Steve Wozniak says Android will dominate the smartphone market–repost DigitalTrends
Steve Wozniak reveals Apple’s pre-iPhone smartphone development and makes a prediction about the future of the mobile industry.
Updated 10/18/2010: It seems something was lost in the English-Dutch translation. Wozniak has now claimed that he was misquoted in the interview with De Telegraaf and that he never said that Android’s OS was superior to the iPhone’s. Wozniak clarified his thoughts on Android and the iPhone in a conversation with Engadget earlier today.
Apparently, you don’t become an Apple co-founder by being shy and reserved. This time, it’s Steve Wozniak – the other of Apple’s co-founding “two Steves” – making waves with candid comments about the tech industry, specifically targeting the company he helped to launch nearly 35 years ago.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Steve Wozniak reveals that Apple had collaborated in developing a smartphone with an unnamed Japanese company in 2004. While Apple had been satisfied with the product, the project was eventually dropped. Here’s what he had to say:
“Apple was satisfied with the quality but wanted something that could surprise the world. If Apple comes with a new product it must have a real breakthrough. Companies need to wait to capture a market until they have something extremely strong. A new product was separated from the rest of the group should be developed. In addition, developers must depart from beaten paths.”
Apple, of course, would eventually go on to release the iPhone in Jan. of 2007.
Wozniak also made a prediction that’s sure to irk Steve Jobs: Android will become the dominant smartphone platform and not the iPhone. Wozniak compared the Android operating system to Windows saying that it would succeed in winning over a larger demographic of people in spite of its flaws and inconsistencies. Wonziak indicated Android’s more expansive features and openness as being its primary advantages over the iPhone.
“The iPhone has very few weak points,” he said “There are no serious complaints or issues. When it comes to quality, the iPhone leads the way. Apple has shown the world what direction we’re going. Android phones do come with more options, though.”
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-co-founder-says-android-will-beat-the-iphone/?news=123
How to Build an iPhone App Without Hiring a Developer–repost from Entrepreneur
Tools to help you build and publish a competitive app, with no programming knowledge required.
You want your business to get in on the hot iPhone app trend.
Problem: You can’t shell out thousands of dollars for a developer, and you don’t want to learn Cocoa, the iPhone’s programming system.
Solution: Have an online service build one for you!
There are now some great tools available to help you build and publish a competitive app, with no programming knowledge required — and at a fraction of the cost of hiring a developer.
From coding to submitting to updating, these services do the technical work for you — all you need is a creative vision.
Many of these services do the same thing: they take your online content and integrate it into an app. The packaging and style all vary, so visit their sites to find which one suits your tastes and budget.
AppMakr
AppMakr is a good option for a Web site or blog looking to create a basic app, according to Guy Kawasaki. This website takes your online feeds and turns them into an app for you.
All you need to provide is your chosen feed (blog, RSS, Twitter stream, etc.), a few graphics, and some design choices, and they take control of the developing and submission process from there. You can even make the decision to "monetize" your app by selecting advertisers or choosing to charge for the download.
Cost: $199 for AppMakr to publish your app, $499 for you to publish it under your own brand. Phone-based support is also available during the creation phase of your app development, at $120 an hour.
Swebapps
Create an app in seven steps with Swebapps. What could be easier than "drag and drop"?
From their website:
Step 1. Select 4, 6, or 8 buttons
Step 2. Drag and Drop buttons on to phone.
Step 3. Customize button images if needed.
Step 4. Click on button and enter content.
Step 5. Submit for development.
Step 6. Create account.
Step 7. Finalize.
Swebapps also provides tools to track your analytics and update your app after its been published to the App Store.
Cost: Creating an app through Swebapps costs a one-time fee of $50 per button (minimum $200), and a $25/month hosting fee.
My App Builder
My App Builder is a tool that takes your content and turns it into an app for you for a low monthly hosting fee. Bonus: that monthly membership cost gives you the freedom to create as many apps as you want, with only a small publishing fee each time.
Whether you want to use your blog posts, RSS feed, videos, or Twitter stream, My App Builder will turn your information into an app. All you have to provide are your images, content, and a vision of how you want it to flow.
Cost: $29 per month, and $20 per app submission.
iSites
iSites, which just launched, is another app builder that integrates your social feeds seamlessly into an app. And, according to their website, you can do it in 10 minutes.
Provide your chosen feeds, customize your app with some design choices, and iSites does the rest for you. They promise to "take care of the app store submission in less than 24 hours."
In addition, iSites offers the ability to easily make changes to your app and see the results in real-time, and the apps work on both the iPhone and Android platforms.
Cost: $25 per app; $99 (per year) if you choose to monetize by integrating with AdMob.
TapLynx
TapLynx is another aggregator for your online feeds. The platform used by such online news sources as All Things D and Variety, TapLynx is elegantly designed and offers more versatility than other simple aggregators, and it comes with the ability to embed video.
