Category Archives: apple

adobe, apple, internet, iphone, software development, web authoring

What’s the deal with Flash and the iPhone?

An brief comment from Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen quoted by Bloomberg suggests that Apple and Adobe are actually working on putting Flash on the iPhone:

It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating. The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.

Deliver what? I’d have thought it would be straightforward for Adobe to implement some level of Flash on the iPhone. There are at least two reasons though why Apple might be blocking it:

1. Flash is a client runtime. Apple may feel that allowing applications to run within Flash could threaten its App Store lock-in and market.

2. One of the frustrations of Flash on devices is that it lags behind the version of Flash available on desktops, and is often hard to update. That’s frustrating for users. Apple may want to address that by giving iPhone users an experience that comes close to that on the desktop.

So what is Apple waiting for Adobe to deliver? Better mobile performance and usability? Or some other piece that might address the first of the above concerns?

The outcome of this has a significance that goes beyond the iPhone. Although iPhone and iTouch users form only a small proportion of those browsing the web, it is an influential group and one that will grow. The lack of Flash support makes pure HTML and JavaScript solutions more attractive to web developers.

If anyone from Adobe can give us more insight into what it is working on with Apple, I’m keen to know.

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amazon, apple, multimedia

Amazon MP3 store is much cheaper than Apple iTunes

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The Amazon MP3 store has arrived in the UK, and I’ve noticed that it is much cheaper than Apple iTunes for many items, particularly when buying complete albums. Here’s an example: Day & Age by Killers. £7.99 on iTunes:

and £3.00 on Amazon:

That’s 62% cheaper. Amazon also sells the CD for £8.98. Since you get more for your money with a CD (no lossy compression, physical backup and sleeve notes, transferable rights) that strikes me as about right.

The MP3 format is also more convenient than iTunes AAC, since it is supported by more devices.

I’m intrigued though. Why is Amazon so much cheaper? A last-ditch effort by the industry to create serious competition for Apple?

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adobe, apple, flash, internet, iphone, microsoft, mobile

Why it’s hard to compete with Apple in mobile app development and deployment

One OS – one device – one AppStore – easy over-the-air purchase for end users. Apple’s development and deployment model delivers results, despite mutters about lock-in and Apple helping itself to a generous slice of the revenue.

Here at Adobe MAX Europe we’ve been hearing about the future of Flash on mobile devices and even seen a demo of what many would like to be able to do: simple over-the-air download of both the Flash runtime and Flash applications. Flash is a great runtime for a mobile device. A while back I reviewed the LG Viewty phone, which has a Flash UI, and despite some imperfections it convinced me of the potential of Flash for mobile devices.

Even so, it will be difficult for Adobe to create an application platform that works as well as Apple’s AppStore. Here are some of the problems.

  • Device-specific APIs. I spoke to the folk on the Sony Ericsson stand here at MAX. If you want your Flash application to do things like talking to the GPS, or integrating with the PIM (Personal Information Manager) on the phone, then you have to write a device-specific version of your Flash application. This adds to the development effort and creates friction in the deployment process. Will Adobe wrap device functions in Flash APIs? I asked about this at the press briefing today. The answer from Senior Principal Scientist Mark Anders was yes … maybe. He mentioned that API bloat became a negative for Java. It really is a difficult thing to get right.
  • Operator interference. Apple has bullied the operators it works with into doing things its way, and gets away with it because the device is so desirable. The operators though are reluctant to be no more than data carriers. They lock down devices, run their own application stores or music services, and make it difficult to mount a convincing challenge to Apple’s single store.
  • Diversity of devices. Diversity is good, sure. It’s tough for developers though. Maybe there’s a keyboard, maybe there is a touch screen, maybe there is a joypad, maybe the screen is big or small. Your app has to work well in every scenario, or else limit the number of devices it supports. Much easier with Apple, just one device to target. That will change somewhat as Apple bring out new iPhone variants, but there will always be more consistency from a single vendor.

It was similar factors that caused Microsoft to abandon its third-party vendors and create Zune, in an effort to compete with the iPod. Microsoft was too late. I am sure we will see increasing use of Flash and Flash-based applications on mobile devices; but it will be hard to displace Apple’s iPhone as the foremost mobile platform for downloaded applications.

