Category Archives: mobile

cloud computing, microsoft, mobile, silverlight, software development, visual studio

Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie at All things Digital – a poor performance

7 Comments

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie put on a poor performance when quizzed by Walt Mossberg at the All Things Digital conference, judging by Ina Fried’s live blog.

What was wrong with it? They allowed the conversation to be focused mainly on competing products: Apple iPad, Google Android, Google Apps, Google search. Since these products have exposed weaknesses in Microsoft’s own offerings, it was unlikely to work out well.

Mossberg asks about the transition to the cloud. “You guys are putting, for instance, a version of Office in the cloud.”

That was a gift. You would expect the two men to enthuse about how Microsoft’s dominance with desktop Office was now including the cloud as well, how the Office Web Apps enable new opportunities for collaboration, how Microsoft’s investment in XML for Office was now enabling the same document to live both on the desktop and in the cloud.

Nope. Ozzie waffles about people being more connected. Ballmer “disputes the notion that everything is moving to the cloud”.

So what about Steve Jobs prediction, of a transition from PCs to tablets and mobile devices? Ballmer says “not everyone can afford five devices,” lending support to the notion that Windows is for those who cannot afford something better.

Mossberg asks about tablets. Although Mossberg did not say so explicitly, tablets have been a tragi-comedy at Microsoft. Bill Gates evangelised the tablet concept years ago, pre-echoing Jobs’ claim that they would largely replace laptops. Microsoft tried again and again, with XP Tablet Edition, Vista on tablets, then “Origami”, or Ultra-mobile PC. Going back even further there were was the stylus-driven Palm-size PC (I have one in the loft). Tablet PC was not a complete failure, but remained an expensive niche. Origami sank without trace.

Ballmer replied that the “race is on”. Meaning? I guess, now that Apple has demonstrated how to make a successful Tablet, Microsoft will copy it? Or what?

I am not sure how you defend such a poor track record; but the starting point would be to explain that Microsoft has learned from past mistakes. In some ways it has; Windows 7 learns from mistakes in Vista, and Windows Phone 7 learns from mistakes in Windows Mobile.

None of that from Ballmer, who says vaguely that he expects Windows to run on a variety of devices. He makes matters worse later, by defending the stylus. “A lot of people are going to want a stylus,” he says. Some do, perhaps, but Apple has pretty much proved that most people prefer not to have one. I’d like to see effort go into designing away the need for a stylus, rather than implying that Microsoft is just going to repeat its part mistakes.

Someone in the audience asks, “Will we see Silverlight on Android or iPhone?” “My guess is  if it did, it would be blocked”, says Ballmer, ignoring the Android part of the question.

He’s ignoring the force of the question. Why bother developing for Silverlight, if it is locked into a Microsoft-only future, especially considering the company’s poor position in mobile currently? Ballmer could have mentioned the Nokia Symbian port. He could have said how Microsoft would get it on iPhone just as soon as Apple would allow it. He could have said that Microsoft is working with Google on an Android port – I don’t know if it is, but certainly it should be. He could have said that Silverlight plus Visual Studio plus Microsoft’s server applications is a great platform that extends beyond Windows-only clients.

Microsoft does have problems; but it also has strong assets. However it is doing an exceptionally poor job of communicating its strengths.

Update: There is a fuller transcript at Engadget, in which Ballmer and Ozzie come over better, though they still fail to impress. On mobile though, I like this comment:

We have new talent, we had to do some cleanup, we did it for Windows, and we’re doing it for mobile. And excellence in execution is also part of the equation.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone present at the event.

adobe, apple, internet, iphone, java, mobile, silverlight, web authoring

Adobe’s campaign against Apple misses the target

8 Comments

Nothing better demonstrates Adobe’s concern about being locked out of Apple’s mobile platform than a huge advertising campaign attempting, one assumes, to win public support and pressure Apple into yielding ground.

Still, if you are going to run a big PR campaign it helps to be right. But Adobe seems to be arguing that Flash support is essential to an open web, which is incorrect.

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web. … In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

says the open letter from Adobe founders Churck Geschke and John Warnock.

Very good, but this is not an argument in favour of Flash. Flash is not part of HTML, Flash is not a standard, and Flash is not open – the specification for the player is published, but what goes into that specification is controlled solely by Adobe, and its player implementation is not open source. Flash is a proprietary plug-in. Are Geschke and Warnock arguing that all browsers on all devices should allow all plug-ins to be installed – including Silverlight, Java, ActiveX, and anything else you can think of? Or are they arguing that Adobe Flash is a special case? It is certainly a special case for Adobe, but any company will argue in favour of its own stuff.

