tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63822120518219029952013-04-13T14:55:00.033+01:00Expanding horizonsubiquitous computing, cognitive science, design and everyday thingsAdam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-22877021402992028672013-03-06T22:24:00.000Z2013-03-08T10:20:00.402Z2013-03-08T10:20:00.402ZNSConference 5: Day Three<h3 id="iostoolsatflipboard">iOS Tools at Flipboard</h3>
<p><em>Evan Doll</em>, <a href="http://georiot.co/1YIL">Flipboard</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/edog1203">@edog1203</a></p>
<h4 id="avoidingcrapwork">avoiding crap work</h4>
<ul>
<li>use jenkins
<ul>
<li>run clang: <code>+leakToEnsureClangDidRun</code></li>
<li>can also use to send out a beta using TestFlight/HockeyApp</li>
<li>jenkins build types:
<ul>
<li>beta</li>
<li>beta-external</li>
<li>ios-debug-device</li>
<li>ios-debug-simulator</li>
<li>ios-debug-unittests</li>
</ul></li>
<li>takes some time to get things sorted with signing etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>app icon versioning
<ul>
<li>stamp app icon with the version</li>
<li>ImageMagick shell script build phase</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use multiple bundle identifiers
<ul>
<li>allow app store, beta & debug builds to coexist on device</li>
<li>define a custom build setting called BUNDLE_SUFFIX</li>
<li>then reference the variable in the Info.plist</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use JetBrains AppCode as an additional bug finding tool
<ul>
<li>unused code, mismatched types, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HockeyApp is great for beta handling & crash reporting</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="squashingbugs">squashing bugs</h4>
<ul>
<li>useful to capture app state without plugging in to Xcode
<ul>
<li>CocoaLumberjack - high performance logging library</li>
<li>bring up a console log on the device</li>
<li>also added view hierarchy explorer & file explorer to debug builds</li>
<li>tweaker: in-app property inspector launched from pressing and holding on any view</li>
<li>see also DCIntrospect & CBIntrospector on github</li>
</ul></li>
<li>bug reporting UI
<ul>
<li>launched by gesture from anywhere in the app: Flipboard use the volume buttons
<ul>
<li>do some basic checking in case there is actually audio playing…</li>
<li>useful to have a hardware gesture</li>
</ul></li>
<li>attaches view hierarchy, file system, etc</li>
<li>can also take screenshot</li>
<li>Flipboard attach app feed state to each bug
<ul>
<li>then have in-app bug browser</li>
<li>can replicate feed state in app directly from bug</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="giveyourselfsuperpowers">give yourself superpowers</h4>
<ul>
<li>testing gestures in the simulator is a pain
<ul>
<li>instead use keyboard shortcuts</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ios-keyevents">http://bit.ly/ios-keyevents</a></li>
<li>override UIApplication to capture key events at a deep level</li>
<li>doesn’t mess with other text views</li>
<li>can use dlopen & dlsym to load private framework in debug code, without linking public app</li>
<li>some shortcut examples:
<ul>
<li>enter login info</li>
<li>block UI thread for 1 second</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>feature switches
<ul>
<li>exposed in the app</li>
<li>can force on/off first launch flow</li>
<li>e.g. early iPhone introducing app re-ordering jiggle
<ul>
<li>special shortcut to show an overlay to adjust rotation, shift & frequency</li>
<li>handed to Steve to adjust…</li>
<li>(see also the <a href="http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Calculator_Construction_Set.txt">Calculator Construction Kit</a>)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>change the language without resetting the whole phone
<ul>
<li>need a wrapper round <code>NSLocalizedString</code></li>
</ul></li>
<li>if arguing about design options, try it both ways</li>
<li>freeze content in app for marketing</li>
<li>e.g. always show advert</li>
<li>make them dynamic at run-time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>pseudolocalization
<ul>
<li>map all localisation keys to unicode accented characters with extra length</li>
<li>For more info on Pseudolocalization, watch the “Internationalization Tips & Tricks” video from WWDC 2012</li>
</ul></li>
<li>WebTranslateIt
<ul>
<li>shared strings for iOS & Android</li>
</ul></li>
<li>escape hatches: brains on the server
<ul>
<li>change your mind after the app has been released</li>
<li>JSON file for settings</li>
<li>sync NSUserDefaults
<ul>
<li><em>comment from the audience:</em> <a href="https://github.com/mattt/GroundControl">GroundControl</a> from Matt Thompson (@mattt) can provide remote settings</li>
</ul></li>
<li>also replace Localized strings</li>
<li>in-app help</li>
<li>UI hints</li>
<li>even adding new social services…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>chaos monkey
<ul>
<li>process in the app that randomly makes things fail</li>
<li>memory warnings, delete cached content, closing network connections</li>
<li>ensure there’s some obvious part of the UI that indicates when the monkey is running</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="communication">communication</h4>
<ul>
<li>use pivotal tracker: task management tool
<ul>
<li>testers report into Jira</li>
<li>then prioritise using pivotal</li>
</ul></li>
<li>github pull requests to communicate about code
<ul>
<li>talking about code in progress</li>
<li>not just for reviewing</li>
<li>start earlier</li>
<li>get designers involved</li>
</ul></li>
<li>GitX + email for lightweight code reviews</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="useridentity">User Identity</h3>
<p><em>Markos Charatzas</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/qnoid">@qnoid</a></p>
<ul>
<li>stop using passwords!</li>
<li>the password policy is one of things wrong with passwords
<ul>
<li>each company has different rules</li>
<li>then just as you remember the password, you have to change it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>security questions for when you forget…
<ul>
<li>see <a href="http://goodsecurityquestions.com/">http://goodsecurityquestions.com/</a> for more</li>
<li>apparently “What is your oldest cousin’s first and last name?” is a good question…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need to innovate on user authentication
<ul>
<li><a href="http://notes.xoxco.com/post/27999787765/is-it-time-for-password-less-login">passwordless login</a> by luke wrobelski, ben brown & marco arment</li>
</ul></li>
<li>residence based authentication
<ul>
<li>discussion at <a href="http://goo.gl/H5z0w">http://goo.gl/H5z0w</a></li>
<li>sample implementation for iOS: <a href="https://github.com/qnoid/TBUserIdentity/">TBUserIdentity</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="reverseindie">Reverse Indie</h3>
<p><em>Alexander Griekspoor</em>, <a href="http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/">Papers</a></p>
<ul>
<li>100% Indie (until 31st Oct 2012…)
<ul>
<li>bought by Springer Science+Business Media</li>
</ul></li>
<li>started making free apps just for the fun of it</li>
<li>won an Apple Design Award</li>
<li>then made Papers while waiting for postdoc to start</li>
<li>free apps drove adoption of paid apps</li>
<li>also gave 40% discount to students — fuelled word of mouth marketing</li>
<li>then had to figure out how to grow from one person to two?
<ul>
<li>how many more copies do I need to sell just to employ another person?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>then iPhone & iPad got released…
<ul>
<li>suddenly could support an extra developer</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iOS enabled growth</li>
<li>got handed a love letter to Papers at WWDC 2009 :-)</li>
<li>when app gets popular requirements start getting bigger
<ul>
<li>choose between lifestyle business or let the product fly</li>
<li>restrict the business to the size of you, or let the product free and take a step back</li>
</ul></li>
<li>offer of being taken over by a big company
<ul>
<li>wanted to keep independent direction and not get eaten by the beast
<ul>
<li>take advantage of big marketing & sales + common HR & legal</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need to be able to speak to the guys at the top</li>
<li>if the process gets difficult, need to go back to them and check if things are still on track</li>
<li>get the financial stuff sorted early</li>
<li>get professional help early</li>
<li>bring soft issues up immediately
<ul>
<li>they won’t go away</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="rethinkingsyncing">Rethinking Syncing</h3>
<p><em>Charles Parnot</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/cparnot">@cparnot</a></p>
<p><a href="http://cocoamine.net">http://cocoamine.net</a></p>
<ul>
<li>syncing-friendly-driven development :-)
<ul>
<li>start with a sync-friendly foundation</li>
<li>use a syncing-friendly data model</li>
<li>make syncing-friendly decisions</li>
<li>keep things syncing-friendly</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can just use dropbox
<ul>
<li>but two devices accessing same file can get corruption</li>
<li>can use a lock file</li>
<li>or <a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Foundation/Reference/NSFileCoordinator_class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010585">File Coordination APIs</a> (controls all access so single machine only)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>have multiple databases, one read/write, others read only
<ul>
<li>log events rather than just storing data</li>
<li>then can get latest event</li>
</ul></li>
<li>rather than having entire record as an event, can use a key/value store with timestamp</li>
<li>fetching data involves iterating through required keys</li>
<li>can open multiple databases in CoreData
<ul>
<li>one as R/W</li>
<li>others can be loaded as read only</li>
<li>CoreData will manage reading from combined data and writing to R/W db automatically</li>
</ul></li>
<li>example: crash reports library
<ul>
<li>shared amongst multiple developers using dropbox</li>
<li>key/value database for adding/modifying crash report files</li>
<li>UI layer has an in-memory cache of latest data</li>
</ul></li>
<li>inspirations
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/">voodoopad</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki">fossil-scm</a></li>
<li>TouchDB/CouchDB</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="independentbutnotalone">Independent, but Not Alone</h3>
<p><em>Craig Hockenberry</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/chockenberry">@chockenberry</a></p>
<p>Principal at the <a href="http://iconfactory.com/home/staff">Iconfactory</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/16Cz">Weightbot</a>: crazy idea to add personality
<ul>
<li>but it makes the app fun & accessible</li>
<li>designer challenged developer to make the app work in a better way</li>
</ul></li>
<li>“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works” — Steve Jobs
<ul>
<li>“Developers don’t know how their product works” — @chockenberry</li>
</ul></li>
<li>developers think of a product from the inside out
<ul>
<li>think about underlying stuff at the beginning</li>
<li>UIs reflect the underlying design</li>
</ul></li>
<li>designers think of a product from the outside in
<ul>
<li>don’t even know what orthogonal means</li>
<li>not worried about how it works, or how hard it might be to implement</li>
<li>think about your app in the same way that a customer would</li>
</ul></li>
<li>a designer is your first customer
<ul>
<li>they will give you feedback that may hurt your feelings</li>
</ul></li>
<li>provide help with tough decisions</li>
<li>explaining problems to a non-technical person helps you think differently about the problem</li>
<li>how do you make the design - code - review process shorter and tighter?
<ul>
<li>for Twitterrific (<a href="http://georiot.co/3G5o">iOS</a> & <a href="http://georiot.co/33lU">Mac</a>) had a couple of attempts…</li>
<li>first attempt: AppTheme
<ul>
<li>application-level settings</li>
<li>extract fonts, colours, etc into a file that the designer can edit</li>
<li>can still be objective-c</li>
<li>still need to train designer to build & install</li>
</ul></li>
<li>improved attempt Theme: used UIAppearance
<ul>
<li>one Theme for every view class in the app</li>
<li>some view classes only exist to be customisable</li>
<li>used some macros to make images, insets, gradients etc</li>
<li>in <a href="http://chameleonproject.org/">Chameleon</a>, when remove root view controller from window, can reset UIAppearance to a new theme (don’t forget to add it back afterwards…)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Interface Builder is the uncanny valley of UI design…
<ul>
<li>hard to visualise results</li>
<li>really easy to screw things up</li>
</ul></li>
<li>most important tool to work with designers is version control</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="copywritingisdesign">Copywriting is Design</h3>
<p><em>Nik Fletcher</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/nikf">@nikf</a></p>
<ul>
<li>even “serious” products are known as Apps</li>
<li>Nik is trying to purge the word Cancel from our app vocabulary
<ul>
<li>negatives are hard to scan quickly: “Delete” “Don’t Delete”</li>
<li>go for opposites: “Keep”, “Never”, “Not Now”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>try not to repeat words in sequential alerts</li>
<li>disclosure
<ul>
<li>iOS 6 introduces data isolation instead of <code>CLLocationService.purpose</code></li>
<li>localised Info.plist strings instead (see <a href="http://blogs.captechconsulting.com/blog/john-szumski/ios-6-tutorial-series-user-data-isolation">this blog post</a>)</li>
<li>can reset:
<ul>
<li>OS X: <code>tccutil reset ..</code></li>
<li>iOS: Settings > Reset All</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>photo access has implicit access to past location history
<ul>
<li>either disclose usage or scrub it before you upload</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t use checkboxes to turn stuff off!
<ul>
<li>tell QA when you find it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t talk about the “File System” or the “Keychain”
<ul>
<li>again — it’s implementation detail</li>
</ul></li>
<li>app state: not running or stopped; instead open or closed</li>
<li>example: Realmac developer found an awkward bug in Quick Look
<ul>
<li>developer just added a “QuickLook sucks” alert</li>
<li>Nik got an email saying “what’s your problem with Quick Look?”</li>
<li>…from the engineer at Apple who worked on Quick Look</li>
</ul></li>
<li>“personality” can be useful in copy
<ul>
<li>but don’t trivialise important things</li>
</ul></li>
<li>nice trend of moving errors inline
<ul>
<li>avoiding unnecessary alerts</li>
<li>e.g. Mobile Safari has error pages rather than alerts</li>
</ul></li>
<li>your copy (and maybe your company) needs a style guide
<ul>
<li>anyone in the company can use it</li>
<li>even developers…!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>customer? user?
<ul>
<li>Apple uses “you”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use genstrings & ibtool to get all the strings into a file to check through</li>
<li>recipe for a great alert:
<ul>
<li>title: how did I get here?</li>
<li>title & copy: what am I doing here?</li>
<li>buttons: how do I do that?</li>
<li>buttons: where do I go from here?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>see more on <a href="http://talks.nikf.org/nsc13">http://talks.nikf.org/nsc13</a></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="controllingananimationwithauigesturerecognizer">Controlling an animation with a UIGestureRecognizer</h3>
<p><em>Eelco Lempsink</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/eelco">@eelco</a></p>
<ul>
<li>want to use a gesture to scrub across an animation
<ul>
<li>e.g. Photos app on iPad lets you slowly pinch/zoom open each event/album</li>
</ul></li>
<li>control animation: <code>
CA...Animation* animation ...
