Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons given to me about “staying with Windows PCs” is the software. Some folk, even those who ripped off their software, didn’t want to switch to a Mac because of their legacy of software they’d collected on their PC. As if the months of trialware and cruft … Continue reading “Legacy: The App Store meme”
Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons given to me about “staying with Windows PCs” is the software. Some folk, even those who ripped off their software, didn’t want to switch to a Mac because of their legacy of software they’d collected on their PC. As if the months of trialware and cruft they’d deposited on the hard drive actually made it harder to switch.
In comparison, the quality of software on Windows is the prime reason for me to pursue the Mac. Look at Twitter clients for example – one of the most vibrant and competitive niches on the Mac is pretty much dead on Windows – the only concession being to AIR apps which, being cross platform, are not quite as good looking, not quite as integrated, not quite as well performing but at least there’s competition.
This meme has almost died due to the fact that people are realising that on the desktop the browser is the most important piece of software and the browser market has probably never been more competitive: Safari, Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer.
On Mobile however, there’s not been the same meme due to the disparity of platforms, the inability of moving software from mobile to mobile, the lack of a frontrunner in the market.
Well, guess what, there is now. I took this picture outside the Apple Store in San Francisco.
Look at the amount of window space given over to Apps and look at the space given to the iPhone. Apple knows that Apps are going to be the key to success, the key to attracting and retaining customers.
Apple recently posted that over a billion apps have been downloaded from the AppStore. Some folk are reporting 700 000 downloads in six weeks (Flight Control) and if you’re like me and you’ve recently downloaded more than 100 apps from the AppStore, then you’re looking at a heap of apps that won’t move to Android, that won’t move to the Pre and that won’t move to the Blackberry. Even with just free apps, it’s a significant investment and may prove difficult for some people to stomach. There are some people who don’t download apps on their iPhones – there are some people who have iPhones and just use them to call people and surf the web. These people don’t matter. The AppStore is now a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Take this morning – I downloaded Myst for iPhone. More than 700 MB of images and data for £3.49. That’s not going to transfer anywhere if I choose a different platform. Neither will Fieldrunners, LightBike, Galcon or any of the other apps I use to while away the time in long queues. It’s not going to replace iSSH, Byline which are daily use apps or oust Twitterfon or Tweetie because there’s nothing I can see on the other platforms which even comes close.
Is it a bad thing that I now have a legacy of software that I don’t want to let go? Is this the real strategy for the App Store?
Jason Morris, an ex-colleague of mine from $BIG_COMPANY, has released his latest app to the iTunes App Store. It’s called Hostel Hero – and pretty much delivers everything I would have wanted for budget accommodation when travelling. For those of us attending WWDC in June this year, it may prove to be very cost effective … Continue reading “Hostel Hero – shout out for a great little app!”
Jason Morris, an ex-colleague of mine from $BIG_COMPANY, has released his latest app to the iTunes App Store. It’s called Hostel Hero – and pretty much delivers everything I would have wanted for budget accommodation when travelling.
For those of us attending WWDC in June this year, it may prove to be very cost effective as well as useful for the traveller. It works on iPhone and iPod touch and caches data for thousands of hotels and hostels across the world and integrates it with Phone, Email and Google Maps. The caching of the data means it works great for offline viewing – pretty essential for backpackers and travellers not wishing to pay up to £6 a megabyte for data (and I’ve griped about roaming charges before!). You can also book your room from within the app as well as view photos of the accommodation.
Did I mention it’s free?
The app has had some excellent reviews already and has recently joined my arsenal of apps on my iPhone due to my current increase in travel plans. You can view the Press Release, a guided tour and the demo video at the Hostel Hero web site.
Jason is also the man behind PlayTripper – another essential app for the frequent traveller or long-term backpacker. I’m guessing he’s passionate about the subject matter, had the skills and intent and developed something he would use. Perfect formula for a great app.
Over 3G, the downloads are a little slow due to the amount of data involved so it’s clever to use WiFi for those bits – and the download progress bar is misleading – it finished before hitting 1% even on 3G. The UI is also a little plain – using Apple’s standard widgets and it could do with a bit of colour and design I think. The main subject of DevDays last week was the application of design to software where it crosses with User Experience. The table views are also very long due to the amount of countries, cities involved and a side-picker like the Address Book would be a big advantage here. There are no luxury hotels listed – no Marriots or Hiltons – and that I’ll take as a negative rather than a positive – it’s great for the cash-conscious traveller but this could appeal to a wider audience with a bit of buy-in from the big names too. The app is consciously designed for the budget traveller so I guess I’m being picky – it’s still a hundred times better than hitting Google for budget accommodation.
