code & rock

Lately I’ve been developing for the mobile app stores (iOS, Play, App World) so all the coolness and problems alike are pretty fresh in my mind. It also means I’ve been reading a lot of articles recently discussing the current state of the mobile landscape.

I thought I’d get my thoughts down while I have the time (I’ve been smacked in the face by a big fat cold virus that’s forcing me to have a break from climbing and well everything. Not nice over the long Easter weekend!).

First up RIM

I thought it might be wise for one to kick off with RIM sense it’s entirely possible that by the time I’ve finished writing this little piece that they will no longer exist. OK maybe I’m being a bit facetious to say it won’t exist but I can guarantee that it will have continued further along  it’s downward trend.

It’s funny to think how far RIM has fallen in the years preceding the iPhone and shortly thereafter Android. I personally thought that they had a brilliant place from which to wage war; that being the absolute centre of enterprise. Somehow they managed to lose it. I say somehow, you can actually pretty much chalk it up to the consumerisation of IT in the enterprise gaining momentum and RIMs inability to ride the wave.

Example. My most recent mobile app was for a client who wanted the app in BlackBerry’s App World as well as the App Store and Marketplace (now known as Play). Thing is the app was designed specifically for modern smartphone screens which we defined as about 3.5 inch with a decent resolution. Not having had to look into RIMs line up for a while I couldn’t recall their devices of the top of my head so I headed over to their product listing page.

What did I find? A product listing that looked like it was from a few months after iPhone and Android emerged. There was only one model that had a minimum of 3.5 inch screen (it actually had a 3.7″) with a decent resolution. ONE MODEL! It’s been clear that people want a big ass slab of glass for their smartphone’s today. There’s a reason why iPhone, Android and even Windows Phone 7 are all (with the exception of a few Android models I’m sure) slabs of glass.

Now I find it hard to believe that RIM’s CEO didn’t know these two facts; the trend of consumerisation of IT and the majority of people’s taste in relation to smartphone’s. So the only thing I can think that happened is that he couldn’t put one and one together and extrapolate.

There isn’t much more to say on this. RIM is losing market share, mind share, developers and staff month over month. The only good thing I’ve heard from them recently is an admission that they really have screwed up these last few years, btw that was from the new CEO.

I think the best thing for RIM to do is to get out of or trim down massively their hardware line and license their OS and services to other manufacturers. I think some other HW vendors would be interested in at least exploring the opportunity to offer a compelling counter balance to Apple and Google.

From a developer point of view. Well I wouldn’t shed a tear should RIM disappear.

Next up choice/fragmentation in Android

Depending on your view it’s either consumer choice or platform fragmentation. Well here’s the thing as a consumer I’m sort of sitting on the fence as to what I’d call it. I might be leaning toward consumer choice in relation to the HW but fragmentation in relation to the platform.

As a developer however it’s a clear cut decision. It’s fragmentation and a whole lot of work! And it ain’t quick iteration thanks to the painful sluggishness of the Android emulator. Of course as I finished the project and get my thoughts out here a new rev of the emulator has been released with the major improvement being hardware acceleration. I haven’t had a chance to update my development machine so can’t comment first hand on how well this works but I have seen some demo’s on youtube and it does look good.

Here’s an example of the fragmentation that we developers face. Take for Google’s mobile homepage for search. How do you think it holds up when viewed across a range of browsers.

You can see higher quality versions of the image here.

Keep in mind this example is only across browsers and not devices and OS versions. I like the openness and flexibility of Android but I really do wish that it was far more consistent.

Lastly; Adobe might be getting back to its ‘we build kick ass tools’ roots with Shadow

As a quick last point I want to highlight a new app from Adobe. It’s called Shadow and it allows you to pair mobile devices with your dev machine and test web apps on the mobile device.

Besides from me liking the tool, it really can speed up workflow, I’m heartened to see Adobe returning to it’s tools heritage. Originally before getting caught up in Flash Adobe made tools and not platforms. I think this is the direction they need to continue.

Adobe I’d love to see more releases such as Shadow that solve real problems.