animation.speed = 0;
animation.duration = 1;
animation.timeOffset = position; // 0 .. 1
</code></li>
<li>use <code>UIPinchGestureRecognizer</code>
<ul>
<li>adjust scale to fit the UI element size and animation</li>
<li>objects should stay under your fingers as you move them</li>
</ul></li>
<li>decide what to do when you release the gesture
<ul>
<li>end state, duration, animation curve</li>
<li>during gesture you probably want linear animation</li>
<li>but when you let go it should probably be something different</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if you have a complicated animation you can add a property to control the offset
<ul>
<li>can then derive other properties from the value of this new property</li>
<li>simplifies code</li>
<li>but you have to do some interpolation maths yourself</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="theartofshipping">The Art of Shipping</h3>
<p><em>Alan Cannistraro</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/accannis">@accannis</a></p>
<p><a href="http://facebook.com/alancannistraro">http://facebook.com/alancannistraro</a></p>
<ul>
<li>worked 12 years at Apple</li>
<li>started on iOS apps in 2006 before iPhone even announced</li>
<li>now working at Facebook London</li>
<li>5 stages to shipping a product</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="conceive">conceive</h4>
<ul>
<li>Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”</li>
<li>de Bono lateral/horizontal thinking exercises</li>
<li>e.g. “Random Entry”
<ul>
<li>define a focus</li>
<li>choose a word from a 2000 word table</li>
<li>spend 10-15 mins generating ideas</li>
<li>repeat</li>
</ul></li>
<li>then distill ideas
<ul>
<li>filter for crap or technically impossible</li>
<li>gather into a cohesive story</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="design">design</h4>
<ul>
<li>Steve Jobs: “sweat all the details”</li>
<li>Alan uses wireframes to help to decide the design</li>
<li>then generate screenshots</li>
<li>does it flow? can you simplify it?</li>
<li>design up front is easier…
<ul>
<li><em>(but not always possible)</em></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="build">build</h4>
<ul>
<li>make a scaffold: has all the bits</li>
<li>Steve Jobs: “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”</li>
<li>don’t mess with MVC
<ul>
<li>don’t have a UIView that references an NSManagedObject!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Cocoa SDK API has a team that scrutinises the code and strives to simplify it
<ul>
<li>use their API as your yardstick…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>tried a project by designing it all in UML first
<ul>
<li>the developers stopped coming in…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>start with simple bits</li>
<li>avoid shortcuts unless you’re 2-3 days away from release…</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="refine">refine</h4>
<ul>
<li>track everything</li>
<li>set a date</li>
<li>don’t be afraid to punt issues to the next release</li>
<li>prioritising bugs:
<ol>
<li>data loss</li>
<li>crashes</li>
<li>visual polish (!)</li>
<li>regressions</li>
<li>bugs in new features</li>
<li>everything else</li>
</ol></li>
<li>why visual polish so high?</li>
<li>Donald Norman: Emotional Design
<ul>
<li>aesthetically pleasing objects appear more useful</li>
<li>cognitive bias: beauty bias
<ul>
<li>when something is beautiful, we believe its other properties have prowess</li>
</ul></li>
<li>the halo effect
<ul>
<li>not about success in one area leading to another</li>
<li>instead our brains assume that beautiful apps are better, whether they are or not</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="review">review</h4>
<ul>
<li>Steve Jobs: “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take great people and push them.”</li>
<li>be honest about first impressions
<ul>
<li>but leave your ego at the door</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if it feels wrong, don’t ship it</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="onemorething...">one more thing…</h4>
<p>One thing that Steve said to Alan was “the most important thing you need to do surround yourself with people smarter than you.”</p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/6U72a41iZZk" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2013/03/nsconference-5-day-three.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-53079893792704091832013-03-05T22:14:00.000Z2013-03-06T23:10:24.434Z2013-03-06T23:10:24.434ZNSConference 5: Day Two<h3 id="thrivinginanappstoreworld">Thriving in an App Store World</h3>
<p><em>Michael Jurewitz</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/jury">@jury</a></p>
<p>Jury used to be an Apple Developer Evangelist. He is now Director of Product Development at Black Pixel.</p>
<h4 id="workwellwithapple">work well with apple</h4>
<ul>
<li>need to be looking forward - focusing on future (tech/features/hardware)</li>
<li>stay on the radar of apple contacts</li>
<li>Apple looks at devrel as “animal husbandry” :-)
<ul>
<li>Apple wants to sell devices & make customers happy</li>
<li>so apps should feed into that</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Apple has laser focus on future and simplicity
<ul>
<li>expecting & embracing change</li>
<li>they force themselves to keep going forward</li>
<li>won’t look at apps that don’t fit in to that</li>
<li>must stay current</li>
</ul></li>
<li>no secret agenda, but often hard choices</li>
<li>can get featured by taking advantage of new OS features
<ul>
<li>but it’s a time limited offer…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>example:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/yPP">Eventbrite</a> getting featured on Passbook feature page increased new user sign up by 664%…</li>
<li>got in right at the beginning – only 15 apps on the feature page</li>
</ul></li>
<li>“if users aren’t upgrading their OS, they probably aren’t buying your software either” - Wil Shipley</li>
<li>Gatekeeper vs App Store: e.g. <a href="http://georiot.co/457o">Kaleidoscope</a>
<ul>
<li>if you buy Kaleidoscope on Mac App Store then you can also download direct</li>
<li>app will notice that it’s already been purchased</li>
<li>will check receipt and unlock automatically</li>
<li>useful for sending customers beta builds when testing fixes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>file bugs
<ul>
<li>also for requesting to open APIs that are currently private</li>
</ul></li>
<li>localisation:
<ul>
<li>Apple sales in China increased 400% last year</li>
<li>Germany has a strong software market, even though it’s limited in size</li>
</ul></li>
<li>accessibility creates loyalty</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="properlyvalueyourwork">properly value your work</h4>
<ul>
<li>Jury did some research over the past weeks…</li>
<li>top paid apps have much lower mean & median prices than top grossing apps
<ul>
<li>mean: paid $12.46 vs grossing $49.13</li>
<li>median: paid $6.99 vs grossing $29.99</li>
</ul></li>
<li>two separate markets going on here</li>
<li>top grossing has:
<ul>
<li>200% more Finance apps in top grossing at the moment
<ul>
<li>because it’s tax season at the moment in the US</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Utilities drop by 25%</li>
<li>22% more Games</li>
<li>50% more Graphics</li>
<li>Social drops in half (and would be nothing without Tweetbot)</li>
<li>No Weather apps</li>
<li>3-5 Business apps vs none in Top Paid</li>
</ul></li>
<li>four free apps in Top Grossing
<ul>
<li>in-app purchases</li>
<li>freemium can work</li>
<li>talk to Kevin Hoctor who did in-app purchases in <a href="http://georiot.co/1eR7">Moneywell Express</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>cheap apps get downloads, but higher priced apps pay the bills
<ul>
<li>which would you rather have…?</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h5 id="economics101:">economics 101:</h5>
<ul>
<li>price elasticity of demand</li>
<li>how does adjusting the price of a product affect the number that you sell?</li>
<li>elastic (e.g. social apps):
<ul>
<li>there’s a common price that people expect</li>
<li>if you increase the price beyond that, then demand massively decreases</li>
</ul></li>
<li>inelastic (e.g. drugs… or photoshop…):
<ul>
<li>people will pay pretty much whatever you ask</li>
<li>keep increasing the price and maximise revenue</li>
</ul></li>
<li>demand curves can move due to marketing campaigns…</li>
<li>if you double the price, and you lose less than 50% of your customers, you’ve just made money
<ul>
<li>and fewer users means less support costs</li>
<li>also increases perceived value</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t be a commodity — charge what your software is worth</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="priceyourappintelligently">price your app intelligently</h4>
<ul>
<li>market segment:
<ul>
<li>lots of basic research</li>
<li>category prices</li>
<li>start research <em>before</em> starting developing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>research competitors
<ul>
<li>do you have a big enough differentiator?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>make a guess</li>
<li>then try an experiment</li>
<li>example: Kaleidoscope 2
<ul>
<li>developer tool segment: avg price $30.11</li>
<li>other apps $70-100</li>
<li>app is useful but not crucial</li>
<li>lots of alternatives</li>
<li>guessed $34.99 intro and $69.99 ongoing</li>
<li><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hQ78oNzbCJM/UTe-tFysaCI/AAAAAAAAAZA/P9zor1Kb9rE/s1600/kaleidoscope+sales.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hQ78oNzbCJM/UTe-tFysaCI/AAAAAAAAAZA/P9zor1Kb9rE/s320/kaleidoscope+sales.jpg" /></a></li>
<li>got various peak sales that affected average
<ul>
<li>great for recouping costs, but not for calculating ongoing revenue</li>
</ul></li>
<li>evaluation:
<ul>
<li>elasticity = % change price / % change in quantity</li>
<li>with a couple of price changes, you can work out the ratio</li>
<li>then apply to price changes to predict quantities and therefore revenue</li>
<li>(real world demand curves aren’t linear, so elasticities aren’t actually constant)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="talkingtohardware">Talking to Hardware</h3>
<p><em>Alasdair Allan</em>, Babilim Light Industries <a href="http://twitter.com/aallan">@aallan</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Apple’s External Accessory Framework is missing most of the useful stuff
<ul>
<li>rest is protected by Made for iPhone program</li>
<li>which is protected by massive ranks of lawyers</li>
<li>because Apple want to protect their platform</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="crazystuff">crazy stuff</h4>
<ul>
<li>jailbreaking
<ul>
<li>average time between a jailbreak release and Apple shutting the hole is about 7 days…</li>
<li>can’t release an app to the store</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MIDI
<ul>
<li>iPad camera connection kit supports MIDI</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/bjepson/iPad-MIDI-Simple-Demo">https://github.com/bjepson/iPad-MIDI-Simple-Demo</a></li>
<li>can subvert MIDI to support serial, but it’s horrible</li>
</ul></li>
<li>simulate capacitance touch using a piece of foil stuck to the screen
<ul>
<li>it looks nuts when you experiment</li>
<li>but <a href="http://misfitwearables.com">http://misfitwearables.com</a> does exactly that to sync its data</li>
</ul></li>
<li>PeerTalk: using the USB sync cable
<ul>
<li>uses TCP sockets</li>
<li>same protocol as iTunes and Xcode</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="lesscrazystuff">less crazy stuff</h4>
<ul>
<li>wifi is possible, but getting setting up is a pain
<ul>
<li>and there’s lots of support issues for different network situations…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>acoustic coupling via the headphone jack
<ul>
<li>Square does this for a card reader</li>
<li>can even use the audio to provide 7.4mW of power (see Hijack board)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Redpark cable
<ul>
<li>dock connector to RS-232</li>
<li>comes with an SDK</li>
<li>but won’t let you put apps in the store — have to approve the app <em>and</em> the hardware
<ul>
<li>you can approach Redpark and ask <em>them</em> to request approval</li>
<li>a lot less expensive than going through MFi program</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>XBee & Zigbee (802.15.4)
<ul>
<li>mesh networking for low data rates</li>
<li>dock connector to XBee adapter soon available from redpark</li>
</ul></li>
<li>bluetooth 4 (low energy)
<ul>
<li>can run for months with bluetooth active powered by a coin cell</li>
<li>introduced with the iPhone 4S</li>
<li>lots of boards available with Android & iOS SDKs</li>
<li>e.g. red bear labs</li>
<li>use CoreBluetooth plus board’s SDK</li>
<li>easy integration:
<ul>
<li>Alasdair did a live demo in just a few minutes</li>
<li>connected to arduino over Bluetooth 4 from iPhone and toggled an LED</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="touchdb">TouchDB</h3>
<p><em>Matias Piipari</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/ms2">@ms2</a></p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/couchbase/couchbase-lite-ios">https://github.com/couchbase/couchbase-lite-ios</a></p>
<ul>
<li>CouchDB has been renamed as CouchBase Lite</li>
<li>TouchDB is document db with CouchDB-like API
<ul>
<li>but uses SQLite under the hood</li>
</ul></li>
<li>sync & share with CouchDB (or TouchDB)</li>
<li>concurrency controlled like git
<ul>
<li>when you’re saving you have to be up to date first</li>
</ul></li>
<li>lightweight
<ul>
<li>< 500Kb in app binary</li>
<li>0.1s startup</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Document <=> Model, with versions
<ul>
<li>can also contain attachments</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use Views to define queries by property</li>
<li>once you’ve configured the replication it will keep going
<ul>
<li>don’t need to worry about network availability</li>
<li>do need to think about conflicts</li>
<li>do need to think about concurrency with data changes (get notifications on changes)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can create push and pull separately and to/from different destinations
<ul>
<li>e.g. combine pull from bundled with pull from remote</li>
</ul></li>
<li>sync handles https with basic auth or OAuth</li>
<li>can combine db from iCloud/Dropbox with TouchDB</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="stepawayfromthescreen">Step away from the screen</h3>
<p><em>Nathan Error</em>, Empirical Development <a href="http://twitter.com/neror">@neror</a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:nathan@empiricaldevelopment.com">nathan@empiricaldevelopment.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>your body is a tool too: improve your coding by improving your body’s effectiveness
<ul>
<li>exercise, diet & sleep…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>scientometrics
<ul>
<li>measuring rate of change in science</li>
<li>rate of output increases by 7% each year</li>
<li>output doubles every 10-15 years</li>
<li>so whatever we think now will probably change several times over the next 10-15 years</li>
</ul></li>
<li>maybe start looking at meat more as a side dish rather than a main</li>
<li>recent research has linked high intensity aerobic exercise to increased brain performance</li>
<li>missing one hour of sleep for a week is equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.2%</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="subscriptionpricing">Subscription pricing</h3>
<p><em>Manton Reece</em> @manton on ADN</p>
<p><a href="mailto:manton@manton.org">manton@manton.org</a></p>
<ul>
<li>in 1999 working on a Mac app that cost $199
<ul>
<li>actually considered pretty cheap for the time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>benefits of subscriptions
<ul>
<li>happy customers:
<ul>
<li>unhappy customers can cancel at any time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>automatic paid upgrades
<ul>
<li>everyone is on the latest version</li>
<li>paying for the service</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>to justify subscription, app and service need to be one</li>
<li>examples:
<ul>
<li>adobe: switching to creative cloud monthly subscription</li>
<li>microsoft: office is now $9.99/month (or $99.99/year)</li>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/Rb9">billings pro</a>:
<ul>
<li>free for 1 invoice/month</li>
<li>5 invoices/month = $10</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>focus on the consistent predictable part of the graph rather than the spikes
<ul>
<li>even if you don’t make more sales, the revenue is consistent</li>
</ul></li>
<li>billing periods
<ul>
<li>payment percentages affect revenues: charging less often means less percentages to payment provider</li>
<li>Manton found that 57% of customers preferred yearly billing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>hosting costs
<ul>
<li>use Amazon reserved instances if you’re committing to a year (saves money)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Stripe is leaps and bounds better than paypal…
<ul>
<li>but only available in US and Canada</li>
<li>beta coming to the UK this week!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Apple in-app purchase types:
<ul>
<li>non-renewing subscriptions: cancel is the default — will probably lose a lot of people</li>
<li>auto-renewable subscriptions: better, but more restrictions on review — including privacy policy & description
<ul>
<li>Apple are very cautious about letting non-magazine apps do this</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="thesimpleandintuitivefallacy">The “Simple And Intuitive” Fallacy</h3>
<p><em>Why we need standards for complex UX, too</em></p>
<p><em>Joerg Schweider</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/cooliopenguin">@cooliopenguin</a></p>
<p><a href="http://penguinlovesmusic.com">iPeng</a></p>
<ul>
<li>iPhones & iPads are not just accessory devices — they are becoming the main device in a lot of cases</li>
<li>apps need to be feature complete</li>
<li>if you simplify and cut out features then a lot of users will be left out in the cold</li>
<li>what makes a more intuitive UI?
<ul>
<li>can’t always find out by getting people to compare UIs</li>
<li>they will rate familiar schemes higher</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="beingnaive">Being Naive</h3>
<p><em>Rob Rhyne</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/capttaco">@capttaco</a> <a href="http://martiancraft.com/">http://martiancraft.com/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>“just build something so I can show it to the client”</li>
<li>users don’t care about engineering</li>
<li>iterate and test</li>
<li>at martiancraft, within three weeks of a new project you’re going to see something
<ul>
<li>it won’t be finished, but you can play with it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>brent simmons: <a href="http://inessential.com/2009/07/30/anatomy_of_a_feature">anatomy of a feature</a>
<ul>
<li>the feature is the smallest part</li>
<li>it’s all the edge cases and polish that take the time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>the <em>naive</em> implementation
<ul>
<li>demonstrates the feature</li>
<li>most obvious solution</li>
<li>takes the least amount of time to develop</li>
</ul></li>
<li>example: histogram of live video
<ul>
<li>can use <a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Accelerate/Reference/vDSPRef/Reference/reference.html">Accelerate framework</a> to get histogram data from an image buffer</li>
<li>what about drawing the graph?
<ul>
<li>3rd party charting lib: not obvious; little work; may demo but might not animate</li>
<li>OpenGL vertex buffer: not obvious; lots of work; will demo</li>
<li>CoreAnimation: obvious (when experienced!); little work; will demo</li>
</ul></li>
<li>used CAShapeLayer
<ul>
<li>had used previously in <a href="http://georiot.co/1l3f">Minds of Modern Mathematics</a></li>
<li>14,000 pixel wide scroll view on an original iPad</li>
<li>can set up style once and draw separately</li>
<li>path was animatable property</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://giveabrief.com">http://giveabrief.com</a>
<ul>
<li>codeless prototypes</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="workingonsketch">Working on Sketch</h3>
<p><em>Pieter Omvlee</em>, Bohemian Coding</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.bohemiancoding.com/sketch/">Sketch</a>: vector art app</li>
<li>have to persuade users to try us rather than Adobe</li>
<li>don’t want a public feature list with voting
<ul>
<li>sets unrealistic expectations</li>
<li>there will always be business goals or technical issues that mean that highly requested features remain unfixed at the top</li>
</ul></li>
<li>listen to your customers, but only to a certain degree
<ul>
<li>sketch run a <a href="http://bohemian-coding.tenderapp.com/">tenderapp discussion board</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>started giving away beta versions of app
<ul>
<li>got lots of testers & feedback</li>
<li>keep the fans happy</li>
<li>they’re very vocal and will do marketing on your behalf</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t leave refactoring until the next big update
<ul>
<li>you’ll want to focus on new visible features to justify the upgrade price</li>
<li>customers don’t care about engineering</li>
</ul></li>
<li>be practical with your time
<ul>
<li>don’t spend time on rewriting git history</li>
<li>focus on pricing, attracting the right customers, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>put in crash reporting early</li>
<li>videos are excellent promotion & support
<ul>
<li>they take time and lots of takes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>try and keep in contact with your customers
<ul>
<li>Apple gives you no way of getting in touch with App Store customers</li>
<li>but you could ask for details within the app</li>
<li>if no newsletter, then Change Logs are your only communication medium</li>
<li>“bug fixes” is a waste of an opportunity</li>
</ul></li>
<li>try and contact bad reviewers</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="introducingcorevalues">Introducing CoreValues</h3>
<p><em>Scott Morrison</em> (Chief Cook & Bottle Washer), Indev Software <a href="http://twitter.com/smorr">@smorr</a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:smorr@indev.ca">smorr@indev.ca</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Indie developer, less Independent, more Individual</li>
<li>but not just single person</li>
<li>instead individuality & personal
<ul>
<li>personal investment, principles, impact, payoff & risk</li>
</ul></li>
<li>personal & professional roles are mixed</li>
<li>indie company has the heart of the indie developer</li>
<li>values are important and define you
<ul>
<li>but sometimes not thought through</li>
<li>can lead to inefficient decisions</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Edward de Bono: if you want an out of the box solution, get out of the box first
<ul>
<li>PO statement — an unconventional (silly) idea used to generate ideas</li>
</ul></li>
<li>introducing CoreValues: an objective-c framework for describing and defining personal and professional values…</li>
<li>interfaces:
<ul>
<li>personal ≠ private</li>
<li>professional ≠ public</li>
</ul></li>
<li><em>(there was much more in this vein: thought-provoking metaphors, but I didn’t write them down)</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="slightlyunsupportedfindercodeinjection">Slightly Unsupported — Finder Code Injection</h3>
<p><em>Steve Flack</em>, Bromium UK</p>
<ul>
<li>wanted to add icon badges & contextual menus
<ul>
<li>not based on file type</li>
<li>animated</li>
</ul></li>
<li>used class-dump, x86 disassembler plus lots of trial & error</li>
<li>inject code with <a href="https://github.com/rentzsch/mach_inject">mach_inject</a></li>
<li>Finder has four methods to swizzle for icon badging
<ul>
<li>one for each view (desktop is fourth)</li>
<li>talk gave code specifics for each</li>
</ul></li>
<li>only two methods to swizzle for contextual menus
<ul>
<li>desktop & grid view share</li>
<li>again, talk gave specifics</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="theriseandfallofamobilestartup">The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Startup</h3>
<p><em>Emily Toop</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/fluffyemily">@fluffyemily</a></p>
<p><a href="mailto:emily@emilytoop.com">emily@emilytoop.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tinyearstech.com/">Tiny Ears</a> 2011-2012
<ul>
<li>app to teach reading to 4-6 year-old children using speech recognition </li>
</ul></li>
<li>Emily and her partner Ian both got startups accepted to Start-Up Chile</li>
<li>had to get speech recognition
<ul>
<li>Google Voice API was best accuracy by far</li>
<li>PocketSphinx with OpenEars was only option with no network</li>
<li>but all were bad for children</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can improve recognition with a better model
<ul>
<li>20 hours to customise a model</li>
<li>no existing models for children</li>
<li>20,000 hours to create a new model!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Startup Weekend
<ul>
<li>pitch your product</li>
<li>then recruit audience to work on it for 48hrs</li>
<li>make an MVP</li>
<li>really useful</li>
</ul></li>
<li>talk about your product
<ul>
<li>to everyone</li>
<li>until you bore everyone</li>
<li>even yourself…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>used <a href="http://www.modejong.com/AVAnimator/">AVAnimator</a> to play movies with alpha channels</li>
<li>…but speech recognition model would cost $100,000 and take 18 months</li>
<li>then animators didn’t want to continue without speech recognition</li>
<li>make your partnerships sound!</li>
<li>don’t go alone
<ul>
<li>guides recommend that you have a hacker <em>and</em> a hustler</li>
</ul></li>
<li>mothballed Tiny Ears</li>
<li>joined another startup to learn how startups work</li>
<li>getting more involved in education
<ul>
<li>joined Code Club</li>
<li>applying to be a reading assistant</li>
</ul></li>