I’d be much more inclined to use this for myself (work travel) rather than use it to book a getaway for me and the wife (leisure travel) – that’s the only caveat I would add. I’d also like a bit more information, maybe some filters, for locations that might be kid-friendly. I know that’s a little bit of an oxymoron for budget travel but when I travel it’s more likely to be with kids. Even just for finding hotels and hostels around Ireland and Northern Ireland – it’s already proved it’s worth to me.
Mere days after I was passed a tidbit that iPhone in the UK was coming to the Orange and 3 networks, I spotted this. which is taken directly from portal.beta.vodafone.com. Note the wording: “Available to all iPhone users including non-Vodafone customers.” There might be more to think about this summer than just when to pick … Continue reading “iPhone coming to Vodafone”
Mere days after I was passed a tidbit that iPhone in the UK was coming to the Orange and 3 networks, I spotted this.
As many of you will know, I was in California in March, talking to Apple, talking to some VC folk and eating some really nice breakfasts. Some of this was as a result of the XCake group that John Kennedy and I started last year and some of it was due to serendipity – meeting … Continue reading “WWDC 2009”
As many of you will know, I was in California in March, talking to Apple, talking to some VC folk and eating some really nice breakfasts. Some of this was as a result of the XCake group that John Kennedy and I started last year and some of it was due to serendipity – meeting some of the most excellent people along the way who were more than glad to open doors for others. To be honest, I’d never encountered such a can-do attitude before so a quick shout out to the “band of brothers” who blazed a trail in Cupertino. Here’s a pic of us outside Apple in Infinite Loop.
Band of Brothers
Following on from this, we have the two iPhone developer days and now, as part of my work with the Digital Circle, we’re planning to take some companies out to WWDC in June to learn about the iPhone. If you’re working for a Northern Ireland company and are interested in spending a week at a developer conference, then get in touch. At the moment we have 35 names of folk who are interested in attending the event which will bring over 1000 Apple engineers into a big hall to talk to many more thousands of developers about web standards, the Mac, IT and, most importantly, the iPhone.
In 2008, there were 5,200 developers there in addition to Apple staff – the conference sold out. I can only imagine that this year they will have vastly increased the amount of space or it’s going to sell out even quicker. To give a comparison, have a read on the Google Mac Blog about the report from 2008.
And when I accidentally opened my laptop with the WiFi still on, it found three computer-to-computer wireless networks on my flight to SFO. I didn’t think much of all this until I looked up the aisle of the plane. Three rows up on the other side of the aisle, some guy had his laptop open. At a glance, I could see he was using Interface Builder, one of the tools developers use to build software for both Mac and iPhone. Then he picked up a book on introductory Cocoa programming, and it hit me: the conference was going to be big this year.
I’d like to point out that this was before the AppStore was open. This was before the first of the “59p millionaires“. People just knew that the iPhone was going to be massive.
I’ve posted this image before. It was taken at 0930 on the day before we were due to go to Apple. The iconic nature of this simple window display really struck me.
I asked which was more important, Apps or iPhone. Apps. Which takes up more room in the picture – the app icons almost obscure the iPhone itself. This should help ram it home to anyone running a business today that is grey panels with embedded text boxes that needs to run on a desktop PC. Mobile is here. It’s getting bigger. And if you don’t do something now, you’ll be eaten.
So, get your act together. Get in touch. Talk to me and book your place on the WWDC rollercoaster. We’ve got 35 names already registered – folk willing to take a punt. At this rate, we’ll take over an entire hotel.
Slashdot writes: TippingPoint had offered $10,000 for each exploit on any of the phones, which included the iPhone and the BlackBerry, as well as phones running the Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android operating systems. With the mobile devices so limited on memory and processing power, a lot of [researchers’] main exploit techniques are not able … Continue reading “none of the smartphones were successfully exploited”
TippingPoint had offered $10,000 for each exploit on any of the phones, which included the iPhone and the BlackBerry, as well as phones running the Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android operating systems.
With the mobile devices so limited on memory and processing power, a lot of [researchers’] main exploit techniques are not able to work,‘
The problem being that phones are going to get more powerful rather than less so there’s still work to be done on mobile security. They’re going to get memory and processing rivalling some recent generation desktop and laptop machines. Two years ago, @dressjunkie’s main computer was a 1 GHz Celeron desktop with 256 MB RAM. Her current iPhone is a 667MHz processor running at 412MHz with 128 MB RAM. The next generation iPhone may well run faster (considering the iPod Touch 2nd Generation runs at 533 MHz!).
