year I’ve … Continue reading “Developer Technical Support”

This weekend I was ‘called out’ by Michael B. “Wave” Johnson who has a list of credentials as long as your arm (not least that he works at Pixar and wil Shipley think he’s awesome) because I made a somewhat snippy comment about Apple’s engagement with developers. Michael helped me realise that every year I’ve been a Select Developer with Apple’s Developer Connection, I had had 3 Developer Technical Support incidents and I realised that I’ve never used them. I have now resolved to use one up this week.

Michael was right to call me out on this – I was being snippy. Apple provides plenty of samples code and tutorials – they just may not be all pitched at my level and I need to do a good bit more work before I can really complain about the level of support. The DTS engineers are not there to hold my hand but rather to give me a leg up. That’s an important semantic difference.

My frustration is mostly because the iPhone SDK is still in Beta and therefore covered under NDA. I’d love to pick the brains of a couple of iPhone savvy individuals and this is why I’m keen on helping out with XCake.

What is XCake?

XCake is a group that seems to have grown out of the Belfast Open Coffee Club. It happens that there are quite a few people in BOCC who are keen on developing software for the Mac, for the iPhone or just using a Mac to do it. These people also like cake. Sometimes with chocolate. Sometimes with icing. The name was coined by John Kennedy and we’re going to work to get a wiki up and running on that domain. The idea is to have somewhere where we can ask questions, get guidance and, most importantly, not break our NDAs. Watch this space.

I’m much happier being pro-active about resolving my issues.

Looking to the right…

I noticed a few years ago that when I’m trying to remember a name or number or URL, I definitely have a minds eye picture of a rolodex which fits in with the few seconds it takes for the number or whatever to turn up. I also just noticed that not only do I turn … Continue reading “Looking to the right…”

I also just noticed that not only do I turn my eyes to the right, but I incline my head to the right as well. That’s not surprising. there’s the whole left-brain versus right-brain thing to consider.

Left Brain	Right Brain
Logical	Random
Sequential	Intuitive
Rational	Holistic
Analytical	Synthesizing
Objective	Subjective
Looks at parts	Looks at wholes

Hang on. That doesn’t make sense. I think my brain might be broken. Surely remembering numbers is more ‘logical’ than ‘random’? I hope it’s not serious.

I am a little more concerned about the apparent latency. It’s almost like my internal command prompt is blocked on

[ACCESSING]

Weird….

Android Fans think Android FTW! Obviously.

One of the AndroidGuys speculates on whether Apple rushed out the iPhone 3G in an attempt to pre-empt Android: “Iâ€™m going to make a prediction; Apple will find themselves in the unenviable position of fighting for market share. Yes, I know that everyone compares phones to the iPhone and its touch screen interface. A year … Continue reading “Android Fans think Android FTW! Obviously.”

One of the AndroidGuys speculates on whether Apple rushed out the iPhone 3G in an attempt to pre-empt Android:

“Iâ€™m going to make a prediction; Apple will find themselves in the unenviable position of fighting for market share. Yes, I know that everyone compares phones to the iPhone and its touch screen interface. A year from now, there will be touch versions of Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. Apple will be handcuffed by the fact that they only offer one model and one aesthetic. Android and the other players will be available in many shapes and sizes.”

The rest of the discussion turns into the ‘things which are missing that Android phones will likely be built with’.

The article reads like the AndroidGuys are actually watching their chosen platform spin down the plughole.

It. Is. Not. About. The. Features. Dummy.

Apple has already been fighting for market share against SonyEricsson, Motorola (maybe not so hard a fight), Nokia, RIM, LG and every other maker of every other handset. If a phone does email and internet, then it’s competing. And Apple has the advantage of 6 million handsets out there currently and likely another 10 million by year end. I don’t think that’s an unlikely prediction. It’s now available in 70 countries, nearly everyone who had an iPhone will be getting a cheap upgrade (or free in my case).

AndroidGuys continue:

I hate to break it to the Apple fanboys, but there will be more powerful Android devices coming and likely in the same price point, if not lower.

Spoken like a true fanboi.

The problem with a platform that hasn’t released any hardware to the public is that hardware specifications will always be changing and every new innovation that comes from companies who actually innovate in this space is going to be copied for use in Android (or at least it will be added in a bullet point marketing exercise). So there’s a feature creep, a slide where the hardware gets improved more and more and expectations change constantly. Not all features will be supported by all phones.

What AndroidGuy misses is that Apple is very comfortable with being both the underdog and the 800lb gorilla in a market. They’re doing okay with that ‘Mac thing’ with only a 8% market share (or whatever it is these days) and they’re also doing fine with that ‘iPod thing’ which gives them a 72% market share in that market. What percentage of the phone market do you think Apple is aiming for?

And considering the recent price drops for the iPhone and the consideration that everyone and his cousin will be buying one, why would anyone buy an Android phone until there’s a considerable market for them? Case in point:

I’m getting a free iPhone 3G when the darned thing is released. My existing iPhone will be converted to Pay As You Go and probably given to a family member. Apple will have doubled their market share in my household and this is something that is being repeated multiple times in my circle of friends and colleagues. The exception being the people who are keeping their iPhones as development devices which is already a tiny percentage of the overall market (registered developers are in the hundreds of thousands as opposed to the millions of iPhone users out there).

