Your Phone is so much more than a Phone

I have been developing mobile apps since 2002. Ever since I started, I listened to people talk about the potential of cellphones especially in the area of marketing. Ok, even I have talked about the great potential. But the reality is even though I have written some really cool mobile applications I just have not seen these predictions come to reality until now. I think within in the last year we have seen mobile platforms take center stage and become the ultimate personal and convergent device. Most of this is due to rise of the iPhone and Android platforms. Let me show some of my observations.

Digital Wallet

• Payment System (Visa & Square)
• Proof of Insurance Cards (Nationwide Insurance)
• Grocery Store Requard Cards (CardStar)
• Photos of kids

Ultimate Communication Device

• Voice
• SMS
• Email
• Video Conferencing
  
• Facebook
• Twitter

Connectivity Device

• Always connected Internet device
• Portable hotspot (Sprint HTC EVO) for connecting all your devices
  

Entertainment Device

• Movies
• TV (ABC)
• Music
• Books
  
• YouTube
• Games, Games and more Games

Location Aware

• GPS apps
• Compasses

Production

• Camera and photo software
• Video

And the list keeps going. Combined with the ease of portablity it is the only thing I always leave home with besides my wallet and hopefully someday I will be able to leave my wallet home too.

How iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch Interactions Could Effect Gaming

I am very much anticipating April 3rd and the arrival of the iPad. The more I think about it the more I think about the impacts it will have. I have recently been spending a lot of time thinking about the new interaction opportunities we can have by combining the iPad with an iPhone or iPod Touch. I think these interactions become even more interesting in the context of gaming.

With the dimentions of the iPad, I can imagine placing it on a table facing up with four people surrounding it like a board game. Each person holding an iPhone or iPod Touch. For simplicity sake, imagine a game like Scrabble. On each person's iPhone or iPod Touch they can view their own tiles. On their turn, they can flick the tiles off their device and they could land on the iPad where the tiles can be moved into place. This type of interaction could work with anything somebody wanted to keep private like cards but then shared at the approriate time on the iPad. This interaction could also be used for photos much like the Microsoft Surface demos.

Now imagine turning the iPad up on its side or strapping it to the back of a car seat. Now you have a video game console. An iPhone or iPod Touch could be used as a game controller for a first person shotter , a stearing wheel for a driving or simulator game where tilting it could be the accelorator or finally a Nintendo Wii style remote for games including vibrating feedback and two sounds sources. So, instead of swing your iPhone around to make it sound like a light sabor, you can also make your first person game character wield a light sabor.

Now my son is sure to shatter my iPhone.

iPad Longevity

Like many people, I was a little disappointed by some of the glaring omissions from the Apple iPad announcement. However, as somebody who develops for the iPhone platform, I do feel I need to at least get a version of the cheapest model for testing purposes. At least that is what I am telling my CFO ;) But as I think about the decision of buying a first generation device now and realizing Apple will probably release the version I really want next year, I started think about the longevity of the iPad especially compared to a netbook or the Kindle. Even if I upgrade a year from now, I think the iPad's form factor and weight make it increadibly useful for the long hall. As iPad's retire, I can definately see them become dedicated reading devices next to the bed or dedicated gaming devices for the kids. But I can also imagine them being mounted on kitchen walls. Maybe even mounted within a frame to hid the black borders. It could be used to display a calendar, digital photos, the current local weather, a clock or all of the above. In addition, it could be a convient means to store or look up recipes. Hmm... Maybe I should create a Kitchen App.

Columbus taking over the iPhone game market

Over the past year, I have been reading articles about how Columbus is becoming a hot bed for game and 3D movie development. This week was an especially exciting for Columbus since two Columbus based game companies release iPhone games. JUFTI released their Cornhole All*Star game. The first and only true 3D cornhole game. The second is Fresh Games with their release of Ranch Rush. A really fun farming game. They both have awesome graphics and great game play.

Another fun game produced here in Columbus a little while ago is Jiggle Balls from Funky Visions.

I own all three and they are a lot of fun.

Creating a simple iPhone checkbox

I was disappointed to discover the iPhone SDK did not include a Checkbox component. Yes, I know there is the UISwitch component. But sometimes that is just to big and does not look right for your design.

After googling, I could not find a checkbox component that somebody else had made or a good tutorial. So below are the steps I did to create a simple checkbox.

I began by adding a UIButton to my view and setting its Type to custom and its background to my unchecked png image with transparent background. Then I implemented the auto generated viewDidLoad method to set my background image if the button state was selected to the checked png image.

- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
[checkButton setBackgroundImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"checked.png"] forState:UIControlStateSelected];
}

Finally, I attached a changeSeletected method to the button's Touch Up Inside event that changed the selected state of my button.

- (IBAction) changeSelected: (id) sender {
UIButton *button = (UIButton *) sender;
button.selected = !button.selected;
}

I think the final outcome turned out pretty nice.

New g-wizMOBILE CTO

I am excited to announce that in addition to my responsibilities at Judd Solutions, I have excepted the position as the g-wizMOBILE CTO. g-wizMOBILE is a service and product company targeting the mobile platforms of J2ME, iPhone, Android and WAP. Mobile is such an exciting and emerging market. I look forward applying my years of J2ME and enterprise Java experience to create exciting new products and help other companies trying to develop and deploy their own mobile applications.

Other advantages to Apple distribution model for iPhone apps

Another great advantages of distributing applications for the iPhones is not having to write installers or complicated installation instructions. That alone should save lots of development time and support headaches. Wouldn't it be nice if all software installation could be this easy.

Apple's iPhone application deployment model is fair

In talking to some of my fellow developer friends about the recent iPhone SDK launch, they are shocked and disappointed with Apple's for distribution model but especially with Apple's 70/30 split of the sale of the applications.

I happen to think this model is quite fair. Here is a list of things included with sharing 30% with Apple:

• distribution
• credit card transactions
• marketing
• platform

I think this makes the program a great bargain. For example other forms of distribution like retail often have a 40-50% markup. More importantly Apple is providing the opportunity by providing and opening the platform and SDK at no additional charge.

I also can't believe the Standard Developer Program is only $99. I have been developing J2ME application for several years now. Whenever you deploy you typically need to sign the J2ME app it can be $500 for a single deployment option because of certificates. If want to make your application available through several carriers you might have to have several certificates which cost additional money and add to the packaging and deployment complexity.

But the final benefit is the program includes free distribution for free apps. So if you don't want to share 30% with Apple, there is a missed revenue opportunity in Apple's plan. I have not heard or seen anything relate to participating in sharing for any other monetization options. So if you give away your application for free but sell ads, you can save it all :)

Finally, if you are looking for iPhone developers please contact me, I am very excited about the platform and would love the opportunity to work on this new frontier.