I guess we can look forward to great exploits in the future. iPhone is pretty much untested here – the only mobile OS to make it to UK GOV CESG testing and survive is RIM’s Blackberry. iPhone hasn’t been tested by CESG and Windows Mobile has been tested and rejected five times.
@Steve Troughton-Smith tweeted: “There’s a Dublin Xcake.org (for Mac and iPhone Developers) meetup tomorrow (Thurs) in Le Cirk, Dame St. at 7pm.” XCake was started by myself and John Kennedy (@craicdesign) last year due to our mutual interest in iPhone development. John has currently got three apps in the App Store. It’s also notable that … Continue reading “Dublin XCake.org Meet, Thurs 26th March, 7 pm”
XCake was started by myself and John Kennedy (@craicdesign) last year due to our mutual interest in iPhone development. John has currently got three apps in the App Store. It’s also notable that some of our “local heroes” are going to be attending. It’s a great opportunity to meet, to network, to learn and to maybe get a little business.
We had a meeting in Dublin and another in Belfast earlier this year and it was very well attended – I have an inkling that this weeks meeting in Dublin will be even bigger.
Steve also adds: “Also if any art/design people are interested in coming to tomorrow’s iPhone developer meetup (Dublin), is a good opportunity to get clients!”
I’d also say that might work out well for musicians who want to do sound effects for games/apps.
Graham weighs in on Windows Mobile 6.5 Throughout the talk, the words innovation, interaction and user experience are repeated, however just saying the words does not make it true. I found no presence of innovation in Windows Mobile 6.5, it definitely seems like they’ve tried to bolt on touch capability to their existing OS. I … Continue reading “MoMoBelfast and the Apps Show and Tell”
Throughout the talk, the words innovation, interaction and user experience are repeated, however just saying the words does not make it true. I found no presence of innovation in Windows Mobile 6.5, it definitely seems like they’ve tried to bolt on touch capability to their existing OS. I found more innovation in Apple’s iPhone cut and paste feature than in the whole of this Windows Mobile demo.
I hate to say this but Apple has the industry in catch-up mode again. It’s easy to get labelled as a fanboy but every second headlines seems to be about how the iPhone is brilliant or how some new phone/platform will kill it. Either way it has huge amounts of mindshare.
This evening we had a bit of a treat and were able to attend Mobile Monday Belfast’s Show and Tell for mobile apps. The auditorium had a good number of folk in there and the demos presented all had something unique to offer. I had to speak for five minutes at the start about the, until recently top secret, iPhone initiative and then we got into the demos proper.
EyeSpyFX – Anthony Hutton was on stage demonstrating his webcam viewer app which is available for 15 varieties of mobile phone in addition to the iPhone. His demo, slowed only by the really poor reception in the building, was impressive. Anton’s most memorable statements were regarding the economics of developing apps for mobile phones and the iPhone in particular. He claimed that developing for the iPhone was a fussy affair – requiring a Mac, the developer license and an iPhone to test on – quite a significant outlay for a startup with no prior Mac experience. But he said that development was quick and easy, getting the app onto the store and support documentation were excellent. He also commented that his apps sell on standard JavaME platforms and the operators and aggregators normally charge €6 for the app and he would get maybe €1 of this and in the cases of some aggregators, maybe even just €0.30 per copy. On the iPhone, Apple takes 30% of the revenue but as his app costs £2.99, it means he pockets over £2.00 per copy. And, in his own words, despite there being fewer iPhones out there, buying apps for JavaME phones is a pain, and his iPhone sales numbers have been four times the sales of his JavaME apps.
Anthony Hutton, EyeSpyFX
The next demo was John Martin from Total Mobile – a Windows Mobile developer squarely ensconced in Windows land and with strong sales in case management (by all accounts they’re a Consilium spin-out?). Their user interface was very Windows Mobile and people used to that would feel very at home. Speaking afterwards, I found John to be very personable and enjoyed his opinions of his various mobile devices (which included a HTC Advantage and a Redfly ‘unit’.
Next up was Ryan Cushnahan with his GAAStats Windows Mobile app. While his user interface was very basic, the use-case for the software was very strong. He licenses the software for £400, which seems steep compared to AppStore pricing but it’s a niche product by someone who knows his game. I think Ryan might be a good candidate for the getting a UI makeover!