<li>approached by <a href="http://www.dreamthinkspeak.com/">dreamthinkspeak</a> to help with their “large-scale, site-responsive theatre production inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci, The Book of Revelations and the world of Mechatronics”
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.dreamthinkspeak.com/in-the-beginning-was-the-end.htm">go see them</a> while they’re still in London (until March 30th at Somerset House)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>nothing you learn is ever wasted</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/ZogaDOYumCQ" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2013/03/nsconference-5-day-two.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-30556207101958807422013-03-04T21:51:00.000Z2013-03-06T22:31:15.580Z2013-03-06T22:31:15.580ZNSConference 5: Day One<p>This was my first NSConference and I was impressed. Three days of full-on sessions covering everything from deep technical gotchas, through brutally honest experience reports and even across to basic economics lessons. And the people… I’ve never met so many iOS and Mac developers in one room. Everywhere I turned, there was a developer of an app that I’ve used or know about and admire.</p>
<p>Thank you so much to Scotty and the team. Everything (apart from the wi-fi!) went swimmingly!</p>
<h3 id="iosperformancetesting">iOS performance testing</h3>
<p><em>Bill Dudney</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/bdudney">@bdudney</a> <a href="mailto:bdudney@me.com">bdudney@me.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Double check performance even when you think you’re doing it right</li>
<li>Watchdog gives you lots of time but user expectation is instantaneous</li>
<li>You can use more time on suspend… but don’t go outside watchdog times otherwise app will have to start from scratch</li>
<li>Use Time Profiler to check CPU usage on startup</li>
<li>VM tracker tells you how much memory is dirty - most crashes come from here
<ul>
<li>Allocations can be low but dirty memory still high</li>
<li>e.g. Image allocations</li>
<li>Memory gets dirty as soon as you write to it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ARC deals with most of issues for you but won’t deal with cycles
<ul>
<li>Can see in leaks</li>
<li>Deal with by using weak references</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Graphics
<ul>
<li>Quartz all happens on CPU</li>
<li>OpenGL happens on GPU</li>
<li>Separate processor - more power</li>
<li>CoreAnimation gives you access without writing raw OpenGL</li>
<li>It’s a compositing engine</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Offscreen rendering can take up lots of time
<ul>
<li>Check offscreen rendering highlight in instruments</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="searchingforspeedysearching">searching for speedy searching</h3>
<p><em>Simon Wolf</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/sgaw">@sgaw</a> or @sw on ADN</p>
<ul>
<li>WWDC 2010 mastering CoreData suggests <code>title contains[dc] $content</code></li>
<li>Can use <code>beginswith</code> to improve speed</li>
<li>Even faster use <code>>= 'frog' and < 'froh'</code></li>
<li>But doesn’t work for in-word searching</li>
<li>SQLite with full text search FTS (or FTS3, older)</li>
<li>Have to build own version of SQLite and include in your app</li>
<li>And then can’t use with CoreData</li>
<li>Use <a href="https://github.com/ccgus/fmdb">FMDatabase & FMDatabaseQueue</a> to behave better with threads</li>
<li>Use SQLite with FTS to create an index that refers to the Managed Object ID</li>
<li><code>otsNormalizeString</code> string category to remove diacritics (in blog post)</li>
<li>FTS search is word based, * is wildcard</li>
<li>Can also define “nearness” of terms</li>
<li>Need to keep index in sync with CoreData</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="theultimatedevelopertoolchain">The ultimate developer toolchain</h3>
<p><em>Richard Morton</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/richardmorton">@richardmorton</a></p>
<ul>
<li>“if you have a machine and don’t buy it, you will ultimately find you have paid for a machine and don’t have it” — Henry Ford
<ul>
<li>buy a decent developer machine!</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://www.empiricalmagic.com/post/42573383913/ios-support-matrix-v2-1-version-2-1-minor">iOS Support Matrix</a> gives you a good way to find which test devices you need
<ul>
<li>see <a href="http://twitter.com/isupportmatrix">@isupportmatrix</a></li>
<li>written by Richard Stelling <a href="http://twitter.com/rjstelling">@rjstelling</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Injection for Xcode: restores “Fix & Continue”
<ul>
<li>uses bundles & method swizzling</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Xcoverage
<ul>
<li>LLVM provides build coverage</li>
<li>instrument program flow & generate test coverage files</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Mogenerator</li>
<li>AppCode by JetBrains
<ul>
<li>would still do bulk of dev in Xcode but boot up AppCode to use refactoring & other unique features</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Jenkins</li>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/d3s">PaintCode</a></li>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/3Afc">xScope</a></li>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/aYY">ResourceHelper</a>
<ul>
<li>extra QA for assets</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whymaking12gamesin12monthsisagoodidea">Why making 12 Games in 12 months is a good idea</h3>
<p><em>Matthijs Hollemans</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/mhollemans">@mhollemans</a></p>
<ul>
<li>lots of game jams around
<ul>
<li>including #OneGameAMonth</li>
<li><a href="http://compohub.net">http://compohub.net</a> lists them all</li>
</ul></li>
<li>why?</li>
<li>experimentation & innovation</li>
<li>learning how to finish
<ul>
<li>often there’s a long hard grind to finish</li>
</ul></li>
<li>learn to limit your scope
<ul>
<li>one single thing</li>
<li>take idea and strip it to the core</li>
</ul></li>
<li>putting constraints on what you’re doing enhances your creativity</li>
<li>also get experience in failing to finish games
<ul>
<li>good to find a way to fail faster!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="uiss-uiappearanceonsteroids">UISS - UIAppearance on Steroids</h3>
<p><em>Robert Wijas</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/robertwijas">@robertwijas</a></p>
<ul>
<li>UISS available on <a href="https://github.com/robertwijas/UISS">github</a> & CocoaPods</li>
<li><code>UIAppearance</code> & <code>UIAppearanceContainer</code> lets you set appearance defaults application-wide</li>
<li>but need lots of code to do anything…</li>
<li>UISS uses JSON syntax, similar to CSS</li>
<li>lets you set styles for inner elements</li>
<li>and also styles per device type (iPhone/iPad)</li>
<li>lets you define variables</li>
<li>easily disable bits by prefixing selector with “-“</li>
<li>setup:
<ul>
<li><code>[UISSS configureWithDefaultJSONFile];</code></li>
<li>add <code>uiss.json</code> file</li>
</ul></li>
<li>debug: UISS status bar
<ul>
<li>tapping status bar shows errors in uiss.json</li>
</ul></li>
<li>works with live updates in uiss :-)
<ul>
<li>just make uiss.json available via HTTP</li>
<li><code>[UISS configureWithURL:url]</code></li>
<li>let’s you build the app and give it to your designer to adjust, even without Xcode</li>
<li>debug option lets you adjust URL</li>
</ul></li>
<li>generates UIAppearance code for you
<ul>
<li>you’ll want to do that before you create production code</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can use UIProxy to control your own custom views with UIAppearance
<ul>
<li>also allows you to adjust them with UISS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>other systems doing same thing:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/tombenner/nui">NUI</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pixate.com/">pixate</a></li>
<li>both use traditional CSS - so heavier dependencies</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="becomingaproductcompany">Becoming a product company</h3>
<p><em>Daniel Pasco</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/dlpasco">@dlpasco</a> <a href="mailto:daniel@blackpixel.com">daniel@blackpixel.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>started in 2007 as contracting but aimed from the beginning to be a product company</li>
<li>6 people for 3 years, then doubled in size for 3 years</li>
<li>operate as a remote company, HQ in Seattle, but spread over US, with a couple in France</li>
<li>have shipped hundreds of apps, but all for other people
<ul>
<li>have a reputation for confidentiality</li>
<li>so can’t tell anyone about them…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>there’s an opportunity cost to do product development
<ul>
<li>in the presence of lucrative contracts, you take a risk and turn away money</li>
</ul></li>
<li>however, you get stability
<ul>
<li>find that contract work is busy Feb to July</li>
<li>occasional spike in November preparing apps for Xmas</li>
</ul></li>
<li>did client work until they had enough money
<ul>
<li>then did some product work until money ran out</li>
<li>then swapped back to contract</li>
<li>big gaps between product dev</li>
<li>when went back to code, there were lots of changes to make with all the new knowledge…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>initial product was <a href="http://georiot.co/3M6C">Bistromath</a>
<ul>
<li>massively over-engineered…</li>
<li>developed in a vacuum</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need to share app with people who know <em>nothing</em> about how the app works
<ul>
<li>tester should not share any of your assumptions</li>
</ul></li>
<li>life after being featured…
<ul>
<li>intense — but treat it as a bonus</li>
<li>people need to be aware of the app outside of the app store</li>
</ul></li>
<li>painful first product experience made them very gunshy</li>
<li>learnings:
<ul>
<li>vet your ideas early on</li>
<li>get feedback on betas</li>
<li>no excitement? that’s an issue</li>
<li>if someone wants to extrapolate — that’s great! but leave those additional features for later</li>
<li>have a sustainable dev plan — through to the product release</li>
<li>check out marketing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>changed business model:
<ul>
<li>grew contracting team so could subsidise continuous product team</li>
<li>could keep momentum going</li>
</ul></li>
<li>got the chance to acquire three products from other developers (<a href="http://netnewswireapp.com/">NetNewsWire</a>, <a href="http://georiot.co/457o">Kaleidoscope</a>, <a href="http://versionsapp.com/">Versions</a>)
<ul>
<li>existing userbase</li>
<li>well-known brands</li>
</ul></li>
<li>products acquired through revenue-share
<ul>
<li>no money up front</li>
<li>revenue share decreases as time goes on</li>
</ul></li>
<li>wanted to share info & blog monthly, but…
<ul>
<li>have competitors: don’t want to reveal feature roadmap</li>
<li>no one knows if you miss a deadline: would have announced and missed three times!</li>
<li>no one knows if you drop a feature you promised</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Apple will not let you transfer an app between accounts
<ul>
<li>unless you get the keys to the old account, customers will have to buy the app over again…</li>
<li>trying out introductory pricing on upgrades to help people recover their losses</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iCloud sync issues with NetNewsWire
<ul>
<li>iCloud/Core Data: still unusable…
<ul>
<li>opening the iCloud container can take up to 25 minutes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iCloud/Key Value Store: works fine</li>
<li>iCloud/Ubiquitous Documents: has issues</li>
</ul></li>
<li>got creative tensions from people caring so much about their own products</li>
<li>changed aim to be frequent, shorter, release cycles</li>
<li>got lost with features — endless ticket list
<ul>
<li>@jury drew a line in the sand: ship by this date</li>
<li>focus accordingly</li>
<li>the plan:
<ul>
<li>4 weeks for feature complete</li>
<li>then 4 weeks for no P3 bugs (fix or defer)</li>
<li>then 2 weeks for no P2s</li>
<li>then 1 week for no P1 bugs</li>
</ul></li>
<li>there will always be another release
<ul>
<li>if that isn’t built into your plan — change your plan!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>it’s ok to ship with bugs, as long as they’re not blockers</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="softwarearchitecture:whatquestionstoask">Software Architecture: what questions to ask?</h3>
<p><em>Jacob Gorban</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/apparentsoft">@apparentsoft</a></p>
<p>A short list of questions to ask when adding a new feature to your project:</p>
<ul>
<li>good ideas are insidious: they increase scope
<ul>
<li>must definitely be worth adding…</li>
<li>here are some questions to think about before adding a new one to your project</li>
</ul></li>
<li>is it really a good idea?
<ul>
<li>is it good for your business?</li>
<li>it it good for your app in the long run</li>
</ul></li>
<li>is it DRY?</li>
<li>is it orthogonal?
<ul>
<li>good to have smaller pieces joined than one big piece</li>
</ul></li>
<li>is it testable?</li>
<li>is there another way?
<ul>
<li>when you see a good move, look for a better one — Emanuel Lasker</li>
</ul></li>
<li>what is the cost of changing this later?</li>
<li>what would the architecture look like if I didn’t have this problem?
<ul>
<li>is this problem framed properly for my app?</li>
<li>perhaps we can change the problem…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>document the rationale
<ul>
<li>not just for later — helps you understand the problem</li>
<li><em>could also discuss with others</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>what are the facts and assumptions?</li>
</ul>
<p>Download from <a href="http://bit.ly/software_architecture_tips_pdf">http://bit.ly/software_architecture_tips_pdf</a></p>
<h3 id="webkituiinspectortipsandtricks">WebKit UI Inspector Tips and Tricks</h3>
<p><em>Daniel Jalkut</em>, Red Sweater Software <a href="http://twitter.com/danielpunkass">@danielpunkass</a></p>
<ul>
<li>use webkit inspector to fix a page for printing</li>
<li>prototype app store previews</li>
<li>can set inspector on in your own (Mac) app:
<ul>
<li>just add <code>-WebkitDeveloperExtras YES</code> argument</li>
<li>can add same preference on other apps</li>
<li><code>defaults write <bundle-id> WebkitDeveloperExtras -bool YES</code></li>
<li>or globally: <code>defaults write -g WebkitDeveloperExtras -bool YES</code></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Dictionary app uses a WebView… so you can inspect it!</li>
<li>preference key doesn’t guarantee that the “Inspect Element” menu item will be available</li>
<li>Mail.app is a very good robust HTML editor using a WebView but it overrides the contextual menu</li>
<li>for <em>any</em> process (even one that has custom contextual menu):
<ul>
<li>attach to target</li>
<li>break on [NSView menuForEvent:]
<ul>
<li>lldb: <code>break set -r menuForEvent</code></li>
</ul></li>
<li>ctrl-click in the suspected WebView</li>
<li>run code: <code>[[[$rdi _webView] inspector] show:0];</code>
<ul>
<li>event target is in $rdi</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>iOS webkit inspector can inspect Safari or any UIWebView in an app that you own</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="theinvisibleinterfaceaddingofflinespeechuitoyourapp">The Invisible Interface — Adding offline speech UI to your app</h3>
<p><em>Halle Winkler</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/politepix">@politepix</a> <a href="http://politepix.com">http://politepix.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>large vocabulary tasks
<ul>
<li>use server-based speech recognition</li>
<li>UITextView, Nuance, AT&T, iSpeech</li>
</ul></li>
<li>command and control
<ul>
<li>can use offline speech recognition</li>
<li>e.g. <a href="http://www.politepix.com/openears/">OpenEars</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>speech API dimension is time
<ul>
<li>make time, rather than just take time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>small steps through decision tree, means small steps backwards
<ul>
<li>trust & quickly verify</li>
<li>switch between small vocabularies</li>
</ul></li>
<li>watch out for “out of vocabulary”
<ul>
<li>what happens when people walk past talking loudly…?</li>
<li>it’s a solved problem in speech recognition, but deciding what to do is a design issue</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?a=D2S-E47V6w0:j8_O13vthdk:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?a=D2S-E47V6w0:j8_O13vthdk:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?i=D2S-E47V6w0:j8_O13vthdk:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?a=D2S-E47V6w0:j8_O13vthdk:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/AdamCohenRose?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/D2S-E47V6w0" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2013/03/nsconference-5-day-one.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-47973841623248375992013-01-24T11:45:00.000Z2013-01-24T11:45:16.223Z2013-01-24T11:45:16.223ZMomoLondon: Demo Night 2013<p>Another fun demo night from Mobile Monday London. Some new ideas and some old — you never know which ones are going to stick!</p>
<p>My bets are on Vyclone and Critical Arc…</p>
<h3 id="bluebadgestyle">Blue Badge Style</h3>
<p><em>Fiona Jarvis & Kishan Gupta</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/bluebadgestyle">@bluebadgestyle</a></p>
<ul>
<li>a guide for the discerning less able</li>
<li>app available for iOS: <a href="http://georiot.co/2nvN">Blue Badge Style</a></li>
<li>graduated from the <a href="http://themobileacademy.org.uk/">Mobile Monday & UCL Mobile Academy</a>
<ul>
<li>(<em>it’s really great! sign up now! :-)</em>)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>social media advisor suggested:
<ul>
<li>video of app to attract people to download</li>
<li>RSS feed in app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>added TTS (but not voiceover?)</li>
<li>got 1000 downloads in Nov (PR & press) + 300/month afterwards</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="bosslevel-scavengers">Boss Level - Scavengers</h3>
<p>Nick Brown <a href="http://twitter.com/boss_level">@boss_level</a></p>
<p><a href="http://playscavengers.com">http://playscavengers.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>game based solely in HTML5</li>
<li>aimed at PC, mobiles, tablets & smart TVs</li>
<li>want same control system across everything
<ul>
<li>up down left right & select - lowest common denominator</li>
<li>fixed 720x720 resolution at the moment (will need to change for different devices)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>closed alpha at the moment</li>
<li>aiming for Kickstarter to raise profile</li>
<li>cross between xcom & worms</li>
<li>freemium business model with in-game purchases</li>
<li>also thinking about a store for game assets
<ul>
<li>there’s a game editor that allows you to completely customise levels and characters</li>
</ul></li>
<li>would rather not have in-game adverts, but depends on the eyeballs</li>
<li>currently two developers</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="connecthings">Connecthings</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.connecthings.com/">http://www.connecthings.com/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>NFC tags for street furniture</li>
<li>1500 tags displayed in Strasbourg</li>
<li>real-time transport info</li>
<li>integrated with cycle info too</li>
<li>also has event & POI database</li>
<li>POI tags show POI info first, transport tags show transport info first</li>
<li>tags have QR codes too</li>
<li>license the platform to municipalities
<ul>
<li><em>though not sure how well it would go down with councils that already have their own portals….</em></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="criticalarc">Critical Arc</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.criticalarc.com/">http://www.criticalarc.com/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>previous company led security & surveillance for Olympics</li>
<li>security & safety in large open spaces
<ul>
<li>e.g. universities</li>
</ul></li>
<li>define SafeZones where there is a response team available</li>
<li>security team have an app to see a situational view of the campus</li>
<li>free app to call for help & get notified</li>
<li>have created a platform for sharing location and situational information</li>
<li>universities are first market</li>
<li>no tracking in the background for general public</li>
<li>security officers are tracked in the background</li>
<li>Wi-Fi positioning covers off GPS issues</li>
<li>can report on security staff location — heatmaps etc, can be used to actively plan response</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="decibelanalytics">Decibel Analytics</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.decibeltechnology.com/analytics/">http://www.decibeltechnology.com/analytics/</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/decibelanalytic">@decibelanalytic</a></p>
<ul>
<li>actionable analytics</li>
<li>object maps, which integrate with elements on page, to show which are actually being clicked</li>
<li>attention maps — shows which areas of page are actually viewed
<ul>
<li>i.e. where is the fold for all your customers…?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>which content is contributing most to goals & revenue generation</li>
<li>can filter by device and by incoming source</li>
<li>adding A/B testing soon</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="mensfitnessukipadapp">Men’s Fitness UK iPad app</h3>
<p>Paul Cooper, Design Director, Dennis Publishing <a href="http://twitter.com/dmfcoops">@dmfcoops</a></p>
<p>iPad app: <a href="http://georiot.co/2sud">Men’s Fitness UK</a></p>
<ul>
<li>COPE — create once, publish everywhere
<ul>
<li><a href="http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/10/13/cope-create-once-publish-everywhere/">started by NPR</a> in the US</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Drupal CMS with responsive design & native elements</li>
<li>started with <a href="http://georiot.co/3Mku">The Week</a> (iPhone & iPad)
<ul>
<li>takes one person one day to lay out</li>
<li>less than 100Mb an issue</li>
</ul></li>
<li>now done a monthly magazine — more content</li>
<li>Drupal 7 & responsive is a complex thing</li>
<li><a href="http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/digital-publishing-suite-family.html">Adobe DPS</a> takes over a week to lay out an issue of EVO</li>
<li>content producers (photogs etc) struggled a little with responsive design, but get training</li>
<li>can preview the issue before generating the app</li>
<li>looking at licensing the system to other parties</li>
<li>developing a system like InDesign that outputs responsive HTML</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="goenterprise">GO!Enterprise</h3>
<p>Globo plc - Enterprise Mobility in a BYOD world</p>
<p><a href="http://goenterpriseserver.com">http://goenterpriseserver.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>deploy access to back office systems in a secure manner</li>
<li>no need for mobile device managment</li>
<li>client app available from standard app stores
<ul>
<li><a href="http://georiot.co/1LEs">GO!Enterprise for iOS</a></li>
<li><a href="http://quickr.es/goenterprise">GO!Enterprise for Android</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>three products:
<ul>
<li>office — point and go</li>
<li>mobilizer — development for custom enterprise apps (cross-platform)</li>
<li>reach — make apps for customers</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="trademob-mobileclickfraudprotection">Trademob - mobile click fraud protection</h3>
<p><em>Adrienne Gauldie</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/adriennegauldie">@adriennegauldie</a> (<a href="mailto:ag@trademob.com">ag@trademob.com</a>)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.trademob.com/">http://www.trademob.com/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>did a study in june (6m clicks)
<ul>
<li>22% accidental (< 0.1%)</li>
<li>10% botnet & hijacked clients</li>
<li>8% server-side fraud</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can see it from data…
<ul>
<li>e.g. in-app clicks from non-mobile user agents</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t get fraudulent clicks from publishers with real customers</li>
<li>building a blacklist of dodgy publishers</li>
<li>100 people in company</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="vyclone">Vyclone</h3>
<p><a href="http://vyclone.com/">http://vyclone.com/</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/vyclone">@vyclone</a></p>
<p><a href="http://georiot.co/3FaO">Download the app for iPhone</a></p>
<ul>
<li>wouldn’t it be amazing if we could make a single video from all the angles at a rock concert…?</li>
<li>combine multiple vids in one
<ul>
<li>had 200 people filming a Jason Mraz concert</li>
<li>150 people at Ed Sheeran in Hammersmith Apollo</li>
</ul></li>
<li>business model:
<ul>
<li>lots of interest from music industry</li>
<li>want to get footage and release it to fans for behind the scenes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>copyright: music industry recognise that this is already happening
<ul>
<li>now they get access to video, so a win-win</li>
<li>customers can choose to keep video private, or share with everyone</li>
</ul></li>
<li>app is winning lots of awards!</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="audiosnaps">AudioSnaps</h3>
<p><em>Marc Sallent, We Choose Fun</em></p>
<p><a href="http://audiosnaps.com">http://audiosnaps.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>record 5 secs of ambient sound while taking a picture</li>
<li>JPEG + MP3 = JPEG! (plus extensions)
<ul>
<li>all devices can still show it</li>
<li>web site can play audio with just one line of javascript</li>
</ul></li>
<li>why not just take a short video?
