Category Archives: mobile

adobe, cloud computing, google, mobile, professional

Chromebook: web applications put to the test, and by the way no Java

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Yesterday Google announced the availability of the first commercial Chromebook, a Linux computer running the Chrome browser and not much else. There are machines from Acer and Samsung which are traditional laptop/netbook clamshell designs, with an Intel Atom dual core processor, 16GB solid state storage, and a 12.1” screen. Price will be a bit less than $400, or organisations can subscribe from $28 or €21 per month in which case they get full support and hardware replacement. There are wi-fi and 3G options. Nobody is going to be excited about the hardware.

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The Chromebook may be the most secure computer available, if Google has got it right. The OS is inaccessible to the user and protected from the browser, and system patching is automatic.

The strength and weakness of the Chromebook is that is only runs web applications – the only exception being utilities that Google itself supplies. Are we ready for a computer that is little use offline? I am not sure; but this will be an interesting experiment.

The Chromebook is a compelling alternative to a traditional PC with its susceptibility to malware and dependence on locally installed applications and data. If you lose your PC, getting a new one up and running can be a considerable hassle, though large businesses have almost cracked the problem with system images and standard builds. Lose a Chromebook, and you just get another one and sign in.

You sign into Google of course, and that is a worry if you would rather not be dependent on a single corporation for your digital identity and a large chunk of your data.

The problem for the Chromebook is that Apple’s iPad and numerous Google Android tablets and netbooks offer security that is nearly as good, and local applications as well as web applications, for a not dissimilar cost. These devices are also easy to restore if they break or go missing, slightly less so than a Chromebook but not much.

The choice looks a bit like this:

  1. Chromebook: Web applications only
  2. iPad/Android: Web applications and local apps

Put like that, it is difficult to see the advantage of the Chromebook. The subscription scheme is interesting though; it is a new business computing model that brings the cloud computing principle of operating expenditure instead of capital expenditure to the desktop.

The offline issue may be the worst thing about a Chromebook. When I travel, I frequently find myself without a good internet connection. The word “offline” does not feature in either the consumer or business frequently asked questions – a question Google would rather you did not ask?

Yet there is 16GB storage on board. That is a lot. In theory, HTML 5 local storage should solve the offline problem, but few web apps, including Google’s own, make this seamless yet.

A few other observations. While there are no user-installable client apps, Google is adding some utilities.

VPN is coming:

We’ve heard from our pilot customers that VPN is an important feature for businesses and schools, and we’re working very hard to bake this into Chromebooks soon. Support for some VPN implementation is already in the product and we’ll both extend support for more VPNs and get these features to stable soon.

Remote desktop access is coming:

we are developing a free service called Chromoting that will enable Chrome notebook users to remotely access their existing PCs and Macs.

Apparently this is based on Citrix Receiver.

There is a bias towards Adobe Flash:

Chromebooks have Flash support built-in, but they do not support Java or Silverlight.

Another blow for Java on the client.

apple, comment, mobile, reviews, tablets, Uncategorized

Battle of the portables: Netbook vs Apple iPad 2

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A semi-serious comparison

The popularity of tablets has seriously undermined the market for netbooks, according to many reports. But to what extent are the two comparable, and if they are, is a tablet unequivocally superior? I’m asking the question as much as answering, because I am trying out an iPad 2 and intrigued to see to what extent it can replace the netbook with which I normally travel. I have found I prefer the netbook to a laptop when out and about: the lightness and long battery life is worth the performance limitations for me.

The comparison is not straightforward. An iPad is a thing of beauty, whereas a typical netbook is an obvious compromise, nearly a laptop but limited in memory and performance. For some people that is enough; they will say, it is not about features, it is about the experience, and it is night and day.

Even so there are things that the netbook does better. What follows are some notes on the subject, based on the iPad vs a Toshiba NB 300 netbook with which I am familiar. I may add or amend the entries, so check back for updates.

1. Price

iPad2: £399 (wi-fi with 16GB)

Toshiba netbook: £230.00 (based on typical current price of NB305)

Winner: netbook

the netbook comes with Windows 7 starter, a crippled version of Windows, and only 1MB RAM. You probably want to add 1GB RAM (£17.00). If you want to join your netbook to a business domain you’ll need to upgrade Windows 7 to the Professional version; if you want to get rid of the annoying ads in Office Starter you’ll need to upgrade Office too.

