mobile

UBports could potentially breathe new life into my old Nexus 5 when purchasing my next Nexus, which would be more than what was possible with my old Galaxy Nexus.

PhoneGap - if the site is up, there should be an application to convert a web application into a native application (with extended access to native features of the iPhone or other devices). Note for later.

Andrew de Quincey's livejournal - not only are iPads interesting to jailbreak, but also book readers like the Kindle (which has quite interesting hardware)

Hands on the VLC iPad App (Pretty Good) - if you want to watch movie formats that Apple's app does not support on the iPad, maybe VLC can help. Apple has approved the iPad app and it is now available in the AppStore.

Don't Hold It Wrong - because at the moment a large group of tech experts are out there to explain why the iPhone 4 should be so terribly bad: not holding onto the antenna is quite common with mobile phones. As can be seen in this collection of images and texts from instructions of various phones.

Mobile/firefoxhome - MozillaWiki - fail. Because they couldn't look beyond their ego and only built minimal in-app browsing features. If they had at least implemented the basic features of Mobile Safari (with multiple open pages to switch between), it could be used as a full-fledged replacement for Safari - with simultaneous cross-platform bookmark management. But as they have implemented it, the built-in mini-browser is only a nuisance. It is of course always helpful to access your Firefox bookmarks, but it could have been much more. There are already several alternative browsers in the AppStore, but none that support usable bookmark syncing. And so Firefox Home has starved halfway (and why it didn't come out as a universal app for iPhone and iPad right away, only Mozilla knows).

Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - for those who don't want to deal with the AppStore and are satisfied with a web app, here's a book about it. Under CC license.

Internettelefonie: iPhone: Telekom threatens Skype users - WirtschaftsWoche - oh yes, our great telecommunications companies. Totally customer-oriented.

What iPads Did To My Family - Chuck's Blog - doesn't really need much commentary. In the whole discussion about the iPad, many people forget that creative work with a computer doesn't necessarily mean programming. Whether we programmers like it or not, the devices that prevail are determined by the users - and we are only a small part of them. And the restrictions that Apple imposes on its iPhone and iPad devices primarily affect programmers and much less the users. Is that problematic? Maybe. However, I can't see the downfall of Western culture, which some people proclaim, in a device that makes computing more accessible.

Thoughts on Flash - is of course again dismissed as blah-blah by all Apple opponents, but well - the reasons are compelling. And sorry, but it's really true: Flash stinks.

This Is Apple's Next iPhone - Iphone 4 - Gizmodo - ok, it's already annoying when you leave an iPhone prototype in a bar ...

Daring Fireball: New iPhone Developer Agreement Bans the Use of Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone Compiler - well, of course Apple has the right to set the terms themselves. And I have the right to find iPhone programming completely uninteresting now - sorry, but I'm not going to deal with such low-level programming languages anymore.

Ars Technica reviews the iPad - a very comprehensive review of the iPad, should answer all the questions that are currently circulating.

The New App Store Rules: No Swimsuits, No Skin, And No Innuendo - not that I need bikini models in apps, but one should keep an eye on what Apple is doing in terms of censorship. Yes, in this case, clear censorship, because in the iPhone app market, Apple is the central controller and massively uses this central function. And that means for users of these devices that they live in puritanical America, at least with their available apps. It's probably time to get more intensively involved with jailbreaking. And perhaps at the next contract renewal, not to go for the iPhone again, but to get something else, even if the alternatives look worse and have a significantly worse usability. With Apple's current efforts, I don't want to find out at some point that not only my apps are censored (where even "offensive words" in dictionaries have caused trouble - and one of my current main applications are Russian dictionaries), but also Safari might start censoring my surfing behavior. The Google phones are not an alternative, as their operator is a professional data octopus and is also based in the USA. Nokia may be economically bad since Bochum, but it now has the most open mobile platform with the N900.

Alex Payne — On the iPad - "For now, though, I remain disturbed. The future of personal computing that the iPad shows us is both seductive and dystopian. It’s not a future I want to bring into my home."

How to create offline webapps on the iPhone - terrible page layout, but interesting documentation on how to build web applications for the iPhone that work offline thanks to the HTML5 Application Cache. After I thought for a moment about whether I should buy such a TI watch, and got annoyed that it doesn't exist as a pocket watch version, I was able to think clearly again and remembered my iPhone ... (sometimes the obvious is too obvious)

Kindle Development Kit - this could almost make the Kindle (the DX already has quite a large display) interesting again. However, Amazon can still remotely delete content on the Kindle.

