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camstevenson.com @synthesize stuff = _stuff; |
The iPad is an attractive, thoughtfully designed, deeply cynical thing. It is a digital consumption machine. As Tim Bray and Peter Kirn have pointed out, it’s a device that does little to enable creativity.
Great piece – recommended.
Amazon, displaying a sense of urgency that is perhaps driven by the pending launch of Apple’s tablet-style computer, is turning its Kindle device into a platform. The Seattle-based company has announced that it will allow software developers to “build and upload active content” and distribute it through the Kindle Store “later this year.” Amazon will be giving out a Kindle Development Kit that will give “developers access to programming interfaces, tools and documentation to build active content for Kindle.” The company will launch a limited beta effort next month.
This has the potential to be incredibly cool for all kinds of reasons – and yes, I’ve signed up for the beta.
When companies start to imitate one another, it’s usually either an extreme case of flattery—or war. In the case of Google and Apple, it’s both.
A long-ish but somewhat insightful piece around what’s looking like an upcoming battle between Apple and Google. What caught my eye here was the speculation regarding search – specifically around Apple & Bing:
Jobs might cut a deal with—gasp!—Microsoft to make Bing Apple’s engine of choice, or even launch its own search engine, Yarmis says.
“According the Guardian, some 30 million chip and pin cards in Germany have been affected by a programming failure, which saw the microchips in cards unable to recognize the year change. The bug has left millions of credit and debit card users unable to withdraw money or make purchases, and has stranded many on holiday. French card manufacturer Gemalto accepted responsibility for the fault, 'which it is estimated will cost €300m (£270m) to rectify.' They claim cards in other countries made by Gemalto are unaffected.”
via Slashdot Developers Story | 2010 Bug Plagues Germany.
And you think *you’ve* got problems.
The study found that iPhone and Android users were the most likely to conduct shopping related activities. Over 40% of iPhone and Android users said that they are likely to check sale prices at alternative locations on their mobile phones while they are shopping. They are also likely to read product reviews while out shopping, with 39 percent of iPhone owners and 31 percent of Android owners saying they’ve looked at reviews from their handset before making a purchase.
Interesting but unsurprising g given the great browser support (*cough* WebKit *cough) on iPhone and Android.
A great app from one of the giants of the software industry:
You can write in large letters on the screen rather than trying to make tiny motions like a pencil. Note Taker automatically shrinks your writing so you can fit a lot of text on the screen. You just keep writing and Note Taker automatically adds new writing next to the old. To quickly correct mistakes, it has a multi-level undo button as well as an eraser — just drag your finger over the page to erase the “ink” under it.
For those youngsters who don’t recognize the name:
Note Taker was designed and programmed by Dan Bricklin, the same person who 30 years ago came up with VisiCalc, the pioneering electronic spreadsheet for the Apple II that made working with numbers on a personal computer so easy.
Details and video here:
http://www.softwaregarden.com/products/notetaker/
For most developers (including yours truly), the most straightforward way to design and prototype an app tends to be, well, building it out. Interface Builder is of course a great help here.
This approach doesn’t work particularly well though when you’re collaborating with others – particularly others who aren’t comfortable with Xcode. You can get a good feel for this when the response to your suggestion along those lines is “WTF”.
So. There’s a great roundup of iPhone interface design tools – ranging from paper to online – here:
http://www.henkwijnholds.com/sketching-prototyping-tools-iphone-apps/sketching/
The whole paper approach appeals to me, so I’m quite interested in the iPhone UI Stencil Kit – particularly since it includes a pencil, and I can never seem to find a pencil these days.
There’s also a useful (free) sketch template, which you can download and print, and if you have your own pencil and ruler (and you can remember all of the UI elements), this might be enough.
In the “not paper” category, iPlotz looks kind of interesting. I’ve only tried it briefly, but it looks like it may have legs.
I have to admit that the really fascinating aspect to all of these tools is that they exist in the first place. In all the years I’ve been doing mobile work, there’s never been this wealth of design material – which is a great indicator of the degree of the iPhone’s success.
Clearly, Microsoft has to do something. Through its own inaction, it has allowed both Apple and Google to race ahead of it in mobile phones. Windows Mobile 6.5 launched in October, but it didn’t seem to gain Microsoft any new friends in the mobile space. Next year, Windows Mobile 7 is expected to be a better contender with Apple’s iPhone/AppStore juggernaut and Google’s Android platform.
I have to admit that I keep wondering if it’s too late for Windows Mobile (seems so at this point) or whether Microsoft can pull it out of the fire at the last minute.
I’d make the assertion that it is still possible – tech consumers are notoriously fickle – and Microsoft could still come up with something compelling enough to halt the slide to irrelevancy.
Maybe this MIX session will hold the answer:
WINDOWS MOBILE PLACEHOLDER
This will be a great session about developing for Windows Mobile, but we can’t disclose any details until after MIX keynotes. Check this abstract after MIX keynote for additional details about this session.
The app has already sold well over 100,000 copies, putting it near the top of Apple’s productivity category. The low price gets people to try it, but Rosenberg says Bento’s real appeal is that, unlike Web-based databases such as Quickbase or Zoho Creator, Bento runs right on the iPhone and stores its databases in the phone’s memory. It doesn’t require that AT&T’s network be reachable. “What the iPhone has done is throw the whole idea that everything should be an app on the Web on its head,” he said. “There’s a lot of demand now for stuff that runs right on the phone, because the experience is better.”
What I find particularly interesting about this article (aside from the fact that the Filemaker guys have found a new market) is the statement regarding there being a lot of demand for “stuff that runs right on the phone”.
We go back and forth on the cloudnative approach to applications constantly, almost as if every so often we all figure that “hey, networks must be 100% reliable by now”, try to pile all of our applications on servers and then suddenly realize that it’s not quite there yet. Or suddenly remember Airplane Mode.
Toronto residents can access about 8,000 ebooks through the library’s website and were on track to have checked out 150,000 e-titles by the end of 2009, she said. That compares to about 30 million borrows of regular books.
I find this a pretty outstanding idea, although I haven’t lived in Toronto for years. Maybe my Mom will let me use her library card.