2. Ease of setup:

iPad2: Switch on, and it asks you to connect to a computer running iTunes. This actually has its annoyances. iTunes is rather slow and bloated especially on Windows. When you connect, the default is auto-sync, which means iTunes will attempt to copy its music library to your iPad, likely not have enough room, and copy a random selection. If you have an iPhone, you will also get all your iPhone apps copied across, like it or not, which means you have to delete the ones you do not want.

Toshiba netbook: I recounted the “fairly dismal” experience of setting up a Toshiba netbook here. The main problem is all the trialware that is pre-installed, plus a bunch of Toshiba utilities of varying quality. Rather than repeat it all here, I will show show the screenshot a few minutes after first power-on:

Winner by a mile: iPad 2

3. Boot time

iPad 2: instant

Toshiba: ages. Better from hibernation, though still much slower than iPad 2. Better from sleep, but I am not a big fan of sleep because it drains the battery and occasionally crashes on resume.

Winner by a mile: iPad 2

4. Multi-tasking, or the ability to do several things at once

iPad 2: does multi-task but the experience is not great. Only one app is visible at a time, and to switch you have to double-click the big button, swipe through a list of apps, and tap the one you want.

Toshiba: It’s Windows. Fortunately Microsoft changed its mind about having a limit of three apps you can run at once. You can run lots of apps, switch between them with alt-tab or by clicking a taskbar icon, and size them small so you can see more than one on-screen at one time.

The simplicity of one app to view is meant to be an advantage of iOS; but while the Windows model can be troublesome – see the above screenshot for proof- I’d like to see some improvement in this part of iOS. It is not a matter of screen size: the screen size on the netbook is similar to that of the iPad.

Winner: netbook

5. Keyboard

iPad 2: soft keyboard that obscures half the screen, or add-on physical keyboard.

Toshiba netbook: traditional clamshell design with integrated keyboard.

I do a lot of typing, and my speed is substantially better on a physical keyboard. However I do not like carrying lots of accessories, and while the iPad add-on  keyboard is fine at a desk, if you are in a confined space such as an aeroplane the clamshell design works better than a loose keyboard.

That said, I recall hearing how a school that issued all its pupils and staff with iPads was surprised by how few wanted keyboards. Some kids apparently prefer the soft keyboard to “all those buttons”, so it may depend what you are used to. However, even if you replaced the “Keyboard” heading with “Text input”, my vote would still go to the netbook.

Winner: netbook

6. Touch control

iPad 2: yes

Toshiba netbook: no

I’m putting this in just to make the point. Even a Windows tablet, with a stylus, is less convenient to use with touch than an iPad.

Winner by a mile: iPad 2

7. Applications

iPad 2: A bazillion apps available in the app store, cheap or free to purchase, a snap to install. Not so many for iPad as for iPhone, but still a good number.

Toshiba netbook: It’s Windows. They are a bit slow to load, but I run Microsoft Office, Outlook, several web browsers, music apps, games, network utilities and all sorts of other stuff.

Winner: I am going to call this a tie. There are some beautiful apps for the iPad 2, but I miss the features of Windows apps like Office. With the netbook my experience is that I can do almost anything that I can do with a desktop PC, although more slowly, but that is not the case with the iPad 2. On the other hand, the way apps can be installed and removed in a blink on the iPad 2 is a delight compared to Windows setup.

8. File system and storage

iPad 2: There is a file system, but it is hidden from the user.

Toshiba netbook: Yes. I can save a document from one app, and open it in another. I can connect to it over a network and copy files from one folder to another. Not possible on the iPad 2 without workarounds like iTunes and DropBox; and even then some things are difficult. For example, you cannot save a document from Pages on the iPad directly to your DropBox. Let me add that the netbook has a 250GB hard drive, whereas the iPad gets by with a maximum of 32GB solid state storage – though also note that solid state storage is faster to access, and that because the iPad is designed to work like that it does not feel particularly space-constrained.

Winner by a mile: netbook

9. Connectivity

iPad 2: Wireless network, or devices that accept Apple’s proprietary connector. You can attach the iPad to a PC with USB, but only iTunes really understands it, unless you just want to copy photos and videos. Apple offers an add-on camera connectivity kit for downloading photos from a camera, and AirPrint for printing over a network. It is annoying that you have to buy add-ons to do what a netbook does out of the box.

Toshiba netbook: Three standard USB ports, you can attach external hard drives or most USB devices such as printers.