According to MacWorld, "if your goal is to create a content-centric app with text, photos, and videos, the framework might just provide a smart shortcut. And since TapLynx supports sponsorship, display ads, and video pre-roll ads, monetizing your app should be pretty doable, too."
Cost: $599 for the ‘Enterprise Package’ — with 16 customizable tabs, search features, video, etc.
AppBreeder
AppBreeder offers you a little more complexity than other app builders, as well as an app that can be used on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android platforms.
If you just want something basic, you can pick from 11 App Kits, ranging from templates like "Business" to "Restaurant" to "Tour." AppBreeder personalizes and builds it for your purposes, then publishes it to the App Store for $99.99, if you allow ads.
Creating a custom app or adding a customized gadget ups the price significantly, but it is still likely to be cheaper than hiring a developer, and you get a better app.
Cost: Nothing to build, $99.99 to publish a basic app, and starting at $1,499 for a custom app with gadgets.
GameSalad
If you think an iPhone game would be a good option for your business, GameSalad is a great platform to easily develop your very own game, with no coding required.
According to their website, "GameSalad is the world’s most advanced tool for non-programmers… Build games visually using a drag-and-drop interface along with a robust behavior system."
Cost: For $99 per year, you get unlimited access to their game creation tool and publishing options.
AppIncubator
AppIncubator is slightly different from standard app builders: It’s a mobile app that allows you to submit ideas for apps.
You download the app, then submit your idea. If you want to get more detailed, you can use the storyboard tool on the website to describe exactly how you want the app to look and function.
If the people at MEDL Mobile like your idea, they’ll develop and market it, and share a portion of the profits with you.
Granted, this isn’t a great way to create your business’s main app — but if you have a unique idea for an app and want to see it come to fruition with little effort on your part, this is the way to go.
Cost: Free, with potential profit.
For those who are familiar with Flash
For those who are familiar with coding in Adobe ActionScript 3: You can now develop an iPhone app.
In October, Adobe announced that its to-be-released Flash Professional CS5 will come with an iPhone app packager, which will let users publish projects to run as native apps on the iPhone, according to Adobe’s Developer website.
This will be ideal for people who are not familiar with the Mac Cocoa development platform but have Flash-development experience.
Cost: TBD
Local Gov’ts Opt for iPads Over Paper
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-09-ipad-government_N.htm
IPads saving cities paper costs
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By Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY
Ward decided it would make both environmental and fiscal sense for the Hampton City Council to switch from paper to iPads for conducting official business.
The council agreed and last month made the move that Ward says will save $18,000 annually in paper costs. The devices for the six other council members totaled $4,200, she says.
Hampton joins a growing number of municipalities — from Williamsburg, Va., to Albertville, Ala., to Redwood City, Calif. — that are turning to iPads to conduct government business.
The move that is helping cash-strapped municipalities trim expenses is also raising concerns with government transparency advocates.
Megan Rhyne of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government says iPads make it easier for council members to e-mail, text or chat during a meeting without those conversations becoming part of the public record.
“Records generated are subject to disclosure, but we don’t have a mechanism for getting those records from an iPad,” Rhyne says.
“Citizens are going to want to be able to see that the iPads are being used as they are touted — as a cost-efficient way to keep track of the documents being discussed during the meetings and not being used to subvert the open meetings and open records requirements,” she says.
Ken Bunting of the National Freedom of Information Coalition says data from the council members’ iPads should be public record, although the law varies by state.
“They shouldn’t be conducting public business out of public view,” he says, “and if those are government devices they’re using, that ought to be public record.”
Because technology is changing rapidly, states are still trying to catch up with various laws, statutes and case models, Bunting says.
“In most states, some if not all electronic records are public,” he says. “Around the country, there has been lots of litigation in the states about the nature of electronic records and whether or not they differ from paper records.”
To help counter such concerns, the Redwood City Council enacted a policy on July 12 to prohibit council members from receiving or sending e-mail and text messages through cellphones, iPads, notebooks and other devices, city spokesman Malcolm Smith says.
After spending about $7,000 on iPads using capital-improvement funds, the council expects to save more than $30,000 annually in printing costs, Smith says.
Redwood City Council members will start using iPads within the next few weeks, but one council member, Ian Bain, says he is refusing to take an iPad and will continue to use his personal laptop.
“We just cut $6 million out of our budget, and the city is expending some money to buy these devices when we don’t really need them to go digital,” Bain says. “I think it sends the wrong message even if it’s just a drop in the bucket to buy these; I just think it’s the wrong time to be doing it.”
The Lynwood City Council in California chose to use iPads instead of laptops because there’s no need for a wireless or wired connection, says Roger Haley, city manager.