Daring Fireball: The Tablet - "I am not predicting that Apple is phasing out the Mac. (On the contrary, I’ve heard that Mac OS X 10.7 is on pace for a developer release at WWDC in June.) Like all Apple products, The Tablet will do less than we expect but the things it does do, it will do insanely well. It will offer a fraction of the functionality of a MacBook — but that fraction will be way more fun. The same Asperger-y critics who dismissed the iPhone will focus on all that The Tablet doesn’t do and declare that this time, Apple really has fucked up but good. The rest of us will get in line to buy one."

iWebKit - Make a quality iPhone Website or Webapp - yet another iPhone web framework.

JQTouch — jQuery plugin for mobile web development - for future use, iUI is a bit rough and native applications demand the toll of 79 euros per year for the Developer program. For the few things I do, web applications are probably often sufficient.

Cloud Data Blown Away for Sidekick Users - "T-Mobile advises its customers that have cached data not to run out of power, restart, or shut down their Sidekicks, lest the last chance of recovery would be lost." - reality provides the best parodies!

Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight. - ok, that's just Techcrunch, and their "quality" isn't even good enough as toilet paper (it's just virtual) - but if Google really has the screenshot of the rejection and publishes it, I could imagine that some people in higher positions at Apple will lose their jobs. As arrogant as Apple behaves in the AppStore, they would deserve to get a slap in the face there.

No tethering for first-generation iPhone customers - you can also put it more simply: T-Mobile, a bunch of assholes. Someday, T-Mobile will be as customer-unfriendly as airlines. And that's saying something. My iPhone contract has no exclusion clause regarding tethering - but T-Mobile wants to unilaterally redefine my contract.

iPhone Dictionary, Censored by Apple - "The list of omitted words includes some which have utterly non-objectionable senses: ass, snatch, pussy, cock, and even screw. (Ass and cock appear throughout the King James Bible.)" - according to Apple, there can be no male chickens and screws are also evil. And donkeys too (yes, "ass" is a word for donkey). Because, dictionaries with bad words have to be censored and put under the 17+ rating! Where would we end up if children actually used dictionaries! Unthinkable! Somehow, Apple is increasingly showing itself to be completely incapable of running something like the App Store. They want to force you to buy another phone instead of the iPhone.

There’s No App for That « Riverturn Blog and Talk Back - one of the reasons why I did not renew my iPhone developer account. Because even if I ever wanted to put one of my little hacks into the App Store, the way Apple treats iPhone developers makes me sick. I have no desire to deal with such nonsense, there are definitely more interesting things to do.

Tablet-Netbook from Asus for 450 Euros - doesn't sound so uninteresting. Could you also install OS X on it like the little 901?

iSqueak - and here is the development environment with which you can program the iPhone in Smalltalk.

Mobile Wiki Server - cool thing, a Wiki server created in Seaside and Squeak (Smalltalk) that runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch and allows, for example, local editing or remote editing from the desktop. I doubt that a web server on the iPhone really makes much sense, but it's always funny.

Telekom will iPhones Skype-frei halten - of course. Naturally. It's only because the voice quality could be worse than in the T-Mobile network. Logical. I mean, everyone immediately believes that Deutsche Telekom only doesn't accept VoIP and IM for the iPhone because of the quality. Users must be protected from the terrible quality! How stupid do they think we are at Deutsche Telekom?

Review of 3D Engines for the iPhone - interesting overview of available game engines for the iPhone.

OS X on the EeePC - works. The linked snap shows my EeeBook with NetNewswire in the foreground, notes and a shell (where software is currently being installed with MacPorts) in the background. EeePC: 350 Euro. RunCore 64 GB SSD (fast!!): 199 US$. 2GB memory upgrade: 25 US$ (and I'll also replace the WiFi card so I can use the native drivers, so another 30 Euro). Finally Windows-free: priceless.

eee Mac journey: EEE Boot: Installing OSX on an EEE PC 901 or 1000 with an original Apple Install Disk v1.09 - ok, I think I'll buy a USB DVD drive today or tomorrow. OS X on the little fat one? I have to see this!

iUI Introduction Wiki Page. - great if you want to quickly visualize simple data so that it is practically accessible on the iPhone. The overhead for simple pages is very low and due to the strong JavaScript orientation, the data volumes are also very compact - which gives very good response times on the iPhone.

To WebKit or not to WebKit within your iPhone app? - interesting article about WebKit on the iPhone in your own applications.

SSD expansion to 32 or 64 GB - yeah, I know, a 32G SLC SSD costs just as much as the Eee PC and that's completely crazy. Yes, ok, I got it. I'll bookmark the link here anyway for future use. Who knows, maybe I'll still be overcome by the urge.

eeebuntu - available with Netbook Remix and classic Gnome. Should also have quite comprehensive drivers for the hardware.