Winner: netbook

10. Battery life

iPad 2: Apple says up to 10 hours, but I have never managed as much as that. Maybe 7 or 8 hours.

Toshiba netbook: I get about 6 hours on wifi, more than that without.

In practice, I have no quibble with either machine – though I am envious of Amazon Kindle owners with their one month charge.

Winner by a whisker: iPad 2.

11. Portability

iPad 2: no bigger than a pad of paper. It is not exactly pocketable, but slips easily into any kind of bag or briefcase. It perhaps needs the protection of a case, but even in a case it is not bulky.

Toshiba netbook: fatter and uglier than an iPad, but still very portable. The worst thing is the power supply, if you need it: the Apple mains adaptor is much smaller than Toshiba’s effort.

Winner by a whisker: iPad 2

12. Watching videos

iPad 2: Great. It is like a portable TV or DVD player, but better – as long as you have a strong wifi connection and BBC iPlayer or the like. Just prop it up on its stand (most cases have one) and enjoy.

Toshiba netbook: it works but the graphics capabilities are inferior and it feels like you are looking at a netbook.

Winner by a mile: iPad 2

13. Built in cameras and microphone

iPad 2: two cameras, front and back, and a microphone that works.

Toshiba netbook: webcam and microphone, but they are junk; I have not seen a netbook with anything decent.

Winner by a mile: iPad 2

14. Reading eBooks

iPad 2: iBooks app and Amazon Kindle app. I prefer the Kindle app, though whether it will survive Apple’s assault on alternative readers I am not sure.

Toshiba netbook: Kindle app, as well as Adobe Reader etc.

A tablet is great for reading, much better than a netbook. However despite its humble appearance Amazon’s Kindle device really is better for reading, thanks to a screen you can read in sunlight, much longer battery life, and free internet access to download books everywhere.

Winner: iPad 2, though a Kindle is better

15. Attract admiring glances

iPad 2: Yes

Toshiba netbook: No

Winner: I did say “semi-serious”.

adobe, development, flash, mobile, professional, software development

Hands On with Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 for Android

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I have been trying several cross-platform development tools for mobile, and today I set out to create an Adobe AIR app for Android using the new Flash Builder 4.5, available separately or as part of the Creative Suite CS5.5.

I made another calculator app, which may seem boring but gives me a chance to compare like with like.

You get started by running up Flash Builder and creating a new Flex Mobile Project.

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The disappointment here is that only Android is supported, so it is not all that cross-platform. According to Adobe’s Andrew Shorten:

An update to Flash Builder, scheduled for June 2011, will provide additional options to package Flex applications for Apple iOS and will include built-in support for packaging both Flex and ActionScript applications for BlackBerry Tablet OS.

so we have not got long to wait.

Flash Builder is based on Eclipse. The IDE is slow at times, for example when switching to visual design mode, but the platform is familiar to many developers and it feels reassuringly enterprise-ready. I find it a productive environment.

I laid out a screen with buttons and a label to display the output. The alignment tools work well although I made them a little too small as you will see shortly. Then I started writing code. The language of Flash Builder is ActionScript, which is based on JavaScript.

Here I met my first little annoyance. You can easily create a click handler for a button by right-clicking in the designer and choosing Generate Click Handler, or by clicking Generate Event Handler in the properties window. However, I thought it would be smart for most of my buttons to share the same event handler. All I need to do is to read the label of the button which was clicked, and pass it to my addnum routine that processes the input:

protected function btn_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
{
    var theButton:Button = Button(event.currentTarget);
    addnum(theButton.label);
}

This works fine, but the IDE does not let you select an existing event handler for a button. You can paste it in, or add in in the source code editor, which is what I ended up doing. The source code editor is rather good, with excellent code completion, hover-over help for keywords, and so on.

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The second annoyance was with the label. I wanted to add a border. I selected the label but could not see a border property. I went to the full list of properties and found exotic things like dominantBaseline in the style list but still no border.

Then I found this in the reference for a label:

Borders are not supported. If you need a border, or a more complicated background, use a separate graphic element, such as a Rect, behind the Label.

I wondered if a panel would work, and started to type it in the editor:

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Well, it looks as if Panel is overkill for simply getting a border, but it was interesting to see the editor report that “Adobe discourages using Panel when targeting profiles: mobileDevice”. I decided to do without a border for the moment.