Update: Adobe have released an update of Shadow that solves some of the major problems I encountered while playing with it. Loving the quick iteration Adobe! Instead of me re hashing the details you can find out more on the release here http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/04/13/adobe-updates-web-app-development-tool-shadow-with-labs-release-2/

People have been saying for a while that Google hasn’t been innovating like it use to. A good discussion was had on the last this week in Google that got me thinking about some previous Google products such as GMail, Maps, Reader and of course search that I love and would say Google innovated in that space.

More recently… it hasn’t felt like they’ve kept the pace up. It’s understandable, companies grow, start to have vested interests and lose their agility.

However very recently, for the last year in fact Larry Page has been at the helm for Google once again and he has brought a focus back to the company that was sorely missing. For a while I really did think that Google might just quietly slide into the big company trap that caught Microsoft but now I think  they have a fighting chance of staying out of it.

Lately I’ve felt like they’ve been getting back to form in both the big idea playground and in the trenches of everyday life. Lets start with the big idea playground shall we.

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One of the main reasons I love working in the technology industry is because of the magnitude of change it can bring about. You want proof? How about… mp3 players, tablets, massively powerful PCs/Macs in a home environment, medical appliances, educational tools and oh maybe the Internet.

I believe technology will be the thing that either destroys us or makes our species eternal. Bold statement huh :) I do truly believe it though. Technology is having such a major and fundamental impact on everything and it evolves so fast. It’s advances will either, in my mind, lead us to an unfortunate dystopia or it will allow future generations to set foot upon worlds we currently only glimpse and experience as pinpricks of light. They will expand humanity beyond our tiny, little planet.

It’s all about technology. Period!

Knowing how I think regarding this topic I’m sure you will understand why I was interested in a recent talk Eric Schmidt gave at MWC 2012. He touches on how technology will help the other 5 billion people on the planet who currently don’t have access to it.

There’s nothing profoundly new being said here but if like me you love exploring the big picture in technology and how it really can influence lives in a real way then you’ll probably enjoy the talk.

With my waffling over I present to you (via our YouTube overlords) Schmidt’s musing’s on the importance of bringing the technology we take for granted to the many people without.

Our feature presentation…

Bonus video!

I got thinking and if you really do love the possibilities that technology holds then here’s another more fun glimpse at what could be in store for us. It falls on the superficial fun side of the fence.

No doubt dear reader you have heard of TWiT.tv and most likely tuned into them live or caught up with a podcast or two produced by them. If you haven’t and are interested in tech then you really are missing out.

Case in point. The most recent episode of Triangulation had Bram Cohen on. Bram is the guy who built Bittorrent. He’s now come up with Bittorrent live, a peer to peer solution for streaming live video with low latency while lacking the need for very expensive setups to support it.

If one imagines how much bittorrent changed the landscape on the internet for downloading large files I believe bittorrent live will do the same for live streaming over the net.

I’d highly recommend you watch it if you have a spare hour.

I normally don’t like to post about things such as this as in the grand scheme of things they aren’t very interesting. However I’ve been bugged by the terrible interface for iGoogle for ages now. The interface nearly made me move to competing services so now that I can see the new interface for it I am a very happy man.

iGoogle is where I start most of my browsing sessions. It lets me see my email, RSS and calendar feeds all at a glance on one page. It’s a great little productivity booster for me. If you don’t already use a start page I would still recommend using one even though some opinion nowadays is less favourable towards them.

Anyway here’s two screenshots of the new interface. Judge for yourself. Give the images a click to see them full size.

I feel I’m required to start by saying that I am no expert on the media industry and it’s machinations, well no more so than anyone else in the tech sector who have watched and indeed continue to watch the struggling fits of an industry trying desperately to (and who I sincerely hope do) adapt to this new(ish) digital world.

I was planning on going through the points Schmidt discusses one by one and giving my own opinion on them, however sense I mostly agree with what he has to say I don’t think it would make an interesting post to read so instead I’ve decided to take the easy way out simply embed it below.

Do have a watch as it’s really quite good. It start’s at roughly 36 minutes in and goes to the very end. Of course don’t forget to let us know what you think of Schmidt’s speech in the comment.

