The new 7″ iPod Touch (NOT iPad)

August 5th, 2010

7 inch iPod Touch

iLounge claims that there will be a new 7″ iPad later this year. Here is why they are wrong:

  1. A huge number of iPad apps wont scale down to 7″. Buttons and other touch controls on many apps would be too small. That means Apple would need to introduce another new resolution. That wont happen because…
  2. This year developers have had to update their apps for multi-tasking, retina screen, and iPad. Many are struggling – as can be seen by the still limited number of iPad apps. Later this year developers will again have to update their apps for iPad multi-tasking. If developers cannot get their apps out for iPad quick enough, is Apple really going to make it harder by introducing another resolution for developers to design against?
  3. The iPad is selling as fast as Apple can make them and isn’t even available in many countries yet.

What is likely is a new 7″ iPod Touch. This would take the retina display of the iPhone and scale it up to 7″. It would run iPhone applications unchanged. Think about it:

  1. A 7″ iPod Touch would be the perfect size for an eBook reader. The iPad is just too large to hold comfortably in one hane. This is the reason why we have iBooks for the iPhone – not because of the iPhone, but because it will scale up to an 7″ iPod Touch.
  2. Pages for iPhone. Keynote for iPhone. There are numerous rumours that these are in the works even though they don’t make much sense for iPhone – but they do for a 7″ device.
  3. A 7″ touch running iPhone apps would require no changes from developers at all. None whatsoever. Everything would just work, and with developers having updated their apps for the retina screen already, they would look good. There’s potential for some 7″ optimising via conditional coding, but it wouldn’t be required.
  4. iPod sales are in continuous decline at the same time as TV and video is becoming more and more important to Apple. An 7″ iPod would differentiate the iPod line again and match with the relaunch of Apple TV, giving very nice video media player. In fact, combined with a docking station, a 7″ iPod touch could even be a replacement for an Apple TV – though personally I think a dedicated $99 is very likely.

Bottom line, if Apple is preparing a 7″ device, all the signs point to this really being a “big iPod Touch”. In fact, by releasing a 7″ iPod Touch, they would take the “it’s just a big iPod” stigma away from the iPad, showing people just how much more the iPad can do.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg

No Comments

Thoughts on Apple’s comment system

July 9th, 2010
, ,

Comments from customers are extremely valuable. Take I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock which was approved by Apple on July 5th. The very first review was a five star review:

Awesome – The best app ever!

The next review was a four star review with the comment:

This app would be 5* if you could make a setting so you could turn off the clock so it doesn’t change every min. Anyway it’s a great app :)

Another review asked for the ability to save LOLs direct to their photo album.

Immediately I thought – yeah, those are great ideas. So I spent time updating the app with those features, as well as adding a bunch of other features and new feeds (see here for info). Yesterday the new version was approved by Apple and this morning I was very pleased to see the quick turnaround acknowledged in the reviews:

Good job on the update. I wish more developers were as expeditious.

So the comment system is valuable, but it can also be incredibly frustrating. I don’t think there isn’t a developer who would argue otherwise.

So what’s wrong?

  1. Comments for each country must be viewed individually. When there’s 50+ countries to check and you have several applications, that is an incredibly time consuming task, and you’re going to miss some feedback.
  2. There’s no way to get in touch with customers. The person who wrote the comment “Awesome – The best app ever!” later updated the comment to “Idea – Needs a recent category for newest lolz and a option to scroll back in case you missed a pic u wanted to see otherwise it’s great P.S. I found lolrus bucket :P ”. I’d love to be able to feed back to him/her that there’s no way for me to retrieve newest lolz from the Cheezburger API, but I can’t. I’d also love to be able to ask him/her to restore their “Awesome – The best app ever!” review, because I want potential customers to see how happy he/she is with the app!
  3. If you don’t agree with a comment, you can’t reply to it. Someone actually orderedI Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock and then complained “Don’t see the need for the clock”. What? That’s a slap-your-forehead-in-disbelief moment. The app was designed as a clock and is sold as a clock. Yes, you might want extra features, but to complain that an app does exactly what it says on the tin is, well, like buying a can of Coke and complaining because it has Coke inside. It is possible to request deletion of individual comments, but I’ve never actually done that.
  4. Old comments stay there. Say a user complains about a bug in an application and the developer fixes it and releases a new version solving the problem, unless the user explicitly changes their comment, it will stay there. When I’m purchasing apps, I find that confusing – does the bug still exist or not? As a developer, when I write apps and someone says “It doesn’t have feature X” and I add feature X, I find it very frustrating when the comment “It doesn’t have feature X” just stays there. Beer in Japan, for example, has been updated several times but there are still comments going back to version 1, before I added extra bars and improved the application.

I’d love to see all comments for a single application available on a single page, and I’d love to be able to respond both to users directly and to the public at large about individual comments. Will we ever get to that state? I very much doubt it, but I have my fingers crossed.

Click here for more on I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg

No Comments

Web technology makes cross platform mobile development easy, right?