I finished the coding and successfully ran the project in the Android simulator. Next, I attached a device and created a new Run Configuration for a device attached via USB. I plugged in my HTC Desire running Android 2.2. Provided USB debugging is enabled on the device, this works well. Not only could I run on the device; I could also set a breakpoint and debug on the device. Everything was a bit slow in debug mode but it worked.

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Finally, I built a release version using Export Release Build on the Project menu. You have to sign the package, but there is a wizard to create a certificate for testing.

Here it is on the device – as I mentioned, the size of the buttons needs a little work:

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So how is performance, bearing in mind that the app is trivial. Well, the good news is that performance is OK, though launch is a little slow, except for one thing that I have not figured out. Sometimes I touch a button, and see the graphic effect as the button depresses, but the input does not register. It seems most prone to this just after launching, and usually a second tap works fine.

The vsize reported for the app process by the Dalvik Debug Monitor is around 200K, similar to that for the PhoneGap version.

Overall I am impressed, though I would like to understand the button issue, and I am beginning to wonder if my year-old HTC Desire is a bit under-powered for AIR. Device performance is improving rapidly, and Flash optimization is part of the design process for mobile graphics chips, so my guess is that AIR will be more than viable as a cross-platform toolkit for mobile. You also get the benefit of all those lovely Adobe design tools.

adobe, development, iphone, mobile, professional, software development

Hands On with RunRev LiveCode: rapid development for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows

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RunRev LiveCode is a cross-platform development tool for Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, Apple iOS and, from this month, Google Android.

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It is an individualistic tool inspired by Apple’s original (but now obsolete) HyperCard and HyperTalk, in which the building blocks of your application are stacks and cards. A stack is like a window, and a card is like a panel overlaid on that window. Unlike HyperCard, LiveCode is not a virtual card stack where each card can represent a record in a database; it is simply a means of building a graphical user interface.

A key attraction of LiveCode is that it now supports the two dominant smartphone platforms. I have been looking at a number of different approaches to mobile development, most recently PhoneGap; how does LiveCode compare to the competition? In order to get some hands on experience I set out to create my simple calculator application in LiveCode.

Coming almost new to LiveCode, I found that building this application took longer than it had done in PhoneGap, which uses HTML and JavaScript. I created a new stack and dragged some buttons onto it easily enough, but found that the approach to coding took some getting used to. There are lots of tutorials, but I found the easiest way to learn was to read through chunks of the user guide [pdf], which does a better job of explaining how to code.

One annoyance is that each object, such as a button, has its own script window, which appears as a tab in the editor. Although my calculator is simple, it does have a fair number of buttons, so you end up constantly switching between tabs. If you amend some code, you have to remember to click Apply before the change takes effect. If you forget, you run the application and puzzle over why it seems to be running an old version. The environment is strongly GUI-centric; you will not like it if you are an enthusiast for Model-View-Controller architecture.

The environment is dynamic, so you can test the stack you are working on at any time simply by switching it to browse mode. This is why it is called Live Code. In this respect it is similar to the Live View in Adobe’s DreamWeaver.

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I had to get used to writing:

put firstNumber * secondNumber into theResult

instead of

theResult = firstNumber * secondNumber

I was impressed by LiveCode’s ability to change types on the fly and to work out correctly whether you wanted to do something with a string value or a numeric value.

The language is more English-like than most languages, though I am not sure if it really easier. The language minimises use of punctuation which helps readability. Cases in switch statements fall through, C style, unless you remember to include break statements, which is traditionally a common source of bugs.

I got my calculator working on Windows. I tried building for what RunRev calls Web, but was put off by the plug-in requirement:

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I then moved the project to a Mac to try it on iOS. Everything still worked, but I spent some time resizing the stack and repositioning the buttons to look half-way reasonable on an iPhone. I may be missing some tricks here, but scaling and positioning controls does not seem to be a strong point for LiveCode.

LiveCode does feel that bit more at home on a Mac, reflecting its origins.

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I was impressed with how easy it was to build the app for iOS. The way cross-platform works in LiveCode is that you open a dialog called Standalone Application Settings. There is a tab for each supported platform, in which you specify options specific to each platform. The options for iOS are extensive, including supported devices, hardware access requirements, orientation options, external libraries and so on. You can then test immediately on the simulator. For on-device testing, you use the Organizer in Xcode to copy the compiled app across.

