This year's Day of Mobile had a number of interesting tracks, including the ever popular hack-a-thon.

In the hack-a-thon, developers worked alone or in teams to build applications that targeted any one of the mobile platforms (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm, Windows Phone) and presented their applications to the attendees to win prizes.

Our own Mike Laurence, who won the in in the open source category for developing an iPhone application for the Lighthouse issue tracking service. In three hours.

How? By using our recently released Core Resource Framework, a local/remote resource management framework that accelerates the creation of API clients, our soon to be released DynamicCell project, and integrating with the Lighthouse API. Pretty sweet.

I talked to Mike about it afterwards, and here's what he had to say:

"Three hours is a pretty short time to develop an application, but this was a good chance to test out the Core Resource framework. I've been working on the framework itself for the last five months or so; for the hackathon I decided to see if I could actually make a working app in 3 hours. I ended up creating a Lighthouse account (bug tracking website) for the project, and because Lighthouse has a nice API, that's what I used as my source. I did get an app up and running in 3 hours, which was pretty exciting. It even looked decent, due to the other open source project I announced (DynamicCell.")

The Core Resources framework is available now, and look for an announcement on the DynamicCell project in the next week or so.

We're building a fair number of iPhone and iPad applications now, and it's great so have someone like Mike on the team and contributing back to the community.

Related posts:

1. 6 GWT Resources for the iPhone
2. Rails Development for iPhone with rails_iui
3. “Developing iPhone applications using Ruby on Rails and Eclipse, Part 2: Displaying iPhone content to the client” Also up on IBM Developerworks

This should be a very cool event , and we're excited about interacting with other mobile developers in the Chicago area. We look forward to seeing you there!

Day of Mobile is an all day event for mobile developers and enthusiasts that will take place at IIT on March 6, 2010. The overall goal of the event is to better prepare both Chicago's application development community and companies with mobile initiatives for the upcoming mobile revolution. We will cover a myriad of different topics relative to mobile development and strategy such as platform SDKs, cross platform development, multimedia, CMS/SMS, mobile business models and many more. The event will begin with a breakfast at 8AM and conclude after a keynote speech and hackathon awards ceremony at 4PM. Throughout the day, there will be talks running concurrently with one another in two adjoining ballrooms.

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1. The daily commute. It's a simple matter of ergonomics here. I will use the iPad, sold with a cheap data plan when I'm sitting down on the El, rather than the iphone. Because it has a bigger screen, and it's already connected. I won't use my laptop, because it doesn't come with a data plan (or only an expensive one that I won't buy), and it's pretty uncomfortable to use in a cramped row of seats. I'll use it instead of a laptop because the form factor works much better, and because I will have bought the data plan bundled with the iPad.

2. The eBook reader. I'll use it instead of a Kindle because it will be good enough (or better), and I can do a lot more than read with it. My guess is there will be more people that read on the tablet than who buy a dedicated reader. (Just as there are more people who do photo sharing on facebook than on flickr.)

3. In the Kitchen. If I'm in a situation where a sealed, mess resistant device with a big screen is a big advantage (like a kitchen) then I will use the tablet. I will prefer it to the iPhone because it's bigger and I can look at it while I'm doing something else, and I will prefer it to a laptop because the keyboard will not get gunked up. There are already devices retailing around $300 to store and retrieve your recipes in the kitchen - an iPad with the right recipe app will run rings around that.

4. Video calls on the go. If it's always on, like an iphone, and it has video (like my skype video phone) with a front facing camera, then I will replace my skype video phone with it, and I'll make more video calls. This isn't in v1, but you can bet that it will be soon, and when it is, it'll be a killer app for the iPad.

5. In the store. Walking around, showing people more information, more details. The form factor is better than a laptop, and the screen is better than an iPhone. Which would you chose in that situation?

6. On a trade show floor. Very similar to the store situation.

7. Any other place where you would say "hey, let me show you this!" It's cumbersome with a laptop. You have to say - hey, come here, look at this...

8. In the restaurant. I could see it used in a restaurant, taking orders, or at the reservation desk.

9. For doctor making rounds. In multiple hospitals (as many do.) A doctor or nurse making their rounds is a similar situation - they'll use their iphone when nothing else is available, but they'll prefer the tablet when it's available, because of the larger viewing surface. They'll prefer it to a laptop most of the time because of the true portability.

10. Online games. There's a reason games have been a big hit on the iPhone - like the wii, it's a different gaming platform than a gameboy, and unlike a laptop, it's truly portable. Add a bigger screen and a faster processor, and you've got a killer gaming platform.

11. Social games. A special case of #10: Playing chess or another game on a table with a friend or friends (or against the computer.) One of the issues with sharing a laptop for gaming is that you can't really do face to face. You're both looking at the screen, not at each other. A tablet can be laid down between you and used as a gaming console.

12. Online courses and test preparation. You're doing a lot of reading, and watching a lot of video, and probably answering mostly simple multiple choice questions, rather than writing essays. You can do it on the go, or sitting down at a table. A tablet could be a much more enjoyable way of doing this than a desktop or laptop.