<ul>
<li>want to capture a moment, not tell a story</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="chirp">Chirp</h3>
<p><em>Geraint, Animal Systems</em></p>
<p><a href="http://chirp.io">http://chirp.io</a></p>
<p><a href="http://georiot.co/3QB">Download the app for iPhone</a></p>
<ul>
<li>send small amounts of data using sound</li>
<li>want to release an API for third parties</li>
<li>have an arduino that can chirp</li>
<li>teach the machines to sing!</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="catch-upwithlastyearsdemos">Catch-up with last year’s demos</h3>
<p>Two of last year’s Demo Night presenters returned to give us an update. See <a href="http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/04/momolondon-demo-night-2012.html">my notes from last year</a>.</p>
<h4 id="ko-su">Ko-Su</h4>
<p><a href="http://ko-su.com">http://ko-su.com</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/kosumobile">@kosumobile</a></p>
<p>mobile learning for everyone</p>
<ul>
<li>demoed last year, one month pre-release</li>
<li>been accepted into <a href="http://www.bbcworldwide.com/digital/labs.aspx">BBC Worldwide Labs</a></li>
<li>material created in lots of countries around the world</li>
<li>now “officially out of pre-revenue” <em>(?)</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="six-three">Six-Three</h4>
<p><a href="https://six3.tv/">https://six3.tv/</a></p>
<p><em>Simon Frost</em>, CTO <a href="http://twitter.com/spli">@spli</a></p>
<ul>
<li>started out as a private closed network — a messaging thing</li>
<li>sports stars started using it to keep in touch with their public, but also to communicate with their private street marketing teams</li>
<li>made it onto <a href="http://wayra.org/en">WAYRA Telefonica business incubator</a></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/l1lFqZ9VlhI" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2013/01/momolondon-demo-night-2013.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-28278608246293287122012-11-19T21:17:00.000Z2013-01-23T21:21:38.342Z2013-01-23T21:21:38.342ZHandheld Conference 2012<p><img id="handheldconference2012" src="http://www.handheldconf.com/img/handheld6.png" alt="Handheld Conference 2012" width="100%" style="border: 0; padding: 0;" /></p>
<p>This is a new conference, organised by <a href="http://www.craiglockwood.co.uk/">Craig Lockwood</a> around lots of intersecting areas of mobile design and development.</p>
<p>This year it was held in the beautiful St David’s Hotel, overlooking Cardiff Bay. The conference centre was a bit cramped, but the hotel itself was lovely.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcohenrose/8201133954/" title="handheld conference by adamcohenrose, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8201133954_e93d6c443d_z.jpg" width="100%" alt="handheld conference"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcohenrose/8201129314/" title="cardiff bay panorama by adamcohenrose, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8485/8201129314_4ab187fb50_z.jpg" width="100%" alt="cardiff bay panorama"></a></p>
<p>There was a single track of sessions, but they covered a wide range of areas from getting a business started to futurology via several variations of design. As with many mobile events there was a fair mention of the web vs native debate, but there was a reasonable balance between the two here — with the only loser being the whole app hybrids like PhoneGap (which took a large amount of flak).</p>
<p>As with most of my posts, here’s my quick notes, typed during the sessions so that you can get a rough overview of what happened. Craig has published videos of several of the sessions on <a href="http://besquare.me/">Besquare</a> (I'll link to them next to my notes).</p>
<h3 id="handheld2012:bookstories--howtoturnasidelineintoabusiness">Handheld 2012: Book stories — How to turn a sideline into a business</h3>
<p><em>Keir Whitaker</em>, <a href="http://viewportindustries.com">Viewport Industries</a></p>
<p><a href="http://keirwhitaker.com">http://keirwhitaker.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>co-owner of Viewport Industries with Elliot Jay Stocks</li>
<li>using the web to do side-projects / passion projects</li>
<li>published Insites book — interviews with web developers & founders
<ul>
<li>also available as ebook (via <a href="http://woop.ie">http://woop.ie</a>)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>wanted to create something that makes money while they slept</li>
<li>there’s still a passion for physical media (especially amongst designers…)</li>
<li>had 65 people involved in making book
<ul>
<li>21 interviewees, but a lot of others</li>
<li>copy editors, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>picking a new collaborator is hard</li>
<li>did a precursor project (insites tour) to find out if they could work together</li>
<li>discuss the money up front
<ul>
<li>horrible conversation to have</li>
<li>but really important to sort out before starting</li>
</ul></li>
<li>raising money
<ul>
<li>bootstrapping (your own money)</li>
<li>kickstarter (watch out for scaling issues)</li>
<li>funding</li>
<li>sponsorship / partnership</li>
<li>chose partnership (published in association with Mailchimp)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need banking for a business account
<ul>
<li>they need address, phone number, etc</li>
<li>chose HSBC for <a href="http://www.xero.com/">Xero</a> integration</li>
</ul></li>
<li>company needs a physical address
<ul>
<li>don’t use your home address</li>
<li>can use an accountant’s address</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need a telephone number
<ul>
<li>again, don’t use a personal number (especially mobile)</li>
<li>used a company called dial9 to have a virtual Bath number</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need terms & conditions
<ul>
<li>banks pay people to read them when you apply for stuff</li>
<li>most people borrow other people’s terms…</li>
<li>ask first!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>get an accountant
<ul>
<li>will save you money</li>
<li>HSBC business account feeds directly into Xero online accounting system</li>
<li>accountant can then work directly from Xero</li>
<li>costs about £19/month</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need a storefront for the website
<ul>
<li>shopify costs £19/month</li>
</ul></li>
<li>payment gateway
<ul>
<li>middle man between storefront and merchant account</li>
<li>need it if you don’t go for paypal</li>
<li>alternatives:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.braintreepayments.com/">braintree</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.paymill.com/">paymill</a></li>
<li>stripe (US only)</li>
<li>gocardless (going Europe-wide, direct debit only)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>merchant accounts
<ul>
<li>money comes through into real business account after about 2 weeks</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ensure that the gateway supports issuing refunds</li>
<li>digital goods
<ul>
<li>use fetch app</li>
<li>works by web hooks</li>
<li>benefit with fetch app is that you can resend orders (sometimes they don’t go through)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>need to do support…
<ul>
<li>try to take dissatisfied customers off twitter and into email</li>
<li>think about what you can offer unhappy customers (e.g. digital goods in lieu)</li>
<li>helpscout.net can suck in email</li>
<li>can outsource support</li>
</ul></li>
<li>costs:
<ul>
<li>accountant: £70</li>
<li>xero: £19</li>
<li>telephone: £10</li>
<li>shopify: £19</li>
<li>payment gateway: £19</li>
<li>merchant account: £25</li>
<li>fetch app: £6</li>
<li>support: £100</li>
<li>based on 4 hours of accounting & support / month</li>
</ul></li>
<li>projects will always take longer than you think
<ul>
<li>impacts the finances</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="startsmallthinkbig">Start small, think big</h3>
<p><em>Lee Armstrong</em>, <a href="http://twitter.com/lesmond">@lesmond</a>, <a href="mailto:lee@pinkfroot.com">lee@pinkfroot.com</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/start-small-think-big/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/Tci6vH">shipfinder</a> - first app</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/RPe1w8">planefinder</a> - most successful</li>
<li>inspired by Google, facebook, twitter
<ul>
<li>started thinking big from the start</li>
</ul></li>
<li>planefinder started with coverage of the south of the UK
<ul>
<li>sold app across world and started getting a few emails back saying “don’t you know Poland exists?”</li>
<li>started planning for bigger</li>
</ul></li>
<li>now cover most of world apart from China & Africa
<ul>
<li>have 400-500 radio receivers across the world and splice that data with other databases</li>
<li>all receivers are land-based: ships have range of about 50 miles</li>
</ul></li>
<li>when initial small hosting plan started creaking had to decide to self-host or cloud?
<ul>
<li>ran a comparison recently, found that it would cost $2000/mth more using AWS than using at the moment</li>
<li>but have internal skills to do server management</li>
</ul></li>
<li>currently have 32 servers but are flexible</li>
<li>need to be able to scale up (and down)
<ul>
<li>pinkfroot turn machines off when scaling down</li>
<li>doesn’t save capex of rack space, but saves power</li>
</ul></li>
<li>user reviews…
<ul>
<li>bonkers reviews — ignore them</li>
<li>but pay attention to common themes</li>
<li>take time to spend time on customer support</li>
<li>takes around 30 minutes to turn around an angry customer</li>
</ul></li>
<li>built in social sharing into app
<ul>
<li>pick a flight and share it - shares web link + image</li>
</ul></li>
<li>built up community of app users
<ul>
<li>really valuable when lost photos of individual planes</li>
<li>managed to get users build up their own photos in the app (credited to users)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>product releases - little and often really helps
<ul>
<li>big release with loads of new features will miss out most features in reviews</li>
<li>what’s new notes in store are the one chance to communicate with users</li>
<li>make it chatty, make it friendly</li>
</ul></li>
<li>building up a good brand
<ul>
<li>working with Eddie Stobart to make an Eddie spotter app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>have apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone
<ul>
<li>spend a <strong>lot</strong> of time writing native apps</li>
<li>make savings on back-end — they all talk JSON</li>
<li>Android is 10% of iOS sales</li>
<li>Windows Mobile is 1% of iOS sales</li>
<li>doing it for brand exercise</li>
<li>going through improving other platform apps</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="soyouhaveanappidea">So you have an app idea?</h3>
<p><em>Dave Addey</em>, <a href="http://agant.com">Agant</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/daveaddey">@daveaddey</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/so-you-have-an-app-idea/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>2008 Dave was an web developer in a spare bedroom office</li>
<li>now runs a company with 7 employees</li>
<li>a good idea for an app
<ul>
<li>is it a good idea?</li>
<li>is it a good idea for an app?</li>
<li>how do you go about making it?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>example: late night bars in London
<ul>
<li>cost low four figures to make</li>
<li>3 months of preparation time for database</li>
<li>sold 2000 copies @ £3.99 (or £2.40 after Apple & VAT) — didn’t even break even…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="isitagoodidea">is it a good idea?</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>measuring good app market:</strong>
<ul>
<li>universal - niche</li>
<li>international - local</li>
<li>lasting - ephemeral</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/TUd2KH">UK Train Times</a> launched in 2009 when the app store was smaller
<ul>
<li>local - UK not worldwide</li>
<li>lasting</li>
<li>fairly universal</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/XtOI8G">Malcolm Tucker app</a>
<ul>
<li>when you open the app there’s one new voicemail waiting for you</li>
<li>when you listen to the voicemail it starts a 4 day process with incoming emails & voicemails as Malcolm Tucker tries to find his phone</li>
<li>timely</li>
<li>fairly niche</li>
<li>fairly local</li>
<li>so covered costs but not much more</li>
<li>but led to a lot of other interesting projects</li>
</ul></li>
<li>does the app have a long tail?