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The good news is that the app ran well, much better than than the PhoneGap/jQuery Mobile version, though it did not look as nice and in fairness the other app’s performance issues are likely more to do with jQuery Mobile than PhoneGap itself.

Although I found it a bit of a hassle getting started, nevertheless I was able to build a working app for Windows, Mac and iOS in a few hours, so I should not complain.

Of course there is a lot more that LiveCode can do. It has database libraries, graphical effects, an embedded web browser on some platforms, XML and text processing support, and more. It is also extensible; there is probably not much that cannot be achieved with sufficient effort.

I have not tried the Android support as my version does not include it; though I did notice that the Android options dialog is basic compared to what is available for iOS.

My first impression of LiveCode is positive, but with reservations. It looks to me like a viable and productive route to cross-platform development, or you might use it just as a quick route to app development for iOS, but I did not enjoy working in the IDE which feels quirky and unsophisticated compared to other modern IDEs. My little app works well though, and that suggests it would be worth trying it for something more advanced.

apple, mobile, sharepoint, windows

Apple iPad, Pages and Microsoft SharePoint – it works

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I’ve been trying out an Apple iPad 2 recently, and one of the topics that interests me is the extent to which it can replace a laptop.

That is a nebulous question of course – it depends what you use a laptop for – but one essential from my perspective is the ability to create and edit documents. Therefore I installed Apple’s iWork apps in their iPad guise: Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

Now, one iPad annoyance is that accessing its storage is more awkward than with a laptop. You cannot simply copy files to and fro over a network. You can copy files to the iPad using a network browser app like Stratospherix FileBrowser, but that works by opening recognised file types.

As for Pages, how it stores documents is opaque to the user. They save as you type, and you can manage them in a My Documents view within Pages, but if you want to move them elsewhere you have to use one of five options: email, iWork.com which is cloud storage for iWork apps, send to iTunes for synchronization, copy to iDisk which is cloud storage for MobileMe, or copy to WebDAV.

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The options for opening a document are similar, but without the email or for some reason iWork.com options.

None of these options appealed greatly, except possibly the last one. I use SharePoint, which supports WebDAV, might this enable me to open and save documents from Pages direct to SharePoint? This is convenient for me, since I have SharePoint as a mapped drive in Windows Explorer, and it works both on the internal network and over the internet.

I typed a document in Pages, then went to My Documents and chose Copy to WebDAV. I chose Word format. Then I entered the URL, username and password for my SharePoint server.

Rather to my surprise, it connected immediately, and performance was good. I then went to my mapped SharePoint drive in Windows Explorer and there it was.

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It works the other way too. I typed a document in Word 2010 and saved it to SharePoint in the default .docx format. Pages can import .docx, and the document opened smoothly.

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I appreciate that I am in a small minority of individuals running SharePoint – I do it for test and review – but for business users this is a handy feature. Individuals might want to check out DropDAV, though I’ve not tried the service.

Update: I have tried this successfully with both SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2007. If SharePoint is using a port other than 443 for secure access, then you enter the full URL in Pages, for example https://sharepoint.yourdomain.com:444

However I have not yet been able to get this to work with SharePoint in Office 365.

apple, mobile, tablets

Apple’s iPad 2 Smart Cover: great stand, poor cover

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I’ve been trying Apple’s iPad 2 recently, complete with the official Smart Cover.

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This was shown off at the launch event. It is meant to combine various features:

  • Keep your screen safe from scratches
  • Turn the iPad on and off when opened and closed
  • Clean the iPad screen with its microfiber lining
  • Form a support for the iPad for typing
  • Form a stand for the iPad so you can use it as an expensive digital photo frame

Although a cover seems a simple thing, it seems the results of considerable design effort. It has a magnetic strip which attaches to the left long edge of the unit. The magnet is strong, the fit is perfectly snug, the iPad does turn on and off as advertised.

So what’s wrong? One issue is that unless you detach it completely, the cover is a nuisance when open. You can fold it round the back, but it slips and slides a bit as well as covering the rear camera. So you can detach it, but then you have to put it somewhere, and the magnetic strip is more fiddly to detach and re-attach than a simple slip-on cover.

More seriously, users have complained about several issues:

  • Cover is too flimsy to offer good protection
  • The close fit of the hinge lessens over a few weeks, presumably as the metal bends and stretches slightly
  • The microfiber lining forms the base when used as a stand, so picks up dirt that then gets deposited on your screen

Some users say it it flops over when used as a stand, but I believe this is because they are folding it the wrong way. You must fold it against the grain, so the microfiber is on the outside. Otherwise, yes it flops.