July 6th, 2010
, , ,

A few days ago AppStoreHQ released stats to say that from all the iOS and Android developers, only 1,412 developer have released apps on both platforms. On individual platforms AppStoreHQ claims there are 43,185 iOS developers and 10,199 Android developers.

Only 1,412 developers writing apps for both Apple and Android platforms. That seems very low.

To date I’ve used web technologies to build my apps – HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jquery, and sometimes Jqtouch. I made that choice for two reasons: firstly, they are technologies that I’m very familiar wit, and secondly, web technologies had the lure of “write once, run anywhere”.

But I soon discovered it wasn’t that simple – even using web technologies, cross platform development is a female dog.

Take I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock as an example. I started to port it to Android from iOS. Having ported before, I already knew there were some differences I’d need to handle – very basic things such as preventing the web view from scrolling, both from touch and arrow keys (which don’t exist on Apple platforms) – so I handled them and expected the app to work. It didn’t.

Every time I port an app, I come across yet another “implementation difference”. I thought I’d got them all, but no. This time the “difference” is just maddening – click events on blank areas of the screen are being executed on other areas of the screen.

Arrrrrghhhhh.

Such issues are not limited to Android either. In June I wrote about the iPad’s localStorage bug. Darn, I wasted some time on that one.

The promise of web tech may be “write once run anywhere”, but as yet, it doesn’t achieve it. Just look at the bug list in Jquery and you’ll see some of the challenges. Search for Android in the list and you’ll see it doesn’t appear once, and I don’t think that’s because Jquery has a perfect record on Android – it’s more likely there are bugs there that have not yet been reported because of the comparatively few Android apps out there (Apple only has a handful of mentions but significantly more apps).

I’m not picking on Jquery here – I think it’s fantastic – I’m just highlighting the challenges web developers face. It’s incredibly difficult to “write once, run anywhere”. The challenges don’t just stop at bugs and implementation differences either – there are emulator bugs on Android, and Apple and Android users interact with applications differently. I’ve written about some of those other challenges in this post: The top five things I learnt as an Apple developer moving to Android development

I was rather shocked when I saw how low the number of cross platform Apple Android developers there are – but thinking about it, and going through the experience of yet another porting, maybe it isn’t so surprising. I’d love to see stats on how many developers have started porting apps and given up. I’ve certainly considered giving up on Android development in the past myself because of the effort v sales ratio compared to Apple, but so far I’ve stayed with the platform because, fundamentally, I believe it’s important to support Android and help it grow. It has stopped me from porting all my Apple titles though.

I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock is available on AppStore now, and it will be available on Android once I can track down the 2.1 bug. Beer in Japan and Beer in Korea are both available on Android Market.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg

No Comments

I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock

July 5th, 2010
,

I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock

Now available as a universal binary running on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch: I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock

All the LOLz all the time from I Can Has Cheezburger! FAILs, dogs, cats, Engrish, news, and more!

  • Universal application – buy once and run on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch!
  • Choose between Cats, Dogs, Animals, Object, FAILs, Engrish, Fame, and News lols!
  • Extra feed for iPad: Comix! (Sorry, iPhone screen is too small for comix to be readable)
  • A different lol from your chosen feed every minute
  • Touch the clock to skip to the next lol without waiting
  • Mail and twit the lols you like
  • View the original page on the I Can Has Cheezburger website
  • Adjust clock size and 12/24 hour mode
  • Feeds are updated weekly and monthly with new lols by I Can Has Cheezburger

This app uses the Cheezburger API. WIFI or 3G data connection required. We wont be responsible for you dropping your iPad or iPhone in fits of laughter – LOL :)

Get I Can Has Cheezburger Pro Clock now from AppStore!

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg

No Comments

We cannot post your application because it appears to include features that resemble Chuck Norris

July 3rd, 2010
, , , ,

While I still wait for the tiny bugfix I made to FailClock to be approved, I received a rejection for another app from Apple, and this is the most absurd yet:

…we cannot post your application because it appears to include features that resemble Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris has previously objected to other applications that include features that use his name or likeness, and believes that such features infringe his rights.

Eh? Features that resemble Chuck Norris? Here is Chuck Norris (right) with Dennis Hansen (who?) in 1990 (picture courtesy of Wikipedia):

Chuck Norris - right

What features does my application have that resemble Chuck Norris? Does it have buttons in the shape of silly moustaches? No. Does it magic up a “friend” who has a ridiculous hairdo and get you to pose awkwardly for a Facetime shot when you run it? No. Does it turn you into a has-been who has only been able to make one movie in the last 5 years, a movie that was panned universally? No.

My app uses RSS feeds for dynamic content, so it may include a picture of Chuck Norris, in the same way that an RSS newsreader or twitter application might. Is a picture also a feature? Not where I learnt English. From wordnet:

S: (n) feature, characteristic (a prominent attribute or aspect of something) “the map showed roads and other features”; “generosity is one of his best characteristics”

A random image that just happened to appear is not a feature. It’s not a prominent attribute.

Features that resemble Chuck Norris?! If anyone has had a more ridiculous rejection reason from Apple, please do let me know.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg

No Comments

« Older Entries