As proof:

All from the comfort of my own bathr… I mean what?

I’ve had a few discussions with a couple of friends about the my post and the iPhone in general. More often than not, the reaction towards the iPhone is negative:

Give people the choice. Never think that a closed platform is an advantage. (via ericgar)

I still maintain that having a closed platform initially is good. I really feel that the mobile platform has taken far too long to take off. It really is a very powerful platform that will definitely change the way we work.

But I truly believe that if they had an open SDK, there’s a big risk of it stalling the mobile platform even more. Hear me out The number of applications initially will be relatively small, just because it’s a young device/SDK. Because of this, the impression that these first few apps make really do matter. Applications like Loopt I think will really wow people, and I think he caliber of the first batch of apps should have this effect to jolt the software industry to think harder about mobile devices.

In one of the stackoverflow podcasts I listened to today (don’t laugh), Joel Spolsky shares my sentiment. He describes the difficulty of programming for devices that may or may not have touch styluses, that may or may not have GPS, that may have a wide screen or a slim screen. That affects the overall quality and leanness of the application.

He goes on further to say that Google Android might fail because it is open. He speculates that a lot of people who are excited about Android are not the general population, but sup3r 1337 h4×0rz who will be more interested in porting rxvt over to Android than they are creating solid, useful applications. I tend to agree. I’m not saying there won’t be amazing apps for Android, but the fact that only good application developers that are developing software for consumersare allowed to release software in the AppStore make it the rule, not the exception.

There are some others saying that Apple could have done a lot more with the iPhone. They could have included more apps by default, they could’ve included video conferencing, they’ve could’ve done a lot. That’s absolutely true. I thought it would’ve been really awesome if they included video conferencing. But I’m not sore about that. Why? If you look at the smart phone market right now, what’s there that is as exciting? Windows Mobile hasn’t done anything exciting in how many years?¹ Palm software is butt ugly. Blackberry software, industrious and boooring.

So people can complain all they want about the iPhone software/firmware, but it’s the only one that has stepped up and created more than a slight buzz amongst the general public. They can say they’re not treating users right, but don’t the users of Blackberry/Palm/Wndows Mobile deserve a little care from their software developers? They aren’t treating their customers right if they leave their software stagnant and un-user friendly. Windows Mobile is on their 6th version, and its nowhere even close to where the iPhone is with its second version.²

All that said, I hope that the iPhone SDK will not remain closed. To grow, to progress, Apple will have no choice BUT to open the SDK up. Being closed off will hurt them like it has before. I think Apple is doing the right thing for now, in this situation. But once they’ve made their point, they have to adjust.

Shabadoowop³

1. Thanks Kunal
2. Ok, yes, that’s not entirely fair; Windows Mobile has been out much longer, but it still stands
3. @ericgar That’s how genius’ sign their posts

Why I Think the iPhone is Important

But hey, it’s my blog. I do what I want.

Nonsense aside, I truly believe that the iPhone is making great strides in the mobile space. For one, I feel like it is the first smartphone that makes people want to buy one. Have you ever been that excited about a new Palm smartphone (maybe except the Centro, which came out after the iPhone)? There have been some pretty cool phones, especially HTC ones, but the exposure of those are limited to gadget freaks. As the iPhone gains popularity, the mobile platform will be more widespread and available than ever.

In addition, I feel that it is improving the state of mobile platforms not only through sheer proliferation, but also giving people a great platform to develop on.

“The big advantage Apple has with the iPhone is that they control the entire product, top to bottom. The case, the chipsets, the OS, the user interface.”…. “Google’s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control — and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.”

Now, I’ve heard many people whine that this is disadvantageous to the user. Yes, you’re at the mercy of Apple. Yes, it’s a closed SDK. But the major advantage of this is that because the specs are exactly the same across all iPhones, superior applications can be made for them.

I was really excited about Android was announced. It was a great idea. It has become apparent, though, that this model is flawed. Why?

Developers working on android apps are put in a position where they need to guess and program for different physical UI scenarios (none of which actually exist in the wild, yet):

Does the target phone have physical buttons?
What is the button configuration?
Does it have a touch screen?
What about different resolutions?
What sensors do you code for? camera? accelerometer? proximity? touchpad?

[via]

As an Android developer, I feel like you have to take into account of these factors. You need to degrade gracefully, have switches for a bunch of features depending on hardware. I feel like you can make a leaner, more powerful, robust application when you know what you’re working with.

Combining a visually superior UI and a consistent development platform, iPhone and iPhone apps will become wildly popular and push the mobile environment to the next level.

Shabowza.

Evernote Login: Remember Me

I’ve recently been checking out Evernote (watch the video) recently and it seems pretty cool so far. If you want an invite, I have 10 of them . It’s a pretty handy piece of software to keep track of random crap you encounter.

The login page looks pretty standard, username, password, remember me and submit. The beauty in the design here is subtle, but extremely useful. If you want to click the “Remember Me” button, you don’t have to click the tiny, tiny box. If you click the text, it checks the box too. This essentially quadruples the area that you can click!

It may sound obvious. It’s pretty logical to have the text be clickable, yet so many websites don’t let you do it. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to chase down that little checkbox just to select it. Making the text after it clickable is very simple to write in code; there’s really no reason it shouldn’t be clickable.

iPod Touch: Layout

A couple months ago, it was finally time to retire the iPod I had since high school. I had been waiting for a touch screen iPod to finally replace my old one. So far, I’ve been back and forth whether I really like it or not. Overall, though, I’m fairly happy with it. A lot of it has to do with it being gorgeous

One thing that has annoyed the bejeesus out of me is the placement of one of the buttons. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if it had more than two buttons. The iPod is shown below:

Now, this is a big problem when I want to do something craaaazy, like … put it in my pocket. The big problem is: which side goes down?

• On/off button – wrong. If it goes down first, it can potentially continually turn on and off whenever I sit down or even when I’m walking. I’m pretty sure there were a couple of times my iPod died much earlier than it should’ve because of this
• Earphone jack – also, wrong. This causes the base of the earphones I use to tear. Exhibit A:
  If they were on the same side, there would be no problem!