Initial thoughts on the iPad.

April 3rd, 2010

I finally received my iPad today after what seemed to be a much longer wait than I expected. I felt like a kid again looking out the window for the UPS truck.

I opened the package eagerly and turned it on only to have my enjoyment delayed by a requirement to sync. That requirement immediately means that you have to have a PC or a MAC in the house. A pity really as I think it could be an excellent standalone computer for someone who simply wants an email device and web browser. Plus all those other multi media things that apple does so well, I can see it fitting well into many peoples lives.

Once I got past the sync hurdle, it was play time. I had a look for upgrades of the app that use regularly as apps that use the bigger format are often much better. An example of that is the WordPress app that I am using to type this blog.

The typing on the keyboard is quite acceptable for me. It does not make much getting used to, but then I have never been much of a speed typist myself.

The iBook app is nice. I do like to see the full color of illustrations, but I have to admit I don’t read too many picture books these days 😉

I find the iPad is too heavy unless I can rest it on something only then is it totally acceptable as an ebook reader.

I think it will be great in the kitchen with some of the recipe books that are available. No keyboard to get dirty. I wonder how water proof it is?

It is very easy to setup a slide show and I am sure that you will see picture frames for the iPad soon so that you can see the vacation pics when it is not in use.

There is no flash support so hulu.com currently does not work. Neither will other flash based sites. My kids were disappointed to hear that miniclips.com would not work.

I am used to a small screen from my use of the iPhone and also my 13″ MacBook. So I am wondering when I will actually use it day to day. I don’t watch many movies, but yes it could become the baby sitter on a long car trip.

Only time will tell if the iPad becomes part of my daily routine or not.

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About to Start Doddle Beta

March 25th, 2010

I think this is the first time I am openly talking about Doddle.  Doddle is the Top Secret iPhone application that I have been working on for what seems like a very long time.  We have version 1 about to go into beta testing this week.  It has been a mad scramble trying to wrap up all those loose strings.  The website issues seemed to be more of a big knot, but the folks working hard on that have pretty much resolved all the major issues.  Now it is just the minor issue.  The iPhone app is talking nicely to the website, that houses most of the data.  So what is this app.  Well if you are in the film production industry this is the too die for app.  Yes I have to say that I am very proud of the work that has been by the entire Doddle team.  What to know more, come and see the promotional videos, I know you will want to sign up.

Are you going to the NAB Show in Las Vegas?  If so come by the Doddle booth and say Hi!

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Core Data Woes

February 5th, 2010

I have been trying to wrap my arms around Core Data this past week.  I found some simple examples on the Web and in Apples documentation and all went reasonably well considering that it is one of the more complicated parts of the SDK.  But the wheels came off as I tried to dig in deeper.  I have a reasonably complicated data model and so decided to buy the “More iPhone 3 Development” book by Dave Mark & Jeff LaMarche Woes.  I had used their first book “Beginning iPhone Development” to learn iPhone development and it was absolutely invaluable.  Book two arrived here a few minutes ago thanks to Amazon Prime, but being impatient I had already downloaded the sample code from their forum.  I immediately jumped in and ran a few of their sample apps for core data and I am sorry to say that I was disappointed as the Core Data apps kept on crashing.  I tried to dig around and find the cause of the errors but not luck.  Quite a disappointment as the code has been written in a generic way to handle any data model.  I have posted the error on the forum and hopefully it will be answered soon.

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Interface Builder Woes

January 29th, 2010

For my big sweat equity project that I am working on I get graphics from a graphic artist to use in the application.  But sometimes I need to create a background that matches the color of an image I have received.

Color DialogIt sounds easy and it should be easy.  I do not know if some setting of mine has been messed up or if  this has always been the case, but the colors in Interface Builder do not match the colors in the final application.  I even went back to some of the very first applications that I created and checked with DigitalColor Meter a neat application for returning the color under the mouse pointer.

The first thing I noticed is that the images once dropped into interface builder seem to be a bit darker.  To change the color of an item you click on the color swatch to open the color dialog box.  Now to match a color all you need to do is click on the magnifying glass and you can now use the magnifying glass to choose the color of any item on your desktop.  The first thing I tried was to naturally click on the graphic that I wanted to match in IB.  No go!  A recompile and then a view in simulator and the colors do not match.  I then open the graphics in preview as that displayed the image correctly.  I tried the color match again with the magnifying glass and still no match.  After trying many different things I noticed that when you use the rgb sliders you have the option to change the color space.  After selecting the matching color with the magnify glass the color space is set to “device RGB”.

I changed it to “generic RGB” and the slider values changed, but the color swatch remained the same color.  The next trick is to write down the color values when “device RGB” is selected and transfer those values to when “generic RGB” is selected.  When you make the change the color will not match in IB, but match in the final product.  I think I need to find out more about this problem.  I should not have to jump through these hoops.  Hopefully it is something simple.

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Vozle Writer is live

January 7th, 2010

Finally an app that I did some work on a few months ago is live on iTunes.  It is always nice when that happens.  I only did a small part of the application.

The application is designed to let you capture notes, images, voice where ever you are and then organize them with tags so that related items can be kept together.  The nice feature is the voice to text capabilities.  You can dictate into your iPhone and within a few seconds it is converted into text.  The results are pretty accurate, but if you need to you can edit the “phrases”.  That was the part that I worked on.

