For the people on the iPhone side: relax.  Apple knows what they’re doing.  They still own the smartphone market and likely will for the foreseeable future (Android people don’t tell me about the numbers.  I know the sales numbers.  They aren’t even half the story).  Why?  Because they care about the little things that normal people care about.  Google has on it’s side creepy commercials for the Droid that certainly don’t appeal to the mass market and a UI, which while getting much better, still isn’t an iPhone.  All that being said its good that the iPhone finally has real competition.  Apple needs a kick in the pants and Android 2.2 and the new HTC phones are that kick in the pants.

For the people on the Android side: stop being jealous and enjoy your damned phones already.   Your behavior over the last week has been nothing short of pathetic and childish.  Apple isn’t going to sit down and roll over because Android 2.2 is finally making Android a good platform.   Normal people don’t give a crap about the Java VM in Android 2.2 (just like they don’t give a damn about Objective-C on the iPhone).   Like I said to the Apple people: competition is good.   Both sides will benefit.   Your OS is getting there and has some features that the iPhone should think about but its still a geek phone.   The phones don’t have Apple design flair nor does the user interface.  Accessories?  iPhone again.  The platform is growing up and thats good but Apple will still be around for a long time.

I really don’t understand how technology people can always think there will be an iPhone killer that comes from outside of Apple.  The only thing that will be an iPhone killer is Apple itself and I’m going to bet that won’t happen.  Android isn’t going to kill the iPhone.  If anything Android will make the iPhone a better platform than it is now.   So lets all enjoy our platform of choice and get on with life.  Honestly life is too short to argue about crap like this.   Lets get out there and make some cool apps for *both* platforms.

Just a quick piece of information to make the story clear: the Todo app on both iPhone and iPad supported syncing with two web-based services: Toodledo and Remember the Milk.  As of 5/11/10 the folks at Remember the Milk shut off API access to Todo.  This was done without notifying customers.

The Appigo side of the story basically says that on 5/11/10 they were contacted via email from Remember the Milk and notified that access to the sync API had been shut off for Todo iPhone.   Appigo claims that the sync code for iPad was the same which is why they were using the same API key as the iPhone application.  They also claim that they have tried working with Remember the Milk to resolve the situation with no success.  Needless to say they have removed the RTM module from Todo and have worked with Toodledo to get RTM users 6 months free of Toodledo Pro.

I don’t know the details of the behind-the-scenes exchanges between the two parties but Appigo handled the situation, from a customers perspective, perfectly.  The status on the problem was matter-of-fact and cordial with no bad words for RTM.   Furthermore they worked with Toodledo to get RTM users a nice free period to switch over to Toodledo Pro if they want to try Toodledo.   Kudos to Toodledo for doing that.  Also a good way to get some new customers

Remember the Milk on the other hand come out smelling like a steaming pile on this one.  Emily from RTM, in the forums posted this:

Like many companies, our API is available for non-commercial use, with commercial use only available to select partners and products by prior permission. Third-parties who are interested in using the API commercially in a product can submit a business proposal for our consideration.

Appigo didn’t have a commercial license to use the Remember The Milk API for this app (and didn’t even apply for one); the first we became aware of the existence of this app was its launch on the App Store yesterday.

Unfortunately, despite being perfectly aware they didn’t have a commercial API license for any products beyond their iPhone app, Appigo chose to launch and advertise their new app with a Remember The Milk sync feature. The sync feature subsequently does not work, and this has resulted in a lot of confusion and disappointment for users.

We’ve given Appigo plenty of chances to do the right thing (they’ve been warned in the past about API terms violations), so we’ve been really disappointed in their recent behaviour. We take any abuse of the API very seriously, and have ended any relationship with this company; they will not have access to the API in the future.

We apologise to users affected. For any Remember The Milk users who were misled about this iPad app’s support for syncing with our service, if you upgraded to Pro on May 12 or May 13, 2010 to use this app, we will happily refund your Pro account payment (please contact us to request a refund; requests will be accepted until May 20, 2010). Any requests for refunds for the iPad app itself should be directed to Apple.?

It’s nice that RTM is willing to refund Pro payments for people who bought the iPad app on 5/12 or 5/13 but what about the folks using the iPhone version?  RTM is shitting on their customers.   I understand they need to protect their business but based on the Appigo side I find it hard to believe that RTM was working very hard to remedy this situation and the only losers are RTM customers.

A bit later in the thread of forum posts Emily says this:

It was a deliberate act on their part to abuse the API, and launch an app knowing they were not licensed to do so. They counted on the fact that if we terminated their API access after they launched this app, we’d have a bunch of upset Remember The Milk users on our hands. ?

I already posted about why I left RTM and this whole thing makes me completely sure my choice was the right one.  What a company.  Sheesh.  They counted on the fact that RTM would have a bunch of upset users on their hands?  Why in the world would Appigo want to do that?  It makes no sense given that those affected would also be Appigo customers as well!   Why would they want to piss off those users directly?

