giu 09

WWDC09 Keynote – my live tweeting

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Directly from Twitter (@badlands)
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giu 05

WWDC 2009 rumors roundup

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wwdc09_badge20090324

What we’ve heard so far…

- Steve Jobs will not attend (are you really sure about this? I’m not)

- iPhone OS 3.0 will be released (and we already know it will change the world)

- iPhone OS 3.0 will add a ton of useful features, and Safari will support geolocation (italian link: spaziocellulare.com)

- A new iPhone model will be presented, with 16 or 32GB capacity, faster processor, better camera, built-in compass, built-in FM receiver. Will it let us take videos, too?

- A new iPhone “junior” will be introduced [according to some Wall Street Analysts]

- Snow Leopard will be released veeeeery soon

- Apple Tablet? Apple Netbook?

MacWorld published an interesting article about WWDC ‘09: WWDC Preview: What we know, what we expect with iPhone 3.0

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mar 24

Broken Dream(s)

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Sembra che lo smartphone Android (HTC Dream) venduto da TIM (e da Orange in Francia) non abbia la possibilità di sincronizzare contatti e calendar con il proprio Google account. “Problemi di stabilità”, la risposta ufficiale di Orange. Già, peccato che sul mio dev phone tutto funzioni perfettamente…

Ai miei tecnofriends non posso che sconsigliare un acquisto frettoloso: aspettate un nuovo firmware (ufficiale), o compratevi un iPhone.

[Aggiornamento]

Consiglio la lettura di questo fantastico articolo apparso su Androidiani.

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mar 19

Fans

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There are two kinds of people in the world: iPhone fans, and those who haven’t seen it live yet.

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mar 18

iPhone vs Android

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…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.

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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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mar 18

iPhone OS 3.0: the next step…

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…towards iPhone World Domination!!!

iphone-os-preview-hero20090317

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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nov 05

Marciamo su Roma!

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Mi è arrivato l’invito ufficiale. Mercoledì 19, a Roma, si terrà l’attesissimo iPhone Tech Talk. Unica tappa italiana del tour mondiale (fully booked ovunque tranne che a Copenhagen e Delhi) degli iPhone “evangelists and engineers”. Spero che sia un’occasione per incontrare altri tecnofan e per imparare qualcosa di nuovo su Cocoa Touch :-)

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ott 31

3 good reasons for NOT jailbreaking your iPhone 3G

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I did it. I wished I never did. And I rolled back to the original 2.1 firmware. This my story.

  1. If you’re an iPhone developer, sooner or later you may wish to debug your application on a real device. With a jailbrokern iPhone, you just can’t (or at least I’ve never found a way to debug any application).
  2. The phone becomes terribly slow. Even worse than Windows Mobile. I can’t wait 30+ seconds any time I want to send an SMS. Things become a bit faster if you remove SSH from Cydia.
  3. The phone becomes terribly unstable. Never seen so many memory errors altogether.

Ok, there are at least three or more reasons for jailbreaking anyway: Cydia is wonderful and there are so many free applications which are worth a try.

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set 24

Google G1

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Tornando alle cose serie, pare che G1 supporterà GMail in modalità push (ci mancherebbe altro…):

(da EngadgetMobile.com)
Sure, there’s a lot of to love about the open-source, Android-powered T-Mobile G1, but Google’s Andy Rubin just confirmed what might be the new handset’s killer app: push Gmail. While that’s not a first, it could be a major differentiating feature for Android phones here on out, since it sounds like the app is advanced and partially web-based: it has the threading, search, and Google Talk presence features of the web client.

Un’ottima lettura su G1: http://mashable.com/2008/09/24/gphone-t-mobile-g1/

Un interessante confronto tra G1 ed iPhone: http://mashable.com/2008/09/24/g1-iphone-linux-macos/

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set 05

13.3″ of inner turbulence

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Gioco con PhotoBoot...

Gioco con PhotoBoot...

Lunedi’, inaspettatamente, Danilo mi ha consegnato il MacBook di laboratorio. Finalmente. Erano quasi due anni che cercavo di mettere le mani su questo portatile, un po’ per curiosità personale, un po’ per necessità lavorative (senza un computer Mac non si sviluppa su iPhone).

Devo ammettere che il primo impatto, una volta acceso il sistema, è stato un entusiasmo sconcertato. E’ tutto cosi’ figo, ed è tutto cosi’… “diverso“… da un PC tradizionale Windows. Tanto per farla semplice, non c’e’ il tasto destro. 5 minuti per capire che posso emularlo mettendo 2 dita sul trackpad e cliccando l’unico, enorme, tasto.

Nel frattempo, AirPort si era già attaccato alla rete wi-fi, senza scassare tanto le balle come Wireless Zero Configuration e compagnia bella. Questa peculiarità di Mac OS mi ha stupito parecchio: in effetti “fare qualcosa” è quasi sempre “più semplice”. Una volta capito come si fa.

Ho aggiornato il sistema, ho scaricato qualche bella applicazione free (Adium, tanto per dirne una). Ho installato XCode e l’iPhone SDK (1.25 GB, alla faccia!)… Direi che ci siamo. Ora sono concentrato su Objective-C, il linguaggio di programmazione object-oriented con cui vengono scritte le iPhone app. Per uno abituato a Visual Studio .NET, CF 2.0 e C#, è come un balzo nel vuoto. Era cosi’ bello fottersene altamente dei puntatori e di alloc malloc e cazzabubole del genere… sigh!

Ma di questo parlerò un’altra volta….

[myPost release]

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