You can download the application here.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vozle-writer/id348102411?mt=8&uo=6

Hope you like it.

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iPhoneDevCamp

December 21st, 2009

I attended the iPhoneDevCamp in Boulder over the weekend.  It was an awesome event with about 30 people attending.  The iPhoneDevCamp is an un-conference.   That means that there is no schedule and that the attendees decide what they want to talk about.  Friday evening was a get to know you and find out what folks wanted to discuss on Saturday.  There were a variety of topics from how to use Xcode, to Core Data to how to sign code for a client.  Attending any session is optional and the idea is to participate.

Kendall Gelner is quite the expert on Xcode, but unfortunately he was out sick so I lead the Xcode session as I have attended his xcode debugging sessions 3 times, so by now I remember some not all of his tips.

We also has sessions on Interface Builder and Core Data.   It was good to get another primer on Core Data as I am about to start using it for my Super Secret Project.  I had two highlights.  First was seeing a DFVideoOut demo, which can be used to demo your iPhone using the video out. No need to crowd around the iPhone or point a video camera at the phone.  My second highlight was seeing Bob Kressin tell us a bit about the hardware certification process and how his company is developing prototypes.  All in all a great day.  I missed out on Sunday, which was a code jam.  Two teams were given a few words that they had to use as the title for their application.  Both teams managed to produce something to show in one and a half hours.

Thanks to the sponsors Metafy LLC, Xcellent Creations, Inc., and especially Joe Pezillo for putting it on.




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Best App Ever Awards

December 21st, 2009

I was just reading on Mobile Orchard that 148Apps is holding their second annual “Best App Ever Awards” for iPhone Applications.  There are 55 categories, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a “Best App for Primary School Kids”.  That is so great that the educational apps have been broken down into sub sections as many educational apps are geared toward different end users.

I naturally nominated my “Math Explosion Multiplication and Division” App as it is a great way to get kids to learn their Multiplication and Division facts without using boring flash cards.  The game is pretty simple and is based off minute math, where you have to solve as many equations as quickly as possible within 1 minute.  It is race against time as the fuse burns down on the dynamite.  The equations are initially easy and get progressively harder.  The kids use a calculator type interface to enter their answers as I think the multiple choice approach leads to guessing.  If you are successful you are rewarded with fireworks and you get to go to the next level.  If you are not successful the screen “blows up” and you have to start again.

For parents and educators the application only shows equations you have not seen or have previously got wrong.  The game also has a high score system so you can see how well a child did.  Plus it gets kids motivated to try to do better each time.

For the kids the buttons make fun sounds which of course include fart noises.  Having levels and a scoring system gets them trying to beat their friends and they try to go so fast to beat the fuse.

So go and nominate “Math Explosion Multiplication and Division” for “The Best App for Primary School Kids“

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Great Week

December 11th, 2009

I think I had a great week all in all.  It sometimes felt like everything I was coding just did not want to work.  But things worked out on the home stretch.  The nice thing about having multiple projects to work on is that you can switch gears if something is not working and you need some time to figure things out.

I have been doing some consulting for a small business in town.  They are expanding and moving into a new building.  As part of their expansion plans they wanted to ensure Internet connectivity and so wanted to have redundant incoming lines.  I found a Syswan Duolinks SW24 load balancer that looks like it will do the trick.  It should load balance traffic over the available connections and notify you if a line goes down.  Now if both lines go down, how will you get notified?  I guess it will be stumped.

Part of the expansion was a need for more phones, with the ability to start off small, but be able to expand as more staff is added.

I found what looks like a really good VOIP service www.vocalocity.com for a small business in town that I doing some consulting for.   The phones and service will be purchased early next week.  VOIP is the way to go to keep your costs down and for all the amazing features you can get even without owning any telephony equipment.  The owner decided to go with VOIP phones Cisco SPA942 4-line IP phone that uses POE (Power Over Ethernet).  This means that the phone gets it power needs via the Ethernet cable.  No power adapters to deal with, and so long as the network equipment is on a UPS the phone will still work.

The last piece of equipement to buy was a Netgear FS726TP 24 port switch with POE to power those phones.  All the equipment can bought at www.amazon.com.

The main Top Secret iPhone Application I am working on is going well.  It looks really good as we have an awesome graphics designer.  There are many screen and I have been getting the basic framework knocked out.  That had some challenges, which I finally surmounted.  I think there is a bug with one of the UINavigationController calls, but I found a simpler way that worked.

Next week will require some more coding to get content into those many blank screens.

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Busy, busy

December 4th, 2009

I have been busy with a few projects.  Some are straight forward contract projects doing iPhone development.  I have also been working for another start up, which is in super secret, stealth mode.  We will only have a product ready to be released in April 2010.  The nice thing about this project is that it includes both web and iPhone development.  On top of that I am also doing some contract work for RightStart helping them get their systems up and running.  But all in all I had a great Thanksgiving and even took the Friday after Thanksgiving off.

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Why an iPhone could actually be good for your 3-year-old

November 4th, 2009

Here is an interesting article on very young kids using smart phones.  http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/11/01/why_an_iphone_could_actually_be_good_for_your_3_year_old/ While I think it is fine for very young kids to be using technology the amount of time they spend with technology needs to be limited.  Get out and get some fresh air and talk to your kids.  Don’t let the iPhone become the baby sitter.

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