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…)

I couldn’t get to sleep last night, so instead I did a quick pass through the new apps on the AppStore to see what exciting applications (or tip calculators) were now available. I noticed that “Pull My Finger” is now available, which, errr, makes noises. Whoopee, I thought! Just what I’ve been waiting for. Funny, though, I’m sure that was rejected by Apple not so long ago. Wonder if they’re having a change of fart, I mean heart?

Sure enough, a bit of digging showed that there are now several flatulent applications on the AppStore, all uploaded around 12-14th December. Seems like Apple may be loosening up…

I just found another interesting article out there in the World Wild Web, over at Daring Fireball. Apparently, Google started publicizing the voice search feature some time before it actually reached the AppStore. The critical phrase in the NYTimes article is

“…Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make available as soon as Friday through its iTunes store…”

which suggests, in Daring Fireball’s analysis, that Google may have have pressured Apple to accept their application even though it violated the SDK agreement. (more…)

Google recently admitted to breaking the AppStore rules in their iPhone application, which fuelled a growing wave of resentment, prompted by the belief that Google were abusing their position as industry leaders to gain a competitive advantage in the market. The critics claim that a similar application submitted by anyone else would be rejected by Apple and never make it to the AppStore. Why should there be one law for Google, and another for the plebian masses? Shouldn’t the Google application be pulled from the AppStore until they abide by the rules, as others have been? (more…)

Donald Knuth, famously, does not have an email account. Instead, he replies to correspondence (by snail mail) about once every three months. I’m starting to appreciate his motivation. Now obviously, Donald isn’t in the business of selling, and his needs are slightly different to mine. But do I need to check my email so often?

One of the first things I do when I get a new phone is to get it hooked up to my IMAP account. On my iPhone, this is a trivial process – and checking my email is even easier. The result is that I end up compulsively checking it whenever I’m walking along. This morning, I suddenly realised that I didn’t need to check it, that any email I had received was highly unlikely be so urgent that it required reading Right Now yet not urgent enough to warrant phoning me. So I left my phone in my pocket, carried on walking, and enjoyed the view, with my right hand twitching towards my phone every so often.

Replying to email on an iPhone is a pain anyway. I rarely use it to send or reply – if I get an interesting message, I’ll almost certainly read it again later on my desktop, and reply from there. The device, unlike the aptly named Crackberry, is simply not optimised for it. If you never get a chance to sit down at your desk and process your email queue, then sure, you need a good mobile email client – i.e. a Blackberry. The iPhone is a great all-purpose device which meets my needs; that is getting information on the move, and demonstrating smart applications to clients. I don’t need to check my email every five seconds when I’m on the move – and from now on I won’t.

Seth Godin wrote a similarly minded article today called “The High Cost of Now” – worth a look.

Last week, the BBC reported on an upcoming version of Ubuntu for ARM “netbooks”. Pity there’s no article history; the title (currently Ubuntu set to debut on netbooks) originally said “smartphones” and the meta tags still mention smartphones^[1] even though the article itself mentions nothing about Ubuntu on smartphones, but I could spend all day reporting on inconsistent reporting.

Linux on netbooks is nothing new — the MSI Wind launched with SUSE (apparently SLED, but only on the U90) as an option and the Eee PC has a Linux option (Xandros, according to Wikipedia). Getting smaller, the N770/N800/N810 use Maemo. Smaller still, plenty of Motorola phones run MOTOMAGX, the G1 runs Android, and the Freerunner comes with less closed-source software than a typical PC.^[2]

No, the real news is an ARM/Ubuntu deal culminating in an ARM laptop.^[3] (more…)

Imagine you’re coding away on an IDE that you haven’t used for a while, and becoming reacquainted with it. You get to the point where you want to play with breakpoints, and, of course you have some trouble remembering the keyboard shortcuts. Some IDEs make your life easier than others…

In Visual Studio 2005, you hit Ctrl-B to set a breakpoint. If you want a really quick breakpoint with no conditions, hit F9. And use either Ctrl-Alt-B *or* Alt-F9 to manage them. That’s pretty simple. If I don’t know what I’m doing, I can do Right Click->Breakpoint->Insert Breakpoint, and Debug->Windows->Breakpoints (that last one is pretty well hidden!). I cut my teeth on PCs, so I’m probably biased, but I like Visual Studio.

xCode is even slicker – I can either hit Apple-\ to get a breakpoint, or do a single-click in the gutter. Smooth. Viewing all the breakpoints is relatively straightforward with Alt-Cmd-B, and from there I can easily see how to add a condition to an existing breakpoint. I reckon Apple win that one, though I’d have preferred the breakpoint shortcut to have something to do with the letter ‘B’.

Over to Carbide.c++ 1.3, an Eclipse-based UI, where I can either set a breakpoint with Right-click->Toggle Breakpoint, or use Ctrl-Shift-B. Now, how do I list them? Window->Show View->Breakpoints tells me that the shortcut is Alt-Shift-Q, then hit B. Yes, you heard it right. I had a play around, and found that the combinations Alt-B, Alt-Shift-B, and Ctrl-Alt-B are all completely unused. For some reason known only to Nokia though (and I thought they were supposed to be good at UI?!), a two part, four key sequence was more logical.

Guess what my least favourite IDE is…

The subtitle for this article should probably be “Why the iPhone is Swallowable”. I’m here at the Software Development Best Practices expo in Boston. Joel Spolsky introduced us all, just a moment ago, to a new concept in design – how swallowable a device is. Admittedly he applied this to the notion of an iPod – and the new series of Macbooks – which having no seams look like they should be easily swallowable, but a design principle should be applicable across the board, right?

On a more serious note, Joel discussed a couple of interesting theories about how to make a great product, be it software or anything else. He started by talking about Control/Helplessness with obvious applicability to the Microsoft/Apple products, followed by a long section on Aesthetics. His point was that while there may be no sensible business rationale to creating an entire new manufacturing process for the Macbook just to lose a seam or two, we don’t let software engineers do design. Engineers think that artists can just paint over all their ugliness, whereas in reality the engineering decisions need to be shaped and guided by the overall design vision.

The second theory was about designing with a Culture Code viewpoint. SUVs are perceived as safe, despite the converse beng true, because they are soft (off-road suspension), with big armchairs inside instead of racing Recaro seats, and because the seating position is high up. Finally, and this was the crucial point, they have plenty of cupholders, allowing the driver to get a warm milky drink in a soft comfortable environment – in other words (according to Joel), selling the driver on a breast-feeding type experience. And, of course, breast-feeding equals a safe, comfortable environment.

I am now waiting for the first iPod-clone manufacturer to misunderstand the message and produce an something shaped like a breast.

UK readers will have noted today’s Google Doodle marking the visit of the Queen to Google’s London offices. I am personally rather interested to see if Google starts sporting a “By Appointment” Royal Warrant. It would be quite cool to be Her Majesty’s search engine of choice, after all.