Posts Tagged ‘iPad’

Cross-Platform Mobile Development – Which is the Right Path?

Friday, April 15th, 2011

Mobile Application Development - Which is the best path? With the announced availability of the Blackberry Playbook, the growing popularity of Android devices, and the traction that Windows Phone 7 is seeing, is it’s getting more challenging for businesses to develop a mobile applications strategy.

There are several different paths to building a mobile application, including:

  • Native Development: This involves building a separate application for each platform using the recommended native language.  
  • Titanium Appcelerator: An open source platform that allows developers to build mobile apps in Javascript and to package them for delivery on different platforms (Mac, Windows, mobile).
  • Open Plug: A software developer kit (SDK) to build cross-platform native mobile apps using ActionScript/Flex.
  • QT: A cross-platform application and UI framework that enables developers to build once and deploy across many platforms.

(more…)

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Posted in ePublishing, Trends and Technology | No Comments »

State of the Tablet Market – 11 Months Later

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Back in January we posted about the coming slew of tablets that were slated to hit the market. Now, heading into the holiday season, nearly 11 months later, it’s interesting to see where things stand. Just looking at my favorite source of tablet news, Goodreader.com, there are pages of announcements and reviews of new devices in the last week alone.

When I wrote the original article back in January, the iPad was still just a rumor, lumped in with a bunch of other “in development” products. Now, in just the first two quarters of the year, the iPad has generated nearly $5 billion in new revenue for Apple.  This number is continuing to grow as Apple rolls out the device to a broader global market this week and US-based AT&T and Verizon start selling it in the US. (more…)

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Posted in General, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »

Testing Out the Adobe Packager for iPhone

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Packager for iPhone

With the changes to the iPhone developer agreement a few weeks back, the Adobe Packager for iPhone gained new life. The packager, which is a feature of Adobe Flash Professional CS5 software and the Adobe AIR SDK, offers a way to use existing Flash code to create native applications for the iPhone and iPad. We’ve been working on native iPhone and iPad development for some time now, so we were curious as to how this application could be used to port over some of our existing Flex-developed client applications. We took a sampling of applications we’ve built over the past few months, some simple and some more complex, and used the Adobe Packager for iPhone to convert them. What we discovered is that there are some significant limitations with this tool. (more…)

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Posted in Rich Internet Applications, Trends and Technology | 3 Comments »

The Web is Not Dead, but it is Changing

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

changing-face-webTwo weeks ago I posted about the battle of the web browsers and what this meant for businesses. Even with the evolution of the browsers and the added functionalities they deliver, they are becoming irrelevant in the grand scope of the web. Years ago your experience on the web was dictated by the browser you choose. They all had different features and supported different options. Now, the web browser is virtually invisible. Users want access to the information they are seeking and they want the tool they are using to do so to just make this happen, without getting in the way.

The cover of the September issue of Wired boldly states “The Web is Dead”. This is a strong statement and one I don’t necessarily agree with. Yes, the face of the web is different and the ways that people are seeking information are different, but the fundamental concept of the web is still alive and kicking. People are still using the web to access information, but what’s changed is how the information is delivered. The days of funneling users through a web browser to your homepage are numbered, but users are still accessing information online. They’re just coming in through different doors, like web applications (iPad applications, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, RSS feeds and more). (more…)

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Posted in General, Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »

Five Usability Challenges of the iPad

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

iPad Usability

After spending some quality time with the family iPad over the past two weeks, I’ve discovered some key usability challenges that are hard to ignore.  A major issue with the device is the lack of consistency between applications. Although Apple claims to have a stringent review process, the experience and the behaviours vary considerably between apps. At one extreme you have the infinite page scrolling of the Gap 1969 Stream application, which is nothing more than a massive page that you can navigate through and click on items to view. At the opposite extreme, you have the Flipboard application that transforms a simple RSS reader into a new type of interactive magazine.

Here are my top five usability observations with the iPad: (more…)

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Posted in Trends and Technology | 1 Comment »

The iPad is Promising to Save the Magazine Industry, But Can Anyone Afford to Build Content for It?

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Late last week VIV Mag released its video demo of a new style magazine built with the iPad in mind. While the demo is impressive and visually stunning, I really question how feasible it will be for already struggling magazine publishers to invest the kind of time and money necessary to create this level of interactive content. Estimates on the cost of producing this issue are in the $100,000 range. This is for a single issue of a niche publication. How many publishers can really afford to bring out 12 issues per year at this cost, regardless of the extra readership that the iPad is promising to deliver?