Ubuntu Eee - one of the many Ubuntu-based EEE PC distributions. This one sounds very complete and uses the new Netbook Remix interface. According to forum comments, it also runs smoothly with all versions and has full drivers installed.

UMTS USB Sticks: with Xandros (Linux) OVERVIEW - and as I can see here, things still look pretty bad for my UMTS stick under Linux (I have the black thing from TMO), so I'll probably have to continue using Windows for now.

Unity creates games and 3D applications for the iPhone [Update] - ouch, the price for the iPhone option is quite steep. However, Unity is quite an interesting story, so this could lead to some new games. And particularly interesting: Unity also supports network games and has basic functions in the server for persistent worlds (though you still have to do a lot of programming yourself). Could definitely cause some stir. But for my hobby budget definitely outside the realm of reason.

MailWrangler and the Apple App Store - Apple really has a screw loose. How many flashlight programs are there in the Apple Store? But a gmail-Auth-Switcher - which would really be damn useful, I love MailPlane on my desktop - is not allowed in?

I41CX+ - and since it's so nice, also an HP41CX emulator as an iPhone app. Even a very complete implementation with support for modules and built-in printer (so printer simulation). On the iPhone, this is even really practical.

Dumb User Interfaces (c) by Apple

What idiot at Apple had the brilliant idea of the icon configuration on the "desktop" of the iPhone? And above all, at whose expense is the great deed of updating a program to place the icon of the update not where the actual program is located, but to quickly place it on the first free spot of the first page with such a thing?

Either you have a cheerful icon shuffling after every update, or you are allowed to search for your icons after a series of updates to see where they have landed again. The pushing of icons is particularly great, of course, if you have all pages full - and if you don't have them all full, updates happily move across the pages. And has anyone ever tried to push an icon from the last page to the first one if you have more than just two pages? No fun, absolutely no fun.

The designer responsible for the iPhone's icon configuration deserves to be slapped. At least for a week. Non-stop.

Wikipedia Webservice - Convert Geo-Coordinates to Wikipedia Articles. Hmm, that would be a nice DIY project, search for Wikipedia at the local point on the iPhone and display it. I've already done some DIY projects on the iPhone.

Official Google Mobile Blog: Searching on an iPhone can be fun - well, and when you look at the comments, you get a laugh. Because Google was so smart to put the app only in the US App Store and not offer it internationally. Result: piles of "why isn't this in the XX App Store?" comments. And you would think Google would have understood the internet (and yes, Apple has always had a split relationship with country borders, just look at the "Apple-Germany tax" on all prices, I didn't expect much from them on that point).

Mobile carrier T-Mobile to ban VoIP program for iPhone - quaint, really quaint.

Google Talk for the iPhone - great. Now I can finally access my Google Talk from the iPhone. Although this will hopefully be fixed soon via the App Store with Adium for the iPhone - but since T-Mobile prohibits IM, they might get the stupid idea to block the Google Talk ports - but the web access to Google Talk will still remain. I wish Google had included this earlier, I've been missing something like this for a long time ...

Phone Smart - Cellphone Termination Fees Seem to Be on the Way Out - "These new policies look a lot like a gift to anyone who wants to jump to a new carrier. Before the policy changes at Verizon and T-Mobile, customers who wanted to cancel their contracts faced penalties of $175 for Verizon and $200 for T-Mobile." - only in Germany, you can be slapped with a fine of up to 270 EUR if you want to switch an iPhone contract after 6 months because you want the new iPhone (with a new contract with the same provider!). T-Mobile Germany is therefore even more customer-unfriendly than the same store in the USA. Great performance!

T-Mobile Abzocker - it was clear that T-Mobile would charge for something that is even available at AT&T under better conditions. Customer service in Germany is still treated as small and listed on the back of the contract under "excluded services" (and before someone wants to praise Vodafone - the store would behave no better in the same situation). Oh, and for those who don't understand the problem: the old iPhone was not subsidized by T-Mobile, but the revenues had to be shared. T-Mobile is therefore being bought out by customers from Apple for contracts that are unfavorable for T-Mobile ...

iPhone 3G: T-Mobile promises unlimited VPN usage - T-Mobile's argumentative wavering is simply ridiculous and proves that the company has no clue about a) what customers expect today and b) what the iPhone actually represents and offers. But fortunately, c) also applies - T-Mobile is simply too stupid to effectively prohibit or restrict anything. Nevertheless, with their behavior, they would easily become the laughing stock of the industry if the competitors were not even more stupid and ridiculous.

iPhone Developer Program Details - it's getting exciting. Starting in the summer, the first tools. And the freeware programmers can get into the Developer Program relatively cheaply and also use the iTunes Store platform for distribution.