nogood.it/gibson

…Let the fight begin!

I’ve never hidden my deep love for the iPhone 3G. It’s the perfect smartphone, and OS 3.0 will fill most of the users’ requests for features. This doesn’t mean that I’m blind to other exciting competitors like Palm Pre and HTC’s Android devices. I just got an Android Dev Phone v1 last Friday, and I want to share some thoughts with you.

Usability

The  winner is iPhone. No doubt, no competition. Designers hired by Apple belong to the next century. iPhone’s design is simple and sexy. Sometimes ago I read someone (could have been on TechCrunch or Mashable) saying that Android stands to iPhone as Linux stands to Mac. Let me quote this sentence. The HTC Dream is cute, but nothing more. I’m used to the virtual keyboard, and I miss it on the HTC Dream. 

Touch

iPhone wins at photofinish. I had the feeling that iPhone is faster in responding to touches, but the difference is the “pinch” gesture.

Mail

This is probably my biggest question mark. I read my business mails with the iPhone and my personal (g)mails with the Android. I don’t know if Android can sync with Exchange and support push. I know for sure that iPhone can read my gmail… but I’d love to see a stronger integration between Mail.app and Gmail: archive, star, label… that would be wonderful.

I’ll give this point to Mail.app.

Contacts & Calendar

Android rules: contacts and calendars are synchronized with my Google contacts and calendar. I still wonder why I should pay for a MobileMe account to get the exact same thing. (Ok, MobileMe gives you other useful features, but I’m just considering Contacts and Calendar now). So let me rephrase the first statement: Android wins, because you don’t have to pay.

Apps (AppStore vs Market)

No winner here. I’m not an expert of the Android Market, but my general feeling is that iPhone apps are nicer than Android ones. In average. Shazam is available on both devices, and the same for Facebook and Twitter clients. Locale is a wonderful context-aware application for your Android device.

Ok, uninstalling apps is easier on the iPhone.

SDK & Programming tools

The winner here is Android. Let me explain why. Before writing my first iPhone application, I had to learn Objective-C. With my C# background, “downgrading” to Objective-C made me spit blood (and swear far too many times). Creating GUIs is not so simple, at least at the beginning. You can’t just drop in that fancy view and hope everything will just work. You need IBActions and many, many, many “who’s the bloody delegate for this”?

Android runs Java code. Not that stupid MIDP, this is real Java. Why did it take so long? Knowing Java, it took me 10 minutes to write a first simple application which outputs the last known GPS position. And let me give you an advice: at the beginning, all runtime errors will be caused by permissions. Asking for permissions (even for browsing) is a must in Android. Sounds like a polite OS, doesn’t it? Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Conclusions

iPhone wins. But Android can become a serious competitor. Many things will be determined by the price of Android phones: in Italy TIM is rumored to start selling the G1 (HTC Dream) in a few minutes at €429 (unlocked). In my opinion, the price is too high to compete with the iPhone.

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Ratzinger e l’AIDS: “non si può superare con la distribuzione dei preservativi che, anzi aumentano i problemi”.

Anche il Vaticano ha il suo Berlusconi.

E come non quotare Jena:

.. dacci oggi il nostro aids quotidiano, rimetti a noi i nostri virus come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri untori, non ci indurre in tentazione, ma liberaci dal preservativo.
Amen

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…towards iPhone World Domination!!!

Ma vediamo cosa è cambiato (fonte iPhone Dev Center). Ho aggiunto qualche micro commento qua e la… in generale direi che è veramente un aggiornamento epocale.

Apple Push Notification Service

The Apple Push Notification Service provides a way to alert your users of new information, even when your application is not actively running. Using this service, you can push text notifications, trigger audible alerts, or add a numbered badge to your application icon. These messages let users know that they should open your application to receive the related information.

Cut, Copy, and Paste

In iPhone OS 3.0, the UIKit framework provides new classes to support pasteboard operations and also incorporates selection and pasteboard behaviors into some existing UIKit views.

Era ora

Accessory Support

The External Accessory framework (ExternalAccessory.framework) provides support for communicating with hardware accessories attached to an iPhone or iPod touch device. Accessories can be connected through the 30-pin dock connector of a device or wirelessly using Bluetooth. The External Accessory framework provides a way for you to get information about each available accessory and to initiate communications sessions. After that, you are free to manipulate the accessory directly using any commands it supports.

In App Purchase Support

The Store Kit framework (StoreKit.framework) provides a means for you to make additional content and services available from within your iPhone applications. For example, you could use this feature to allow the user to unlock additional application features.

Peer to Peer Support

The Game Kit framework (GameKit.framework) lets you add peer-to-peer network capabilities to your applications. Specifically, this framework provides support for peer-to-peer connectivity and in-game voice features. Although these features are most commonly found in multiplayer network games, you can incorporate them into non-game applications as well.

Figata! Così potremo giocare tutti insieme appassionatamente a CroMag Rally!!! Altro che la Wii!

Maps API

The Map Kit framework (MapKit.framework) provides a map interface that you can embed into your own application. Based on the behavior of this interface within the Maps application, this interface provides a scrollable map view that can be annotated with custom information. You can embed this view inside of your own application views and programmatically set various attributes of the map, including the currently displayed map region and the user’s location. You can also define custom annotations or use standard annotations (such as a pin marker) to highlight regions of the map and display additional information.

Questa era un must, Android ha queste API native fin dalle prime release…

iPod Library Access

Several new classes and protocols have been added to the Media Player framework (MediaPlayer.framework) to allow access to the user’s audio library. You can use these classes to perform the following tasks: · Play audio items from the user’s library. This support lets you play all audio types supported by the iPod application. · Construct queues of audio items to play back. · Perform searches of the user’s audio library. · Access the user’s playlists (including smart, on-the-go, and genius playlists).

Audio Recording and Management

The AV Foundation framework (AVFoundtion.framework) includes the following new classes and protocols for recording audio and managing audio sessions

Core Data

The Core Data framework (CoreData.framework) is a technology for managing the data model of a Model-View-Controller application. Core Data is intended for use in applications where the data model is already highly structured. Instead of defining data structures programmatically, you use the graphical tools in Xcode to build a schema representing your data model.

In App Email

The Message UI framework (MessageUI.framework) is a new framework that provides support for composing and queuing email messages in the user’s outbox.

Streaming Video

In iPhone OS 3.0, there is now support for the playback of live video streamed over http. Streamed content can be played back on an iPhone OS–based device using the MPMoviePlayerController class. The semantics of using this class have not changed. The main differences are in the preparation of the streamed content and how it is published on a web server.

Safari Features

In iPhone OS 3.0 and later, Safari supports the audio and video HTML elements, which allow you to embed audio and video content into your web applications. Safari also supports the Geolocation JavaScript classes, which work with the onboard location services to retrieve the current location of the device.

Shared Keychain Items

In iPhone OS 3.0 and later, it is now possible for you to share Keychain items among multiple applications you create. Sharing items makes it easier for applications in the same suite to interoperate more smoothly. For example, you could use this feature to share user passwords or other elements that might otherwise require you to prompt the user from each application separately.

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