The full-page advertisement that I’ve seen in various newspapers is not much better. Adobe’s pitch is that Apple is:

taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web

This again is incorrect. Apple has an excellent mobile browser based on WebKit, as also used by Google, Adobe and others. You can do what you want on the Web, but if you use Flash it won’t render on Apple’s mobile devices. All that means is that Apple has chosen not to support Adobe’s plug-in. It is not an issue of freedom.

Personally I don’t like Apple’s approach. I’d prefer it to support the leading plug-ins (not only Flash); I don’t like the appification of the web -  dubbed the splinternet, or splintered web, by some. And I particularly object to Apple’s clause 3.3.1 in its new developer agreement, which blocks apps that are created with cross-platform tools, no matter how well they perform or how good they look. That, it seems to me, is anti-competitive in spirit.

I think Adobe should make more of clause 3.3.1, rather than indulging in special pleading for its plug-in. And if I were Adobe, I wouldn’t be whinging about Flash being blocked. Rather, I’d be highlighting all the great things Flash can do, and all the content you will miss without it. My full-page ad would say, “Mr Jobs, your iPhone is broken”, and extol the merits of Android and other devices that will run Flash.

I’d also be working on the technical arguments, that Flash is unstable, insecure and resource-hungry. Is it Apple’s fault? Is it because of poorly coded SWFs, and if so what is Adobe doing about that? And how will Adobe improve Flash so that it behaves better in future, and not be perceived as the new Vista?

Maybe next time round?image

apple, mobile, software development

Apple no longer loves Mac developers

6 Comments

At least, that’s the impression you get from its latest move: dropping Mac applications from its Apple Design Awards, presented during the its Worldwide Developers Conference. In 2009 there was an OSX developer Showcase alongside the iPhone Developer Showcase. This year? Well, iPad is here, and three’s a crowd, one had to go.

While the Apple Design Awards are a tiny insignificant detail in the grand scheme of things, this is still a clear pointer for anyone who had not yet noticed, that Apple is keen to focus on its locked-down devices ahead of its computers. It’s better business, because a mobile device yields multiple revenue streams: money from the device sale, money from the mobile contract, money from app sales via the only permitted route, the App Store. There is also an argument that it is better for the user, since a locked-down device is more secure and less likely to be break, though you have to set that against loss of freedom, and the impact of a single-supplier market on price and competition. It also fits with bigger industry trends, where devices are mobile and data is in the cloud, that are shaping the computing landscape.

google, mobile, symbian

Android the new Windows?

I’ve just reviewed the LG GW620 Android phone. I was impressed by its features but disappointed by its usability – it’s not that bad, but scrolling web pages accurately with touch I found almost impossible – it’s hard to avoid scrolling too far and missing out a chunk – and why does LG supply the device with four different email clients?

Apple’s iPhone is much more expensive and compares badly on features, but has the usability and polish that the LG phone lacks.

OEM Android versus Apple iPhone – it reminds me of Windows vs Apple on the desktop.

One is for the mass market, cheap, feature-rich, a bit chaotic, always a few annoyances, but you put up with them because you can still get things done, and it’s an open platform which lets you do what you like.

The other is premium-cost, single-vendor, less annoying, and you spend more time getting on with what you want to do and less time fighting the machine.

I don’t intend this as a  complete parallel. There are more than two popular operating systems in the SmartPhone market right now – Symbian, Meego, WebOS, Blackberry; and Microsoft has big hopes for Windows Phone 7. That said, it is hard to see all these platforms thriving long-term.

.net, adobe, apple, iphone, microsoft, mobile, oracle, software development

Building for multiple mobile platforms with one codebase

6 Comments

Individuals may have strong opinions about the merits of Apple iPhone versus Google Android versus the struggling Palm WebOS versus the not-yet Windows Phone 7; but sit them round a table to discuss app strategy and those diverse platforms change from a debating point to a problem. Presuming a web app won’t cut it, how do you target all those devices without the unreasonable expense and complication of managing multiple projects? The native languages are all different; Objective-C for iPhone and iPad, Java for Android and RIM BlackBerry, JavaScript for WebOS, C# for Windows Phone 7.

There are three possibilities that come to mind. One is that all the platforms will eventually allow you to write in C or C++, making this the unifying language, though you still have some fancy footwork to do overcoming library differences. Android now allows this via the NDK, and Palm via the PDK. There is currently no alternative to Java for Blackberry, and Microsoft says native code won’t be possible on Windows Phone 7, but well, you never know.