Flash in the mobile browser is another matter, of course. If Apple continues to exclude Adobe’s runtime – which I guess it does to protect its application business – then it makes a nice selling point for competitors which do support Flash.

apple, microsoft, security, software, vista, windows

Microsoft plans free anti-malware

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Microsoft will be offering a free anti-malware suite codenamed “Morro”, from the second half of 2009, according to a press release:

This streamlined solution will … provide comprehensive protection from malware including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. This new solution, to be offered at no charge to consumers, will be architected for a smaller footprint that will use fewer computing resources, making it ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs.

It’s a good move. Here’s why:

  • The current situation is calamitous. Even users with fully paid-up anti-virus solutions installed get infected, as I recently saw for myself. PC security is ineffective.
  • The practice of shipping PCs with pre-installed anti-virus that has a trial subscription is counter-productive. There will always be a proportion of users who take the free trial and do not renew, ending up with out-of-date security software. A free solution is better – several are available now – if only because it does not expire.
  • Microsoft wants to compete more effectively with Apple. It is addressing an extra cost faced by PC users, as well as (possibly) the poor user experience inherent in pre-installed anti-virus trialware.
  • The performance issue is also important. Anti-malware software is a significant performance drag. Microsoft is the vendor best placed to implement anti-malware that minimizes the drag on the system.

Counter-arguments:

  • Only specialist companies have the necessary expertise. I don’t believe this; Microsoft’s investment in security is genuine.
  • Single-supplier security gives malware a fixed target, easier to bypass. There’s some merit to this argument; but it is weakened by the fact that the current multi-vendor scenario is clearly failing. Further, the Mac is a fixed target that does not appear to be easy to bypass.

All of this is hot air compared to the real challenge, which is securing the operating system. Vista is progress, Windows 7 not much different according to my first impressions.

Why not just use another operating system? There’s a good case for it; ironically the theory that a large factor in Windows insecurity is its dominance can/will only be properly tested when an alternative OS is equally or more popular. If people continue switching to Macs perhaps it will happen some day. Windows is still hampered by its legacy, though my impression is that Vista’s UAC is having its intended effect: fewer applications now write to system areas in Windows, bringing us closer to the day when security can be tightened further.

What about business systems? This is one area that needs clarification. Microsoft says Morro is only for consumers. Why should businesses have to pay for a feature that consumers get for free? On the other hand, some equivalent initiative may be planned for business users.

.net, apple, codegear, embarcadero, mono, software development, windows

Code for Mac Cocoa in Visual Studio – surprised to see this?

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I grabbed this screenshot from a preview just installed:

Cocoa app in Visual Studio

It comes from Delphi Prism, a new product from Embarcadero/Codegear which lets you code for .NET using the Delphi language, an object-oriented version of Pascal. The product is not as new as it first appears. It is based on an existing product from RemObjects, called Oxygene, which it now replaces.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. 2003: Borland, the company which created Delphi, decides (rightly) that .NET is here to stay, and releases Delphi 8, a pure .NET version. Nobody wants it, because it has no advantages to speak of over Win32 Delphi (which is faster), or C#, which is the Microsoft .NET language.

At that time some voices muttered that what Borland should do is to integrate Delphi into Visual Studio, rather than doing its own .NET IDE.  One was Marc Hoffman at RemObjects, only he did more than mutter: his company developed its own implementation of Delphi Pascal for Visual Studio, called Chrome.

Borland soldiers on with Delphi 2005, which does both .NET and Win32 in a single IDE. Developers are happy to have a new Win32 Delphi, but most still don’t see the point of the .NET stuff. Further, Delphi 2005 is buggy; many stick with Delphi 7. Next comes Delphi 2006: more of the same, but less buggy.

There’s a couple of problems with Delphi’s .NET support. First, it is always out-of-date compared to Microsoft’s .NET tools. Second, it has component library schizophrenia. There’s VCL for .NET, based on Delphi’s component and GUI library, but that’s not compatible with .NET components built for Windows Forms. There’s Windows Forms, but that’s not compatible with existing Delphi code. Borland decides to deprecate use of Delphi .NET with Windows Forms. This is really for VCL developers, it says.