My view: the Smart Cover makes a poor cover, but a great stand. Of course it is a huge price to pay for just a stand, but if you are using the iPad to watch BBC iPlayer, for example, the stand is perfect, much better than trying to prop it up somehow.

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It is a terrible cover though. Bear that in mind before you buy.

apple, gaming, mobile, reviews

Funbridge: bridge for iPhone and iPad

5 Comments

There are several bridge app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, but the one I’ve had most fun with is called, appropriately, Funbridge. This is already well-established as a Windows application, where you play against a computer but can compare your performance to other players, making the results much more interesting.

The iOS version is currently a free app, and has just been updated to include Tournaments as well as one-off games, now called Training.

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In the latest version, you have to log in to play more than a couple of games, though the account is free.

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Bidding and play is straightforward, with a few caveats. There is no fine-grained control over bidding conventions; you can choose between Beginner, Advanced, Expert, American Standard, Acol, or Polish system. Unless you choose Acol, these are all strong no trump, 5 card major systems. It is worth reading up on the systems used in detail, as otherwise you will get unpleasant surprises.

Note that during both bidding and play, Funbridge will call back to the server before every decision. This means you cannot play offline, and if you are playing where the internet connection is weak, such as on a train, you can expect frustrating delays; games can take so long that you forget what has been played!

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During play just tap a suit to display all the cards you hold in that suit, then tap a card to play. Take care – there is no undo, and it is all too easy to tap the wrong card and then watch with horror as you see your safe contract sailing down to a penalty.

You can choose to withdraw on a hand, in which case it is not scored, but if you then play it again, you are given a kind of informational score that does not count towards your ranking. It can still be interesting to see how a different line works out.

Once play has completed, you get to compare your score with others and see how many IMPS (International Match Points) you achieved.

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A really nice feature is that you can click the magnifying glass and get details of each contract, including card-by-card analysis. So if you are amazed at how well or badly someone managed to do, you can see how it happens. Sometimes, I have to say, it happens only because of a baffling misplay. I imagine this happens when the computer is playing on the other side, unless there are serious bugs in the engine.

A Tournament is a sequence of 10 games, at the end of which you can see how you rank among the other players, currently ranging from 150 to 750 or so in number. Scoring in tournaments seems to alternate between IMPs and Pairs scoring – the difference being that Pairs scoring rewards small differences in the score and makes big differences less costly, whereas with IMPs the reverse is true.

Overall it is enjoyable, though as in real bridge there are moments of frustration. The hands seem tilted towards more interesting or better than average holdings, though it is hard to be sure.

One complaint: the server seems to get too busy at times and the software does not cope particularly well; you click Connect and there is no error message, nothing happens.

Enjoy it for nothing while you can – it is “currently free” but I suspect will eventually attract a subscription cost – maybe a similar subscription rate to the desktop version, €74.00 for a year, or maybe something different.

apple, mobile, software development

Succeeding in an App Store world: lessons from the Angry Birds story

At Mobile World Congress earlier this year I heard Rovio CEO Mikael Hed address a small group of Apple platform developers on the subject of the changing world of app development. His starting point is that mobile apps and the app store model are transforming the business of software. Of course he has a games industry perspective, but my hunch is that what he says applies more widely. I note that the App Store concept has already come to the Mac, and that Microsoft will follow Apple with something similar in Windows vNext.

What is the effect of an App Store? It combines opportunity and challenge for developers. Opportunity because apps can be found, purchased and installed in a few clicks. Challenge because app stores attract lots of apps, and the barriers to entry are low, much lower than traditional retail channels. This forces prices down and makes it hard to have your particular app stand out.

The App Store model seems to include the idea of single-purpose apps at low prices. Apple still sells iWork, its office suite, for £72.00 as boxed product (UK prices), but on the Mac App Store it is split into three products, Pages, Keynote and Numbers, at £11.99 each. Even if you buy all three it is half the price of the box.

Mac desktop apps are larger and more sophisticated than iPhone apps, so I guess they will always attract higher prices; but I also guess that the factors which have driven down prices on the iPhone App Store will exert the same influence on the desktop store.

