What
· Technology
· · Mobile
Nothing Creative ·
Compared to my Mac, the iPad lacks a keyboard, software development tools, writer’s tools, a Web server, a camera, a useful row of connectors for different sorts of wires, and the ability to run whatever software I choose. Compared to my Android phone, it lacks a phone, a camera, pocketability, and the right to run whatever software I choose. Compared to the iPad, my phone lacks a whole lot of performance and screen real-estate. Compared to the iPad, my computer lacks a touch interface and suffers from excessive weight and bulk ...
Green Phone ·
I’ve noticed that having an Android in my pocket makes me more likely to take public transit around town as opposed to driving. Yeah, it takes a little longer, but it’s not downtime; I can be catching up on email and admin work and so on. A huge amount of most people’s workload is manageable given anything with a decent email client and browser ... [8 comments]
Android Splintering? ·
There’s this flood of new Android phones hitting the market; we’re starting to see some new form factors and hardware setups. I’m hearing concerns here and there about the market “splintering”, making the platform less attractive to developers. Only I don’t buy it. [Update: Yes, really.] ... [17 comments]
Where’s the Mobile Biz? ·
I’m not sure there’s much chance of building a successful business selling through an App Store. And I know how hard it is to generate service revenue off a Web site, whether you’re aiming at mobile clients or not. So, I have a question: Is there really any money to be made in mobile apps? ... [18 comments]
A.D. XIII: Tasty Words ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] I sure hope they’re tasty, because I’m gonna have to eat some. Not too long ago, in Phone Keys, I wrote about how great it was to have a hardware keypad. Well, the Android I’m currently using doesn’t have one, and it’s not that bad ... [10 comments]
A.D. XII: A Half-Year In ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] To be precise, seven months in. I couldn’t live without an Internet phone now. I might be able to live without an Android, but on balance I’m very happy with my G1 ... [4 comments]
Phone Keys ·
The issue is whether hardware keyboards on mobile phones are a good idea, and there’s a charming little prognosticate-off in progress. In this corner: John Gruber, who’s almost always right, saying (and I quote) “Normal people aren’t planning to do much typing on their new smartphone, and they’re probably right.” In the other corner, lots of people. Well, and me too ... [20 comments]
Cupcake ·
Which is to say, Android 1.5. I updated my G1 dev phone today, and hey, it’s pretty cool. Tons of little changes all over and an on-screen keyboard. Plus, now I’m a really bad videographer! ... [2 comments]
Experimental Engineering ·
I spent some time looking through the just-emerging web OS technical documentation, and it quickly became apparent that Palm’s approach is radically different from both Android’s and Apple’s. Since they’re all here at more or less the same time, running the same Web browser on roughly equivalent hardware, this represents an unprecedented experiment in competitive software-engineering approaches ... [17 comments]
AD X: Grumbledroid ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] There’s a pattern in this tribe where you put “droid” on the end of, well, everything. Thus this title; herewith another set of hands-on notes, this with a sort of grumbly tone ... [3 comments]
Mobile Gold ·
Today I read Rob Scoble’s lucid and forceful Smartphone competition; it clarified a growing internal buzz I’ve been feeling as I experiment with Android and follow the news. We are, right now in early 2009, sliding into the golden age of mobile technology and business ... [12 comments]
AD IX: Five Programmer’s Notes ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] I’ve done a bunch more polishing on my little demo-ware Feed Mapper; it even handles errors. Plus I’ve started sketching in the other half, the thing that might turn it into more than a demo and drive some Cloud biz for my employer. Time for some more give-the-feel-of-Android dispatches from the coalface ... [4 comments]
JMMMDD ·
That stands for Java Mobile, Media & Embedded Developer Days; it’s a conference we’re presenting week after next in Santa Clara. I’m obviously super-interested in mobile-device programming these days, and have always thought that JavaFX Mobile was the most interesting piece of the FX effort; I can’t wait to getting my hands on some hardware. Unfortunately I can’t make it to this one, but it looks like a good event. [1 comment]
AD VIII: On Android Maps ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] In particular, drawing and interacting on them. Herewith a very specialized set of notes that might be of interest to anyone programming to Android’s very attractive map API. I’ve learned a lot already, but I’ll try to keep this up-to-date as I become more conversant with the state of the art ... [2 comments]
AD VI: How To Draw a Curved Line ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] For my little piece of demo-ware, I wanted to draw curved lines between the circles representing entries in a geotagged feed. Android has a function for drawing arcs, but I had to do a little trigonometry to work out the arguments. This is by way of sharing the answer with any other Androiders who want to draw curved lines, and, well, I kind of enjoyed the math and who knows, maybe someone else will too ... [10 comments]
AD V: Demo-Ware ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] I’d had an unofficial goal that the little Android goober I’m working on should be demo-able by the end of 2008. I made it by half an hour. It draws clickable zoomable renditions of geotagged feeds (RSS or Atom) on Google maps. The look and feel are cool. As of now, I’m not actually sure it’s useful for anything, but I think that geotagged feeds are potentially very interesting in general, so a viewer couldn’t hurt. The short-term lessons are about Android, though ... [3 comments]
AD IV: Programming Newbie ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] As of late last night, I have a bit of nontrivial code actually running on the G1. I feel a bit reluctant to diarize since I’m a complete beginner, swimming in ignorance; but it occurs to me that for every expert out there, there are many n00bs like me, who might wonder what the experience is like ... [3 comments]
A.D. II: The Back Button ·
[This is part of the Android Diary.] One reason the Web succeeded is the generally well-designed user interface of its browsers; good UI design being the exception not the rule. A key feature of that interface, and arguably one of the single biggest innovations in UI history, is the “Back” button. One of the nicest things about the Android phone is that it has one too ...