13. Watching movies. You don't watch movies sitting at a desk - you do it lounging, on a couch, in an armchair, or on the bed. If you're not watching it on a big screen, this is the way to do it. On the train, in the plane, in the back seat of the car, on the couch, on the family room floor.

14. On the job site. Contractors and architects do a lot of site inspections/checklists in the field where an ipad would be great – my guess there are a lot of other applications for them as well. Just as in a medical situation, concerns about durability can be addressed through functional cases.

15. Turn by turn navigation in the car. The bigger screen is a natural for this. A purpose built case with gps is probably not that far behind.

Got any other situations that the iPad is suited for? We'd love to hear about them.

Related posts:

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2. iPad: How big is the space between laptops and iPhones?
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For a while there was a trend towards more and more purpose built digital products, from ebook readers to portable picture frames and pocket size digital cameras, all the way to to digital recipe readers ($299) and tablet pcs with tough cases, handles and barcode scanners for the medical industry.

The iPhone, the iPod Touch and the soon to be launched iPad signal a reverse of that trend. Apple has designed and built flexible platforms that combine the ease of use and simplicity that single purpose devices with the flexibility of general purpose devices, and that is proving to be a compelling value proposition.

On the iPad, for example, you can easily get as good or better a recipe reader experience as you would with the demy digital recipe reader, a better digital picture frame or slide show experience than with a digital picture frame, likely as good or better of an ebook reader experience, and likely as good or better of a bar code scanning medical tablet experience.

How is that last possible, when the iPad does not come with a bar code scanner? The solution will likely be through peripherals built into functional cases. As an example, take a look at the digital checkout devices like Apple's own EasyPay touch (used at Apple's retail stores), Verifone and Morphie - that combine a magnetic card reader, a bar code scanner and a battery in a case for an iPod touch.

And of course, when the video enabled iPad finally comes out, it will likely replace the Skype Video Phone that my parents so love.

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2. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 2)
3. the iPhone and Touch screen technology

photo credit: B Rosen

I remember my first real grownup and serious web project outside of the university environment. It was 1994 and SSL was a novelty. People were making insane predictions that one day up to $600 million (think Dr. Evil) worth of consumer goods would be sold on the web worldwide. In 2007, just Canadian B2C sales were US$12.9 Billion.

Some folks, especially startups and smaller companies, saw the web as an opportunity to shake up the established order and establish a new sales channel or an entirely new business model. They invested what they could in building the first of what became known as e-commerce sites. Among established players, and some more conservative smaller players, there was initial hostility toward the new medium. When in 1994 I proposed to Ameritech (now part of SBC/AT&T) that they bring their lucrative print yellowpages online, I was run out of Hoffman Estates on a rail.

The con arguments ran as follows:

1. Investing in the web will increase our IT costs and require us to support lots of new and different technologies.
2. It will spoil our existing business model.
3. The platform is unproven. We have a proven client/server (desktop, etc., etc.) solution which is far better than some primitive web site.

These were all valid points. And if the web was just the idea of some crazed developer, then it could have been safely ignored.

But the web was being rapidly adopted by both consumers and businesses, knocking down barriers to entry wherever it went. The network effect was about to slap the entrenched players upside the head.

Now we're seeing much the same thing in the world of mobile, which right now means mostly iPhone but will at some point include more players such as Android and perhaps Blackberry devices. The same objections are being raised towards the iPhone -- more IT costs, spoils our business, unproven/not capable -- and the answer is still the same: if you ignore iPhone/mobile, then the network effect is going to knock you upside the head.

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photo credit: musiciennedusilence

A friend of mine from college is a physics professor who does a lot of stuff with the space station and the new Google Lunar X Prize, that awards up to $30 million for the first non-governmental organization to land a robot on the moon. He likes to get his students involved and has a gift for expressing things in terms they can immediately grasp. "The robot," he tells them, "can be small. Think of an iPhone with wheels."

When something has penetrated the collective consciousness the way the iPhone has, it changes the way we look at what is possible.

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Laptops are a strange, inefficient tradeoff between an iPhone’s portability and a desktop’s capabilities. They don’t satisfy either need extremely well, but they’re much closer to desktops than they are to iPhones. The usefulness and portability gap between a laptop and an iPhone is staggeringly vast ... Ergonomics are awful unless you effectively turn them into desktops with stands and external peripherals. But they can do nearly any computing task that desktops can do, and they’re able to replace desktops for many people.

- Marco Arment, “The Tablet” and gadget portability theory"

One of Steve Jobs slides during the iPad announcement last week showed an iPhone, a macbook, and a space in between with a question mark. Was there room for a third device between a laptop and an iPhone?

If it's a small space, suitable for a few niche products like the Kindle, then the iPad hullabaloo is much ado about nothing. If the space is big, and eats into laptop market share, then this becomes a major turning point in how we interact with computers.

Apple is betting that the space is big, and that the future of computing will look a lot more like the iPhone than the Laptop. Let's think about what that means: If Apple's tablet, like it's smartphone, and it's music player before that, becomes the preferred and dominant device of it's kind, and that device starts displacing the preferred computing device of the current time (the laptop, which in turn replace the previous preferred computing device (the desktop computer), a market for which they currently only have 8.8% (although 91% of laptops above $1000) then they win really big.