So where are prices going? Here is what Hed told us:

On the pricing side, we know now that on the App Store the standard price is fast becoming free, zero. And the premium price is 99 cents. If you go higher than that, then there are higher risks, because you might never reach the top ten, or top 100, and if you do, it will drop off very fast, there’s huge price sensitivity. So this also is a big change for traditional publishers who are used to high prices up front, and that’s the classic business model in gaming. That is changing, so game developers must find additional revenue streams.

This low pricing is the foundation of his thesis. Hed’s view is that software companies, in the games industry at least, have to be ready for it. Further, he thinks that the shift toward mobile is profound and will not reverse:

We are seeing right now a big shift from retail focused, location based games where you have to have your console plugged into your TV. That is slowly slipping away and in its place is coming the digitally downloaded game that you can play anywhere.

How then do you survive and prosper in this new world? Hed’s answer is to build a brand, and find diverse ways to monetize it.

He told us the history of Angry Birds. This, he says, is the first mock screenshot which his game designer made in 2009:

image

The way he explained this game concept to me was that you have these different coloured birds and then you have blocks with similar colours, tap on one of the blocks and the birds will fly and destroy that block. I listened to that description and I felt like, maybe this game concept is not a winner as such, but everybody liked these characters very much and we felt like, hey, we have really here a good starting point.

Rovio at the time was doing what Hed called “work for hire”, such as casual games commissioned by operators or other publishers. “We didn’t have a lot of capital to put into our game,” he said. Rovio kept half its 12-strong team doing the work for hire, and put the other half on Angry Birds. This meant the game took 8 months to develop rather than the usual 3 or 4 months, but he said this slower development time worked out well because the result was more polished.

Hed told us that most app developers push out apps too quickly:

They are concerned about getting their apps quickly out there on the market in order to start generating revenue. Before Angry Birds we did release a couple of other iPhone titles and they didn’t do well at all. We learned a lot from that and one of the things we learned is that never release something that is not completely finished, because it’s so easy for reviewers to just rip your game apart because something about it was not perfect. And that is exactly what is happening. It’s tremendously demanding, the consumer on the app store is tremendously demanding even if they pay only 99 cents, they still expect it to be perfect.

Even more significant was that Rovio consciously planned for Angry Birds to be more than just a game:

Our primary goal with Angry Birds was not to make a lot of money in the app store. Our primary goal was to build a brand.

Angry Birds took off pretty fast. It became the top seller on the iPhone App Store, first in Finland, then in the UK in February 2010, then in the USA in April 2010. Rovio made some decisions. First, it would stick with Angry Birds and build it into a strong franchise, rather than simply investing its profits into new game titles. Second, it would continue to offer free updates for the original app.

Where then are the “additional revenue streams” which Hed says are essential in order to thrive in this new world? In-app purchasing is one, he said, but Rovio decided not to sell additional levels via this channel. Instead it came up with the Mighty Eagle, which he calls a product rather than a feature:

In the Mighty Eagle we offered a way for users to pass levels that they are stuck on, so it gives added value to the users. But we made it into a product, and that is one of the important things of how we act in the marketplace, we make products, we don’t make features. And in this our big role model is Apple. You can see that nobody is that much interested in one “feature”. People want products. That’s why you don’t see Apple coming out with a feature called video calling. You see them coming out with a product called Face Time.

I am not entirely convinced by the distinction between products and features, but I understand the value of this way of marketing software. Hed says Rovio has been rewarded with a 40% conversion rate, much higher than for most in-app upgrades.

Rovio is also doing merchandising. 

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This helps to sustain the franchise and to make sure that the franchise stays relevant for years to come, and it supports our game sales, and our game sales support our merchandising sales.

he says. It is another example of finding additional revenue streams.

Hed also talked about TV and film projects. Rovio partnered with 20th Century Fox to make a game that ties in with Rio the Movie, hence the game Angry Birds Rio.

He adds that mobile advertising is a key area:

We can see from the amount of time that people spend playing our games and playing everybody else’s games and using those apps, that mobile app advertising will be huge. We will see shifting of advertising towards mobile, because there users will be engaging for long periods of time, they will be exposed to brands repeatedly, they will be closer to the point of purchase.

This has worked for Rovio so far, though personally I am not sure for how long it can prosper if the Angry Birds franchise is all it has. It is a fashion thing and people will get bored of it – or does Rovio now have its own enduring franchise like Disney’s Mickey Mouse?