Android Diary I ·
Around noon today, I picked up my unlocked Android G1 dev phone, and as of now it’s my main phone, plus I’m trying to write an app for it. I suspect that my experiences are going to be shared by quite a few people in the not-too-distant future, so why not record them? ... [25 comments]
First-Class PR ·
I was having a beer in the bar at SFO waiting for my flight home, sitting next to this thirtyish woman, extremely well-groomed and well-dressed. I saw on her boarding pass that she was traveling Executive Class to LA. We got to talking and it turned out she was in Public Relations. She mostly worked, and her current Bay Area trip was about, representing new iPhone apps. I started feeling cognitive dissonance; first of all, I thought that we were in the kind of economic situation where you wouldn’t want to fly your PR people around in first class, and anyhow, aren’t most iPhone apps being built by low-rent guerilla operations? So I asked a few questions, and it turned out that the apps she represented were mostly from big companies; their names were extremely Web2.0-ish gnarls of unlikely consonant combinations, and they did unsurprising things. It’s dawning on me that the mobile-app space is going to be different. [2 comments]
Mobility Blues ·
These days, I’m gloomier and gloomier about the prospects for the mobile Internet; you know, the one you access through the sexy gizmo in your pocket, not the klunky old general-purpose computer on your desk ... [32 comments]
Android ·
I’m having a little trouble understanding Android; the business side I mean, not the technology ... [12 comments]
Flat Rate Considered Harmful ·
Lots of people, including for example my CEO, say that the hand-held mobile is going to be a crucial, maybe a dominant, way for people to experience the Net; particularly on the other side of what we now call the digital divide. Only there’s an economic problem ... [20 comments]
ssh+iPhone ·
Oooh, check it out; is that cool or what? Up till now I didn’t really want an iPhone, but I’m slipping. Of course Apple will see this as a problem that must be patched, sigh. [4 comments]
Erroneous Ministerial One ·
Herewith my occasional romp through the built-up browser tabs. Item (serious): In The ‘Next’ Java, Joe Gregorio says some Really Smart Things about languages in general and Java in articular. Item (serious): At Business Week, Stephen Baker’s Writing for an audience of one says something genuinely new (hard, these days) about blogging. Item (interesting): My new Samsung is a pretty cool phone, but there are a few irritants. It turns out that someone called RedIpS has fixed them. I just bought a flashing cable on EBay; I wonder if I’m going to be breaking any laws? Item (not serious): SOA Facts. Item (puzzling): Some guy named Tim Bray seems to be in trouble in China; this article provided the title above. I hope Mr. Bray gets out OK. [1 comment]
Samsung, Ringtones, Fair Use ·
My cellphone expired, so I was poking around here and there on the net looking for something unlocked in a GSM flavor; but one of my key criteria is big buttons that I can see without my reading-glasses, and the Web just doesn’t help you there. I ended up at a local grey-market emporium where a friendly Russian sold me a Samsung SGH-D600; it definitely meets the no-reading-glasses criterion and seems like a pretty nice phone. This cute little slidey black goober lets you use any old MP3 as a ringtone. Given that most of us have tons o’ music on our computers, and it’s pretty easy to slice out a sub-ten-second clip and Bluetooth it over to the phone, I guess the ring-tones business is dead. It seems obvious to me that using music I’ve already paid for in this way is Fair Use, but I bet there’s a lawyer somewhere who’d disagree for a fee. So I sat up late one evening cackling fiendishly over the audio software, and my ringtones are: Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme (the classic Ray Anthony version of course), the opening sequences of Burning Spear’s Slavery Days and Deep Purple’s Highway Star (off Made in Japan), and the closing seconds of Runaway Horses from Phil Glass’ wonderful Mishima soundtrack. Now, whenever the phone rings, I smile. [2 comments]
Why SavaJe? ·
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my rather mixed initial experience of the SavaJe Jasper S20. I’m making progress, and I’m going to invest a bit more work in this device, because I think it’s important. In this fragment I explain why I think so, with a bit more hands-on narrative ...
Happy ·
Scoble observed that many blogs are cruddy on cell phones. Curious, I emailed him asking how ongoing does. He wrote back “Your site looks great. One of the best I've seen so far on the phone.” I am absurdly pleased.
Russell Explodes ·
A couple of days ago I ran a piece about my mobility needs. It got quite a bit of reaction: Jeremy Zawodny and Gary Potter both seemed to agree, and Geoff Arnold wants a little more than I do. But then Russell Beattie rose up in righteous wrath and consigned Jeremy and me to the fiery furnace reserved for unbelievers in the coming Golden Age of mobile phones. He’s saying, more or less: “Resistance is irrelevant. You will be assimilated,” but it’s a good piece, read it. The thing is, I have been reading Russell, and he goes on about video and I think OK, and Web browsing, and I think OK, and about mobile games, and I think OK, and about high-bandwidth flat-rate pervasive Internet connectivity and I think “Cowabunga! Get me some of that!” Maybe once I have some of those other capabilities, I’ll get excited. But up till now, I haven’t actually seen anybody doing anything with a cellphone that I particularly want to do, except talk.
My Mobility Needs ·
There’s a lot of action on the mobility front. I know a lot of Blackberry-tethered businesspeople, and Russ Beattie has some red-hot new phone every week, and today there’s the iPodPhoto. Most of this stuff totally doesn’t interest me; this note is to explain why, and what I do want, because I can’t be that far out of the mainstream ...
I work at Sun Microsystems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle.
The opinions expressed here are my own,
and neither Oracle nor any other party necessarily
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