The second is Adobe Flash. This is an interesting one, because Apple prohibits Flash on the iPhone, but Adobe has a Packager for iPhone that builds native iPhone apps from Flash projects. Another issue is that although Flash is available or promised for all the main non-Apple devices – Apple’s gift of a selling point to its rivals – it is not Flash alone that does what it needed, but AIR, the “desktop” or out-of-browser runtime. This has been previewed for Android and promised for other devices including Blackberry. AIR for Windows Phone 7? Maybe, though I’ve not seen it mentioned.

A third idea is a clever framework that does the necessary cross-compilation under the covers. This cannot depend on deploying a runtime, nor compiling to native code, because these approaches are blocked by some mobile platforms. Rhomobile has the Rhodes framework, where you code your app in HTML and Ruby and compile for devices including iPhone, Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry, Symbian, and Android. Rhodes includes an MVC (Model View Controller) framework and an ORM (Object Relational Mapper) to wrap database access. There is also a RhoSync server component to enable offline data with synchronisation back to the server when reconnected; and the RhoHub hosted IDE for buildings apps with a web browser.

Rhomobile tells me that Palm WebOS support is in the works. They also promise Windows Phone 7 support, which intrigued me because Rhodes says it compiles to “true native device applications”. Has Rhomobile gotten round Microsoft’s opposition to native code? Apparently not; VP Rob McMillen eventually told me that this will mean a .NET IL (intermediate language) implementation.

The Rhomobile approach reminds me of AppForge, a company which produced the well-regarded Crossfire add-on for Visual Studio and compiled Visual Basic to a wide variety of mobile platforms. Unfortunately AppForge was acquired by Oracle, and its new owners showed callous disregard for existing customers. Not only did development cease; it also became impossible to renew existing licenses. Thanks to an activation component, that also blocked new deployment of existing applications – every developer’s nightmare.

That said, there is no activation requirement for Rhodes that I know of, and the framework is open source, so I don’t mean to suggest it will suffer a similar fate.

What about Java? On the face of it, Java should be ideal, since multi-device support is what it was designed for. It is a measure of how far Java has fallen that we hear far more about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, than the lack of Java. Microsoft says yes to Flash on Windows Phone 7, though not on first release, but nothing about Java.

Java as a mobile runtime needs a strong dose of lobbying and evangelism from its new stewards Oracle if it is not to fall by the wayside in this context. Hmm, AppForge.

microsoft, mobile, windows

Windows Phone 7 emulator yields its secrets

1 Comment

So that didn’t take long. Microsoft has made a Windows Phone 7 emulator available to all, explaining that it is a virtual machine running the real device OS. While it works fine for debugging applications, most of the phone UI is mysteriously absent, the exception being Internet Explorer (needed for testing web applications). However, Dan Ardelean has done some nifty work with the emulator image, discovering that a lot more of the UI is present and can be exposed if you make a few modifications. He posted his modified ROM but has since removed it because of copyright concerns. I doubt it will be hard to find.

image

Applications available in the hacked emulator include Mobile Office with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Sharepoint Workspace (undermining Microsoft’s claim that this is only a consumer device), games including a version of Times Reader – full circle for this one, which started out in WPF, moved to Silverlight for Mac, deserted and went to Adobe Flash, and may now reappear in Silverlight – and music/video via a Zune section.

image

My tip to Microsoft: if you don’t want these things to leak, best not put them in the publicly-available image.

Ardelean has also figured out how to amend the native C# port of SQLite, satisfying demand for a local SQL database engine. SQL Server Compact Edition is actually present in Windows Phone 7, but not available to custom applications.

microsoft, mobile

No native code development on Windows Phone 7 says Microsoft – so what about Flash?

9 Comments

Windows Phone 7 is a managed code platform, we’ve been told at Mix10 in Las Vegas. Development is via Silverlight or XNA; there is no native API.

Of course there is a native API; the question is more about what code is allowed to access it. Still, in the press briefing the spokesman was clear that native code development will not be supported.

What about projects like Adobe’s Flash runtime, which both Microsoft and Adobe have said is planned, or at least (in Microsoft’s case), not blocked – although we already know that Flash will not be available in the first release.

All my spokesman would say is that nothing has been announced about that.

My suspicion is that in reality certain privileged vendors will be able to, in effect, extend the operating system with native code libraries. Adobe could be one of those; so too could a company like Rhomobile, which has a cross-compiler for a variety of mobile platforms. So I doubt that Microsoft has yet given us the full story here.

Update: The latest on this is that Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel says that Adobe will have special native access for Flash, but that no other vendor will have that privilege. This still does not make sense to me. Let’s suppose that Windows Phone 7 is a big success. What justification could Microsoft have for supporting the Flash runtime but not the Java runtime, for example? I suspect that Microsoft is chasing the Flash checkbox to one-up Apple; but if Adobe gets native access, others will no doubt follow.

mobile

Microsoft copies Apple with Windows Phone app lock-in?

