AppStore – Page 3

iPhoneAppsIreland Dublin training course

From Vinny Coyne, loyal member of XCake, an announcement of his new iPhone Course: Just a quick announcement that I will be teaching a beginners course in iPhone Development in Newlands Cross, Dublin from 21st to 25th September inclusive. We are also running a competition for two places in the course. The course will be … Continue reading “iPhoneAppsIreland Dublin training course”

From Vinny Coyne, loyal member of XCake, an announcement of his new iPhone Course:

Just a quick announcement that I will be teaching a beginners course in iPhone Development in Newlands Cross, Dublin from 21st to 25th September inclusive. We are also running a competition for two places in the course.

The course will be a healthy mix of theory and lab coding exercises. I’ll be going into the fundamentals of Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, as well as a peek at some of the more complex aspects of iPhone apps.

By the end of the course, candidates will be able to create their own iPhone apps which make the most of the platform’s features (such as location-based services, Google Maps integration, accelerometer functions, web-connectivity, etc) and sell them on the Apple App Store to millions of iPhone & iPod touch users.

Candidates should have experience with at least one object-oriented programming language before attending. Also, an Intel-based MacBook with the iPhone SDK installed will be required. MacBooks can also be rented for the week for an additional fee.

For more information, see iPhone Apps Ireland or download the PDF brochure here.

We’re also running a competition to give away two places at the course for two people currently unemployed.

I’ve also been speaking to Vinny about the need for an iPhone course in Belfast. Who’s up for attending that?

CodingHorror goes iPhone 3GS

Jeff Atwood of CodingHorror writes about the iPhone I am largely ambivalent towards Apple, but it’s impossible to be ambivalent about the iPhone — and in particular, the latest and greatest iPhone 3GS. It is the Pentium to the 486 of the iPhone 3G. A landmark, genre-defining product, no longer a mere smartphone but an … Continue reading “CodingHorror goes iPhone 3GS”

Jeff Atwood of CodingHorror writes about the iPhone

I am largely ambivalent towards Apple, but it’s impossible to be ambivalent about the iPhone — and in particular, the latest and greatest iPhone 3GS. It is the Pentium to the 486 of the iPhone 3G. A landmark, genre-defining product, no longer a mere smartphone but an honest to God fully capable, no-compromises computer in the palm of your hand.

Here’s how far I am willing to go: I believe the iPhone will ultimately be judged a more important product than the original Apple Macintosh.

That’s pretty strong from someone who considers a Mac to be an expensive, beautifully designed hardware dongle…

AppStore Wars starting to heat up…

Today the Ovi App Store goes live. (at the time I’m writing this, the web site is down – was up earlier, but is down now…) More than 50 Nokia devices are compatible with the service from day one, with stacks more slated to roll out over time – Nokia estimates that around 50 million … Continue reading “AppStore Wars starting to heat up…”

Today the Ovi App Store goes live. (at the time I’m writing this, the web site is down – was up earlier, but is down now…)

More than 50 Nokia devices are compatible with the service from day one, with stacks more slated to roll out over time – Nokia estimates that around 50 million people with Nokia devices will be able to benefit from Ovi Store right now.

Considering there’s around 35 million iTunes App Store-compatible devices out there, that’s not a terribly bold statement. I’m vaguely annoyed that OVI doesn’t work with my Nokia N800 (due to the Maemo platform) but that’s not the end of the world.

App Stores are pretty big in the news. It was only last week that Microsoft backtracked on their ‘sharing apps’ statement so there’s no “Welcome to the Social” in the Windows Mobile Skymarket and their plans to use the Live ID as the method of tracking installations on up to 5 mobile devices. This puts it on a par with Apple’s iTunes App Store terms – up to five devices – though on an iPhone, you can ‘loan’ someone an app by temporarily logging into your iTunes account on their iPhone.

I’ve now witnessed the Ovi Store, the iTunes AppStore and RIM’s AppWorld first hand and frankly I’m not impressed with the competition.

Tarmo Virki, of ITnews.com.au reckons there will be few victors in the ‘me too’ race to have an App Store for mobiles.

“There are too many people investing too much money into something they do not understand,” said John Strand, chief executive of Strand Consult. “They are all using the me-too strategy, not focusing on consumers – these guys don’t read numbers, they read media.”
…
“They are all desperately following but they are chasing it with all their own legacy issues,” Frank Meehan, chief executive of INQ Mobile, the maker of Facebook- and Skype phones, said at the Reuters Global Technology summit in Paris. “An App Store will get a customer to buy your phone only if it’s better than Apple’s,”
…
It’s going to be a big battle between equipment makers and operators,” said Alex Bloom, chief executive of mobile software distributor Handango. “It’s an interesting battle as carriers are equipment makers’ biggest customers.”
…
France Telecom Chief Financial Officer Gervais Pellissier said operators have an advantage in the race as they control the customer billing process and can make the application purchase procedure much smoother for customers.