I recently met up with a few good friends from back home in Northern Ireland for a stag do in Liverpool and got talking to a particular friend who’s also a web developer. The conversation eventually turned to shop talk which while including many things got me musing on one topic in particular, PHP frameworks. It got thinking of my framework of choice and more generally the emergence and increasing popularity of frameworks within the industry on my drive back home. Is this reliance on frameworks good or bad? Does one miss out on anything by using a framework? Are they really all they’re cracked up to be?

I don’t intend this to be a long article. In fact I don’t intend this to even be an article that has a particular purpose, say to sway your opinion on anything in particular. Instead I merely wish to discuss how I view the current crop of frameworks and when the right time to use one is, that is if there is a right time.

So let me kick of the meat of the discussion with the question ‘Is a PHP framework a net benefit to the developer who chooses to use one’? I’ll do my best to explain why I think the answer is a resounding yes, albeit with a caveat or two.

As with anything there are advantages and disadvantages. Trade off’s which you have to decide are worth it or not. As I’m feeling in an optimistic mood tonight, most likely due to the choc fudge cake and ice cream I’ve just indulged in I will begin with the advantages.

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Boom! Not to steal Steve Jobs’ catchphrase but that does sum up how I felt when I came back after lunch to launch Google reader and see 10 articles stating Google just spent a whopping 12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility. Motorola Mobility is the phone hardware division of Motorola. Essentially it is what everyone thinks of when you say Motorola.

To put this deal into perspective the last major deal that Google made was to acquire DoubleClick in 2007 and that was for the grand sum of 3.1 billion. That deal turned out to be excellent value for Google. DoubleClick ad exchange eventually became Google ad manager and allowed Google a massive leap up into the display advertising game. It’s interesting that Microsoft was also interested in DoubleClick back then and they were reportedly interested in at least acquiring Motorola’s patents. Burned twice by Google in two very large acquisition attempts.

The question everyone is scrambling to answer is will the Motorola deal be as big or bigger success as DoubleClick or fall flat on it’s face.

Here’s my take on what the deal’s about.

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You will have to forgive me this opening paragraph dear reader for its self congratulatory tone. You see back in university roughly 7 years ago now I approached a point where I had to decide whether or not to truly throw myself into acquiring a deep understanding of Abobe Flash and make the bet that it would be time well invested in respect of being able to get a good job and progress in my career. The issue I had was that I never felt ‘right’ in Flash. I understand it’s benefits, and I’m not one to suggest it doesn’t have some advantages. The problem was I never thought of it as being the future. I went back and forth internally on whether to become and pitch myself as a Flash developer. One day I may have seen a cool Flash site and thought let’s do it while the next day I was back to worrying about the plug-ins long term viability. Anyway not to bore you any longer than necessary I eventually decided to focus on becoming a web developer with a focus on open and standards compliant technologies.

I’m ecstatic to say that my analysis and choice were bang on! With this decision myself and all others who agreed with me managed to hit the ball out of the park. Of course to anyone watching the industry this is old news. Some would say that Adobe Flash was ‘dead’ the minute the iPhone caught on. Personally I hate the tendency of recent articles to brand things as dead and pitch rival approaches to problems in the technology sector as a ‘there can be only one’ fight, though minus the swords and beheadings!

What I believe is that Flash isn’t necessarily dead but rather becoming a more niche solution to the problems broached in our industry. Eventually I think it may disappear into obscurity but that day is many years away Consider for a minute the sheer penetration Flash has as a plugin and how many sites currently use it and continue to do so.

So why write this article now? In essence because I believe we have reached a sort off critical mass with HTML5.

A quick note before I begin. When I say HTML5 I include in that statement a number of technologies such as CSS3, Javascript, SVG and WebGL in addition to the actual HTML5 markup.

In no particular order then let me sum up my reasoning.

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I haven’t bought a tablet yet. Why not? Out of all the options currently on the market the only tablet that I would consider at the moment is the iPad.

I already own and am quite happy with an iPhone 4 so why not just buy an iPad? Well if I boil my ethereal feelings down to their constituent parts I would have to say because:

• Apples authoritarian regime over iOS doesn’t sit too well with me.
• I want to support an open (or more open if you want to debate the point) mobile/tablet OS in Android.
• I don’t quite value a tablet enough to spend at least £440 pounds on one
• Being a web developer my chosen platform is the web. I believe Android allies itself with that more than iOS.