Why would you replace your laptop (with it's bigger screen and it's moderately comfortable keyboard) with a tablet?

Both are portable, but a tablet is more portable, and more usable while on the go.

To realistically use a laptop, you need a large surface, enough room in front of you, and preferably a seat. Otherwise, you look like this.

A seat on the subway or in economy class on a plane is too cramped and uncomfortable for most people. You need at least some time.

For the times when you need a keyboard - when you're writing an email, or a document, or a presentation, or developing software - you can set your tablet up in a work environment, just like you do with your laptop - docked, or at least connected to a large display, a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. You can take the last two with you when you go home, or to a coffee shop, or your in laws house.

Those rare situations where you really need that full keyboard in that cramped setting without a work surface, you can either make do with the onscreen keyboard, or find yourself a flat work surface when you need a laptop.

Of course some people will not be able to do without even in those rare circumstances, like this fellow on a plane, or like those who cannot do without their blackberry, and those people will not switch (at least not right away.) The same way that many people bought desktops for a long time, and then eventually switched to laptops when the computing power difference and cost difference no longer outweighed the convenience factor.

But for the rest of the world (and I'm betting that's a much larger audience,) having a multifunction, always connected, portable computing device that I can use like a desktop or in truly portable fashion will be clearly preferable.

At that point, you've introduced a serious disruption to the personal computing market. People who don't buy your laptops but buy your iphones and ipods, now will have another reason to buy a device from you, that's a replacement for their current laptop (likely not a mac, but a windows box.) If that happens, Apple will have won not just the current battle, but the war with Microsoft and IBM that they fought and lost 40 years ago. If it happens, that's the business story of our time.

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2. iPad: Instant Reaction to Apple’s Tablet Event
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I just finished looking at a couple of live blogs on Apple's big iPad event, flipping back and forth between Macworld and Ubergizmo's coverage.

While initial reaction has been all over the map, mine is overwhelmingly positive. I think they hit a grand slam.

Here's why:

1. There are lots of reasons why a tablet is a better mobile device than a laptop or a netbook.
2. The price is right (Starts at $499, goes to $829)
3. The data plans are right (Wifi, 3G $14.95 to $29.95 for data plan coverage from AT&T, use at all wifi hotspots, no contract.)
4. iWork for $30. Web browsing, photos, vidoes, reading, games, email, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations - that's 95% of what 90% of people do with a computer.
5. Dock and Keyboard. Use it like a desktop, if you must.
6. iPhone and iPod Touch software works on it now, the SDK (iPhone OS) and emulator are released the same day, and units will ship in 60 days. That means iPhone developers like us will be pushing out new versions of those 100,000 apps as well as brand new apps out there as fast as we can design and code.
7. The app store model makes installing new apps a one click affair. I don't get any "Honey, can you help me" shouts from my wife with the iPhone, and I wont get them with the iPad either (especially since it doesn't have a camera;-)

In short, this is great news for those people yearning to trade away technical complexity for vastly increased simplicity and ease of use.

Sure there are things that a lot of people (smart, tech savvy analysts and developers all) will bemoan* and think are missing, but the same thing could be said of the iPhone. It's Apple's way (only release it if it kicks ass and makes them money) it works, and it will work here as well.

* I of course was hoping for front facing video camera for video phone support.

Related posts:

1. Where the iPad will take over: 15 examples
2. Apple Earnings Call: 90% of iPhone Apps Approved within 2 Weeks
3. iPad: How big is the space between laptops and iPhones?

Over 90% of iPhone apps are approved within 14 days of submission.

Given over 100,000 apps in the store from a wide variety of developers (from amateurs to experts) and a wide variety of topics, that's actually pretty good. Apple claims that most rejections are actually for bugs in code, which makes sense given the wide disparity in development quality and test coverage.*

* For example, are you testing your software for ipod touch as well? You should - applications have been rejected for working on the iPhone, but not the iPod touch.

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• The iPhone is ranked #1 in customer satisfaction in J.D. Powers' survey.
• Corporate clients have doubled.
• 70% of Fortune 100 are actively piloting or deploying iPhone. About 50% of FT 100 are doing the same.

Not bad given that Apple has only been in this business for 2.5 years.

This certainly jibes with a lot of what we are seeing from our customers, that the iPhone is the first choice for mobile application development and the first choice among consumers and corporate customers when given a chance. It also validates our recommendations from last year on which mobile platform to develop for.

Let's see what tomorrow's big announcement brings.

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Now ask yourself, in which of those pictures would (a sealed, always on, always connected) tablet make more sense?

In all of them (although the beach one still seems like a bad idea.)

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photo credit: matsuyuki

I've made my fair share of predictions, and this may seem to be a layup, but I think it's a prediction worth making anyway: mobile devices and applications will transform business and every day life in the next decade.

Why does this seem like such a layup? Well, look at the iPhone and the ecosystem of applications and companies springing up around it. Android and Blackberry are trying to jump in on the business and everybody and their brother is cooking up a connected mobile device. And yes, that's obvious. Mobile devices are going to increase in importance in 2010 and if you don't already have an iPhone app cooking to complement your other online channels, you're behind the times.