Frankly I reckon there’s going to be a battlefield littered with corpses and adoption of these other stores is going to be an uphill battle. Apple has 40 000 apps in their AppStore – all of which work on the 35 million iPhones and iPod touch devices out there. RIM has around 1000 in AppWorld and OVI claims 666 items for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and 1007 for the Nokia N95 8GB and nothing at all for the Nokia E65. Even looking at OVI on the web, you can see the icon and price and general rating for an app, but there’s no screenshots and certainly no video. Folk have criticised the iTunes App Store for not having a demo mode or hosting videos of the interaction – but OVI hasn’t learned from this.

The problem here is the lack of unified approach, lack of vision and far too much consideration of ‘me too’ and getting something out there and I think the Palm Pre, though enticing and very pretty, will suffer the same. Apps on the Pre are web-apps and it will, I predict, be harder to get people to pay for these apps especially when you’re limited to the sort of apps that a web app can manage.

“In a desktop app is I can add 100% of the web. But the web can only add like 10% of the desktop.” – Daniel Jalkut, Twitterer and Mac Dev

and this also goes for Mobile. Would you have been able to create Crash Bandicoot on the Pre? Or the Blackberry? Or play it on the disastrously specced Nokia N96?

The AppStore Wars are just beginning but there are some clear winners and losers from the outset.

The Cocoa Cooking Class

This came out of two ideas I had. The first was Code4Pizza – the idea that people, in order to learn, would be willing to spend their time coding for open source projects. I still think this idea is a winner for getting younger folk involved but as an evening class, it fills in many … Continue reading “The Cocoa Cooking Class”

This came out of two ideas I had.

The first was Code4Pizza – the idea that people, in order to learn, would be willing to spend their time coding for open source projects. I still think this idea is a winner for getting younger folk involved but as an evening class, it fills in many gaps present in the current market for young and really smart folk who want to use computers for more than FaceBook and MySpace.

The second was Tuesday Night Cocoa – something the lads up at Mac-Sys were doing – on a Tuesday evening when the Enterprise Park was open late, they would gang together and learn Cocoa from the books, helping each other through tough problems.

So, the Cocoa Cooking Class was born.

First off, I’m not even sure if Tuesday night is the best sort of time for something like this but it’s catchy, sosumi.

The Background:
Due to my organising of DevDays and generally being loud about the iPhone, I’m inundated with people wanting to learn how to do stuff on the iPhone. How to write applications and generally take part in the gold rush that is the iPhone. I’m working my way through the books but as my time is ‘expensive’ (in so far as as it’s really bloody hard to find ‘free’ time), I’m thinking I need to formalise something in this respect. My idea is that an experienced developer guides a workgroup on a weekly or biweekly basis through an application specification, design and build. The workgroup then owns that app and can do whatever they want with it. I’ve spoken to an experienced developer about it and he’s on board, details yet to be discussed. It’s unreasonable to expect him to dedicate this time for free so we have to take that into account and allow for him to help people ‘online’ in a forum or via email. Holding it on a Tuesday night might make sense but the idea is to get someone who knows what they’re talking about to come in and spend time instructing people and get paid to do it. If it’s not worth the money then we stop paying them and we hack it together on our own time. We even have the option of varying our instructors.

The Pitch:
Take one room with enough seating for 11 people.
Fill with 10 or so eager would-be application developers. Do not over-fill.
Add in one seasoned instructor. Mix for twenty minutes.
Establish base level of capability and break the people into 3-5 groups.
Distribute skills liberally through the groups to attempt to maintain consistency.
Start to build projects, one for each group for 90 minutes.
Break for 15 minutes to check consistency and share experiences.
Return to the room and continue to build knowledge for a further hour.
Stop activity and get each workgroup to show and tell for 5 minutes each.
Rinse and repeat weekly or bi-weekly.

To cover costs, everyone hands the instructor a Â£20 note. This covers room hire, instructor time and during the week support. That’s a reasonable night out.

Reasoning:
It’s my belief that this will create multiple opportunities for Mac and iPhone developers in the province. It will provide a collaborative approach to building applications with some real potential for IP creation and future revenue generation. Mix this with XCake and other initatives and we’ve got something to talk about. Would be even better if we could get some sort of funding for it (or even just a free room somewhere for the evenings).

What do you think?

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 … Continue reading “Hostel Hero – shout out for a great little app!”

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 Â£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.

Android Store not so open. Caveat CodeMonkey!

One of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone App Store was the approval process. Developer aren’t keen on having a big-brother presence deciding whether their apps can be deployed on the iPhone. This leads some to jailbreak, this leads others to complain every day about how the iPhone should be opened. FalseDictotomies writes: I’ve had … Continue reading “Android Store not so open. Caveat CodeMonkey!”