<ul>
<li>lasting appeal</li>
</ul></li>
<li>does it scratch your own itch?</li>
<li>should have some kind of hook
<ul>
<li>something that’s not been done before</li>
<li>something to show off to user’s friends</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="..foranapp">… for an app?</h4>
<ul>
<li>when potential clients say “I want an app”, it’s not always true — Dave talks 50% of clients out of </li>
<li>dead time (5-10 mins)
<ul>
<li>e.g. supermarket line</li>
<li>used for <a href="http://j.mp/URcaLo">QI app</a></li>
<li>book-style interface had larger books with longer content</li>
</ul></li>
<li>we know where you live
<ul>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/T7EsMq">trip advisor offline city guides</a></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/Tc595Z">nosey parker</a></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/Tc59To">rightmove app</a></li>
<li>e.g. next train home in UK Train Times
<ul>
<li>one button to home station from around here</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>the app that’s always there
<ul>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/SZCg9m">guitar toolkit</a></li>
<li>imdb: “what was she in?”</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/S6DSAQ">british red cross first aid app</a> — everyone should download this now!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ongoing (everyday) use
<ul>
<li>opposite of throwaway app</li>
<li>people rely on them</li>
<li>UK Train Times
<ul>
<li>get more sales through word of mouth than any other means</li>
<li>can still charge £4.99</li>
<li>has sold 300,000 copies throughout the UK</li>
<li>but losing National Rail icon caused a massive drop in sales</li>
</ul></li>
<li>twitter clients</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/Tc5iWQ">TuneIn Radio</a></li>
<li>clipboard management apps</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="howtogoaboutmakingit">how to go about making it?</h4>
<ul>
<li>lots of platforms to cover</li>
<li>one approach is PhoneGap, hybrid app builder</li>
<li>but problem: e.g. featured app Wikipedia
<ul>
<li>doesn’t work in the same way as native apps</li>
<li>form controls are different</li>
<li>search is not the same for <em>either</em> platform</li>
</ul></li>
<li>@daveaddey’s maxim: “develop once for every device: you get a rubbish app for every device”</li>
<li>have seen big brands develop PhoneGap apps and then pull them after a month</li>
<li>if you spend ages fine-tuning your HTML to behave like a native app, then you might as well spend that time writing native</li>
<li>… but the rule is different for games
<ul>
<li>you can build using cross-platform games engines, e.g. Unity, Marmalade</li>
<li>the interface is not specific to the <em>device</em> but specific to the <em>game</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>it’s all about the implementation
<ul>
<li>sharing profits based on an initial idea doesn’t make sense…</li>
<li>it’s all the little ideas throughout development</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Derek Sivers - cdbaby
<ul>
<li>ideas are worth nothing unless executed</li>
<li>they are multipliers</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/ideaMultiplier">http://j.mp/ideaMultiplier</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Sergey Brin: “coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great… the execution and the delivery are what’s key” (via <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/17/google-sergey-brin">The Guardian</a>)</li>
<li>PhoneGap <em>can</em> be useful for a quick prototype to guage response</li>
<li>apps can and should make use of HTML5 where appropriate
<ul>
<li>e.g. Malcolm Tucker emails, credits pages</li>
<li>QI app content — but displayed using CoreText not a web view</li>
</ul></li>
<li>hybrid approach
<ul>
<li>suggest creating a native app for one platform</li>
<li>a mobile web app for the rest</li>
<li>choice of one native platform is up to target market</li>
<li>use experience of first native to decide next native platform</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t muck with user expectations
<ul>
<li>native apps are expected to have native performance & behaviour</li>
<li>web sites have different expectations</li>
<li>but don’t try and make your mobile web site appear like a native app!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>pricing:
<ul>
<li>getting high value apps going</li>
<li>e.g. launching £10 app at £5.99</li>
<li>69p for a UK only app is not going to break even</li>
<li>Agant don’t do 69p apps…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>bandwidth, speed, etc
<ul>
<li>saw more of a change between capped & unlimited than for improvements in speed</li>
</ul></li>
<li>biggest failing in App Store is lack of paid upgrades
<ul>
<li>adding new functionality is about finding additional users by re-promotion</li>
<li>Agant avoiding freemium because eeurgh :-)</li>
<li>but freemium seems to be a side effect of the lack of a paid upgrade option</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="0toptips">10 top tips</h4>
<ol>
<li>project the risk of everything you do: best and worse case predictions
<ul>
<li>app should have a business plan</li>
</ul></li>
<li>keep project budget realistic
<ul>
<li>don’t be tempted to spend a fortune</li>
</ul></li>
<li>it’s important that all partners have a vested financial involvement
<ul>
<li>don’t take on apps for a content provider where they have no risk</li>
</ul></li>
<li>talk about your idea - it will lead to better ideas</li>
<li>value Apple promotions
<ul>
<li>Malcolm Tucker was not promoted due to sweary language</li>
<li>QI app <em>did</em> get promoted - massive difference</li>
</ul></li>
<li>best way to get Apple promotion is to make Apple devices look good</li>
<li>create a video that tells people what your app does
<ul>
<li>gives an equivalent to your app that people can share</li>
</ul></li>
<li>keep updating your app - and give Apple reasons to promote it in each case
<ul>
<li>if you add big content, Apple will treat it as a new app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>keep it simple and focussed</li>
<li>sweat the details
<ul>
<li>“the best way to market your app, is just to build a great app”</li>
</ul></li>
</ol>
<h3 id="contenttone">Content & tone</h3>
<p><em>Robert Mills</em>, Studio Manager at <a href="http://bluegg.co.uk">Bluegg</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/RobertMills">@RobertMills</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/content-tone/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>creating, managing & using content</li>
<li>need an individual responsible for content</li>
<li>content first otherwise design won’t fit…
<ul>
<li>see <a href="http://twitter.com/rellyab">@rellyab</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/halvorson">@halvorson</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>used <a href="http://slickplan.com/" title="Website Planning | Sitemap Generator | Sitemap Creation | Website Flowchart">slickplan</a> to plan site
<ul>
<li>signed off site map first</li>
<li>then got client to provide all content</li>
<li>client had to really think about what she was saying</li>
<li>she had to think about the whole site up front</li>
</ul></li>
<li>having all content ready means that organising translations is easier</li>
<li>using content
<ul>
<li>what are you saying and who to?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>managing content
<ul>
<li>can use Google Docs, Dropbox, etc</li>
<li>or <a href="https://www.gathercontent.com/">GatherContent</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>doesn’t end after launch
<ul>
<li>need to review & refine</li>
<li>audit & strategy</li>
<li>ensure consistent & authentic</li>
</ul></li>
<li>auditing content for mobile
<ul>
<li>prioritise content over navigation</li>
<li>can prioritise content using traffic lights</li>
<li>need to check end use: ask why content is important</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="workingwithmuppets">Working with Muppets</h3>
<p><em>Ollie Wells</em>, <a href="http://www.sequence.co.uk/">Sequence</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/olliewells">@olliewells</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Sequence focus mainly on mobile web sites</li>
<li>research — use analytics</li>
<li>stakeholders (esp HIPPOs) can cause problems
<ul>
<li>Blackberry v5 is a pain in the butt</li>
<li>can use analytics to persuade them that their use case is not common</li>
</ul></li>
<li>useful functional spec wording (plain English, without version numbers):
<ul>
<li>The website will be built to perform at its best in the most common of modern browsers</li>
<li>Bugs that stop the side being usable will be fixed in the latest versions of the above browsers, as well as in 1 older version</li>
<li>Any bugs that we find in browsers more than 1 older version of the most common browsers will be looked at on an individual basis. This includes bugs that affect functionality as well as design.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t oversimplify the mobile web site
<ul>
<li>ensure the functionality is still there</li>
<li>don’t remove functionality just cos your on mobile</li>
</ul></li>
<li>doing information architecture using sketches on paper
<ul>
<li>good example {picture}</li>
</ul></li>
<li>do prototypes on device
<ul>
<li>click from screen to screen</li>
</ul></li>
<li>frameworks
<ul>
<li>jquery mobile useful for quick prototypes</li>
<li>for prototypes, use sass, haml, coffescript and <a href="http://middlemanapp.com/">middleman</a></li>
<li>for production, use <a href="http://mixture.io/">Mixture</a>, gridset, twitter bootstrap</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Muppets web site for movie
<ul>
<li>all about characters</li>
<li>desktop is animation based</li>
<li>mobile is much simplified - same content, but static images</li>
<li>tablet is same layout as desktop but no animation</li>
</ul></li>
<li>device testing…
<ul>
<li>bluegg looking to open a device lab</li>
<li>choose your devices carefully - you <em>can’t</em> support everything</li>
</ul></li>
<li>do double res images for iconography, but not for photography
<ul>
<li>most users wouldn’t see the difference for photos</li>
<li>also CSS3 web fonts are useful for iconography</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="takingcontentabroad">Taking content abroad</h3>
<p><em>Rob Lo Bue</em>, <a href="http://applingua.com/">applingua</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/roblobue">@roblobue</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/taking-content-abroa/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>imagine that you’re a french speaking user and you download an app, but it’s in english
<ul>
<li>bad initial impression…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>get your English right
<ul>
<li>get someone else to read it and answer questions</li>
<li>check it’s easy to comprehend</li>
</ul></li>
<li>avoid idioms - they don’t translate</li>
<li>make your units use worldwide standards
<ul>
<li>e.g. include dollars as well as sterling, km as well as miles</li>
<li>always include timezone for event times!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use a clear font for writing</li>
<li>icons save translation costs!</li>
<li>support international sharing
<ul>
<li>e.g. qzone (QQ), badoo</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if you have the budget and time, then look at translations
<ul>
<li>get users to translate!</li>
<li>but get another user to check</li>
<li>can use Google Translate for checking translation (don’t use Google Translate for actual translation!)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>choose languages carefully
<ul>
<li>e.g. most iPhone users in India are English speakers and use their iPhone in English… less ROI on a Hindi translation</li>
</ul></li>
<li>international compatibility</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whatsholdingthemobilewebbackandwhatarefacebookdoingaboutit">What’s holding the mobile web back, and what are Facebook doing about it?</h3>
<p><em>Simon Cross</em>, <a href="http://twitter.com/sicross">@sicross</a>, <a href="mailto:si@fb.com">si@fb.com</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/whats-holding-the-mobile-web-back-and-what-are-facebook-doing-about-it/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>worked at facebook for about 2.5 years now - makes him one of the old-timers</li>
<li>digging in to Zuck’s quote from techcrunch disrupt in Sept 2012
<ul>
<li>faceweb v4 built from 2010: webview with extensions</li>
<li>at that time, facebook was a web company</li>
<li>update at will, one m-web codebase</li>
</ul></li>
<li>reach a point where people hated it because:
<ul>
<li>it was slow — slow*er* than their other apps</li>
<li>it pretended to be a native app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>took 6 months to fix it
<ul>
<li>because had to retool the whole company</li>
<li>had to slow down the release cycle, which felt wrong</li>
<li>had to get used to submitting binaries to Apple & Google</li>
</ul></li>
<li>v5 app (more native UI) went from 1.5 stars to 4 stars in 3 weeks</li>
<li>…and Zuck’s quote continues to say that there are more people using facebook on mobile web than there are on Android and iOS <em>combined</em>
<ul>
<li>7000 device types accessing every day</li>
<li>mobile users growing twice as fast as desktop</li>
<li>126m mobile-only users</li>
</ul></li>
<li>so how to help developers grow mobile <em>web</em> apps?</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="distribution">distribution</h4>
<ul>
<li>asked developers at PhoneGapDayEU why they were using PhoneGap: response — to be in the App Store (80%)</li>
<li>in the app store to get distribution, but also because boss said so…</li>
<li>mobile usage is different from desktop
<ul>
<li>general browsing is less used</li>
<li>instead people solve a problem, or fill some time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>facebook integration is no longer click to share
<ul>
<li>now it’s about publishing structured data</li>
<li>where, when, who</li>
</ul></li>
<li>e.g. soundcloud defined 5 actions
<ul>
<li>if you do any of these actions on <em>any</em> of their apps, it publishes that to facebook (if opted in)</li>
<li>then comes back as news feed either in app or in facebook app</li>
<li>news feed in facebook launches app directly — or else takes you directly to the app store to install it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>e.g. SongPop grew 9.7m users mainly through facebook sharing</li>
<li>last 30 days, facebook sent users to native app stores 180m times</li>
<li>also facebook has App Center for mobile web app
<ul>
<li>170m monthly users</li>
<li>social recommendations</li>
</ul></li>
<li>last 30 days facebook sent users to mobile websites ~7m times</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="performance">performance</h4>
<ul>
<li>no visual difference from v4 to v5 except speed
<ul>
<li>but got 2x engagement</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Moore’s law still applies to mobile
<ul>
<li>at least to newly released devices</li>
<li>due to upgrades & contracts, the actual speed of increase is slightly slower…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>facebook is a founding partner of the W3C coremob community group
<ul>
<li>one of the first priorities is fixing appcache</li>
</ul></li>
<li>also developed ringmark: <a href="http://rng.io">http://rng.io</a>
<ul>
<li>Ring 0: what we have now</li>
<li>Ring 1: what we need to run 8 of the top 10 native Android & iOS apps</li>
<li>Ring 2: what we need to build all of the native apps on the mobile web</li>
</ul></li>
<li>4 months ago, Dolphin Browser Beta for Android succeeded on Ring 1</li>
<li>browserscope is now tracking ringmark over time</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="monetisation">monetisation</h4>
<ul>
<li>display ads?
<ul>
<li>on mobile? really?</li>
<li>they suck - both for size and for intrusion</li>
<li>BBC have long narrow columns <em>because</em> they need the right column for ads in the US</li>
</ul></li>
<li>credit cards?
<ul>
<li>too hard</li>
<li>cannot compete with native</li>
</ul></li>
<li>carrier billing?
<ul>
<li>can integrate via middlemen (bango, boku, zong)</li>
<li>facebook mobile payments layer on top of that</li>
<li><em>Ed: but doesn’t work on Wi-Fi</em></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="itstartedwithabrowser">It started with a browser</h3>
<p><em>Matt Gaunt</em>, Developer Advocate, Google TV, <a href="http://twitter.com/gauntface">@gauntface</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/AliDriver">@AliDriver</a> (Future Platforms designer, now freelance) able to do amazing things with HTML5</li>
<li>latest devices could do it, but performance always an issue</li>
<li>now looking at Google TV Spotlight
<ul>
<li>app store for TV optimized web apps</li>
<li>apps look really great</li>
<li>but developer spent two weeks adding a specific animation…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>just think about screens of different sizes
<ul>
<li>see Jason Grigsby’s article {link here}</li>
</ul></li>
<li>users don’t care if it’s a responsive design or separate mobile & desktop sites</li>
<li>though probably want to have a catch-all site that will be ok for all situations
<ul>
<li>then add native apps or customized web sites as needed</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="isyourthinkingl-shaped">Is your thinking L-shaped?</h3>
<p><em>Kevin Mears</em>, <a href="http://mearso.com">http://mearso.com</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/mearso">@mearso</a></p>
<ul>
<li>big CRTs meant you needed L-shaped desks - so could fit CRTs into the corner</li>
<li>but don’t need them anymore for flatscreen monitors</li>
<li>requirements change, don’t forget to change your tools…</li>
<li>“Moses said”: my boss says…
<ul>
<li>difficult to argue with someone who isn’t in the room</li>
</ul></li>
<li>politics means that designers & developers can’t just be artists
<ul>
<li>have to sell the work</li>
<li>“Design is a Job”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>mobile use case — apply “app thinking” to a web site (Sarah Parmenter, FOWA)
<ul>
<li>what is the single reason for someone using my app?</li>
<li>and who are they?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>universities do have lots of different use cases
<ul>
<li>e.g. glamorgan</li>
<li>100 users concurrent active users</li>
<li>100 sub-sites</li>
<li>100+ editors</li>
</ul></li>
<li>teaching people that need to delete stuff that is no longer relevant
<ul>
<li><em>Ed: but then it’s <a href="http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/dconstruct-2012.html#thesavebuttonruinedeverything">important to archive stuff on the web too</a></em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>basing templates off twitter bootstrap
<ul>
<li>frameworks tend to make you fit the content to the framework</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="uifordevelopers">UI for developers</h3>
<p><em>Amber Weinberg</em>, <a href="http://twitter.com/amberweinberg">@amberweinberg</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/ui-for-developers/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>specialises in mobile web apps</li>
<li>did audible mobile web site</li>
<li>pretty much 99% of design briefs Amber is given only include full-size desktop web site</li>
<li>forget about mockups
<ul>
<li>just make it responsive</li>
</ul></li>
<li>breakpoints are when your site breaks
<ul>
<li>fix all the breakpoints at different sizes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t fake it - you’re not a native app, so don’t pretend to be one</li>
<li>put content where people can reach it
<ul>
<li>Apple have guidelines showing how people hold iOS devices</li>
</ul></li>
<li>show what’s important
<ul>
<li>e.g. boston globe</li>
<li>navigation gets simpler</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use columns
<ul>
<li>can move to less columns before switching to single column</li>
<li>compare scroll time with content size</li>
</ul></li>
<li>give extra spacing
<ul>
<li>make sure the text doesn’t hit the edge of the screen</li>
</ul></li>
<li>menus are crucial
<ul>
<li>if there are buttons in the header you may want to keep the menu drop-down <em>and</em> a separate action</li>
<li>can also have menus at bottom of page and a jump to bottom link at the top</li>
</ul></li>
<li>choose words or icons, but not both</li>
<li>reduce images
<ul>
<li>responsive images not yet possible</li>
<li>try to use less images and more CSS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>retina-smetina