But if you're just thinking that more iPhone applications are going to be the end of it, you're in for a rude awakening. Businesses have just started consolidating after the disruptive years of the 90's and aught's, with the transformative effects of the web largely digested by the marketplace (the newspaper industry is still thrashing but will soon succumb). A new disruptive decade is dawning that may see the passing or fundamental transformation of industries as varied as telecom, credit card and broadcast television/cable. Prepare to take your business through a roller coaster ride every bit as challenging as the web revolution.

What Will Change First? Telecom.

The introduction of the wifi chips into the iPhone broke the charge-by-minute mold. More and more carriers are moving to a flat rate and hybrid connection types will be standard on all mobile devices within a few years. Bandwidth will be purchased in bulk as it is between Amazon and carriers, leaving the consumer (in this case Kindle users) out of the transaction. Connectivity will be sold by the device vendors, not the telecoms, as a part of their offering. The customer relationship will be with the device vendor (much as you relationship with the iPhone is through Apple, not AT&T).

What will change next, or as a result of this enabling transformation? Lots of things:

1. Larger screens, always on solid-state mobile devices with long battery life, and higher bandwidth means that content distribution is moving away from the airwaves and cable and coming to a handheld device near you. What iTunes did to Tower Record will happen towards the end of the next decade to cable and broadcast. Like my friend who gets most of his content through Netflix and Hulu, they'll be saying "I have a TV, but I never turn it on."
2. Somewhere in the next few years, someone will invent a reliable and secure way to make payments through mobile devices. It will get broad adoption, and after a few hiccups and scares (Remember "Is it really safe to give my credit card information via SSL?"), they'll be acquired by Paypal and we'll be paying for all of our Xmas presents, in stores, with our iPhone Ultras. The banks and credit card companies will fight this, but before too long you'll be getting lines of credit and debit mechanism through your mobile devices. Time to cut up those credit cards, because they'll be useless.
3. Secure mobile devices will enter into every corner of the workplace and cause another productivity boom among those workers who are not tied to the cubicle. Since they use mobile devices in all other aspects of their lives, these will not be expensive new devices with steep learning curves. They will be based on widely existing technology (maybe Android?) and their use as natural to the workers as breathing or browsing Facebook.
4. Flexible, foldable displays will make an entrance late in the decade to make the size of mobile devices irrelevant.

These four fundamental shifts along with the change in the telecom will drive a whole new set of businesses, both products and services. New artforms will spring up, new ways of presenting information, new ways of social and political interaction.

As a Business, Take Nothing for Granted

Those sound like plenty of transformative changes to keep most businesses, large and small, either plotting to take advantage of them or worrying about their future. If you're the sort to embrace change, then there are a few steps you can take to prepare.

1. As a business, don't assume you know what your customers want. Your customers may have selected your product, for example, because it was a safe choice, not because it had the best features. Your competitors (or new, mobile entrant into the market) may have better, more informed customers and may be getting better feedback and developing a better product that will crush you in a few years time. The risk of this happening is greatly elevated when a new technology is destabilizing existing business models.
2. Do user research. The ways in which people are consuming products and services is expanding. Making naive assumptions about your customers will leave you delivering new software that behaves just like your old software, a sure recipe for obsolescence.
3. Invest in User Experience Design (UXD). UXD can help you with context. Why is context important? Because your customers aren't going to be just sitting in a cubicle or at home. They're going to be in stores, shopping, or out on the road, deciding where to stop to eat, or on the sidewalk, trying to find a cool coffee shop. Their context is going to be different as are their goals. The most successful businesses are going to deploy software that understand the importance of context and optimizes how they can achieve their goals in the environment (context) they are in.

Yes, definitely, the bar has been raised to be successful in business. If you're already uncomfortable with your web channels, then this is another headache you're going to have to handle. But if you think of it in the same way that you think of your web presence, you'll miss the boat.

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I should have a full review of it up in a week or two.

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Eric Smith from 8th light gave a hands-on TDD presentation at last night's Chiphone meeting, hosted at Obtiva's downtown office, (conveniently located near the the train).

There was a good crowd of people, most attendees have 'played around' with iphone development, 4 have actively developed apps (3 people have live apps in the store).  From my quick survey of those that have submitted apps, it seems most of them were free utility apps or simple games, with at least one commercial app Dash for Confluence. It also seemed that no one had yet needed to do any animation beyond the basics, with just a bit of core-animation, but no need for more lower-level openGL or animation engines.

Eric started off by saying that he's given talks on iPhone testing, but that just telling people what to do is not the same as letting them experience it for themselves,  so we did a Randori, where a pair starts working on some code, and every 3 minutes one person from the pair swaps out and chooses his replacement from the crowd.

What I liked about this was that I felt like I got to know the audience better, and actually watch people reason their way through the code or a testing/mocking issue.  (You know how sometimes you go to a user group, and it can be hard to get a chance to talk to others, or sometimes there is a 'know-it-all' guy, and you just want him to shut up. Knowing that you are going to have to go up there and code is a great way to silence those types)

When it was my turn,  there was an interesting issue with one of the tests that had us all stumped for a bit, but ultimately ended up being one of those problems where you need to deconstruct everything and build it back up. (The issue was that while we were trying to set fooController.textView.text = @"foobar", we hadn't instantiated a textView object, or set it on the controller yet.)

