software – Page 4

The Singularity Approaches…

The content here is somewhat US-centric (unsurprisingly) and presented somewhat apocalyptically but it’s not hard to take several of the infobites and turn them into an opportunity. Related posts: Translink Annual Report – #freepublictransport The Transport Singularity Approaches GamesIndustry.biz poll Kirkisms: Funding by Numbers part 1

The content here is somewhat US-centric (unsurprisingly) and presented somewhat apocalyptically but it’s not hard to take several of the infobites and turn them into an opportunity.

iPhone Course at the Urban Arts Academy

By now the second day of the Urban Arts Academy course “Beginning iPhone Development” will be well underway. The course started yesterday and has 18 folk, one of whom flew over from England to attend it, sitting down and learning from Philip Orr, programmer for Infurious and Blue Pilot Software. The machines they are using … Continue reading “iPhone Course at the Urban Arts Academy”

iPhone Training Course

The machines they are using are borrowed from Giant Associates, Mac-Sys Ltd and a local school. A lot of this wouldn’t have been possible without some quick thinking from Marty Neill (head bucko at NoMoreArt and Digital Circle Steering Group member), the rest of the folk at Trans and a heap of other folk.

Is this going to create iPhone experts?

Of course not. The attendees range from some who have never used a Mac, to one used to OpenGL|ES programming (the API used to program 3D graphics on iPhone as well as other embedded platforms. mobile devices and some consoles).

What it will do is remove some of the fear for some. And spark an interest for others. For some experienced programmers, they should be able to get a taste for Interface Builder and XCode and see whether jumping to that platform is something they want to do. For others, it’ll be the start of something. Or maybe not.

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…

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?

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 … 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 Â£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?

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).

Then, I read this

“Imagine – AppleStores with shelves of niche, stylish sensor products for sale in a yearâ€™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?

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).

Why the hell not?

Jeff LaMarche writes: This really needs to stop, Apple. There is nothing in the SDK agreement or documentation that you can point to that would reasonably justify this rejection. It’s your store. If you want to set up concrete rules and enforce them, that’s fine. I think you’d be better off letting the market decide, … Continue reading “Why the hell not?”

Jeff LaMarche writes:

This really needs to stop, Apple. There is nothing in the SDK agreement or documentation that you can point to that would reasonably justify this rejection. It’s your store. If you want to set up concrete rules and enforce them, that’s fine. I think you’d be better off letting the market decide, but it’s your house, I’m okay with you making rules about what goes on there. But… make real rules and enforce them fairly. This arbitrary, capricious shit has got to stop. Applications shouldn’t get rejected because some reviewer got in a fight with their spouse, got a speeding ticket on the way into work, or just hasn’t gotten laid recently.

The capricious and some might say haphazard way that some apps are permitted and others rejected and some are removed after a time, tells me that it’s not one person making the decisions, it’s a team. And some of them don’t like fun.

I’m unlikely to buy apps like iFart, Sound Grenade or Nails on Chalkboard but I’m inclined to think that if people want to buy that sort of shit and if it’s only a couple of dollars, why the hell not?

I’m not suggesting they open the doors but I’d appreciate some sort of consistency in the screening process and more description of why in the rejection process. At the moment it’s a lot of chickenshit posturing and vague pointing to things that are ‘inappropriate’ or in their heads ‘don’t offer sufficient value’.

Nokia to launch Ovi Store. Bored Now.

Robin Wauters of Techcrunch writes: At the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona, Nokia has unveiled its initiative to try and repeat the runaway succes of Appleâ€™s App Store with its own mobile storefront dubbed Ovi Store. This was an expected move… …because we can’t expect Nokia to innovate, only copy. Developers of the apps will … Continue reading “Nokia to launch Ovi Store. Bored Now.”

Robin Wauters of Techcrunch writes:

At the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona, Nokia has unveiled its initiative to try and repeat the runaway succes of Appleâ€™s App Store with its own mobile storefront dubbed Ovi Store. This was an expected move…

…because we can’t expect Nokia to innovate, only copy. Developers of the apps will retain 70% of revenues (which might be enough to help people put up with developing on Symbian S40 and S60

The Ovi Store does include this feature:

Ovi Store is unique in its ability to target content based on where you are, when youâ€™re there, why you are where you are and who else has downloaded similar content.

Nokia estimates that this will reach 300 million users by 2012 which essentially means that we’ll be inundated with tat because everyone around us will be downloading it. Depending on where you live it’s going to be classical music or something tremendously chavtastic. It’s a bit like the Welcome to the Social feature of the Zune. I frankly don’t care what my neighbours are downloading, I want to know what’s good and I feel this feature will not build upon the wisdom of crowds but mob stupidity. I won’t even go into the privacy concerns of an online store front having your location and using that information to inform your neighbours what to buy.

Of course this will be a success. The model has already been proved (though whether the UI sucks will be another thing)

iPhone as a ‘prophet’

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’”

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 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.