I then went on stage and did a quick demo of three iPhone apps from ‘local’ developers. The first was Pocket Universe from Craic Design – one of the best astronomy apps for the iPhone. John’s pedigree includes doing similar apps for Windows mobile. I also gave a minute to his other iPhone release, ShootEmUp and just tonight I found out about his free Animal Track kids game, devised by his 9 year old daughter.
Next, I demo’ed Locle mini from Dublin based social networking startup, Locle. Locle is a simple app currently utilising a web view for most of their user interface but a little birdie tells me that their sales have meant they’re able to get a more native version on iPhone.
The third was close to my heart, EyeCandy Comics from Blue Pilot Software. I also made passing reference to a new service called Infurious Republic when I was asked when the rank and file would be able to get their stuff online.
Lastly, and in the door by the skin of his teeth, came Rory from Ammeon. Again the poor reception and lack of WiFi killed some of the demo but there was enough to get the gist of it. Commune effectively allows an operator to create a custom TV station with their own content which is able to be viewed over a mobile link and has a small degree of social network in a comments system attached to each video.
In the conversations after, I was explaining that my interest in the iPhone Initiative was to find digital content companies which were interested in developing skills in mobile interface design – that skills which were developed for iPhone, darling of the media, would easily port to Windows Mobile, Palm or Blackberry when the time came. It was then someone commented about the Windows Mobile offerings, that the marke share for Windows Mobile far exceeds that of the iPhone. The commenter was a dyed-in-the-wool Windows guy (I first met him over a decade ago when he was working for a DELL reseller and was trying to tell me IIS was better than Apache or Netscape Suitespot Servers). I hear you – but so many of those devices are dumb terminals, they’re used as barcode scanners, handheld credit card scanners – it’s a different market and they’re not going to ever run interesting software. It was an odd statement – really rang as defensive – and seemed particularly odd considering Anthony Huttons comment that his sales of iPhone apps far exceeded his sales of apps for the other platforms he supports: JavaME, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. In essence, while there may be more out there, they ain’t buying apps.
All in all, the night was a resounding success for Norbert and Colin, both of whom put a lot of work into Mobile Monday in Belfast. Next month they’ve got someone from Mozilla Mobile coming in and a whole new raft of interesting stuff to learn about.
Last night I was lucky enough to be out at the Science Park with a group of smart folk from several companies and education institutions – examining a process to engage Northern Ireland’s growing technological and design assets to attract mobile operators from Europe to consider our region as a centre of competence. Frankly, the … Continue reading “Sensors”
Last night I was lucky enough to be out at the Science Park with a group of smart folk from several companies and education institutions – examining a process to engage Northern Ireland’s growing technological and design assets to attract mobile operators from Europe to consider our region as a centre of competence. Frankly, the amount of information shared was amazing and as Eoin Lambkin put it “In no other region in Europe, and perhaps the world, could you get such a cross sectoral group together in so little time.”
This morning, this conversation was continued with Eoin’s presentation on the European Connected Health Campus, based in Northern Ireland and dedicated to a platform-agnostic resolution on best practises in Connected Health (also called Telemedicine, Telecare).
“Imagine – AppleStores with shelves of niche, stylish sensor products for sale in a year’s time – pollution sensors, particulates analysis, spectroscopy, soil analysis, cholesterol? All for the price of a Nike+ or so?”
This comes on the back of a demo of a Diabetes sensor talking to an iPhone and reporting information to the owner, as well as possibly sending reports to clinicians and care workers. This was on-stage at the recent preview of iPhone OS 3.0 – Connected Health is obviously a major talking point for Apple.
That blog post also points to Tellarts open source NADAmobile project which allows you to easily prototype physical/digital/sensor apps on the iPhone through a cable that cleverly connects to the audio jack.
People don’t realise that they may already have two medical sensors – the Nike+ and the WiiFit – already in their house – never mind others. These devices have snuck in the back door and there’s a realisation that health technology is probably going to be even more profitable selling to the healthy than it ever was selling to the sick.
I’m excited to see the possibilities coming out of this – where will the technology lead us – I want ‘sensor shoes’ for my iPhone and remote sensors to pick up information. Why? Because I can? What sort of geek wouldn’t want this info?