We got into some testing, mocking strategies, and a few Xcode tips & tricks, but not being all that familiar with the mocking framework, it would have been nice to just do a little intro on the api, but whenever someone was stumped the answer was shouted out pretty quickly.

It was nice to get some pizza, so a big thanks to Obtiva & 8thlight for putting this together. I wish we could do some presentations here at Pathfinder, but our space is better for a meet & greet, than a presentation. (plus I don't think as many people would come to the River North area)

I was new to a Randori, and I think this style of presentation is good, but I do have a few ideas I think I'll include when I host one:

1. Set out a basic agenda, introducing the approach, the codebase, relevant api, and where we're hoping to end up
2. Moderate the work (and the crowd), and be ready to help out in case the pair gets stuck (which means you really have to keep an eye on what they are doing)
3. Make the work meaninful, and the outcome tangible. (we were able to see our posts getting pushed to twitter, which was nice)
4. Push the final code up to github as a branch, so they can check it out later and compare the original to what they created as a group

There were a few times when I couldn't quite hear what the pair was saying, or read the screen that well, and though it wasn't a large group there were a few side conversations that made it harder for me to follow. I think this was most likely to happen when the pair was struggling, so a little moderation would probably keep things moving along fast enough to keep everyone engaged. I saw another post that also laid out some strategies for how to best host a Randori session.

I'm looking forward to the next chiphone meeting, and I think there was some talk of doing a group project to make a little app for next month's WindyCityRails.org conference.

Related Services: iPhone Application Development,
Ruby on Rails Development, Custom Software Development

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I have a native iPhone application in development which requires me to interact with a server that uses a stateful protocol over a persistent connection to transfer messages over the wire. This is definitely not a trivial application to write, even though the UI itself is very simple.

The Problem

Stateful protocols and persistent connections are often interrelated, but not by design. My first problem was to divide the original problem in two: how to manage the persistent connection, and how to handle the underlying protocol so that the stateful aspects did not bubble up throughout the UI.

Persistent connections can be difficult to manage, particularly when the network topology can change so drastically (such as on mobile devices). In this sense, there is nothing new here-- while the framework can notify you of connection events, it is still up to the developer to decide on the appropriate action.

The statefulness of the protocol, however, is trickier to deal with. We must track the state of the connection, and notify the caller of 'certain' errors. I say 'certain' because there is a class of errors that can be dealt with on behalf of the client in a reliable way, affording the rest of the application to treat the protocol as if it were stateless in most cases.

In dealing with the issue of maintaining the persistent connection, I wanted a solution which prevented me from having to manage separate thread(s), run loops, or NSOperationQueue. It is not that these approaches could not work, only that I wanted fewer failure points in the code, and experience has shown that many times there is a better way. Synchronous network calls were obviously not an option (if you didn't get a visceral reaction upon the very idea, just try and go that route-- it is not a happy place to be).

Managing the Persistent Connection

Luckily, AsyncSocket can do much of this for you. It's a great library for this sort of work, and I would recommend it over just using the NS connection classes alone. This library, however, does not do everything for you. You still have to refer to the connection from your code (either through a shared singleton approach, or as an injected dependency).

Managing the Stateful Protocol

I first attempted to create an interface on top of the network protocol, and quickly realized that this path would involve quite a bit of 'target/action' callbacks. So the choice was to either create a delegate protocol around my interface, or else use the NSNotification model to notify interested parties when certain events completed. Again, both of these options are possible, but there was just one problem...

...NSURLConnection and NSURLConnectionDelegate provide a lot of this for you. Knowing this, why wouldn't I want to capitalize on the framework? No synchronous calls, no extra delegate protocols to write. You get certain faculties for free using this route as well-- an established architecture for managing credentials, caching strategies, and in some cases, a way in which you can write and test your application against stateless protocols (say, HTTP) in a controlled, test environment, before actually testing against your custom, stateful protocol (let's presume access to the server is limited).

I was sold.

The Work

At this point, the problem became one of first developing a URL scheme for my needs, and then subclassing NSURLProtocol. My own implementation of NSURLProtocol checks the state of the single, persistent connection on each request, and issues an authentication challenge to the caller if the connection could not be created (this gives the user the ability to intercede, enter a password, or just cancel the connection).

The URL scheme is fairly straightforward, as the 'path' element of NSURL translates directly to commands on the server. Query parameters represent arguments.

The Way Forward

There is still more work to be done, of course, but the architecture is very clear. As mentioned above, I plan to handle changes in the network connection. Without this, a slow cellular connection, say, would still be used even when a faster connection type suddenly became available. Since the handling of the underlying connection is behind the protocol layer, this becomes an easier change to manage than if all parts of the code had to concern themselves with changes in the network connection itself.

My experience so far has taught me a few things about both the URL loading system in Cocoa, and how to deploy these kind of apps in the wild. There are not many examples of NSURLProtocol out there. This is a common complaint, but the points above, along with the existing sample code, should help steer you in the right direction.