If there are any other reasons needed here to *not* support RTM by paying them $25 for a stagnant product this is another.  What a crappy way to do business.  Good riddance.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

It’s wonderful that there are lots of games and entertainment titles in the App Store for the iPhone and iPad.  That doesn’t help me when my daughter wants to play Bella Sara on the Bella Sara website.  That is Flash.   If my son wants to play games on the Sesame Street website guess what?  Those games are Flash too.  No love for those sites on the iPad and both of my kids love using the iPad.  They just don’t understand why they can’t play their favorite online games on the iPad.   Can they use the computer?  Sure and they do but this simple example shows that Jobs is ignoring a very large bit of the Internet when he flippantly states (to paraphrase) “Just get games from the App Store.  We have free ones there too”.

I would hope that all of those sites start to do their game development with truly cross-platform HTML/Javascript/CSS.   What we’re missing at the moment is tools to accomplish that task.   I’ve read commentary from people who work in eLearning who note that Flash dominates that arena and they just don’t have the expertise to make the move.   I call bullshit on that point.  Those applications could be done in HTML5/Javascript/CSS.  It would certainly require those developers to learn new tools but it certainly isn’t impossible even today.    I would certainly love to see Adobe work on the tools to accomplish that task instead of wasting more time on Flash.

The other interesting thing coming out of the Jobs letter is the follow-ups.   I was intrigued  by the people claiming how totally closed Apple is.   The iPad and iPhone environment certainly is closed if you want to write native applications for the platform.  I have absolutely no problem with that.  It is Apple’s technology and they have the right to make those choices and I think they’ve made smart ones.  They have very smart people there making a fantastic platform to code for.

That being said they also fully support creating applications on the device using HTML/Javascript/CSS and have from day one.  The short memory many seem to have on this point is interesting because initially HTML/Javascript/CSS was the *only* way to create applications for the phone and people bitched and whined incessantly that it just wasn’t fair.  They wanted to be able to create native applications and Apple provided the tools to do so (for free I might add).  Now people complain that it’s all closed.   Apple just can’t win it would seem.

I don’t even want to address the garbage that came out of the Adobe CEO today in his interview with the Wall Street Journal.  It isn’t worth repeating.  I understand that he has to defend Adobe but come on…”Flash is an open specification”.   Yeah Flash is an “open” specification.  Show me anyone else making tools to create Flash content?  Oh yeah…there are none.

I still love Adobe and their products.  I think they took far too long to get the Creative Suite fully on Cocoa on OS X.  Narayen loves the meme of “multi-platform” but generally multi-platform means lowest common denominator which frankly sucks.   You don’t get best-of-breed anything that way.  You certainly do save development time and it shows.  It has shown brilliantly in the Adobe applications on Mac OS X that haven’t been fully native and they’ve had  years to get this done.

In the end I think Apple will “win” this fight.   The release of the iPad already has many major sites changing their video format so that it’s supported on the iPhone and iPad.  I think we’ll see that more and more in the coming months and I for one am looking forward to it.   The more of the web experience I can get on my iPad the better.

While reading the page can be turned by swiping a finger across the screen which results, at least if it’s turned on, a page curl effect. Underneath the page can be seen the text of the new page. Visually it is pleasing to be sure but I am still trying to grasp the point of such a thing on a device that most certainly doesn’t have real pages.

The use of metaphor in user in user interfaces for software is nothing new obviously. All major OS interfaces use the desktop metaphor with “folders”, “files”, etc. I just find it odd that programmers are wasting time creating a page turn effect for something that isn’t paper. Yes, you can drag your finger across the page but it’s much faster to just tap the side of the screen corresponding to move to the next (or previous) page. In my opinion it’s s misplaced metaphor. Fun? Yes. Appropriate? No.

Seriously though I have had multiple times where I’ve had to look up something while on a phone call on my iPhone.  I’d not like it if that option were taken away.  That would be the case on Verizon so I really don’t care how great their network is.  If I can’t do data/voice at the same time they can keep their network.

1. A story titled ‘Apple’s “renaissance” is under way’ it is reported that the author thinks that because he is seeing Macs everywhere now that more people are buying them.  This shocking item is backed up with the claim “There’s now data to back up these observations”.  Well gee, there has been data to back up those observations for quite awhile now.  Apple has been consistently improving Mac sales quarter over quarter.   This Mac website is just seeing this now??

      Oh and of course the peanut gallery kicks in with the typical ‘People just buy <insert popular Apple product> because they want to be seen with it’.  Hate to break it to those folks but I bought an iPod, a Mac, and an iPhone because they’re the best products…not because I want to look cool (and in the case of an iPhone millions of people don’t all want to look cool.  Please.).

2. In another story titled “HTC and other OEMs prepared to challenge the iSlate” we get the brilliant little nugget: “The announcements are sure to place some price pressure on Apple: Freescale’s design is intended for retail prices in the $200 range, much less than the $600 – $1,000 expected for Apple’s device. “I’m going to bet that the Freescale tablet will be every bit as good as it’s $200-range design.  Meanwhile people will part with their hard earned dollars in droves to get the Apple tablet because Apple knows what they’re doing and they seem to be the only company that gives a damn about design and how people interact with their products.