FalseDictotomies writes:

I’ve had my first real clash with the Open Handset Alliance today. Wifi Tether for Root Users, an app I’m a contributor for, got banned from the Android Market for violating the Developer Distribution Agreement.
The reasoning provided is a rather twisted web, as it turns out. According to the agreement:
“Google enters into distribution agreements with device manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation of the Device manufacturerâ€™s or Authorized Carrierâ€™s terms of service.”

Woah, so much for the open market.

This raises some interesting questions about this “open” platform.

But it also lends support to the argument that it’s not Apple who banned Tethering – it’s the carriers. This isn’t surprising – tethering enables Voice over IP, it enables streaming, it reduced the need for wired, fixed broadband and it pretty much eliminates the need for mobile broadband dongles. The carriers would like you to buy all three.

LocoMail: looks like ass

Recently when travelling, I wanted some way to record my location and found that most of the apps out there were designed for hikers or people on trail bikes. I just wanted something simple. So I figured – an app that grabs your location and with the click of a button, pastes it into an … Continue reading “LocoMail: looks like ass”

Recently when travelling, I wanted some way to record my location and found that most of the apps out there were designed for hikers or people on trail bikes. I just wanted something simple.

So I figured – an app that grabs your location and with the click of a button, pastes it into an email and allows you to send it to anyone. On launch the app will grab your location and populate the locations beside the two labels. It’ll also open a webview in the opper half to your location in Google Maps.

Yes, it looks like ass.

It’s evident I need to put away Interface Builder and start using pen and paper. Jamie Neely of FRONT explains a little about why you should dump the computer and use pen and paper at a University of Ulster Masterclass they presented earlier this week – he’s applying it to information architecture but it’s the same with design.

I’m going to evolve this app and ‘show my working’ and code on the blog in the ‘code’ category.

iPhone official leak, St Pat’s Day.

David Perry wrote on Twitter this morning Looking forward to the 17th, to hear Apple detail v3.0 of the iPhone OS vs Windows Mobile 6.5. I need a new phone, now my bet is on Apple! David is a ‘son of Northern Ireland’ – one of our Tech Heroes. He’s commenting on the news that … Continue reading “iPhone official leak, St Pat’s Day.”

David Perry wrote on Twitter this morning

Looking forward to the 17th, to hear Apple detail v3.0 of the iPhone OS vs Windows Mobile 6.5. I need a new phone, now my bet is on Apple!

David is a ‘son of Northern Ireland’ – one of our Tech Heroes. He’s commenting on the news that on St Patrick’s Day this year, Apple will open the curtains on iPhone OS 3.0 and show us what to expect. This is similar to what they’ve done in previous years regarding the iPhone – it’s great for building expectations and giving a taste of what is to come. It also sends the other mobile OS providers into a flurry of photocopying every feature.

David is also commenting on Windows Mobile 6.5. Recently outed as an unwanted stopgap, we’re all left waiting for what will eventually be Windows Mobile 7 with this release as ‘filler not killer’. At Microsoft’s Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Ballmer admitted the company was falling behind its rivals. “We have a significant release coming this year,” he said. “Not the full release we wanted to have this year but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5.”

The solution – “Wait til Windows Mobile 7” which neatly echoes their desktop/laptop/server strategy “Wait til Windows 7”.

This has been a successful strategy from Windows pre-version 1 so why change a winning formula.

What would you Push?

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?”

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 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.

GamesIndustry.biz poll

GamesIndustry.biz have the results of a poll on the 2009 tech people can not wait for. Over 300 industry professionals in the GamesIndustry.biz Network were polled to gauge interest on new technology, with the Wii MotionPlus, iPhone, Nintendo’s DSi and the continued evolution of the New Xbox Experience also piquing interest. 3D TV/Gaming Wii MotionPlus … Continue reading “GamesIndustry.biz poll”

GamesIndustry.biz have the results of a poll on the 2009 tech people can not wait for. Over 300 industry professionals in the GamesIndustry.biz Network were polled to gauge interest on new technology, with the Wii MotionPlus, iPhone, Nintendo’s DSi and the continued evolution of the New Xbox Experience also piquing interest.

3D TV/Gaming
Wii MotionPlus
iPhone
DSi
New Xbox Experience
PlayStation 3
New Wii peripheral
Android
DX11
- 10 New PlayStation 3 controller
- Digital distribution
- id’s Tech 5

Who would have thought that an Apple device would be in the top 10 of any games industry list never mind ahead of luminaries such as the PS3, the DSi and anything from id Software.

If that’s not reason to consider the iPhone a major platform for the next 18 months, then you’re got some pretty major biases there (hey, yes, I have biases, and reasons for them).

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