You’ve made an app for Android, iOS, Windows – what about the user interface?
Cross-platform development is a big deal, and will continue to be so until a day comes when everyone uses the same platform. Android? HTML? WebKit? iOS? Windows?
Maybe one day, but for now the world is multi-platform, and unless you can afford to ignore all platforms but one, or to develop independent projects for each platform, some kind of cross-platform approach makes sense, especially in mobile.
Sometimes I hear it said that there are essentially two approaches to cross-platform mobile apps. You can either use an embedded browser control and write a web app wrapped as a native app, as in Adobe PhoneGap/Cordova or the similar approach taken by Sencha, or you can use a cross-platform tool that creates native apps, such as Xamarin Studio, Appcelerator Titanium, or Embarcardero FireMonkey. Read more...
Siri, will Apple’s App Store lock out blind people on iOS 6?
A website has broken the wall of silence surrounding version 6 of Apple's mobile operating system iOS - and alleged blind people will struggle to use the App Store software in the new build.
iOS 6 rolls out tomorrow for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches - but it has been in the hands of selected developers since July, allowing them to adapt their apps ready for the big launch.
Now a writer for AppleVis.com, which covers software for visually impaired users, has reported problems with the upcoming iOS 6 release. Read more...
Mozilla exits iOS as it retires Firefox Home
Two years after it managed to place a browser-related app on the iOS App Store, Mozilla last week announced it was retiring Firefox Home and yanked it from Apple's market.
The move was only the latest in a string of messages that the open-source company has sent over several years that it is not interested in developing a version of Firefox for the iPhone or iPad.
Firefox Home, which was approved by Apple on July 16, 2010, was not a full-fledged browser, but instead was a spin-off of the bookmark and tab synchronization technology Mozilla offered as an add-on, then later built into the desktop browser. The app gave users access to their browser bookmarks and history, to the open tabs from their most recent Firefox sessions, and to Firefox's "Awesome Bar" -- Mozilla's name for the address bar -- that let users search for previously-visited pages using keywords or characters in the URL or page title. Read more...
Five things to look forward to in Apple’s iOS 6
While hardware got a lot of attention at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the event is still really about software. That's why Apple CEO Tim Cook and other execs offered up a slew of new details about OS X Mountain Lion -- due out next month -- and, more importantly, unveiled iOS 6, the next version of Apple's mobile OS.
iOS 6 will be released this fall, almost certainly in tandem with new iPhones. Much is already known about Mountain Lion, Apple's desktop OS. But iOS 6 is a new arrival, and promises to make iPhone/iPod touch and iPad users very happy when it's released. Apple says there are some 200 or so new features in iOS 6, though many of them are smaller tweaks and updates. But there are still plenty of additions that will change, for the better, how mobile users use their iOS devices. Read more...
Why were Windows Phone users left out of Foursquare’s latest update?
In case you missed it, foursquare completely ripped apart and revamped its app for iOS and Android to make exploring and discovery easier. They’ve hit the mark as far as I’m concerned, and users seem to be pretty happy about the massive upgrade. Not all users, though.
In all of the excitement about the new version, it seems like the company left out a segment of users who are fans of the app on Microsoft’s mobile devices. Oops. Read more...
Facebook Takes A Cue From Instagram, Redesigns Mobile To Make News Feed Photos 3X Larger
If you’re sick of interrupting your news feed reading to open and load photos, you’ll like a new Facebook mobile site, iOS, and Android app redesign rolling out today that makes photos three times larger. Shares of single photos now look a lot like Instagrams, as they appear full width so there’s less need to stop and open them. Meanwhile the bigger previews of photo albums will help you instantly assess whether to dive in or breeze past.
As Facebook’s user base shifts to mobile where it can’t show as many ads as easily, it will need to keep mobile session length and return visit frequency high. Making the news feed less tiring to browse should keep us scrolling for longer as we ravenously peer into the lives of our friends our friends. Here’s the before and after photos…of photos. Read more...
IT groups grapple with managing fast-growing iOS devices
Apple recently has improved its mobile device management features, but IT groups are discovering a new set of challenges when they start to move to larger numbers of iOS devices, MacIT conference attendees are confirming this week.
Marin County Day School, in Corte Madera, Calif., ran a pilot program of about 60 iOS devices for students in 2011. From an IT viewpoint, it was a continuous discovery of the current limitations of Apple's tools. The small staff was backing up each iPad individually, says IT director Robert Bardenhagen.
"Scaling is a problem," he says. That's daunting because the K-8 school, like many enterprises, is eager to expand the population of iOS devices.
Another issue was Apple's model of users pulling apps individually from the iTunes App Store. Bardenhagen, with an IT manager's viewpoint, is looking at a push model, which would let IT create, maintain and update an institutional software image on the devices. Read more...
Blogger Finally Releases an iPhone App
Google has finally launched an iOS app for Blogger, giving the blog network's millions of users a simple way to write, manage and publish posts from their iPhones.
The app, available for iOS users 3.2 and up, is rather straightforward. It allows users to compose and publish blog posts complete with photos and geotagging. It also lets users view and edit their published and draft blog posts. It mimics the simplicity of the Blogger for Android interface, though. Users can also manage multiple blogs from the interface. Read more...