Related Services: iPhone Application Development, Custom Software Development

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I'm unabashedly happy with my phone, because it's strengths and weaknesses mesh pretty well with my actual needs. It's not that great a phone, but I don't use the phone that much. On the other hand, there's never been a better gizmo for whiling away a long train commute.

So, here's some stuff I use:

Instapaper (free light version, $9.99 pro version currently on sale for $4.99)

Instapaper has probably changed my web reading habits more than any other app since I started using RSS readers. It's so simple that its almost hard to believe how useful it is. When I come across an article on the web I want to save for later, I click a bookmarklet. Later, launching Instapaper on the phone, the article shows up, with the images stripped away, and the text presented in a reader friendly format. (Sometimes you can help Instapaper out by invoking it from the printer-friendly version of a page...)

Using Instapaper has become kind of second nature -- I always have a few articles ready to go. The Pro version adds a few nice features, including control of the display font and the ability to scroll the article by tilting the phone. The tilt-scroll sounds like you'll need to be a gymnast or something to read an article, but in practice it's a super-clean interface for reading long articles and letting the text scroll at your reading speed. Great app.

Birdhouse ($3.99)

Very well designed little app for what seems like a dumb use case -- saving drafts of posts intended for Twitter. I mean, how much do you need to polish that tweet about the ham sandwich you had for lunch, amirite?

But, if you are trying to do a tip a day on Twitter (@railsrx), then having a nice place to store up ideas for future tips is great. The app also works as a slightly structured note-taking app, since it can email it's existing draft population back to you.

Stanza / Kindle (Free)

The two leading general-purpose eBook readers, both of them are easy to use, and manage the task of making text readable on an iPhone. It'd be nice if there was some consistency in formats between the two apps, and also if you could buy books directly from the Kindle App (presumably that's coming).

MLB At Bat ($9.99)

Obviously only if you are a baseball fan, but the app gives you access to live box score and play-by-play data, live audio stream of radio broadcast, video highlights, special goodies like condensed game videos a few hours after games and, plus live video streaming on a currently limited basis. That's a lot of stuff. Add in the fact that the app is pretty enough to have won an Apple Design Award, and it's a pretty fabulous package.

Twitteriffic (Free lite, $3.99 no-ads)

There are something like a zillion Twitter clients on the iPhone at last count, and which one to pick is basically idiosyncratic. It's a mark of how fast iPhone development is going that Twitteriffic 1.0 won an Apple Design Award in 2008 and was completely blown away by newer clients six months later before regaining strong status with the 2.0 release. I find this has a nice blend of features and interface. (Tweetie, which is my desktop client, is also very good on the iPhone).

Of course, this all sounds serious -- the big winners on the iPhone have all been games, there are all kinds of inexpensive, addictive little games I play. Here are a few: Defender Chronicles, The Creeps, Drop 7, Flight Control, Frenzic, Galcon, Peggle, Strategery.

Related Services: iPhone Application Development

Related posts:

1. “Developing iPhone applications using Ruby on Rails and Eclipse, Part 3: Developing advanced views for iPhone” now available on IBM Developerworks
2. Chiphone Meeting: Chicago iPhone user group gets its TDD on
3. “Developing iPhone applications using Ruby on Rails and Eclipse, Part 2: Displaying iPhone content to the client” Also up on IBM Developerworks

1. Tether **
2. Run more than one app at a time (background processing)
3. Support multiple browsers (IE, Opera, skyfire, Iris)
4. Multimedia messaging **
5. Use a storage card for music, pics, etc

** While there are plans for the iPhone to support tethering and multimedia messaging, AT&T has not yet announced when it will be available.  (whereas I am writing this on the train right now, tethered to my phone, with just a basic data plan).  So I understand that it will be coming soon to the iPhone, but is not available yet.

To be honest I feel strongly that the first 2 are solid points, whereas the rest kind of quickly decrease in value, but I tried my best to come up with 5 things that mater, and I previously had 'Record Video' at #3, but now the iPhone will support that, so I had to take it out.

Tethering

While I saw good reviews of the Samsung BlackJack when I was in the market for a new phone, tethering was the #1 reason I bought the phone instead of an iPhone. Being able to get on the internet with my laptop from anywhere, at anytime is a very big deal for me. I take the train to work, and often have to rush out the door at night in order to make the schedule, but its easy for me to keep working from the train, and finish up my emails, check-in/deploy code, connect to vpn, etc. and that flexibility is huge.

As a consultant it means I can provide assistance to my customers in a more flexible manner. I recently had a customer contact me with an emergency deployment issue while I was on the road, about 20mins into a 4hour drive. While still on the phone with the customer I was able to plug my usb cable in, fire up my laptop, securely connect to their network, view the logs, debug the issue, change the code/configuration, check in to github, deploy and close out the tickets over the course of 2hours, all without losing connectivity (and picking up Wendy's on the way!).

At one point I had tried to find telnet/ssh tools for my phone that would allow me to do some work from the phone directly, but I find its just easier to tether and use all the tools of my laptop.

Running Multiple applications

Being able to run multiple apps at once is more important than I originally realized, as it helps me to be much more productive and connected.