3 Comments

I’m reading the documentation for Windows Phone development. Here’s what it says:

A set of tools will help the developer to submit and certify their applications for the Windows Phone Marketplace. Applications are submitted in a .XAP file format, which is essentially one compressed file that contains all the files that are needed by the application. Developers can track their submission status and then receive a notification once the certification is complete. After an application is certified, it can then be submitted for publishing on the Windows Phone Marketplace. Developers can set pricing and select the markets in which they wish to publish the application.

Application updates can go through the certification and publishing process again in order to fix bugs, add new functionality, or provide whole new versions.

Windows Phone Marketplace and Billing

The Windows Phone Marketplace provides the one place where developers can make their applications available for purchase by consumers. Both Mobile Operator and credit card billing are supported, making it as easy as possible for consumers to pay for the program.

Note the lock-in words: apps must be certified by Microsoft, and the Windows Phone Marketplace is the “one place” to make applications available for purchase. According to Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel, Microsoft will take 30% of all revenue, and in most cases there is also a fee for registering as a Marketplace vendor.

I understand Microsoft’s Apple-envy; but it is disappointing to find that this new platform is equally locked, if I’m reading this correctly.

microsoft, mobile, silverlight, windows

Windows Phone 7 developer story unveiled at Mix10

1 Comment

I’m in Las Vegas for Microsoft’s Mix10 conference, where the developer story for Windows Phone 7 series is being unveiled. According to the press release, the tooling for Windows Phone 7 looks like this:

  • Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone (free)
  • Windows Phone 7 Series add-in for Visual Studio 2010 RC
  • XNA Game Studio 4.0
  • Emulator
  • Expression Blend for Win Phone CTP

Essentially, you are meant to use XNA for games on the device, and Silverlight for other kinds of application.

Another part of the announcement describes new services for developers – Microsoft Location Service to provide location information, and a notification service to “push information to the phone, regardless of whether or not an application is running”.

Applications will be marketed through a new Windows Phone Marketplace.

I’ll report more details as they emerge, here and on The Register.

Update: Microsoft has added that Expression Blend 4.0, for Silverlight 4.0 support, will be a free upgrade from Expression Blend 3.0.

Silverlight 4.0 RC, Expression Blend 4.0 beta, VS 2010 add-in available for download here: http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/ 

The MSDN documentation for Windows Phone 7 is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402531(VS.92).aspx

.net, microsoft, mobile, silverlight, software development, windows

Windows Phone 7 incompatibility may drive developers elsewhere

6 Comments

Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel has blogged about the Windows Phone 7 development platform.

As widely leaked, the new mobile device supports Silverlight and XNA; Kindel also mentions .NET, but since both Silverlight and XNA are .NET platforms, that might not mean anything additional.

The big story is about compatibility:

To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform we’ve had to change how phone apps were written. One result of this is previous Windows mobile applications will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series.

This puts Microsoft in an awkward position. Support for custom business apps has been one of the better aspects of Windows Mobile. What Microsoft should do is to have some way of continuing to run those old apps on the new devices. Instead, Kindel adds:

To be clear, we will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come, so it’s not as though one line ends as soon as the other begins.

I would not take much account of this. No doubt there will some devices, but demand for Windows Mobile will dive through the floor (if it has not already) once Phone 7 is available, making it an unattractive proposition for hardware partners.

The danger for Microsoft is that after this let-down, those with existing Windows Mobile apps that are now forced to choose a new development platform might choose one from a competitor.

The mitigation is that apps which use the Compact Framework will likely be easier to port to Windows Phone 7, because the language is the same. Native code apps are a different matter. Of course it will be technically possible to write native code apps for Windows Phone 7, but probably locked down and restricted to special cases, such as perhaps the Adobe Flash runtime (I am speculating here).

PS – I see that developer Thomas Amberg has articulated exactly these concerns in a comment to Kindel’s post:

Platform continuity was the single most important feature of Windows Mobile. Being able to run code from 2003 on a current phone is more important to our customers than a fancy UI (which Microsoft seems not able to get right anyway). Further, the ability to access hardware specific APIs through P/Invoke has been vital in many of our projects (e.g. to use Bluetooth in the early days). Those advantages have now gone. You just rendered useless years of development work and many thousands of lines of code.

"we will continue to work with our partners to deliver new devices based on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will support those products for many years to come"

You will, I bet. But which device manufacturer will produce such "dead-end" devices?

Time to switch to another mobile OS.