Apparently, web apps may not be quite the cure-all that everyone thought they were. The linked article gives five reasons why a browser-based app may not be the best idea.

Here’s five of my own, related to cell phone web apps.

• A website doesn’t know where you are. Even the most basic phone can tell what country its in – but the most advanced website can only guess.
• Bandwidth is not free. It is both quicker and cheaper to perform simple actions (like drawing graphs) on device rather than incurring a round-trip to a server.
• C is not dead. Despite what Java aficionados may like to think, C-based languages still have a place in the world of embedded software, particularly where performance critical applications are concerned. On a cell-phone, just about everything is performance critical.
• Write Once, Run Anywhere doesn’t work.You will have just as many platform bugs if you use web-based technologies – and they will be harder to find, not easier.
• A secret known to two people is no secret. If my private data is sat on my phone, then you pretty much have to get the phone out of my hands to get at my secrets. If however, the data is all on a website somewhere, then the number of potential vulnerabilities just sky rocketed.

And one final thought. Ebay, Facebook, and Google Maps all started as web apps, and now have cell phone clients.

I just noticed that number 24 in the UK AppStore is mBoxMail – a Hotmail client for the iPhone. That’s impressive in its own right – you don’t see many non-entertainment app that high in the AppStore. But the really interesting thing is the price – £5.99 ($9.99). Looks like there’s a good market out there for high quality applications – even at premium (for the AppStore) pricing.

Back in my original Save the Bits article, I noted that a foreign currency application on the iPhone, which I’ll refer to as AppX, uploaded 16K of data and downloaded 136K just to render a graph.

I said I’d get back when I’d run a packet sniffer. I’ve just done that, and the results aren’t pretty. (more…)

Anyone with a Macbook knows that the MagSafe (TM) tip for the charger is pretty cool – apart from the fact that you can’t get any third party accessories for it, because Apple don’t license it. My charger recently started getting rather temperamental due to kink in the cable. The damage was right next to the MagSafe (TM) tip, so I couldn’t just chop the cable and reconnect. I had a look on ebay, and discovered that there were some cheaper chargers available, and bought one. It turned up pretty quickly, and worked just fine. Once. I paid just over £20 for something that costs £58 from the Apple store (having just checked) so I shouldn’t be surprised that it wasn’t genuine Apple. I didn’t expect it to be made of cheese though. I cracked it open very easily, and desoldered the main lead and the tip with the intention of swapping it over to the original charger. No such luck. The Apple box was considerably better built, and resisted my attempts to open it. I ended up cutting the lead, and connecting the old wire to the new wire and tip (which at least appears to be reasonable quality). That worked perfectly, but next time I’ll just go to the Apple Store – particularly because subsequent googling suggests that they might actually have replaced it for free.

One day I’ll get round to reading the manual for all the devices I use on a day to day basis. No doubt I’ll then discover lots of things I never knew – and from then on, life will be more productive, but more boring. In the meantime, I can continue to bump into cute features that surprise me.

I just discovered that if you drag a file to the iPhone Simulator, then it will open (or at least attempt to) the file in Safari. It works for images – very useful for adding images to the PhotoLibrary. I’ve just tried it on a PDF, text, and HTML file, and they all worked as well. A lot easier than typing in the URL to your test site.

Airsource and Glasshouse Apps are thrilled to announce our first iPhone application – Barista. Very early this morning it became available on the iTunes Application Store and we are obviously very excited by the launch of our first product.

Barista teaches you how to make the perfect espresso.

Buy an espresso machine, and you suddenly expect that you will never have to buy another coffee from Starbucks again! Unfortunately, there are some essential skills that you need to master before that dream becomes a reality. Barista helps you achieve that dream.

Barista gives you:
* step-by-step instructions on making the most popular espresso drinks;
* tips and tricks on making better espresso;
* and a glossary of common terms.

Contact: sales@airsource.co.uk

Barista is available right now from the AppStore. If you’d like to review the application, then promotional iTunes codes are available. Please email, mentioning the website where your review will be posted.

Please note that the “Home Barista” application is now named “Barista”.

Your iPhone application is finished. The testers are happy. The graphics designers are sure that everything is pixel perfect. Your microsite is done. Your marketing material is ready. Your metadata is in order. All you need to do is to submit your application to the App Store and start raking in the dough.

Your heart sinks, though, because when you submit your application you receive a terrible error message – “failed codesign verification”. That’s all. No further details. No explanation as to what went wrong. Has all of your stress come to naught? (more…)

I am pretty network agnostic. If I were buying a new phone contract tomorrow, I would not really care which network operator I used. Obviously I’d check out the details of the contract – but the name of the operator is not significant. With one exception – they have to issue a PAC code over the phone. If an operator isn’t prepared to let me leave, then I’m not prepared to join them in the first place. (more…)

Just occasionally, I run into the kind of comment on a technical forum that leaves me speechless (or, more correctly, reaching for my keyboard). (more…)

Over here at Airsource, we’re not exactly retro, but we do care about computing resources, especially bandwidth. We like small sleek applications that perform well, not applications that use excess bandwidth, and run twenty times slower than necessary. With that in mind, I picked a relatively simple iPhone application that displays a currency exchange rate and a graph of recent historical movement, and measured its bandwidth usage. The results were amazing. (more…)