My main interest though is Hed’s insistence that software world is changing, prices are tumbling, and software developers will have to look for ways to monetize apps that go beyond the purchase price. “It’s the same for everybody. Now the industry is in the midst of transformation so everybody must adapt,” he says.

development, mobile, professional, software development, web authoring

Mobile developers follow the users; PhoneGap most popular cross-platform toolkit says survey

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Web Directions has published a State of Mobile Web Development based on input from around 1300 professional web developers. Note that this is a survey of web developers not app developers, which must skew the results if you are interested in the overall app picture, but it is still interesting.

One result deals with developer platform decisions. What are the factors that count when choosing a platform to develop for? New and minority mobile platform players will study this with interest, since getting a large number of developers on board is a high priority.

Here is the ranking of factors based on how many developers consider each one “Very important”:

  1. Number of potential users of your app: 68.55%
  2. Platform capabilities: 60.36%
  3. Ease of development: 58.55%
  4. Worldwide reach of marketplace: 40.02%
  5. Assistance in marketing your app: 23.40%

The message for the likes of Microsoft, HP and RIM is that the best way to attract developers is to sell lots of cool devices. Ease of development matters, but not as much as a large market.

Another section asks which toolkits are preferred if you are developing native apps with web technologies (note the exact question):

  1. PhoneGap 47.6%
  2. Appcelerator 26.5%
  3. Other 15.6%
  4. Adobe AIR 7.8%
  5. Apparatio 1.2%
  6. Rhomobile 1.2%

The sample here is rather small, with only 79 of the 1300 using PhoneGap, for example. I also quibble with the definitions here. Rhomobile’s Rhodes framework compiles Ruby to native code and I doubt it counts in the category “developing native apps with web technologies”. I am even sure whether AIR belongs alongside PhoneGap and Appcelerator, since AIR is Flash whereas the other two are HTML 5. Incidentally, Appcelerator is the company name and what should appear here is Titanium, which is the name of the cross-platform toolkit. Apparat.io is in private beta so its low take-up is not surprising.

Still, it is a good result for the top two. If you are interested in these toolkits don’t miss my recent interviews with André Charland at Nitobi (PhoneGap) and Jeff Haynie at Appcelerator.

apple, mobile, professional, software development

The mobile app ecosystem before Apple – was it really this bad?

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For some time I have been meaning to post about a talk I heard at Mobile World Congress, by Rovio (Angry Birds) CEO Mikael Hed. What interested me about this talk was not so much the Angry Birds app itself – now downloaded over 75 million times – but rather Hed’s thoughtful perspective on what it is like to be a software company in the App era. “It’s been a year of transformation not only for us but for the whole industry,” he told us.

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Hed started his talk by describing life as a mobile games developer before Apple launched the iPhone in 2007. Rovio was founded in 2003, and did 51 titles before Angry Birds, encompassing “every type of game,” he said.

Before the iPhone came along we were on feature phones only. That market was completely different from the iPhone market today. Looking back on it, it’s a small miracle that there were any game companies in that ecosystem.

Why? Several reasons.

In order to have a game commercially available on a feature phone, you would have to make that game, and make probably nine other strong games in order to be interesting to the carriers. And the carriers would only take your game if you could support all the handsets that their customers had. That meant hundreds of handsets.

Dealing with the carriers was a huge headache.

You would have to make an agreement with each carrier in each country, and you had to have an all-day sales team working for you to do any business at all. It was really expensive.

After all that, the revenue share and payment system was loaded against you.

All operators would take more than half of the revenue that you would make, and then pay you a long time after your game is out. They would report quarterly, and once you get the report you send them an invoice, then they have ninety days to pay. So if by some miracle you manage to get your game onto their devices , the earliest time you would see your money would be six months later.

The system was poor for consumers too.

It was also very difficult for consumers to find these games. It varied a lot across the different carriers, how you find the games. You might have to send an SMS somewhere and get a link back, click on that, download the game, and then hope that the game would actually run on your device; and probably at the end even if you had the latest and greatest phone it was made for the lowest common denominator so it would not use any of the nice features of your phone. So you would get a poor experience, if it worked at all. That was the past ecosystem.

Ouch. Was it really that bad?

The immediate conclusion is that while Apple’s closed and dictatorial iOS ecosystem has drawbacks, it is at least one that works, whereas what existed before was badly broken.

So how are things for app developers now, in the Apple era? Look out for a follow-up post soon. And by the way, it is still by no means easy.