The end of both the desktop OS and mobile OS is upon us
Investment banking firm Jefferies stated the obvious this week when it issued a report predicting that iOS and Mac OS X will be one operating system by 2016. Nearly a year ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that was his goal in what I playfully dubbed his MiOS strategy. Jobs had just previewed Mac OS X Lion, touting the user interface capabilities it was borrowing from iOS. The forthcoming iOS 5 also takes some UI concepts first released in Lion, but as I'm under NDA with Apple, I can't tell you which ones.
iOS is based on a subset of Mac OS X, so in a very real sense, they always have been the same operating system. As horsepower has improved in mobile devices, Apple has enlarged iOS to take on more of what the desktop Mac OS X could handle, such as more multitasking and more complex graphics and video processing. At the same time, Apple has been steadily pushing gesture-based peripherals -- not just its laptops' gesture-capable touchpads, but also its Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad that bring gesture savvy to any Mac -- in a gentle but persistent reeducation of its Mac users. Read more...
Apps overrated in mobile web wars
Apple' iOS has over 425,000 apps, with over 15 billion downloaded, according to Apple. Google Android? It has 250,000-plus, but that number is growing at a faster pace than iOS. According to research by Adobe and Forrester, however, a rising number of developers may decide to forego the arms apps race entirely, preferring instead to optimize their mobile web presences.
What you build, it turns out, depends on what sort of business you run. Since a minority (38 per cent) of developers have an established mobile strategy, according to Forrester's survey results, the war between apps and the web is just beginning.
As Adobe's survey of 1,200 North American mobile users suggests, some activities lend themselves to the mobile web-browser model more readily than others. The majority of shoppers (66 per cent), for example, prefer to use their browser when buying goods and services on their mobile device. An even higher percentage (79 per cent) use the mobile web for product research prior to purchasing.
Games and social networking? Apps. Product research and blogs? Browsers. (source: Adobe)
The numbers flip-flop, however, when one considers social media or games. A slim majority of survey respondents (52 per cent) prefer a dedicated app to check Facebook and other social networking services, and 60 percent look to apps to fulfill their gaming needs. Read more...
Apple iOS still rules but Windows Phone 7 edges Android in user satisfaction
Apple's iOS-based iPhone continues to be the preferred smartphone for nearly 50 percent of consumers, with Android the top choice for about one-third of them. The real surprise is evidence that Microsoft's Windows Phone OS now outstrips Android in user satisfaction.
Even without an announcement about a new iPhone from Apple, nearly half of all consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days will be happy to buy the existing iPhone 4, according to survey by ChangeWave, a Rockville, Md., research firm that tracks changes in consumer and corporate electronics buying.
Fully 46 percent of the 4,163 mainly U.S. consumers surveyed say they prefer a smartphone with Apple's iOS firmware. That's up two points from the March survey. One-third of those surveyed (32 percent more precisely) prefer to buy an Android device. That's a one-point improvement over the previous survey. Read more...
Apple to enforce iOS in-app content policy in coming days
A reported deadline for developers to comply with an Apple policy on in-app subscription content has passed, with some developers yet to modify their apps. But Macworld has learned that Apple is working with developers to bring their apps into compliance as the company will look to start enforcing its new rules.
First announced in February, the in-app content rules came as part of Apple's subscription system, requiring that apps offer in-app content for the same price regardless of whether it was purchased via the app or outside of it. Apple later revised the rules, instead just requiring that developers remove any links to external sources for purchasing content accessible from within the app.
Section 11.14 of Apple's App Store review guidelines currently reads:
Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app. Read more...
Your next job: Mobile app developer?
As market demand surges for apps to run on iOS, Android and whatever operating system will power the next wave of smart devices, companies are facing a dearth of mobile development talent. For IT professionals with programming skills, that gap represents a fresh opportunity to embark on a career makeover.
To put the demand in perspective, consider that Apple racked up $1.78 billion in app sales in 2010, and global mobile app sales are forecast to hit $4 billion this year, according to market researcher IHS.
Just who is developing all of those apps? In its recent "America's Tech Talent Crunch" study, IT job site Dice.com found that job postings for Android developers soared 302% in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2010; ads for iPhone-related positions rose 220% in the same time frame.
Elance.com, a website for freelancers, reports comparable demand: In the first quarter of 2011, there were 4,500 mobile developer jobs posted on the site -- an increase of 101% over the number of similar job postings in the same quarter last year. Read more...
iOS 5 can export video in 1080p, suggests high-res camera for iPhone 5
A peek into the code of the upcoming iOS 5 software update due this fall from Apple (AAPL) shows that the operating system will allow lots of iOS devices to export video in 1080p resolution.
The story, from 9to5Mac, suggests that code found in the beta version of iOS 5 currently available to developers will let users watch video in the kind of resolution previously reserved for HDTV, Blu-ray discs and some Internet video (YouTube carries a fair amount of high-def video in 1080p). If you’re not a TV buff, just know that 1080p is good, and that having iOS devices that are capable of that resolution is going to make for some pretty video. Read more...
Smartphone Piracy: ‘Life’s Too Short To Worry About It’
[While console providers and publishers are mum about the next generation of piracy prevention as implemented in the Sony NGP and Nintendo 3DS, smartphone developers share their best strategies to combat the scourge.]
Software piracy may have taken a heavy toll on the previous generation of handhelds, and it's a matter of concern for the new models, but when it comes to smartphones, developers shrug. There are more pressing matters, they say.
At least that's what anecdotal evidence from a handful of recent interviews indicates.
Exactly two years ago, then-Sony senior VP Peter Dille stressed the enormity of piracy's effect on the PSP: "We're convinced that piracy has taken out a big chunk of our software sales on PSP. It's been a problem that the industry has to address together."
That same month, Nintendo admitted that it lost trillions of yen a year thanks to software piracy, much of it due to R4 "flash carts" that allow users to download and play pirated DS games.
So it wasn't surprising -- with portable game piracy such a hot-button issue among publishers and analysts -- that Sony and Nintendo turned up the anti-piracy juice on their next generation of handhelds -- the Sony NGP and the Nintendo 3DS. Read more...