      To be sure the author throws in: “Of course, Apple is all about the design, functionality, and user experience of their devices and software, and the capabilities of the tablet will need to show perceived value to potential customers.” just to make sure they cover their bases.  Again I find it astounding that this is coming from a website who’s main purpose is covering Apple.   Have they not noticed that during this awful recession Apple is making money hand over fist on premium laptops and desktop systems?

This is the best these guys can do?

Wow…nothing generates conversation in the tech industry like Adobe Flash. In just the past couple of days I’ve read articles about how HTML5 might be a ‘Flash killer’ along with articles on the release of Flash on the major mobile platforms, aside from iPhone. Along with those articles comes a lot commentary ranging from the people complaining about the lack of Flash on the iPhone to those with a strangely visceral hate for Flash who think that the lack of Flash on the iPhone is a bonus of the platform.

HTML 5 as Flash Killer

With all due respect to John Gruber over at Daring Fireball Adobe doesn’t view HTML 5 as a threat to Flash not because of anything to do with Internet Explorer but because of the history of HTML and CSS themselves. HTML 5 has a lot of great features and sounds like a real winner paired with CSS3 but modern browsers still can’t get the older standards right. There are still many workarounds required to get things rendering the same way on different browsers. Granted the situation is better than it used to be but these things simply aren’t an issue on a Flash-based user interface. While the browsers continue to play catch-up in the compatibility space Adobe will keep adding compelling features to Flash. I just don’t see HTML 5 being a serious challenger to Flash anytime soon.

Flash on Mobile Devices

I’d love Flash to be available on the iPhone. I really don’t get the reaction people have to Flash in general but when people go as far as saying that no Flash on the iPhone is a feature….please. Get a grip already. The iPhone experience would be that much richer with Flash available on the phone. HTML 5/CSS3 support on mobile Safari could be 100% compliant but until people start adopting those features on a mass scale it won’t be an alternative to having Flash available on the phone (see above).

I’m just not getting the dust-up over this stuff. Flash is a tool like anything else. Wider support of both HTML 5/CSS3 and Flash makes the web better, not worse. To those who would rather not have Flash exist at all: I think the web is a richer place with You Tube, Pandora, etc. than without them and they exist because of the ubiquitous nature of Flash. You seriously don’t? Because they wouldn’t exist right now if it weren’t for Flash.

Awhile back I wrote about having found a solution for the data connectivity issues that were plauging my iPhone in 3G mode.  At the time a call to AT&T Tech Support made my reset my network settings which appeared to clear up the issues, and it did help….for about a day.

Since then I’ve been having the same problems and I contacted support again.  The agent I spoke with was very helpful.  I didn’t get the run-around and after some questions he told me that he was going to refer the case to a higher level of technical support.   Despite the higher level of tech support not honoring my request for email contact I was able to get in touch with them to get the ball rolling on what I hope will be a resolution.

It certainly is odd though.  More testing indicated that I was actually getting worse transfer speeds in 3G mode than if I switched the phone into EDGE mode.  3G was netting me about 50kbits/s while in EDGE I was averaging about 140kbits/s.    Those are not the results I would have expected.  Of course this is still only happening at my office.  At home I routinely get 1400kbits/s download and about 400 up.

It certainly has been an aggravating experience but I have to say that my interactions with AT&T’s tech support have been very good so far.  I hope that continues

Several weeks ago, after upgrading to release 2.2.1 of the iPhone OS, and also installing the AT&T network update that came right after, I started having issues with data connectivity problems on the 3G network.   My phone, which normally gets a very fast and very stable 3G connection at my office, started having problems maintaining a 3G connection even while the phone would be sitting on my desk.   Consistently I would have a 3G indicator with 5 bars for the signal strength but as soon as I started accessing the Internet, whether via Safari, Pandora, or any other application, the phone would drop to EDGE mode.  As soon as the network activity stopped the indicator would switch back to indicating 3G.   This happened consistently every time I attemped to access the Internet.

After about two weeks of this I was going crazy and downgraded my phone to the 2.2 OS revision (this was an adventure in and of itself) because the phone had worked perfectly with that release.   And according to the various forums, etc. I searched the network update was only simple changes to icons, etc. that AT&T sent.   Well, 2.2 worked perfectly, no more network problems.   But I found out one of my applications, which had just been updated recently (Ambiance) required version 2.2.1 of the OS so eventually I reupgraded the phone.  This time however I didn’t apply the network update from AT&T when I was nagged about it.

The phone worked perfectly with 2.2.1.  Again no network/data connectivity problems.   I then decided just a few days ago to reapply the network update and lo and behold I started having connectivity problems again..   After a few days of this I hopped on to the AT&T website and chatted with a customer support person.  There were no indications of problems with any towers in my area and the only thing the agent could do was suggest to me to reset my network settings.  I didn’t know that option was even there before so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I was completely surprised to find that my network connectivity problems had disappeared!   I lost my WiFi settings but I can deal with that if I can get a solid 3G setup again.   So far so good.  I’ve been getting consistent, fast, 3G performance as I was before.   I’m not quite sure what the network reset does aside from removing WiFi settings but it seems to have worked.

Here is the document from AT&T: Reset Network Settings