Some recent use cases of mine are:

1. Using Fring to IM a colleague about an important work email, while walking to the subway, drafting a reply to that email, opening a new tab in my browser to check the bus schedule (if its on time I'll take that instead of the train)
2. Pulling up google Maps while on the road (while someone else is driving of course) to see the route to a friend's house, using Fring to IM that friend that we'll be there soon, and looking up events going on that weekend in the area.
3. Talking on the speakerphone to a customer while looking for some info in email and google docs

Mulitple Browsers (or browser engines)

This might not be a very strong point as the browsing experience on the iPhone is pretty damn good, but I am happy to have:

1. Multiple browsers for different uses (IE for simple mobile browsing, Iris/skyfire for a more powerful experience)
2. Flash video support in the browser (YouTube, Hulu), with Skyfire

* I realize there are different browser options for the iPhone, but my understanding is that they all share the same platform (ie. none of them support flash in the browser)

Conclusion

For me the real lesson here is that I am motivated by 'tool envy', (insert joke _here_). This is just like what I have experienced when pairing with someone using intelliJ when I was on eclipse, or they're on a mac when I'm working on windows and its something that can drive you to look at your environment and ask "how can I make this better?" For windows mobile users I think it takes a bit of effort to find the things that make the phone better, and its a shame that Microsoft hasn't made this process eaiser. Once the iPhone has tethering, and with lower prices coming, its much harder to justify buying anything other than an iPhone.
(oh, and let me know if there is anything else I missed)

Related Services: iPhone Application Development, Custom Software Development

Related posts:

1. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 1)
2. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 2)
3. Which Mobile Platform Should You Target – Other Points of View

I've been spending some time with our internal sales and marketing team to hash out some of our goals for the year, and it became quite clear to me that non-developers are on their computers all day long facing some of the same technical challenges we do.

Some of the tasks they have to do:

• "take the data out of the spreadsheet for last quarter and compare it to this quarter"
• "gather the bounced emails from our newsletter posting, and update our list, pulling out duplicates"
• "replace all the names and addresses from our NDA agreement each time it is sent to a new client"
• "slice and dice google ad-words and google analytics data"

So I've resolved to take some time each week to 'Adopt a non-techie', and help them spend less time 'screwing around with the computer' and more time on the most valuable tasks they do.

In the same way that developers need to be as efficient as possible with the tools they use, so do the rest of the people at your company. At Pathfinder a good number of us have attended Neal Ford's Productive Programmer talks at the NofluffJustStuff conference, which covers a series of strategies for becoming extremely efficient as a developer. For those on our team that haven't attended the presentations, they pick up the best tricks through pairing and internal developer brownbags, but now I suggest we take the same approach with our business team.

While the benefits of having two developers pair on a technical task has been covered a million times, I would say it also applies to pairing with your UI designer, QA and BA resources as well. Whenever they need to take lots of text and reformat it, search/replace, etc, they might be tackling that problem manually, when you could help them solve it with a quick script or finding the plugin they need.

A few areas you might be able to help them with:

1. Forms and mail merge in word
2. Advanced searching and replacing in word
3. Google docs now has more powerful regular expression capabilities for searching and replacing (Actually, I could do a whole post on the benefits of getting your team to use GoogleDocs, would anyone be interested in that?)
4. Building a quick survey with google forms or surveymonkey
5. General text manipulation
6. Searching through all of their emails or local documents for anything related to the 'Jelly Belly vs. M&Ms' case
7. Excel spreadsheet manipulation, charts, etc.
8. Web searching and data extraction
9. Managing and sharing bookmarks and research data with others
10. Even tools like Selenium or iMacros could help your Business team automate repetitive form filling, web searching or web site testing.

Goals (First do no harm!):

1. Find the right problem. Just like we see in Product development, sometimes the most difficult problem is also the rarest, and not the best use of your time. In fact, the greatest area of efficiency is more likely to come from something they know how to do, but could be doing faster. (Instead of saving them 30mins off of a task they do twice a year, you might find something that saves 15mins every day!)
2. Don't expect them to become a developer. The goal is to reduce the time these things get in their way, so they can focus on the higher value stuff.
3. Make it easy for them to repeat the process (let them document it in their words, or even make a screencast while you're doing it)
4. Share your successes with the rest of the team (notes and screenshots/videos up on the wiki)

Use the right tools for the job!

While its best if you can help them to become more efficient with the tools they use everyday, you may find that they are just not using the right tool for the job, or if its a one-time thing, and you need to bring your toolkit with you.  For that I recommend a usb drive with your favorite PortableApps (notepad++ is great for text editing), or my new favorite PortableUbuntu (which lets you run linux off the usb drive, while accessing the files on the windows system)

What gets in your way?

To the business folks out there, what are some of the tasks you do to manipulate data? What frustrates you or eats up a lot of your time?

Reach out to your nearest techie, I bet they can help, or post your problem here and we'll make some recommendations.

Related posts:

1. Can your Selenium do that? Testing flash/flex and silverlight in web apps with iMacros
2. Stick with ERB or move to Haml
3. Does your project have Code Ownership Culture?