<ul>
<li>most of the time, users won’t even notice…</li>
<li>is it worth the bandwidth?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>buttons
<ul>
<li>read apple’s button guidelines</li>
<li>make important buttons bigger, 100% width</li>
<li>encourages people to press them!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>hover effects
<ul>
<li>make it clear that hoverable items are interactive</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t assume you know what your users are doing
<ul>
<li>but make it easy</li>
</ul></li>
<li>make font sizes appropriate
<ul>
<li>not too big</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t disable zooming
<ul>
<li>it’s an accessibility thing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use sliders - with gestures
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.woothemes.com/flexslider/">http://www.woothemes.com/flexslider/</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t forget your bookmarklet icon</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="wehuman">We, Human</h3>
<p><em>Andrew Spooner</em>, Creative Technologist, Microsoft, <a href="http://twitter.com/andspo">@andspo</a></p>
<ul>
<li>works in developer platform evangelism team</li>
<li>get tech about a year or two before it hits the public</li>
<li>why do we connect things?</li>
<li>vannevar bush & the memex…</li>
<li>internet fridge…</li>
<li>toaster telling me that the robo-vacuum has picked up the dog being sick behind the sofa</li>
<li>NEST gives feedback on temperature changes: it will be 21°C in 15 minutes</li>
<li>in 2008, the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the population of Earth</li>
<li>latest John Deere cotton picker RFID tags each cotton bale</li>
<li>microsoft project emporia
<ul>
<li>personalised news editor based on articles that you say you like or don’t like</li>
</ul></li>
<li>kinect
<ul>
<li>daughter thinks kinectimals is a film that she stars in</li>
<li>shadow puppet control</li>
<li>making people invisible (at least on TV)</li>
<li>putting a kinect on a quadrocopter</li>
<li>trolley that follows someone on a wheelchair</li>
<li>face detection and recognition…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use with caution
<ul>
<li>what are the standard gestures?</li>
<li>cancel?</li>
<li>don’t turn up the volume control by whirling your arm round and round</li>
</ul></li>
<li>human capacity is not accelerating like our tools…</li>
<li>minimise complexity, increase consistency</li>
<li>design style: <a href="http://design.windows.com">http://design.windows.com</a>
<ul>
<li>pride in craftmanship — sweat the pixels</li>
<li>fast & fluid — motion & animation
<ul>
<li>custom controls need a lot of extra work</li>
<li>we have movement in nature, we expect things to move in the same way on digital screens</li>
<li>animation with a purpose</li>
</ul></li>
<li>authentically digital
<ul>
<li>use sensors</li>
<li>iconography can represent digital realm</li>
</ul></li>
<li>do more with less — get rid of UI chrome
<ul>
<li>make the content the interaction</li>
</ul></li>
<li>win as one
<ul>
<li>small pieces loosely joined</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>summary:
<ul>
<li>contextual & social UX is an expectation</li>
<li>understand the human - keep it that way</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="designsystems">Design Systems</h3>
<p><em>Laura Kalbag</em>, <a href="http://twitter.com/laurakalbag">@laurakalbag</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/design-systems/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>moving to responsive design</li>
<li>but still designing at fixed widths</li>
<li>shouldn’t be thinking in static</li>
<li>thinking about devices, not content; deliverables, not process
<ul>
<li>thinking about what they give to the client</li>
</ul></li>
<li>design systems
<ul>
<li>typography</li>
<li>layout</li>
<li>shape & form</li>
<li>colours</li>
</ul></li>
<li>what are you going to keep the same across different viewports, and what will change?</li>
<li>content is always the same</li>
<li>for design, might want to start with typography</li>
<li>then move on to base unit
<ul>
<li>based on width/height of ad unit?</li>
<li>used for grids, line height</li>
<li>makes site feel consistent across changes</li>
</ul></li>
<li>grid can’t stay the same, but try to keep consistency
<ul>
<li>6 -> 3 -> 1</li>
<li>or 4 -> 2</li>
</ul></li>
<li>shape and form includes textures & illustration style</li>
<li>colour can be kept the same most easily</li>
<li>design in the browser
<ul>
<li>brilliant idea</li>
<li>can’t do it though…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>tools:
<ul>
<li>share design ideas through <a href="http://styletil.es/">style tiles</a></li>
<li>styleguides</li>
<li><a href="http://pea.rs">http://pea.rs</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>clients want to know what it looks like on different devices
<ul>
<li>they’re snapshots, not mockups</li>
<li>if they like the style tiles, then start prototyping in the browser</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t base breakpoints on device widths — should be based on content
<ul>
<li>e.g. videos, images, headings</li>
</ul></li>
<li>“if you’re not ashamed of what you did 3-6 months ago, you’re probably not keeping up”</li>
<li>another app to try is typecast</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ahappygrainofsand">a happy grain of sand</h3>
<p><em>Aral Balkan</em>, <a href="http://twitter.com/aral">@aral</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.besquare.me/session/a-happy-grain-of-sand/">Video available on besquare.me</a></p>
<ul>
<li>think about how the whole system works together</li>
<li>an experience is only as strong as its weakest link</li>
<li>as a designer, try to remain naive</li>
<li>washing machine:
<ul>
<li>designers think they’re building a machine that washes clothes</li>
<li>users actually want a machine that cleans clothes</li>
<li>don’t want or need to know the internals of how or why clothes are washed in different ways</li>
</ul></li>
<li>superman effect:
<ul>
<li>makes the technology disappear</li>
<li>and the interaction appear like magic</li>
<li><em>Ed: shouldn’t this be the A. C. Clarke effect…?</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>interaction design is about dealing with the loss of a human from an interaction
<ul>
<li>replacing the human with a machine is hard</li>
<li>but it’s really important</li>
</ul></li>
<li>focus
<ul>
<li>great design is a symptom of a design-led organisation or organisational structure</li>
<li>antoine de st. exupéry: “Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed.”</li>
<li>design is not democratic</li>
<li>you have to make sacrifices</li>
<li>in this day & age, great design <em>is</em> the business plan</li>
</ul></li>
<li>design > test > develop > test > design …
<ul>
<li>keep iterating</li>
<li>and don’t forget the vision</li>
<li>the user testing needs to be filtered through the vision</li>
<li><em>Ed: e.g. Apple does less user testing as they know that asking people doesn’t always give the right answer</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>user empathy:
<ul>
<li>indeterminate spinner isn’t enough — need to show empathy when waiting</li>
</ul></li>
<li>web vs native: <a href="http://thelink.is/webvsnative">http://thelink.is/webvsnative</a></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/n35fS5-f1is" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/11/handheld-conference-2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-12553879246207987512012-10-28T20:43:00.001Z2012-10-28T20:43:08.446Z2012-10-28T20:43:08.446ZDroidcon London 2012, Day Two<p>The second day of Droidcon London — and they kept us going from 9am until 7pm with a full programme! As with the previous day, the keynotes were focussed on how Android is being used in non-phone devices — extending the rule of configurable software over fixed hardware.</p><p>I’d really like to add the slides to these notes — the Flurry presentation especially has loads of useful information that I didn’t catch. If any of the authors read this — please get in touch <a href="http://twitter.com/adamcohenrose">via twitter</a> or leave a comment and I’ll add a link!</p><h3 id="futureofandroid-vendscreen">Future of Android - Vendscreen</h3><p><em>Paresh Patel</em></p><p><a href="http://www.vendscreen.com/">http://www.vendscreen.com/</a></p><ul><li>touchscreen device that fits as an extension on any vending machine</li>
<li>accepts credit cards via swipe + tap to pay<br />
<ul><li>chip & pin coming later</li>
</ul></li>
<li>network connected — makes the machine smarter</li>
<li>can cluster machines<br />
<ul><li>e.g. lots of machines in a hotel</li>
<li>customers can get inventory from their phone</li>
<li>energy management — can turn off some</li>
</ul></li>
<li>example: sold small artwork pieces in a vending machine<br />
<ul><li>people weren’t surprised</li>
<li>prices didn’t have to be low</li>
<li>people paid up to $99 by swiping their card</li>
</ul></li>
<li>right now running Android 2.3.4</li>
<li>minor modifications:<br />
<ul><li>got rid of desktop</li>
<li>added a recovery screen</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="futureofandroid-parrotasteroid">Future of Android - Parrot Asteroid</h3><p><em>Frederic Albinet</em></p><p><a href="http://www.parrot.com/uk/products/hands-free-car-kits/parrot-asteroid">http://www.parrot.com/uk/products/hands-free-car-kits/parrot-asteroid</a></p><ul><li>parrot asteroid Android car radio</li>
<li>classic & mini using Android 1.5(!!?!)</li>
<li>tablet and smart devices using Android 2.3 (still old…)</li>
<li>does voice recognition search for contacts and music<br />
<ul><li>music searches across connected device and also the internet radio stations and other sources</li>
</ul></li>
<li>parrot app market<br />
<ul><li>will be live from november</li>
<li>can browse from PC or from device</li>
</ul></li>
<li>looking to extend to dynamic network between vehicles<br />
<ul><li><em>though this would depend on other cars having devices with the same protocol…</em></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="adzerophonelaunch">ADzero phone launch</h3><p><a href="http://www.justadzero.com/">http://www.justadzero.com/</a></p><ul><li>world’s first bamboo smartphone</li>
<li>quad core device</li>
<li>full HD screen</li>
<li>bamboo feels really good to hold</li>
<li>flash innovation: circle around the camera — works much better for macro</li>
</ul><h3 id="buildingsongkick">building songkick</h3><p><em>Akshay Dashrath</em> and <em>Jamie McDonald</em>, Novoda</p><ul><li>took 2 devs 3 months to build initial version</li>
<li>agile process, two week iterations</li>
<li>tools used:<br />
<ul><li>pivotal tracker</li>
<li>github</li>
<li>maven</li>
</ul></li>
<li>third party libs:<br />
<ul><li>ActionBarSherlock</li>
<li>ViewPagerIndicator</li>
<li>Novoda ImageLoader & Novocation</li>
<li>NovodaTime — dealing with Joda Time problems</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="userexperiencedesign">user experience design</h4><ul><li>spent a lot of time finding pain points in initial install process using paper prototypes</li>
<li>found out that putting buttons in the action bar were not found by users<br />
<ul><li>mocked up on an actual device to see how it felt</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can set a custom notification light colour (works well with branding!)</li>
<li>styled login web view to look like rest of app</li>
<li>first launch experience:<br />
<ul><li>had a scan screen with an OpenGL animation to keep the user entertained while the initial artist information is found</li>
</ul></li>
<li>used external apps that expose content providers<br />
<ul><li>google music — got artist names using a projection and flexjson to push it to songkick server</li>
<li>last.fm</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="cachinglocation">caching & location</h4><ul><li>used novoda’s novocation location library</li>
<li>used Jackson mixture of streaming & tree model to avoid memory issues</li>
<li>data from web calls loaded into database, then database loaded into views with cursor loaders</li>
<li>detachable result receiver — google IO 2011 app<br />
<ul><li>lets you deal with rotating views and re-attaching the new activity to the old cursor loader</li>
</ul></li>
<li>all visited content cached using Reto Meier’s Big Cookie approach (see <a href="http://blog.radioactiveyak.com/2012/07/making-good-apps-great-what-and-how.html">Making Good Apps Great</a>)<br />
<ul><li>“Just Added” concerts sync in the background</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if offline, then shows a transparent banner at the bottom of the page<br />
<ul><li>send out a sticky broadcast if an online query fails</li>
<li>broadcast cleared if the app gets a good response</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Big Cookie caching can build up too much data<br />
<ul><li>data removed on a daily basis by removing old data — e.g. past concerts, etc</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="testing">testing</h4><ul><li>manual QA for most stuff</li>
<li>automated tests were more for stress testing</li>
<li>also did observational user testing (one-way mirror room)</li>
<li>put UI options in a debug menu so could easily do A/B testing</li>
<li>build machine runs instrumentation tests on however many devices are plugged into it</li>
<li>used Eclipse Memory Analysis Tool to check memory allocation<br />
<ul><li>used to fix large back stack activity</li>
<li>enabled StrictMode to deal with issues with Google Analytics & Joda Time</li>
<li>Joda Time used the UI thread for DST settings (can be fixed — see Stack Overflow)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="featured">featured!</h4><ul><li>got featured in Play<br />
<ul><li>installs went 400 / day -> 20,000 / day!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="soundcloudaudioinandroid">soundcloud audio in Android</h3><p><em>Jan Berkel</em> and <em>Jon Schmidt</em>, <a href="http://soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud</a></p><h4 id="playback">playback</h4><ul><li>Java MediaPlayer talks to C layer MediaPlayerService<br />
<ul><li>check out the C source code to see what’s going on</li>
</ul></li>
<li>underneath this uses PacketVideo OpenCore up to 2.2, then Google Stagefright<br />
<ul><li>shouldn’t have to care about underlying implementation but if you’re doing something complicated you do…</li>
<li>OpenCore<br />
<ul><li>mature, stable but limited</li>
<li>seekTo doesn’t work in streams</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Stagefright (default from 2.2 and beyond)<br />
<ul><li>fixes seeking</li>
<li>but not available in all devices…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>when launched shortly after 2.3 released decided to support 2.1+ so that could cover 75-80% of devices</li>
<li>to find out which mediaplayer, tried to read <code>/system/build.prop</code></li>
<li>however, some phones had <em>both</em> frameworks!<br />
<ul><li>one for streaming and one for encoding…</li>
<li>playing locally would behave differently than streaming from a server</li>
</ul></li>
<li>so to actually find out, connect the MediaPlayer to a local socket and read the user agent on the other end…</li>
<li>built a StreamProxy local server<br />
<ul><li>could cache and fetch chunks from CDN</li>
<li>MediaPlayer then talks to proxy</li>
<li>inspired by <a href="http://code.google.com/p/npr-android-app/">NPR android app</a></li>
<li>but still no control over buffering (may want to alter it depending on network conditions)</li>
<li>different versions of Android behave differently<br />
<ul><li>ICS has a huge buffer so takes ages before it starts playing…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>bundled Android HttpClient is broken (it’s an old snapshot, not a proper release)<br />
<ul><li>have to catch NPE from execute!</li>
<li>recommended to use standard Java URLConnection</li>
<li>bundled HttpClient has now been deprecated</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="recording">recording</h4><ul><li>live encoding options on earlier Android versions — just AMR AB<br />
<ul><li>only good for voice</li>
<li>narrow range, low quality — sounds like a phone call</li>
</ul></li>
<li>instead recorded in PCM and used 3rd party lib to encode it before uploading</li>
<li>chose ogg vorbis<br />
<ul><li>good for licenses</li>
<li>java port is slow (and incomplete)</li>
<li>would take 4x length of audio to encode!!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>from 2.3.3 Android introduced AAC encoding</li>
<li>new requirements involved getting at the actual audio data — simple editing, resuming record</li>
<li>had to write own native layer for codecs and audio processing (Java too slow)<br />
<ul><li>used C-based Vorbis Encoder & Decoder with a thin wrapper</li>
<li>also added a native amplitude analyzer</li>
</ul></li>
<li>tried to avoid sending data back and forth too often</li>
<li>but… now had to deal with CPU flavours<br />
<ul><li>armv5 on older devices has no floating point support</li>
<li>have to build native pieces for various architectures (armv7, mips, x86)</li>
<li>older devices fall back to old-style encode later style</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Jelly Bean has new media encoding APIs<br />
<ul><li>will be useful in the future…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>some sony devices have a patched media framework that behaves differently…</li>
</ul><h4 id="bugdetection">bug detection</h4><ul><li>robolectric</li>
<li>bugsense crash reports</li>
<li>get a load of devices and get people to use them</li>
</ul><h3 id="thefly-inappmenufordesigneranddeveloper">The fly-in app menu for designer and developer</h3><p><em>Cyril Mottier</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/cyrilmottier">@cyrilmottier</a></p><ul><li>watch out for activity back stack<br />
<ul><li>recommended to only use fly-in menu at root level</li>
<li>but still want the back button to exit the app without going via the fly-in menu</li>
</ul></li>
<li>libraries (all on github)<br />
<ul><li>android-undergarment</li>
<li>slidingmenu</li>
<li>android-menudrawer</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t slide the actionbar<br />
<ul><li>you’d need a custom actionbar…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>or create your own: need a custom view group & view</li>
<li>see “making of prixing”<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://android.cyrilmottier.com/?p=658">#1 — start</a></li>
<li><a href="http://android.cyrilmottier.com/?p=701">#2 — adding swiping gestures</a></li>
<li><a href="http://android.cyrilmottier.com/?p=717">#3 — polishing the UI</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>make the slid out activity inactive<br />
<ul><li>click on it to make it visible again</li>
</ul></li>
<li>may need to think about right-to-left languages having right-sliding menus</li>
</ul><h3 id="whoneedsthumbsandroidinstrumentationandreverseengineering">Who needs thumbs? Android Instrumentation and Reverse Engineering</h3><p><em>David Teitelbaum</em> <a href="http://blog.apkudo.com/">http://blog.apkudo.com/</a></p><p>I only caught the very end of this, but it looked like it could be a <em>really</em> useful talk — worth chasing down the slides</p><h3 id="androidandarduino">Android and Arduino</h3><p><em>Fei Manheche</em>, Robobo</p><ul><li>3 steps:<br />
<ol><li>build basic circuit & test it from PC (use serial monitor via direct connection or Bluetooth)</li>
<li>build basic arduino software to set it up to be controlled from Android</li>
<li>build Android app to talk to Arduino</li>
</ol></li>
<li>bluetooth modules available for £6-10</li>
<li>use <a href="http://code.google.com/p/amarino/">amarino library</a> to simplify bluetooth between android and arduino<br />
<ul><li>can also use <a href="http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/index.php/download.html">amarino app</a> to test basic bluetooth connection</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t send too much data to the arduino at once (unless you write buffering serial code on the arduino…)</li>
</ul><h3 id="memoryanalyzer:avoidingmemoryleaks">Memory Analyzer: avoiding memory leaks</h3><p><em>Felipe Ferraz</em>, CESAR</p><ul><li>each process on Android has its own Dalvik VM</li>
<li>the Zygote process is forked for each app<br />
<ul><li>it already has common libraries mapped into it, so they’re shared as read-only between all apps</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use adb to make a heap dump (<code>kill -10 <pid></code>)<br />
<ul><li>or use Eclipse…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>useful to create multiple heap snapshots to tell story of memory leak</li>
