With a bit of luck this won’t time out… Neil Young > iPhone is greater than… from Dom Sagolla on Vimeo. Related posts: Take a couple of minutes to appreciate genius. OpenMoko FreeRunner: *sigh* So what will this tablet be for? Use of OpenData: Icelandic Earthquakes
From @semaphoria insight into the new gig: building a small/nimble agency that will help clients bring useful, delightful and smart iphone apps to market. This was ReTweeted by Raven Zachary who has defined his company as iPhone intelligence. Raven is the founder of iPhoneDevCamp and was the project director for Obama ’08 For iPhone and … Continue reading “iPhone as a ‘prophet’”
insight into the new gig: building a small/nimble agency that will help clients bring useful, delightful and smart iphone apps to market.
This was ReTweeted by Raven Zachary who has defined his company as iPhone intelligence. Raven is the founder of iPhoneDevCamp and was the project director for Obama ’08 For iPhone and he provides a diverse set of services for clients relating to iPhone Strategy and Product Development.
There’s a groundswell of support for iPhone as a platform but critics of the platform have been many. It’s too restrictive for some, too cumbersome for others – but I feel they miss the point. This isn’t about taking Apple’s platform and promoting it to prominence, it’s about the promotion of mobile as a computing platform as well as a communications platform. It’s been said repeatedly that the iPhone itself is a great device but a rubbish phone – and yet it’s selling nearly 20 million (not including iPod touch devices) – this alone tells me that the market is demanding more than just communications from their mobile devices. They want internet services, location services, friend services and all sorts of other value adds.
To my mind this makes the iPhone a prophet rather than a messiah. It’s showing us that there’s an immense amount of interest in the iPhone as a mobile computing platform and this will extend to a halo effect where other smartphones will be brought to the same level – whether it’s Android Market, Blackberry Market, Microsoft Skymarket or other similar clones. The same services will likely need to run on these other platforms once they gain enough momentum and they need to be INTEROPERABLE.
“Bernstein Analyst Announces iPhone Nano, iPhone Touch” is a classic example of an industry analyst disappearing up his own ass and using Google Keywords to decide what to write about. ” The other 83% of mobile handsets are largely sold without data service, except possibly text messaging. To more effectively address this part o fthe … Continue reading “Analyst nonsense..”
” The other 83% of mobile handsets are largely sold without data service, except possibly text messaging. To more effectively address this part o fthe market, we believe Apple should offer an iPhone that does not require the user to sign up for a data plan.†Sacconaghi estimates that adding such a device to the iPhone line-up could potentially add $7 billion in revenues and $4 billion in gross profits annually (assuming a 3 percent market share).”
Of course, all of this is made up. It’s not even projections. It’s nonsense.
It misses the fact that the iPhone platform is all about the software. The iPhone is pretty much a dinner plate of a hardware device – it’s long, it’s wide and it’s not that pretty. But the software is golden.
And it’s the same sort of argument that Apple should license Mac OS X for white box PCs. Changes the experience, aims at the low end of the market. It’s a stupid argument and it didn’t work last time round.
Tonight was the Tuesday Night Cocoa group meet. Half a dozen hairy blokes sitting in the Mac-Sys Ltd offices with instructional PDFs up on a projector and open books in front of them. I’m very keen on this – this is a small cadre of fellahs, some of whom work in Mac-Sys and some … Continue reading “Tuesday Night Cocoa”
Tonight was the Tuesday Night Cocoa group meet. Half a dozen hairy blokes sitting in the Mac-Sys Ltd offices with instructional PDFs up on a projector and open books in front of them. I’m very keen on this – this is a small cadre of fellahs, some of whom work in Mac-Sys and some of whom don’t, taking the time of an evening to fix issues with their coding projects and leaving with homework which they’ll work on during the week. To a degree I’m envious but I’mr eally glad I was able to help them get this started.
None of the guys there had any coding experience and yet they’re tackling the iPhone SDK in their spare time. They’ve buzzed me a couple of times in the last week or so with compile errors which they couldn’t debug (simply due to their lack of experience) but tonight they didn’t need to ask once – the previous nights and afternoons they have put into this have started to pay off.