“All you would need is the AT&T signal,” he says, “and it’s really more convenient for the City Council to be able to maintain contact not only with city operations, but with the residents they serve.”
The council, which will begin using the iPads this month, expects to save $6,000 annually on staff time and production costs associated with paper agendas.
Although the council has protocols in place against such electronic communication during meetings, Haley says, “I don’t think there’s a 100% way that you can stop any abuse of that kind.”
Elsewhere:
•Williamsburg, Va. The City Council expects to save $2,000 a year in printing costs after it switches to iPads, which will cost $3,000, says Mark Barham, the city’s information technology director. “Our City Council is not going to use it for e-mail,” he says, “but if we were to use it for something like that … the same rules would apply in terms of public records.”
•Albertville, Ala. The Albertville Board of Education is replacing its laptops with iPads for all board meetings starting this month, Superintendent Frederic Ayer says. The laptops will be recycled for use at schools.
“Having laptops in front of board members really put a wall between them,” he says. “The iPads function just as well … and are a better solution.”
Recommended iPad applications for PF Board
File sharing:
Dropbox – Free
PDF Reader
GoodReader – $.99
iAnnotate – Allows you to markup PDF files – $9.99
ReaddleDocs – Allows you to download, read and manage PDF files – $4.99
Remote desktop:
Jump – Allows you to remote into a Windows desktop with a fixed IP from your iPad – cost $14.99
Travel:
FlightTrack Pro – Check the status of your flights, shows current time of departure and arrival. Gates of departure and arrival – $9.99
Southwest Airlines – make reservations, check-in, etc. – Free
American Airlines – make reservations, check-in, etc. – Free
GPS:
Navigon (USA & Canada) – turns your iPad into a GPS with turn by turn directions – $49.99
Books:
iBooks – application is free, but books come at a cost
Kindle (by Amazon) – application is free, but books come at a cost. Can read books bought for Kindle
Office:
Pages – Word equivalent – $9.99
Numbers – Excel equivalent – $9.99
Keynote – Powerpoint equivalent – $9.99
Amusement:
Stumble Upon – takes you to random websites recommended by others based upon your indicated interests. – Free
Words with Friends – Scrabble – Free
Search :
Diet:
Livestrong – calorie tracker – Free
Restaurants
Yelp – search for restaurants nearby – Free
Zagat to Go – Restaurant reviews – Unsure as to cost
Docs Overwhelmingly Using iPhones; Blackberry second
docs-overwhelmingly-using-iphones-blackberry-second
Among the findings:
•94% of physicians are using smartphones to communicate, manage personal/business workflows, and access information including medical reference materials. Of those, 44% of physicians have adopted the iPhone as their smartphone of choice, Blackberry came in second place with 25% of physician adoption.
•Physicians are overwhelmed by the daily volume of communications received from colleagues, care team members, and patients. They are forced to continually check separate data silos and manually filter and prioritize communications based upon sender, subject and priority. Critical communications easily fall through the cracks.
•78% of physicians experience difficulties accessing and communicating with colleagues in a timely manner. Physicians also lack financial incentives to be more accessible because the current fee-for-service reimbursement system encourages physicians to focus on the quantity vs. the quality of healthcare delivered. Non-essential phone or e-mail communications with colleagues and patients are seen as non-reimbursable distractions.
Saving file changes to iWorks
What has worked best for me after working with a number of apps is Create a document using Pages.
Share with iWorks.
I can login to iWorks and download as Pages, PDF document type.
I can access the downloaded document using ReaddleDocs and open it back in Pages again.
I can’t find a logical way to share out of iAnnotate other than wifi sharing or uploading to iTunes which seems like more steps than most people will want.
iPad Tips and Tricks
iPAD Applications
http://webworkerdaily.com/2010/06/16/the-ipad-works-thanks-to-these-apps/
Instapaper Pro ($4.99) This is the app to use for grabbing pages for reading later while you still have wireless access. Heck, I have a Wi-Fi + 3G model so I’m very rarely out of network range, but I still use it because of its formatting options and cross-platform compatibility. It’s a joy, and the ability to jump from iPhone to iPad seamlessly with it makes it a must-have for business use.
iPAD FAQ
To register your iPad, connect to your computer and launch iTunes.
Getting CC.Net working on our Test/Dev/Staging box
I used Jeff Atwoods article on Setting up Subversion on Windows to get started.
Once Subversion was up and running, I installed TortoiseSVN to create a repository, VisualSVN to connect to a repository and begun the CI installation.
Install Cruise Control on the Server and install as service
Configure the ccnet.config with a Project proj1
Create a working directory
In the working directory\bin directory, install nant, nantcontrib, visualsvn
Create a project directory in the working directory proj1
In the proj1 directory, create a nant build script
Start the Cruise Control service
Key is to get the config file correct. There’s lots of posts on getting CI working so this is just some brief notes.