With the iPad, there are many new opportunities for publishers to reach users with their digital editions. That is after some re-tooling as many of today’s digital edition technologies leverage Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight for delivery of their content, neither of which the iPad supports. However, it doesn’t wipe the slate clean. The same challenges in the market still exist. Publishers have an oversupply of information, abundant ad space to sell, and intense competition for eyeballs. Plus Apple introduces some new revenue model issues with publishers too. If they add periodical sales to iTunes, then publishers will lose some of their most valuable data – subscriber information.

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Posted in ePublishing, User Experience/User Interface | No Comments »

iPad – A Neat Gadget, but Who’s it For?

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I feel it would be wrong to let this week go by without at least commenting on the launch of the iPad. There is no question that Apple has become the master of hype. Everyone wanted Apple’s new gadget, even before we knew what it was.

But now that we’ve seen the iPad and heard more about it, the question I ask is “who is this for”? I see what Apple’s trying to do by finding a sweet spot in the market between their current offerings. The iPad does fit a niche today that’s populated by cumbersome, workhorse netbooks that aren’t pretty, but they get the job done, for a reasonable price.

To me, the iPad is missing a few things to really make it work. Is it an eBook reader? A web browser? A digital lifestyle device? It’s really a jack-of-all-trades, master of none in my opinion. It’s pretty and it offers more real estate than an iPod Touch or an iPhone, but how much more functionality does it really bring to the table?

It’s supposed to be a great web browser. However with so many sites leveraging Flash and Silverlight and the iPad not supporting either of these, how much of the web experience are you missing?

It’s also pitched as a great tool for email and photos. But it’s still missing a viable data entry device for emails. The on-screen keyboard is fine for short text or messages, but not for much more. Even support for handwriting with a stylus would have been helpful. For photos, it’s missing two key features as well – an SD slot and USB port. Sure there will be accessories from Apple in the future, but these are more things you will need to carry around.

It’s not an eBook reader either. As much as the publishing industry is hoping that Apple can do for it what the iPod did for the music industry, I just don’t see it happening. Even with its faults, the Kindle has a better screen and battery life for reading books.

So what is the iPad good for? It’s great at promoting the concept of the tablet to the general public. There are a slew of these offerings coming to the market and everyone will benefit from the hype Apple’s created. The iPad has helped bring mobile back into the spotlight and give it some much needed credibility.

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Posted in General, Trends and Technology | 2 Comments »

Tablets Becoming a Reality

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Over the past couple of years there’s been a lot of hype about Apple releasing a tablet computer product. In recent weeks more details have been leaked to the press that Apple will be holding a press conference on January 26th. It’s speculated that Apple will announce a new product called “iSlate”, that would likely ship in March with a price in the range of $800 to $1,000. Gizmodo has put together a very good a article entitled The Exhaustive Guide to Apple Tablet Rumors, that tries to illustrate what the product will be based on patents and other details that have been leaked over the last couple of years.

While most conversations revolved around Apple when discussing Tablets, a large number of companies have released tablets in the past few days at CES 2010.

Dell has released a tablet called “Slate”, that is essentially an oversized iPod Touch running Android with a slot for a SIM card.

Microsoft and HP have announced a very impressive joint product called “Courier” that is a large book format tablet with multiple screens running Windows 7. Gizmodo has the first details on this new device.

On another, yet very similar note, there have been a number of netbooks announced that have touch screens where the keyboard can be folded below the monitor, similar to older TabletPC’s. Lenovo has also announced a notebook tablet called the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid that is in the rough stages of development, where the monitor can be completely removed to be taken with you, leaving the keyboard behind.

It’s been quite a while since I was excited about a new type of device; however the possibility of having a tablet is very interesting to me. With the development of Smartphones it’s become much easier to always stay connected without having to have a laptop with you, however the screen real estate can be very limiting when trying to take notes, read lengthy material, and reply to long e-mails.

I can definitely see a big market for a device roughly the size of a notepad for those occasions when a laptop is too big and our phones are simply too small. We’ll see what materializes from these rumors and prototypes.

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Posted in General, Trends and Technology | 3 Comments »