LifeHacker writes: back when the App Store was announced. Push notifications, which let any software firm’s servers publish data updates to your device, were initially due in Sept. 2008, and they’re still not here. Nobody knows quite what the problem is, or how big a fix it requires and linked to Gizmodo: As you can … Continue reading “What would you Push?”
back when the App Store was announced. Push notifications, which let any software firm’s servers publish data updates to your device, were initially due in Sept. 2008, and they’re still not here. Nobody knows quite what the problem is, or how big a fix it requires
As you can imagine, this makes push notification a Holy Grail for users and developers alike. The only people who may not be happy about these are the carriers. After all, the idea of an instant messaging application with push notification services taking over their lucrative SMS business doesn’t seem like a very good one.
Or maybe I should take off my tin foil hat and just assume that Apple has hit a roadblock that nobody at engineering ever expected. But a two month delay? Why? It just sounds too weird.
I think the issue has many parts.
There’s the initial technical issue of creating and scaling a secure service that will work with nearly 25 million iPhones and iPod touch devices. The latter are a challenge because they’re not connected all the time. We can point at RIM and say that “They managed” but RIM’s service is slightly more managed and we’ll get onto that in a moment.
The second issue is one of economics. It’s absolutely true that carrires are not happy about instant messaging on phones using all-you-can-eat data plans. Don’t believe me? Look at the furor created when Nokia bundled Skype with their latest phones – Orange and O2 indicated they might refuse to stock the N97. Those lucrative 600 texts I get a month used to be insufficient for my needs when I only had text and telephone to communicate. With all-you-can-eat data, I’m using less than half my allowance every month and my talk minutes usage has decreased even more.
The third issue is one of signal and noise. I think that Apple themselves are reeling from the fact there’s 25 000 apps in the App Store right now. I think they’re seeing the iPhone and iPod touch being used for much more than they planned and they’re working to accommodate that. And I think they’re being cautious about the process by which apps will be permitted to communicate by Push. If you have one instant messenger application and one email client, then you’re not going to see too many updates. But some people have 9 pages of apps. I currently have 33 non-built in apps installed. If half of those started Pushing notifications to me, I’d be forced to silence some of them. And this ability to push notifications also puts the developer directly in touch with the customer – something Apple has avoided for the most part with the current setup. They’re having to work out interface, policy and secure scalability.
It’s not just about messaging notifications – it’s about views. Being able to send a discrete message which will launch a view to fetch data. This allows you to keep your heavy business logic on your server – for your “Ghost” to be in the “cloud” and for it to send the notifications of the things that are important.
For example: We already have new details to our schedule being added by Push. What about a server based app that asks you every 15 minutes where you are? In order for it to tell you where you need to be to catch your next meeting. Maybe you can walk if you leave now? Maybe you’ll need a taxi if you leave in 15 minutes. Our mobiles know where we are, they know where we’re planning to be and they have access to maps, public transport, traffic reports and more. And that’s just using the stuff we already have! The possibilities are much more exciting when we think about the apps that haven’t been built yet!
I understand that this Push Server will take time to be built. I just wish it was here.
Over the last couple of weeks, in line with recent developments in networks derived from companies interested in software innovation I’ve had to explain that the next generation of mobile phones are not actually phones but ultra-portable computers. And it’s not their surprising computing power which makes them special – it’s the fact they are … Continue reading “There’s an app for just about anything”
Over the last couple of weeks, in line with recent developments in networks derived from companies interested in software innovation I’ve had to explain that the next generation of mobile phones are not actually phones but ultra-portable computers. And it’s not their surprising computing power which makes them special – it’s the fact they are connected to an always-on telecommunications network and, for the most part, if you leave the house without it, many of us will return to the house to get it or face the day missing calls and contact opportunities.
We’re all Bedouin now we can carry enough computing power in our pockets to get through a day. Is it any wonder that sales of desktop computers are tanking?
It doesn’t matter if it’s an iPhone, iPod touch, Blackberry Storm, HTC Android or Palm Pre – this is the future of mobile phones – they’re here to stay. For all intents and purposes, taking advantage of the Third Generation of mobile phones for the enterprise, e-government, entertainment and connected health should be at the forefront of every entrepreneurs minds. When the other models mentioned above get enough market share, we’ll see apps like these for them as well. Apple has provided the pathway that others are plainly following because the opportunity to provide what consumers are willing to buy is immense and largely still untapped.
The following is from Youtube and I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams would have seriously considered this on a phone before iPhone. Yes, we could play music using “music” featurephones but actual music creation was desperately difficult compared to this:
“The Mentalists play Kids by MGMT on their iPhones and iPod Touches, using only apps downloaded from the Apple App Store. Apps used Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth, DigiDrummer Lite.”