It’s a great example of grassroots doing it for themselves – this is what I love about the current industry – people doing it without asking permission – whether they’re running a code class for the iPhone, running a coffee meetup for tech-heads just because they’re in the right place and the right time or knocking brains together to create a mashup of two useful services – it’s great.
Kudos to them and I can’t wait to see what they’re working on next.
Anton Mannering writes about an iPhone Dev Camp happening in Belfast and Dublin. “The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is … Continue reading “iPhone Developer thingies”
“The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is one of the main motivators in making it happen.”
We’re going to get some of the people kicking off some meetups in the two regions – aim of which is to raise awareness of the event and also give us some idea of the coverage. This sort of thing is gaining momentum behind the scenes and therefore we want it to go ahead without a hitch.
At the moment it looks a bit like this:
POSSIBLE AGENDA
9:00am
Welcome, and overview
9:15am
Keynote speaker
10:00am
Programming Talk 1 – Developing for Cocoa. Someone builds an application live on stage. On the Projector, we can see what he’s doing. Obviously limited to some simpler projects.
Basic Game Development for iPhone – someone goes through the basics of setting up a background, showing accelerometer code, collision code. Keywords: Unity? 3D? 2D? Must bug the UNITY team about this. Spoke to Chris McClelland about the QUB interests in Unity.
11:00am
Coffee and bio break
11:30am
Programming Talk 2 – Developing for iPhone. Someone builds an application live on stage.
TILT – More on the controls needed for games.
12:30pm
The App Store – Some devs with experience of the Apple App Store talk through their experiences
The Business of Entertainment – Games and entertainment are selling hot on the Apple Store – from the complex Super MOnkey Ball to the simple ‘sound grenade’.
1:00 pm
Lunch
2:00 pm
Show and Tell
Any developers attending take ten minutes to walk through their projects.
If they wish, they can open the floor to answer questions and take suggestions.
Making it special – adding in location based services or even just a high score page on the net for your game.
2:45pm
Coffee and bio break
3:00pm
Getting your App to the iPhone for development and distribution
4:00pm
Prize Draw (e.g. books, Pragmatic Programmer gift vouchers, iTunes gift cards) for stuff happening that day – prizes from sponsors. And I think this would be a good opportunity to launch an All Ireland iPhone Competition to run over the next few months.
4:30pm
Random chattering until home time.
It’s not set in stone of course and I kinda want there to be three tracks:
Developing apps using Cocoa (using the standard Cocoa controls)
Game development (or developing stuff using OpenGL, collisions, non-standard controls)
The Business of Apps (or realising that getting your app on the App Store is 10% of the work)
Before then, let’s get together and have Belfast and Dublin Meetups to pave the way – a quick show’n’tell, a quick demo. What do you say?
This was generated using Rafael Machado Dohms’ QR Code Generator widget for Mac OS X’s Dashboard. I then tested it using Christian Brunschen’s Barcodes app from the iPhone App Store – which worked perfectly. I’m interested in QR codes simply from the point of view of using it to hide messages, whether this be for … Continue reading “Dicking around with QR codes..”
This was generated using Rafael Machado Dohms’ QR Code Generator widget for Mac OS X’s Dashboard.
I then tested it using Christian Brunschen’s Barcodes app from the iPhone App Store – which worked perfectly.
I’m interested in QR codes simply from the point of view of using it to hide messages, whether this be for my own nefarious purposes or for communicating ideas in a Alternate Reality Game.
Over the next couple of days I’m going to see what sort of data I can get in there and still make it legible for the iPhone (which has possibly the worst camera in existence).
I’m a little early with this but that’s no bad thing. It’s time to think – to reminisce – and maybe even to plan. Next Monday night, NiMUG will be holding another meeting but this Saturday is much more auspicious. On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be … Continue reading “1984”
I’m a little early with this but that’s no bad thing. It’s time to think – to reminisce – and maybe even to plan. Next Monday night, NiMUG will be holding another meeting but this Saturday is much more auspicious.