When Android hits the market, it will be faced with Windows Mobile 7, RIM’s new Blackberry devices and Apple’s iPhone/iPod juggernaut. And maybe something new from Palm. Or not. Their developers will be fighting a marketing battle against all of these new innovative handsets and with very little to differentiate them (oh, it’s free? Yeah, big deal).

I do hope they love a challenge.

Linux for iPhone. Nahhhh

Brandon Watts writes for OSWeekly: Since cell phones canâ€™t just run a traditional desktop operating system, all options had to be explored while developing the iPhone, and I was interested in the fact that Appleâ€™s engineers seriously looked at Linux since versions had already been developed that could run on a cell phone. Despite the … Continue reading “Linux for iPhone. Nahhhh”

Brandon Watts writes for OSWeekly:

Since cell phones canâ€™t just run a traditional desktop operating system, all options had to be explored while developing the iPhone, and I was interested in the fact that Appleâ€™s engineers seriously looked at Linux since versions had already been developed that could run on a cell phone. Despite the attention that Linux was given by the engineering team, Steve Jobs made it clear that he was not about to use another operating system aside from OS X.

Brandon. Apple didn’t ‘seriously’ look at Linux the way you think they looked at Linux. I have no doubt that, when developing the iPhone OSX distribution, they looked at embedded Linux distros to see how they worked, what compromises they made – but you can’t in any conscience think that Apple seriously considered using Linux for the iPhone – and that’s exactly what the Wired article says.

“Since 2002, when the idea for an Apple phone was first hatched, mobile chips had grown more capable and could theoretically now support some version of the famous Macintosh OS. But it would need to be radically stripped down and rewritten; an iPhone OS should be only a few hundred megabytes, roughly a 10th the size of OS X.
Before they could start designing the iPhone, Jobs and his top executives had to decide how to solve this problem. Engineers looked carefully at Linux, which had already been rewritten for use on mobile phones, but Jobs refused to use someone else’s software.”

Only a fantasist would think that Apple seriously considered as the base OS for the iPhone. For one thing, the whole thing is GNU-encumbered. Secondly, they had an operating system that had everything they needed including a kick-ass API. Thirdly, did I mention the GNU thing?

DE-clutter

Back in January, I read these hints…er….laws on how to simply your life. My life isn’t as simple as that. My ‘clutter’ is virtual. It’s the procrastination that prevents me from being productive all the time. I don’t mind being productive – most of the things I consider to be productive I actually enjoy – … Continue reading “DE-clutter”

Back in January, I read these hints…er….laws on how to simply your life.

My life isn’t as simple as that.

My ‘clutter’ is virtual. It’s the procrastination that prevents me from being productive all the time. I don’t mind being productive – most of the things I consider to be productive I actually enjoy – I like being productive! It gives me a buzz.

This weekend I decided to end procrastination. I had to work hard, having the kids and with HerIndoors out and about, and every spare moment I did things that were productive, or pretended well to be.

Cleared down Google Reader. Yes, this is learning. I locked my ‘unproductive” blogs into one folder and concentrated on the productive ones.
Wrote some more Cocoa. Still nowhere near porting my Random app to the iPhone which is the current project. And no-one to talk to (due to NDA).
Filled in an Application for a job I really want. It ticks all the boxes. All of them. All I need to do now is convince a host of people I’m the man for the job.
Cleared down some ‘crap’ folders I had lingering around. You know – clear down the desktop by dumping everything in one folder and hoping Spotlight will do it’s magic. It’s been working great so far.
Read another chapter of a book I’ve been reading for 4 months. Glasshouse by Charles Stross. For some reason it took me nearly two months to read the first 50 pages, then I sped through most of it and now I’m struggling to read the last 50. No reflection on the writing, though I’m not mad keen on posthuman fantasies (which doesn’t explain why I’m really liking the Culture series), but curious nonetheless.
Cleaned the house and put on 4 washes. Sorted through clothes. I now have underwear! Woohoo!

It’s hard work staying busy. I’ll sleep tonight.

(On a side note, Tracy from SoulAmbition noted that they provide a free no-obligation first session of their life coaching! I’ve never been to a life-coach though I’ve heard great recommendations of them. Would a session fill me with confidence or leave me reeling at the great truths I’d been hiding even from myself?)

‘freedom’

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. – Eric Hoffer Which explains why Linux seems to have no unique UI. It’s either a UNIX-alike, Windows-alike or Mac-alike. Mood: Scowling Related posts: ADBE: Nearly there Buying a computer Freedom The Ultimate Tool of Technical Freedom

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
– Eric Hoffer

Which explains why Linux seems to have no unique UI. It’s either a UNIX-alike, Windows-alike or Mac-alike.

Mood: Scowling

9:00 – 10:00	– Session-setup (registering) & networking
10:00 – 12:30	– Morning sessions and workshops
12:30 – 2:00	– Lunch (provided)
2:00 – 5:00	– Afternoon sessions and workshops
5:00 – 5:30	– Wrap up and clean up
5:30 – late	– Pub