<li><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/mat/">http://www.eclipse.org/mat/</a></li>
<li>make sure to null Callables inside Images</li>
</ul><h3 id="usingubuntutodevelopcloud-connectedandroidapps">Using Ubuntu to develop cloud-connected android apps</h3><p><em>Victor Palau</em>, Ubuntu</p><ul><li>juju: <a href="https://juju.ubuntu.com/">https://juju.ubuntu.com/</a></li>
<li>orchestrates groups of servers deployed to cloud systems</li>
<li>can deploy a local instance or to Amazon ECS (or any other OpenStack compatible service)</li>
<li>local deployment uses zookeeper to set up containers on a single machine</li>
</ul><h3 id="mobileanalytics-takingyourandroidapptothenextlevel">Mobile Analytics - taking your Android app to the next level</h3><p><em>Simon Podd</em>, Director of Sales, Flurry EMEA</p><ul><li>according to EMF there are 2Bn “affluent adults” in the world</li>
<li>17% of time spent in Android apps is in Europe</li>
<li>time spent in apps is increasing month by month (94mins/day in Dec 2011)</li>
<li>social networking category is growing fast (equal to games in Q1 2012)</li>
<li>Flurry tracking 220K apps across 660m devices</li>
<li>iPad makes up 88% of top 3 tablet sessions</li>
<li>of the top 20 Android devices by worldwide sessions (May 2012), the top 3 are:<br />
<ol><li>Galaxy SII</li>
<li>Galaxy Ace</li>
<li>Moto Defy</li>
</ol></li>
<li>worldwide 2011 app revenue (iOS & Android):<br />
<ul><li>52% in-app purchases</li>
<li>24% mobile advertising</li>
<li>25% app sales</li>
</ul></li>
<li>advertising revenue (from Flurry’s ad slots):<br />
<ul><li>iOS $6-10 eCPM</li>
<li>Android $20-30 eCPM</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="gamingcategorystats">gaming category stats</h4><ul><li>ages 13-34 spend most time in apps<br />
<ul><li>18-24 & 25-34 about even</li>
<li>fairly even gender split</li>
</ul></li>
<li>more money spent by 25-34yo men (29%)</li>
<li>average transaction sizes fairly constant across ages, and higher than you might think:<br />
<ul><li>M: $15.60</li>
<li>F: $11.90</li>
</ul></li>
<li>customers download on average 50-85 apps during a device lifetime</li>
<li>but they only use 5-10 apps a day</li>
<li>there’s an app discovery issue <em>on the device</em></li>
</ul><h4 id="flurrytracking">flurry tracking</h4><ul><li>can use ranges for event parameters…</li>
</ul><h3 id="applyingleanprinciplestoenterprisemobiledevelopment">Applying lean principles to enterprise mobile development</h3><p><em>Dave Slocombe</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/daveslocombe">@daveslocombe</a> — Head of Mobile Channel, lastminute.com</p><ul><li>product scorecards<br />
<ul><li>5 or 6 key goals for the year</li>
<li>see Marty Cagan, SVG</li>
</ul></li>
<li>keep time to release short<br />
<ul><li>don’t miss the opportunity to innovate</li>
</ul></li>
<li>avoid big bang releases</li>
<li>essentials: co-location & cross-functional</li>
</ul><h4 id="generatingandmanagingideas">generating and managing ideas</h4><ul><li>ideas should come from all sides of the business</li>
<li>need to have a massive bucket of ideas</li>
<li>make them visible so you can choose amongst them<br />
<ul><li>great for managing HiPPos (highest paid persons)</li>
<li>they can see that their idea is on the board</li>
</ul></li>
<li>doesn’t mean that you have to work on them!</li>
<li>prioritise ideas<br />
<ul><li>use the product scorecard</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="selectingideasfordevelopment">selecting ideas for development</h4><ul><li>UX team does customer insights<br />
<ul><li>qualitative: what problems are we solving? is there a market?</li>
<li>quantitative: talking to data analysts</li>
<li>looking for strong signals</li>
</ul></li>
<li>product owner reviews customer insights</li>
<li>UX team create designs in iterations, increasing fidelity as they go<br />
<ul><li>want to be able to ditch bad ideas before spending too much time on them</li>
<li>try guerilla testing: take it to someone in a coffee shop and ask them what they think</li>
<li>get marketing and devs involved as well</li>
</ul></li>
<li>get UX ideas out without using developer time<br />
<ul><li>use axure or similar</li>
</ul></li>
<li>have an internal site of proposed designs<br />
<ul><li>available to exec team</li>
</ul></li>
<li>play back early stage designs to other teams, like finance and supply<br />
<ul><li>surface problems and feedback early</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if ideas are generated, they can go back onto the ideas board (don’t deal with them right now)</li>
</ul><h4 id="developmentprocesses">development processes</h4><ul><li>retrospectives<br />
<ul><li>done every two weeks</li>
<li>if you leave it longer, the issues get bigger and harder to solve</li>
<li>more frequent = smaller, easier to fix issues</li>
<li>e.g. found that they needed a “design issues” wall<br />
<ul><li>edge cases found missing by the designer, not captured</li>
<li>introduced “creative coding” — designer + developer pairing, making a first pass of the UI</li>
<li>brings designers into what’s possible on mobile</li>
<li>helps devs understand value of brand & aims of user experience</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Dave was originally a skeptic of pairing, but converted:<br />
<ul><li>sharing knowledge</li>
<li>repeatability, consistency</li>
<li>drives out “hero developer” mentality</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="testingreleasing">testing & releasing</h4><ul><li>“release process is the metronome that drives progress”</li>
<li>continuous deployment<br />
<ul><li>every check-in should be deployable</li>
<li>repeatable consistent environments</li>
<li>currently 12mins to deploy to production</li>
</ul></li>
<li>devices are tiered for testing:<br />
<ol><li>automated tests, max experience, manual test</li>
<li>automated tests, optimum, limited manual</li>
<li>observe trending, monthly testing, graceful fallback</li>
</ol></li>
<li>just pushed iOS 3 down a level</li>
<li>looking at webdriver to generate PDFs for visual check</li>
</ul><h4 id="tyingittogether">tying it together</h4><ul><li>showcase every two weeks<br />
<ul><li>include other departments</li>
<li>no roadmap items, just value added in the last two weeks</li>
</ul></li>
<li>focus on what <em>your</em> customers say, not what the industry says is cool<br />
<ul><li>apps vs web — choose from your own analytics</li>
<li>e.g. for travel, 3x more likely to book on web</li>
</ul></li>
<li>stats:<br />
<ul><li>seen 10% month on month growth in Android, compared to iOS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ensure product always gives tech team 20% tech debt time</li>
</ul><h3 id="replacingtheandroidemulator">Replacing the Android emulator</h3><p><em>Daniel Fages</em>, Genymobile</p><p><a href="http://androvm.org/">http://androvm.org/</a></p><ul><li>built on top of android-x86</li>
<li>has an emulated WiredSSID wi-fi connection</li>
<li>can use OpenGL 2.0 using hardware<br />
<ul><li>works really well - can emulate Angry Birds</li>
</ul></li>
<li>just added injecting sensors from attached Android device (accelerometer, etc)</li>
<li>currently working on management tool and other features</li>
<li>looking for feedback on next features<br />
<ul><li>network </li>
</ul></li>
<li>also can install VM on other people’s machines without having to worry about SDK</li>
<li>will be working to integrate with Jenkins<br />
<ul><li>could be great for creating a snapshot when something goes wrong</li>
</ul></li>
<li>not working:<br />
<ul><li>multitouch</li>
<li>NFC, Bluetooth</li>
<li>GSM pieces: SMS & voice</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="developingaccessibleappsforandroid">Developing accessible apps for Android</h3><p><em>Gary Readfern-Grey</em>, RNIB</p><ul><li>many people are relying on apps as the only way to do crucial things in life</li>
<li>talkback comes with Jelly Bean</li>
<li>problem:<br />
<ul><li>icon-based buttons don’t have proper audio labels (“icon 39”, “icon 19”) so can’t find what is on the screen</li>
<li>watch out for “jump back button <em>button</em>”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>accessibility came in on Donut 1.6<br />
<ul><li>relied on physical keyboard and trackball</li>
<li>touching the screen behaved as normal and gave no feedback</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Talkback and Eyes-free-keyboard added more recently<br />
<ul><li>eyes-free added in Gingerbread</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ICS brought in explore-by-touch</li>
<li>Jelly Bean brings in gestures:<br />
<ul><li>moving focus</li>
<li>back, home, recent apps</li>
<li>notification shade</li>
</ul></li>
<li>WebView is harder<br />
<ul><li>Jelly Bean & ICS have an additional “allow web accessibility” checkbox</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="testingyourapp">testing your app</h4><ul><li>download talkback from google play<br />
<ul><li>Jelly Bean has it installed (at least on Nexus 7)</li>
<li>settings / accessibility / turn on Talkback</li>
</ul></li>
<li>check that views are focusable and have content descriptions</li>
<li>custom views need hover events</li>
</ul><h4 id="documentation">documentation</h4><ul><li>Google I/O 2012 making android apps accessible on youtube</li>
<li>developer.android.com: making applications accessible</li>
<li>android 4.1 accessibility APIs</li>
</ul><h4 id="topthingstodo:">top things to do:</h4><ul><li>add content descriptions to your widget<br />
<ul><li>can do in XML layout using android:contentDescription attribute</li>
<li>or use setContentDescription</li>
<li>latest linter should check for this</li>
</ul></li>
<li>make sure you can get to all elements of the app through a keyboard<br />
<ul><li>will also help for Google TV</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t depend on colour alone…<br />
<ul><li>e.g. “correct the field that’s coloured red”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>test it! try out Talkback</li>
<li>RNIB Innovation can help you<br />
<ul><li>RNIB offer paid consultancy</li>
<li>if they’re doing something that RNIB really want and aren’t in a position to pay, then they could offer free help too</li>
<li><a href="mailto:innovation@rnib.org.uk">innovation@rnib.org.uk</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/wTXvQqhx38E" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/droidcon-london-2012-day-two.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-51674783007305676282012-10-28T20:36:00.000Z2012-10-28T20:44:22.247Z2012-10-28T20:44:22.247ZDroidcon London 2012, Day One<p>
The first day of Droidcon London was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp">barcamp</a>, though one with lots of pre-prepared presentations.</p>
<p>
The main highlights for me were finding out about useful libraries and services developed by the Android community — RoboSpice, TestDroid and Dr. Power — that and meeting more Android developers (apparently there were over 1000 there!).</p>
<h3 id="immersionhaptics">
immersion haptics</h3>
<ul>
<li>haptic effect preview app available on google play</li>
<li>immersion started with game controllers
<ul>
<li>e.g. logitech steering wheels</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>also have automotive</li>
<li>android just has vibrate on and off</li>
<li>immersion sdk extends the vibrate method</li>
<li><a href="http://immersion.com/haptic/sdk">http://immersion.com/haptic/sdk</a>
<ul>
<li>adds about 400Kb to app…</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>deals with all different vibration methods</li>
<li>copes with devices with no motors (just doesn’t do anything…)</li>
<li>best tweet about haptics @hapticsdev wins a galaxy note 2</li>
<li>navigation queues</li>
<li>battery usage — about 3% for an hour of vibrate usage during a game
<ul>
<li>goes down to 1% for piezo vibrators</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>but don’t use the motor the whole time — it just annoys the user and dulls their senses</li>
<li>leave the haptics and sound options separate (so people can play silently but keep haptics)</li>
<li>standardisation of patterns for accessibility?
<ul>
<li>library of 124 effects is a default standard</li>
<li>up to RNIB to come up with semantics</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="robospice">
robospice</h3>
<ul>
<li>library for making async network requests easy</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/octo-online/robospice">https://github.com/octo-online/robospice</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/octo-online/robospice/wiki/Welcome-to-RoboSpice-wiki-!">intro guide</a></li>
<li>available on maven central</li>
<li>AsyncTasks not so useful as the activity can change while the task is still processing
<ul>
<li>e.g. if device rotates while running, then asynctask could update the wrong activity</li>
<li>leads to memory leaks</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Loaders are an alternative
<ul>
<li>but designed for database access not networking</li>
<li>can’t keep the response if the activity changes</li>
<li>no exception handling by default</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>RoboSpice uses a background service
<ul>
<li>activity creates a request and a request listener</li>
<li>request passed across to the service by the spice manager</li>
<li>requests can last beyond a single activity, so can pass results to the newly rotated activity</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>each context that needs a remote call will have its own SpiceManager, each of which binds to the SpiceService individually
<ul>
<li>can have a SpiceManager in an activity, a service, a fragment, etc</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>SpiceService keeps results in a cache so can respond immediately</li>
<li>integrates with Spring RestTemplate for Android</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="textlayoutforlocalisation">
text layout for localisation</h3>
<p>
By <a href="http://www.kotikan.com">Kotikan</a>, developers of <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.skyscanner.android.main">SkyScanner</a></p>
<p>
<em>Charles & Robert</em> — <a href="http://twitter.com/charlessharley">@charlessharley</a></p>
<ul>
<li>different languages have radically different word lengths for the same concept</li>
<li>best solution is to guide your translators to use shorter text lengths</li>
<li>sometimes not possible…</li>
<li>built-in truncation only operates on the whole string — can skip out important words or syllables</li>
<li>created custom TextViews
<ul>
<li>resizes text to fit (keeps on getting smaller)</li>
<li>flexible truncation using markup</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>code currently <em>not</em> available as open-source, though Charles & Robert trying to persuade their company that this would be a good idea…</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="resizingtofit">
resizing to fit</h4>
<ul>
<li>need to separately subclass TextView, Button & CheckedTextView
<ul>
<li>put resizing logic into a common utility class</li>
<li>decreases size (down to minimum) until fits</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>also have harmonisation to keep consistent text size amongst similar widgets
<ul>
<li>have a harmoniser that listens to text size changes across a group of widgets</li>
<li>sets text size of all to smallest of group</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>also used XML group ID to define harmonising groups in layout
<ul>
<li>include a new namespace</li>
<li>defined as <code>res-auto</code> so will be populated with package name</li>
<li>can be used to add additional attributes</li>
<li>key needs to be group ID and context so that XML files across the activity can be grouped together
<ul>
<li>context must be declared as a weak reference to avoid memory leak</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="flexibletruncation">
flexible truncation</h4>
<ul>
<li>check need to truncate first</li>
<li>then parse markup to split sections</li>
<li>measuring each section</li>
<li>truncate sections to fit space available</li>
<li>cache text panes</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="kirinjs">
KirinJS</h3>
<p>
James Hugman <a href="http://twitter.com/jhugman">@jhugman</a> <a href="http://bit.ly/kirin-github">http://bit.ly/kirin-github</a></p>
<ul>
<li>most apps James has written are fairly IO bound
<ul>
<li>so performs fine for them</li>
<li>obviously, games would not be suitable</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Glasto 2011 app stored JSON data into SQLite</li>
<li>other similar approaches:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/calatrava/calatrava">Calatrava</a> — similar to Kirin but from a web dev point of view</li>
<li><a href="http://code.google.com/p/j2objc/">j2objc</a> — compile java into Objective-C
<ul>
<li>under heavy development…</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="http://impactjs.com/ejecta">Ejecta.js</a> — write to canvas, renders in OpenGL</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="sonysmartwatch">
Sony SmartWatch</h3>
<p>
<em>Jerker Lindgren Götsten</em> <a href="mailto:jerker.lindgren.gotsten@sonymobile.com">jerker.lindgren.gotsten@sonymobile.com</a></p>
<p>
SDK available at <a href="http://sonymobile.com/developer">http://sonymobile.com/developer</a> (also available as ADT extensions)</p>
<ul>
<li>notification & control APIs are shared with SmartWatch + Smart Wireless Headset</li>
<li>notification is stateful, with a central database on the phone</li>
<li>battery life is an issue — watch can last less than a day if over-used…</li>
<li>also frame rate is 6-7 FPS for full screen images
<ul>
<li>faster for partial updates</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>extensions can be started either by an app on the phone, or by the user on the watch</li>
<li>you get a Pause event if a high priority input happens (e.g. phone call)</li>
<li>SDK has utility classes to receive sensor events or send updates</li>
<li>music player also available as open source</li>
<li>host app searches Google Play looking for extensions that include LiveWare… phrases</li>
<li>sports apps are working really well in Google Play</li>
<li>other apps:
<ul>
<li>remote camera viewfinder</li>
<li>tic tac toe, puzzle</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>popular in Japan — with other small technologies :-)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="opencvforandroid">
OpenCV for Android</h3>
<p>
<em>Erik Hellman</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Android library is a wrapper on top of native API
<ul>
<li>includes armv5, armv7 and x86 variants</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>object detection
<ul>
<li>face, hand, eyes, edges</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>optical flow lets you track points in a moving video
<ul>
<li>for example <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNqCNMefyV8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNqCNMefyV8</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>lots of alternative classifiers available (search online)
<ul>
<li>haar cascade is a little bit slower than lbpcascade</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>in Android, front facing camera is 1, main is 0</li>
<li>better to work with smaller preview window size
<ul>
<li>320x480 is often enough</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>faster to reuse bitmaps & matrices (avoids lots of allocations)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="newsamsungdevelopments">
New Samsung developments</h3>
<p>
<em>Manfred Bortenschlager</em> <a href="http://developer.samsung.com">http://developer.samsung.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>planning to have Samsung apps on fridges, washing machines, air conditioners as well as phones and cameras</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="galaxycamera">
galaxy camera</h4>
<ul>
<li>21X optical zoom</li>
<li>Android 4.1,</li>
<li>basically a Galaxy S3 with a camera attached!
<ul>
<li>still has 3G and Wi-Fi</li>
<li>feels fairly hefty for a compact camera</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>software control gives you additional camera features:
<ul>
<li>automatic zoom to moving object</li>
<li>zoom while taking picture (for effect)</li>
<li>slow sync to enable light writing</li>
<li>voice control</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>current API (work in progress):
<ul>
<li>ParametersEx class with 130 methods…</li>
<li>setAperture, setShutterSpeed, setIso, etc</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>sample usage: <code>
camera = Camera.open()
params = new ParametersEx(mCamera)
params.set...