On January 24th
Apple Computer will introduce
Macintosh
And you’ll see why 1984
won’t be like “1984”
This Saturday is the 25th Anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, heralded by this advert shown during the Superbowl, which has since attained cult status and still wins awards even now. For this advert, Apple hired award-winning director Ridley Scott (best known perhaps for Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and the result was a a masterpiece.
Like them or love them, you can’t ignore the Macintosh. While I was exposed to the Mac in university, my first own Mac was a second hand LCII. With the under-clocked anaemic processor and a 10MB RAM ceiling, it wasn’t fast (though as I was used to a Mac Classic, it was no slouch). As soon as I could afford it, I upgraded to a Performa 5400, a 180MHz Black monstrosity that provided me with TV as well as the ability to mess with video clips. It also provided me with my first taste of internet at home with it’s 33600 baud softmodem. I remember buying a 64 MB RAM chip for it and it costing over £100 – bringing me to a whopping 80MB. My next machine was the original Bondi iMac – the machine that arguably saved Apple. This was joined a short while later by Pismo, a 400 MHz svelte black PowerBook with a fantastic batter life and it was on this machine that I took my first tentative steps into Mac OS X – Apple twinning a much improved version of their famous GUI with UNIX was a master step – even if some didn’t believe it was ready for prime time – and those guys probably still aren’t happy. I picked up the Public Beta at Apple Expo and never looked back. I migrated later to a 1 GHz Titanium and then to a 1.25 GHz Aluminium PowerBook. Then to a 1.67 GHz Aluminium model before making the jump to a MacBook Pro. The rest is just recent history. I’ve played around with other “Apple” products such as a Quicktake 150, a Newton MessagePad 120 and 2000, umpteen Stylewriters over the years and there was never any doubt that the next machine would be a Mac. And it’s not for lack of choice – I’ve always, since starting my first professional job, had access to the latest Windows, Solaris and Linux – but none of them held the same shine.
While we might be all ga-ga about the iPhone or concerned about our stocks and shares if Apple’s CEO trips and stubs his toe, it’s about time that we considered how the world would be like without the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac.
Apple finishes their press releases with:
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
Look at your screen with your windows and buttons, with the rounded corners and overlapping windows. Consider how far we’ve come based on the hard graft of that little company in Cupertino. There’s barely a computer in the world which doesn’t bear the mark of those pioneers in Apple. Others have done admirable work – but they were standing on the shoulders of giants.
“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,†said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
Thanks, Apple. I’ve enjoyed the last few years – here’s to many more.
Kevin Hoffman (dotnetaddict) writes about lecturing on the iPhone: I’ve been asked to do a couple of guest lectures for Columbia University’s upcoming mobile programming class on various topics involving iPhone programming. Before I discuss the actual material here, let me just take a moment to point out that allowing someone like me to speak … Continue reading “Columbia University includes iPhone in Syllabus”
I’ve been asked to do a couple of guest lectures for Columbia University’s upcoming mobile programming class on various topics involving iPhone programming. Before I discuss the actual material here, let me just take a moment to point out that allowing someone like me to speak in front of young, impressionable minds is somewhat like allowing the wolf in the hen house. I seem to have lost all of my subliminal message PowerPoints, but rest assured that I will be making every effort to corrupt, taint, twist and otherwise warp the bright potential of these students into my own dark, twisted army of developers….
Are Queens’ or The University of Ulster doing anything for mobile at all?
Damien Mulley, one of the most popular and prolific bloggers on the island of Ireland recently posted a survey about the iPhone for Irish users. Here’s the results. And some select slices… Irish iPhone users are highly loyal super-consumers who are immensely happy with their phone and 72% would recommend it to their friends. The … Continue reading “Damien’s iPhone Survey”
Damien Mulley, one of the most popular and prolific bloggers on the island of Ireland recently posted a survey about the iPhone for Irish users. Here’s the results.