Here are a few other points of view on the subject - there is certainly no shortage of opinions and angles:

• Mobile OS Shootout: The Cross-Platform Developer Point of View

• The VC Point of View (or a couple of them) - A Platform Pickle For Mobile App Developers

• The war for mobile developers is on: Do you have to pick sides?

What's your take?

Related Services: iPhone Application Development, Custom Software Development

Related posts:

1. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 2)
2. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 1)
3. PureMVC, Spanning the Platform Spectrum?

iPhone:  Better Bring Your A Game.

Pros: The best application platform, the best ecosystem (iTunes) for synchronization and applications, the dominant digital music platform (iPod/ITunes.)  The most reliable, the fastest growing in 2008.  The most applications downloaded, the most applications paid for.  By far the best user experience for everything other than email.  Deep Pockets and commitment to the platform.

Cons: There are now over 30,000 applications in the iPhone Store, so standing out from the crowd is not easy.  There are dozens of sudoku programs, over a dozen task management programs, just to name a few.  iPhone acceptance as a platform supported by corporate IT departments lags significantly behind Blackberry (although it is the number two platform.)  AT&T as exclusive carrier until 2010.

Bottom Line: If your application will be primarily purchased by individuals and it will stand out from the crowd, this is the first platform to develop for.  If you’re building a me too application, good luck

Worth Noting: Epocrates, maker of the popular mobile drug and formulary reference was able to capitalize on the advanced capabilities of the iPhone, particularly the powerful processor, rich graphics and large storage capacity to provide significantly more functionality than on any other mobile device they support.

Corporate Clients and a Keyboard

Pros: The Blackberry is well established as the preferred platform of corporate IT departments, with 76% currently supporting it.  That combined with the physical QUERTY keyboard make it the king of corporate email and top target for enterprise application integration.  They ship a lot of units, jockeying with Apple for the most sales each quarter.  Available on multiple carriers.

Cons: Blackberry is playing catch up to Apple on an Appstore, reportedly finally opening their store later this week.    Unlike Apple, there are a proliferation of interfaces and form factors, some with touch screen, some not.  The user interface and experience for most applications that don’t primarily rely on a keyboard or text entry tends to be clunky.  The processor, storage, and graphics capabilities are far less advanced than the iPhone.

Bottom Line: If your application relies heavily on a keyboard and purchase is mediated by corporate IT departments (as front ends for enterprise applications mostly are) then this should be your top platform.  For other apps, it’s number two to the iPhone.

Everyone Else:  Who’s Emerging and Who’s Sinking into the Swamp

Google Android:

Pros: Google has deep pockets, has gotten a lot of developer support, and probably has the second best web browsing experience to the iPhone.  Integration with Google apps is strong, and also has a physical keyboard.  Available on multiple carriers, with more and more companies signing on rather than going it alone against Apple and RIM.

Cons: As a relatively new platform, Android does not have the market penetration of either the iPhone or Blackberry, and without the anchors of itunes/ipod or corporate email clients, will have a tougher time establishing a niche, and may face some of the same issues Microsoft has faced as an operating system licensor (as opposed to all in one firms like Apple and RIM.)

Bottom Line: Google, with their deep pockets and development chops should not be counted out, but unless you have a niche integrating with Google applications, it should rank well behind the iPhone and Blackberry.

Pros: Microsoft has deep pockets and has proven staying power in the past.

Cons: They have been losing market share to superior platforms from Apple and RIM, with other hardware vendors moving to Android as a more competitive alternative.  The platform has a reputation for being slow, buggy, and expensive to develop for, with multiple form factors and reference platforms.

Bottom Line: Microsoft’s deep pockets should not be counted out, but they are caught between a rock and a hard place.  Seeing how they respond will be interesting, but unless you’ve already bet the farm on Windows Mobile, now is not the time to start.

Pros: Despite a litany of mistakes over the past 6 years, including spinning off their operating system and licensing Windows mobile, the Palm brand is still recognized and retains some value to consumers.  The new Palm Pre device and brand new operating system have gotten very positive reviews.

Cons: Unlike when they first entered and conquered the handheld market, they are re-entering a much more competitive landscape, with established players with much deeper pockets.  Apple has made comments that some interpret as a claim of patent infringement, and Palm's only carrier, Sprint, is rated last in service by Consumer Reports.

Bottom Line: Their remaining brand equity and strong new entry give them a chance, but you shouldn’t bet the farm on them succeeding.

Pros: Nokia has great worldwide mobile phone market share, a strong history of R&D and deep pockets.

Cons: They have been left behind in smartphones in the US, and are working hard to catch up.

Bottom Line: As with Microsoft, don’t count them out, but if you’re targeting North America, don’t invest a lot here now.

Our Conclusion:  iPhone, Blackberry and then Everyone Else
For applications that need to reside on the mobile platform, the answer right now is to concentrate on iPhone and Blackberry, and then worry about everyone else.  Which you should target first depends on your application.  The market changes quickly though, so stay tuned in this space for updates.

Related Services: iPhone Application Development, Custom Software Development

Related posts:

1. Which Mobile Platforms Should You Target? (Part 1)
2. Which Mobile Platform Should You Target – Other Points of View
3. Apple’s Earnings Call: Enterprise iPhone Adoption Growth