Next comes Delphi 2007. Nice product, but where’s .NET? Gone. Nobody seems to mind [and it turns up later in RAD Studio 2007*]. Delphi 2009, gone again. But now there’s Prism, and it is a complete U-turn. Forget VCL.NET. It uses standard .NET libraries, runs in Visual Studio, supports Windows Forms, ASP.NET, WPF, and soon Silverlight. Oh, and it’s based on what that other guy did back in 2004, with some Borland Codegear Embarcadero technology thrown in: dbExpress database framework, client support for DataSnap multi-tier applications, and the Blackfish pure .NET database engine.

Very good; but there’s still that awkward question: why not use C#? The answer, I guess, being either that you love coding in the Delphi language, or you want to use one of the Delphi-compatible libraries.

Or that you want to use Mono, which of course is what enables those tasty Mac options in the New Project dialog above. You can also use C# with Mono – possibly you should, since it is Mono’s core language – but in Prism it comes nicely integrated into Visual Studio. Well, somewhat nicely. In practice there are a few extra steps you need to take to get it working. The recommendation is to run Visual Studio in a VM on a Mac, since Windows cannot run Cocoa applications. And you’re going to be using Apple’s Interface Builder; there’s no GUI designer in Visual Studio itself.

Hardly enterprise-ready then; but still an intriguing development.

*Added correction thanks to John Moshakis’ comment below.

.net, apple, microsoft, software development

Microsoft’s design crisis: Interview from Remix Brighton

The Reg has posted my interview with Bill Buxton, in which he talks about the challenge of getting Microsoft to put design at the core of its products. It has a great quote where Ballmer apparently told the company conference “Change or we die”. Can Microsoft change? That’s the big question; and one commenter has already given his opinion. I have more to say on this issue; but for now do read the interview; I find it a fascinating topic.

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apple, microsoft, software development

Bill Buxton at Remix Brighton

Bill Buxton has made a considerable impression here at Remix. His theme is the critical importance of design, and he has a broad understanding of what design is that goes beyond what some developers may imagine: “here’s my app, now make it look good” would be the caricature. I Twittered his session – you can read it online here. He talks a lot about Apple and about how Jobs rescued it by creating a culture of industrial design; the unspoken question here is whether anyone can do the same thing for Microsoft.

Now in the ADO.NET Data Services session (Astoria).

microsoft,bill buxton,apple,design

apple, google, internet, iphone, java, mobile, software development

Actual Android device spotted at Google Developer Day London

During the keynote at Google Developer Day London, Android evangelist Mike Jennings gave us what he says is the first showing of an actual device – prototype, of course – in Europe. I took a few blurry pics.

Perhaps inevitably, it seems reminiscent of Apple’s iPhone. It even has an accelerometer so you can code it to respond to tilts and turns.

The web browser is based on WebKit, of course.

We were shown a spinning cube created in Java using an OpenGL library. The Android SDK is based on JDK 1.5.

Another thing that was mentions is Gears for Mobile. Now that Gears has a geolocation API it will be particularly useful in this context.

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apple, google, software development, web authoring, windows

Google Chrome for Mac and Linux will be a long while coming

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When I looked at the Chromium source code and did a build, I noticed how much of it was Windows-specific. Although the WebKit rendering component is already cross-platform, it seems that the Mac and Linux versions of Chromium and therefore Chrome are a long way from ready. This is from the build notes for Mac OS X:

Right now, the Mac build is a work in progress that is much closer to the start than the finish. No application that renders web pages is generated at the end of these instructions!

Cross-platform work usually involves compromises, and it looks like the Google team pointed the dial more towards optimising for Windows than towards ease of porting. That surprises me, since it likely means more work maintaining the application for several platforms as well as delays now.

Chrome’s ambitions as an application platform cannot be realised until it runs on the Mac. Further, a disproportionate number of web designers and developers use Apple.

How long is a long while? Good question. I’ll be seeing some Google folk tomorrow; I’ll let you know what they say.

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