And some select slices…
Irish iPhone users are highly loyal super-consumers who are immensely happy with their phone and 72% would recommend it to their friends. The vast majority have said their next phone will also be an iPhone despite battery life being an issue for 56% of users.
Just after the launch of the iPhone (but before the device became available) many mobile operators (and executives from Palm, RIM, Microsoft) scoffed at the possibility that Apple could waltz in and create something from nothing but it seems they have succeeded.
The iPhone may have its detractors (and it certainly has a list of faults) but it creates customer loyalty probably in excess of that of the Mac. I’ve certainly found myself able to leave the Mac at home and ‘survive’ just on iPhone for an entire day (yes, it leaves a backlog of things that I need to do but that’s not the essential stuff).
The iPhone proves that consumers will pay for music, applications and games on a phone and the amount Irish iPhone users are spending shows that future revenue streams for phone manufacturers and telcos will come in after the initial purchase of a device.
Apple have outdone themselves and, to be honest, shocked the mobile world by producing a success. Apple have more than 10 000 apps on the App Store currently and have reported over 300 million downloads (in less than six months). The size of the Apple App Store market is estimated to be worth $1 billion (which will allow Apple to pocket $300 million).
The ability to impulse-buy applications and music makes the App Store an instant hit. Issues remain on the policies from Apple regarding applications permitted on the store (which seems more and more arbitrary as time goes on) and on the different rules for different people on which APIs are permitted to be used.
I was recently told by InterTradeIreland that there may be a niche in the market for iPhone applications but they were concerns about whether there was a market in the niche. I think this information helps put those concerns to bed.
How many applications downloaded:
Average 26
300+ for some
Minimum 3
While it’s easy to fill up on Free applications, it’s also possible to spend hundreds of dollars easily when you consider how cheap a lot of applications are. With more than 16 million iPhones out there, a good hit will guarantee revenue and there are folk in the UK and Ireland making thousands per month from their App Store sales. Not something they may be able to retire on, but still considerable and also a market that didn’t exist six months ago.
Nick commented on my earlier post claiming that the cost of a development machine (a Mac) is simply too much to sway him to develop for the iPhone. This mentality ignores the principle that good apps on the iPhone MAKE money. CONNECTED DATA writes about why they develop for the iPhone: When the pitcher releases … Continue reading “So why develop for the iPhone”
Nick commented on my earlier post claiming that the cost of a development machine (a Mac) is simply too much to sway him to develop for the iPhone. This mentality ignores the principle that good apps on the iPhone MAKE money.
When the pitcher releases the ball a batter has to decide where they will swing. If they wait too long the ball will be in the catcher’s mitt before they decide. The same logic is why we are developing for the iPhone.
…
In learning about development for the Blackberry platforms, we have to create a build for each phone and each network. As a developer, I just can’t afford it. Most of my customers right now have Blackberries. I think that in the next year or two they will have an iPhone.
Thing is, this problem already exists for Symbian devices and it will become an issue for Android devices as well. (It’s less of an issue for Windows Mobile because the UI is so generic ,and meaning that in the negative sense, that it doesn’t matter. It would be on a refrigerator and still be crap!)
“A light touch highlights the key but doesn’t type anything. Only by clicking fully do you produce a typed letter. It’s way, way too much work, like using a manual typewriter.”
“Remember: To convert seconds into BlackBerry time, multiply by seven.”
“Freezes, abrupt reboots, nonresponsive controls, cosmetic glitches. Way too much ‘unexpected behavior.â€
Developers aren’t a tricky breed. They like to code cool applications and get paid for it. The benefit of coding for the iPhone/iPod Touch is that the specs are the same and aren’t likely to change anytime soon. Coding across platforms takes more time, energy and money, and if the payoff isn’t there, then developers aren’t likely to adjust their code for the varying screensizes and hardware/software features specific to a particular phone.
Mark my words – it’s simple to develop for Android now that there’s a single hardware specification (in the form of the T-Mobile G1). It’ll be entirely different when there’s five competing hardware manufacturers.