params.updateParameters()
</code></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="stellasdk">
Stella SDK</h4>
<ul>
<li>ports iOS apps to Android</li>
<li>working with <a href="http://yeecco.com">http://yeecco.com</a> - a startup from Cambridge that moved out to Korea
<ul>
<li>try out tool from <a href="http://www.yeecco.com/ecosys/samsung">http://www.yeecco.com/ecosys/samsung</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>focussing on Cocos2D to begin with</li>
<li>e.g. Sovaapps converted iOS game to Android in 2 days…</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="chatonallshare">
ChatON & AllShare</h4>
<ul>
<li>ChatON: online chat</li>
<li>AllShare: online media storage & sharing</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="bigfatsoft-key">
Big Fat Soft-Key</h3>
<p>
<em>Giovanni Bisutti</em> <a href="http://inputdynamics.com/">http://inputdynamics.com/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>using microphone & accelerometer to detect taps on phone case</li>
<li>works on back or front of phone</li>
<li>expect SDK to be released next year</li>
<li>uses up to 7% of CPU when in use… (though more optimisation required)</li>
<li>new app being demoed next month
<ul>
<li>mostly native code</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>looking for an Android developer to help develop the SDK…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="futureofandroid-ouyagameconsole">
Future of Android - OUYA Game Console</h3>
<p>
<em>Julie Hurman</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/jhurman">@jhurman</a></p>
<p>
<a href="http://ouya.tv/">http://ouya.tv/</a></p>
<ul>
<li>made $8.5m on kickstarter… ($1m in 8h22m!)</li>
<li>disrupting a market that hasn’t changed in 30 years
<ul>
<li>consoles and games are both expensive to purchase</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>OUYA is about openness for both gamers and developers
<ul>
<li>all games will be free to try</li>
<li>developers build for Android (no cost for SDK)</li>
<li>every single OUYA is a debug console</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>working with NVIDIA to have best Tegra3 performance</li>
<li>will have its own storefront
<ul>
<li>will curate content (review for copyright infringement, spyware, etc)</li>
<li>will not have ads</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>schedule
<ul>
<li>first units are coming off the production line</li>
<li>dev units will be out in December</li>
<li>kickstarter backers will receive units in March</li>
<li>aiming for full roll-out in April</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>goal is to potentially refresh OUYA on a yearly basis
<ul>
<li>won’t have a 6-7 year lifecycle of existing consoles</li>
<li>some of the audience were concerned about whether a stock NVIDIA chip would be able to have an impact in the living room when facing custom hardware from the likes of Sony. But as John Carmack <a href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-19-john-carmack-not-all-that-excited-by-next-gen-hardware">has said</a>, “technology doesn’t hold back game designers anymore.”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>store will have cryptographic controls for securing content, but they’re working to allow root access to the device as well (could be interesting)</li>
<li>will be able to show the games that have had most time played in them</li>
<li>going for 70/30 revenue share</li>
<li>majority of SDK is in-app payment API</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="democamp">
Demo Camp</h3>
<p>
This was lots of very short (1 or 2min) product demos. Some better than others…</p>
<ul>
<li>testdroid app crawler
<ul>
<li>builds tests for you!</li>
<li>can enter data</li>
<li><a href="http://cloud.testdroid.com">http://cloud.testdroid.com</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.palerta">palerta</a> — private social smart friend alerter
<ul>
<li>doesn’t overshare your location</li>
<li>by Little Fluffy Toys</li>
<li>also make <a href="http://code.google.com/p/little-fluffy-location-library/">location library</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Tawkon - <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tawkon.power&feature=more_from_developer">Dr. Power</a>
<ul>
<li>can see power usage on individual processes of each app</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>secret.dj
<ul>
<li>300 venues</li>
<li>see what’s playing & add to playlist</li>
<li>gamification to gain credits & jump queue</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/F05z1TBovMQ" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/droidcon-london-day-one.html.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-25833934826501500622012-10-25T22:14:00.001+01:002012-10-25T22:14:45.950+01:002012-10-25T22:14:45.950+01:00MomoSho: Mobile technology: art or science?<p>The second Mobile Monday Shoreditch (and my first). I think Helen (<a href="http://twitter.com/technokitten">@technokitten</a>) is aiming for these sessions to have an edgier, less corporate feel than the bigger Mobile Monday London events. The sofas for the panel certainly made it feel more intimate — and there were many fewer suits in the audience than at the typical Momolo. I’ll be coming back!</p><h3 id="vickeegan">Vic Keegan</h3><p><a href="http://www.victorkeegan.com/">http://www.victorkeegan.com/</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/vickeegan">@vickeegan</a></p><ul><li>used to write technology for the Guardian</li>
<li>now focussing on poetry and other creations</li>
<li><a href="http://www.shakespearesmonkey.com">http://www.shakespearesmonkey.com</a><br />
<ul><li>been going for <strong>15 years</strong>!</li>
<li>still hasn’t come up with any poetry :-)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SMS poetry competition at The Guardian<br />
<ul><li>got people writing who had never written a poem before</li>
</ul></li>
<li>artwork in Second Life & Inworldz<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/shakespearesmonkey/8108284271/in/photostream">re-enacting Da Vinci’s Last Supper</a> with avatars of women</li>
<li><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/shakespearesmonkey/8108254182/in/photostream">garden with artistic trees</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="alfiedennen">Alfie Dennen</h3><p><a href="http://twitter.com/Alfie">@Alfie</a></p><ul><li>QR codes feel clunky</li>
<li>Layar is pretty but do you use it after the first couple of times?</li>
<li>Google Glasses<br />
<ul><li>hipster nightmare - being followed by a million bots</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1852747_1854195_1854152,00.html">bionic contacts</a><br />
<ul><li>closer than you think: a man already has an electronic camera eye!</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://makie.me/">makies</a><br />
<ul><li>can extend with arduino & raspberry pi</li>
</ul></li>
<li>the whole of human history has been about craft<br />
<ul><li>we’ve stopped crafting in the last couple of generations</li>
<li>3D printing may be bringing this back</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://moblog.net/bustops/">Bus Tops</a><br />
<ul><li>computer art in local context</li>
<li>project unfortunately coming to an end</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://bigartmob.com/">Big Art Mob</a><br />
<ul><li>attempt to catalogue all public art in the world</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://streetghosts.net/">Street Ghosts</a><br />
<ul><li>take pictures of people from street view and paint them on the wall of the actual place</li>
</ul></li>
<li>mobile is more an extension of computing into ubiquitous technology than anything different by itself</li>
</ul><h3 id="panel">Panel</h3><ul><li>Chair: Helen Keegan, <a href="http://twitter.com/technokitten">@technokitten</a></li>
<li>Vic Keegan</li>
<li>Alfie Dennen</li>
<li>Andrew Bennet: Mobile Lead @ Burberry</li>
<li>James Nash: Symbian > Nokia > Accenture / Developer > UX <a href="http://twitter.com/c1rrus">@c1rrus</a></li>
<li><a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/fleabagsessions">Brett King</a>: Head of Tech @ <a href="http://www.amobee.com/">a•<strong>mo</strong>•bee</a></li>
</ul><h4 id="creativity">Creativity</h4><ul><li>AB: agile & lean seem to get rid of creativity - it’s seen as waste</li>
<li>JN: coding is creating too, not just visual</li>
<li>BK: anyone can create something now</li>
<li>AD: it normally just starts with a stupid idea!</li>
<li>BK: always looking to innovate within boundaries<br />
<ul><li>would love to start with just a crazy idea but would probably get lynched!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: boundaries & constraints often inspire creativity<br />
<ul><li>demoscene, 5K awards</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: a creative person should know their tools<br />
<ul><li>just coming up with an idea and having no idea how to make it doesn’t work as well</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="alfie:allmobileartisshit">Alfie: “All mobile art is shit!”</h4><ul><li>AD: the art for mobile should involve using the sensors that make mobile different from desktop — otherwise just digital art</li>
<li>VK: not completely true: using a phone to draw & zoom in to add detail<br />
<ul><li>also poems made for phones — short and fit the screen</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: Japan has lots of book written for and on mobiles<br />
<ul><li>Jürgen Scheible <a href="http://www.mobispray.com/">mobispray</a>: virtual spray can using a projector and an N95</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: for me, art is in a room with lighting</li>
<li>BK: guy using darts to recreate a Jackson Pollock style piece of artwork that others can join in to create</li>
</ul><h4 id="creativity">Creativity</h4><ul><li>BK: iAd platform hooking into gestures & gyroscope<br />
<ul><li>improving engagement</li>
<li>recent project — recreating a universe with gyroscope: achieved 90s engagement per unit</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: brand slickness can get in the way of creativity — afraid to show things internally without making the UI slick</li>
<li>JN: a lot of people have a hard time imagining low-fi mockups as the real thing</li>
</ul><h4 id="iliccoelia:hasanyoneseenanydecentmobileads">Ilicco Elia: has anyone seen any decent mobile ads?</h4><ul><li>Mobile is like TV advertising at the beginning — started as presenters reading out adverts on air<br />
<ul><li>seems to be web ads squeezed down into mobile screen</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: South Korea — <a href="http://www.springwise.com/retail/seoul-retailer-3d-qr-codes-sun-deliver-discounts-quiet-times/">lunchtime sun sculpture</a><br />
<ul><li>at noon, the shadows made a QR code that gave you a voucher</li>
</ul></li>
<li>BK: hooking in to where am I and what is my context?<br />
<ul><li>how can consumers create content that feeds into the campaign?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: don’t want banners — haven’t clicked on one for years<br />
<ul><li>create a service, a site, an app that does something useful to engage people</li>
</ul></li>
<li>VK: people don’t want banners on mobile<br />
<ul><li>location-based advertising full of potential — and will be full of potential for years to come…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="whatinthelastweekcreatedbymobilethatstuckinyourhead">What in the last week, created by mobile that stuck in your head?</h3><ul><li>AB: lenticular image, move the device to see around</li>
<li>AD: <a href="https://artspotter.com/">art spotter</a><br />
<ul><li>not focussed on selling stuff</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: robot game that just looked so beautiful</li>
<li>BK: creatives project — james alloban<br />
<ul><li>using your voice to select objects and create art</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="socialinput">Social input?</h3><ul><li>HK: <a href="http://www.sanderswood.com/">Tracey Moberly</a> — artwork from instagram</li>
<li>AD: <a href="http://j.mp/RYEiq1">Normalize</a>: the de-instagrammer app</li>
<li>BK: ascii art through twitter — playing out a car journey</li>
<li>VK: making art out of the spare bandwidth in QR codes</li>
<li>HK: social is reinvigorating arts & crafts<br />
<ul><li>we can share the learning — it’s on the internet</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: open source & creative commons<br />
<ul><li>created an open source RPG with various international collaborators</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="someofthebestartcomesfromtakingapokeatsociety">some of the best art comes from taking a poke at society</h3><ul><li>harder in mobile? squandered due a need to monetize<br />
<ul><li>flashmobs one counterexample</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HK: rich people sponsoring art?</li>
<li>VK: certainly, but other sources of revenue available<br />
<ul><li>last column in Guardian: can you make an app cheaply?</li>
<li>cost £300 in total</li>
<li>profit share is an alternative <em>(Ed: but still profit driven)</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>JN: lot of people just create stuff for fun or a hobby</li>
<li>AD: technology has decimated artistic creativity<br />
<ul><li>artists left behind by technological development</li>
<li>arts trying to address it through Digital R&D fund</li>
<li>trying to retrain visual artists digitally</li>
<li>my projects funded by people who will give me money for them!</li>
<li>starting with friends</li>
</ul></li>
<li>BK: technology is not expensive, ideas are free, the hurdle is learning<br />
<ul><li>“just learn enough to get you over the next hurdle”</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="gamificationseriousgames">gamification & serious games?</h3><ul><li>AD: Jane McGonagall turns the whole world into a game<br />
<ul><li>academically led premise </li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: contextual tips as you’re playing are a great way to learn</li>
<li>VK: toby roland games manufacturer<br />
<ul><li>learning maths by playing a game — <a href="http://mangahigh.com">http://mangahigh.com</a> & <a href="http://king.com">http://king.com</a></li>
<li>people need to learn to pay again…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AD: game where you play a real guitar at the device to progress (<a href="http://j.mp/XoTxND">Rock Prodigy</a>?)</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/jxoKXOIL3Qs" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/momosho-mobile-technology-art-or-science.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-31941457744305056392012-10-25T21:56:00.000+01:002012-10-25T21:56:01.505+01:002012-10-25T21:56:01.505+01:00MomoLondon: HTML vs Native<p>A lively and exciting debate (despite the old material!), well-run by Ewan MacLeod, Editor, Mobile Industry Review <a href="http://twitter.com">@ew4n</a></p><h3 id="panel">Panel</h3><h4 id="teamhtml5">Team HTML5</h4><ul><li>Andrew Betts <a href="http://twitter.com/triblondon">@triblondon</a><br />
<ul><li>HTML5 apps for FT</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Simon Arora, Biz Dev Mgr, Keynote DeviceAnywhere <a href="http://twitter.com/devanywhere">@devanywhere</a><br />
<ul><li>Initially all about native</li>
<li>More and more customers asking for HTML5</li>
<li>More platforms with a single codebase</li>
<li>No need for appstore or marketplace certification</li>
<li>Wider reach to monetise services</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Jose Valles, Head of Bluevia <a href="http://twitter.com/josevalles49">@josevalles49</a><br />
<ul><li>Been an HTML5 supporter for a long time</li>
<li>Launching FirefoxOS device</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="teamnative">Team Native</h4><ul><li>Alex Caccia, President, Marmalade <a href="http://twitter.com/marmaladeapps">@marmaladeapps</a><br />
<ul><li>one of the leading cross-platform build platforms</li>
<li>take advantage of ARM instruction set…</li>
<li>two of top three games in US app store built using marmalade</li>
<li>HTML5 just doesn’t provide enough power - need native for performance</li>
<li>HTML5 does not solve fragmentation</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Chris Book, Bardowl <a href="http://twitter.com/bookmeister">@bookmeister</a><br />
<ul><li>native gives close access to device APIs</li>
<li>deal with different network situations</li>
<li>HTML5 doesn’t work for audio streaming and caching</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Nick Barnett, CEO, Mippin <a href="http://twitter.com/docnickb">@docnickb</a><br />
<ul><li>make app builders for operators and manufacturers</li>
<li>provide both HTML5 and native app builders</li>
<li>it’s more about the business model and distribution<br />
<ul><li>if you want to be in the app store, you have to be native</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="lastappyoupaidfor">Last app you paid for?</h4><ul><li>AB: Open House London<br />
<ul><li>because their website is appalling and doesn’t work</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SA: Travel Deluxe<br />
<ul><li>native london travel</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JV: probably a skateboarding app, or tripit or spotify</li>
<li>AC: Expense Calculator</li>
<li>CB: New Star Soccer<br />
<ul><li>10 games free, then in-app purchases</li>
</ul></li>
<li>NB: International Rules of Yacht Racing<br />
<ul><li>native</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>All native apps. If you want to <em>buy</em> an app, it has to be in an app store…</p><h4 id="whataboutfacebook">What about Facebook?</h4><ul><li>AC: Hardware platform is moving faster than anything else<br />
<ul><li>If you come up against an issue, you’re against the browser</li>
<li>The only way past is to know the details of the insides of the browser</li>
<li>Can’t solve it by logic (terrible for project management!)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="ftwebappux">FT web app UX</h4><ul><li>EM: FT webapp has to go through local cache expanding step before starting</li>
<li>AB: equivalent to installing an app from the store<br />
<ul><li>if you say no, it still works; but in a potentially limited way</li>
<li>actually a benefit: allows levels of access</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="statsfromdeviceanywhere">Stats from deviceanywhere</h4><ul><li>SA: out of 100 customers, top 25 are looking at HTML5<br />
<ul><li>have a lot of enterprise customers</li>
<li>looking to increase their reach</li>
</ul></li>
<li>NB: these customers already have iOS and Android apps?</li>
<li>SA: yes, looking to extend reach across devices without decent appstores</li>
</ul><h4 id="hsbcbusinessbanking">HSBC Business Banking</h4><ul><li>EM: it’s an utterly crap HTML5 experience<br />
<ul><li>banks say they’d love to do HTML5, but security say no!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JV: why then do they have online banking?<br />
<ul><li>want to keep customer experience</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CB: native NatWest app is better than web experience…<br />
<ul><li>haven’t been able to update their website in 12 years!</li>
<li>loads of apps where you use native app first rather than web site<br />
<ul><li>e.g. Hailo, National Rail Enquiries</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>NB: cross-platform HTML5 is a nonsense<br />
<ul><li>at Mippin, we build web app builders for each platform separately</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: that’s just ‘cos you’re not doing it very well!<br />
<ul><li>FT use same codebase for Android, iPhone, iPad</li>
</ul></li>
<li>NB: but Windows Phone 7 UX is completely different from iOS<br />
<ul><li>customers expect something different</li>
<li>so you need to write your UI differently anyway</li>
<li>may as well write it natively each time</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="howdoweresolvevestedinterestsanddesigningforformat">How do we resolve vested interests? And designing for format?</h4><ul><li>AB: each format and each channel will have differing expectations<br />
<ul><li>if you define your constraints narrowly enough, natively will always be better</li>
<li>if you have a broad strategy and vision, then web technology will win</li>
<li>what about TV? what about kiosks?</li>
<li>a single web technology solution will adapt to those situations</li>
<li>single code base works with touch, keyboard and gestures too!</li>
<li>at a recent hackday, FT Labs connected a Kinect and controlled the app without touching the screen</li>
<li>the FT webapp works in the way that the people reading the paper are used to — independent of device expectations</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AC: want a fine degree of control over what it looks like and how it behaves<br />
<ul><li>in gaming environment, you really want to make the app shine</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CB: isn’t this all about the 30% that Apple want to take out of the subscription?</li>
<li>AB: it’s not (exclusively) about the 30% — it’s more about a direct relationship with the customer<br />
<ul><li>enables customers to switch devices without losing their subscription</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CB: but Spotify have native apps and still go cross platform whilst keeping relationship with customers</li>
<li>AB: if Apple changed their rules to say that Spotify would have to give a percentage of their revenue, then Spotify would be stuffed</li>
<li>NB: if the Daily Mail went the FT route would people get their news elsewhere?</li>
</ul><h4 id="isitfairtosaythathtml5isdestroyingusabilityofmobileplatforms">Is it fair to say that HTML5 is destroying usability of mobile platforms?</h4><ul><li>JV: no, it’s building something</li>
<li>CB: Google Maps browser version just not as good as previous native version</li>
</ul><h4 id="hybrids">Hybrids?</h4><ul><li>NB: mippin use unique per platform wrappers<br />
<ul><li>PhoneGap works well for iOS, not so well for Android</li>
<li>BlackBerry has WebWorks</li>
<li>hardcore gaming is a pretty specialist use case</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CA: use the right tool for the right job<br />
<ul><li>SDK supports HTML5 content within an app</li>
<li>and then you can switch out and use the native with ease</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Audience: built a PhoneGap app and was appalled by performance<br />
<ul><li>scrolling 50-100 names was just not good enough</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="nativeprovidesconsistentexperience">Native provides consistent experience?</h4><ul><li>Spotify on some platforms lets you order playlist, Android doesn’t</li>
<li>if been written on HTML5, then would have worked fine</li>
<li>AB: people put 70% of budget into iOS<br />
<ul><li>then 20% into Android</li>
<li>then 5% into Windows and Blackberry…</li>
<li>not surprising that non-iOS apps are crap</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="discovery...">Discovery…</h4><ul><li>JV: 700K apps in Apple appstore, so discovery there is hard too<br />
<ul><li>don’t see a difference</li>
</ul></li>
<li>AB: FT not in a unique position – shared by lots of big brands<br />
<ul><li>for small companies, app store is probably a good thing</li>
<li>FT have specialist native apps in the store which point users in the direction of the web app</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="prisonersofthemarketowners">Prisoners of the market owners?</h4><ul><li>NB: usual retail model: retailer takes 30-40% of revenue<br />
<ul><li>and benefits can be considerable!</li>
<li>if you’re in Brazil in 2 years time with Boot2Gecko devices, then the mindset could be completely different</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Dan Appelquist: isn’t that the issue — app stores are dragging us back into the old model that the open internet is breaking us out of</li>
<li>CB: yes, the dominance is worrying<br />
<ul><li>but it’s a business making opportunity for startups</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CA: native is not closed<br />
<ul><li>hardware manufacturers trying to make best user experience</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="securityinnative">Security in native?</h4><ul><li>CB: difficult to securely store offline data<br />
<ul><li>premium audio streaming is not yet possible in HTML5</li>
</ul></li>
<li>EM: a bank developer said “the security people want a native app for encryption reasons”</li>
<li>AB: why does the online banking not just work on the phone?<br />
<ul><li>yes, you can have encrypted storage, but do you need it</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="bestwayinformobiledevelopment">Best way in for mobile development</h4><ul><li>NB: use an app template toolkit for a size that fits<br />
<ul><li>learn to be a mobile developer…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>what if you just want to see your idea?</li>
<li>CA: most dangerous word when you start is “just”…</li>
<li>AB: the reason for the standard layouts on web is ads<br />
<ul><li>have to build the design to fit the adverts</li>
<li>there’s been a boost in design creativity from moving to new formats</li>
<li>you can take that newfound focus on user experience and bring it back to the desktop</li>
<li>you’d never expect a mobile app to have big gutters down the side</li>
<li>unless it’s an iOS 5 app on an iPhone 5…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="notifications">Notifications</h4><ul><li>NB: issue for HTML5 apps</li>
<li>AB: W3C working on notifications as a spec…</li>
</ul><h4 id="newusersfromindiachinabrazilwontbeinappleorgooglesecosystem">New users from India, China & Brazil won’t be in Apple or Google’s ecosystem</h4><ul><li>NB: won’t be a technology decision — more of a distribution</li>
</ul><h4 id="javascriptlibraries">Javascript libraries?</h4><ul><li>NB: 85% of development in HTML5 apps goes into javascript</li>
</ul><h4 id="greatnewdebuggingsuitesforandroidchromeandiossafari">Great new debugging suites for Android Chrome and iOS Safari</h4><ul><li>Dominic Travers: great time to develop HTML5 apps!</li>
</ul><h4 id="willwestillbearguingin5yearstime">Will we still be arguing in 5 years’ time?</h4><ul><li>AB: native will always be able to innovate faster<br />
<ul><li>web will be behind, but standardised</li>
<li>FT’s Android app is partly native for performance</li>
<li>as soon as the browser catches up, they’ll remove the native part</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><hr /><h3 id="announcements">Announcements</h3><ul><li>W3C coremob.org community group</li>
<li>UKTI Competition Final 29th October</li>
<li>7th Anniversary in November</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/p2qxZenhvWg" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/momolondon-html-vs-native.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-9069212241950483092012-10-25T21:51:00.001+01:002012-10-25T21:51:50.134+01:002012-10-25T21:51:50.134+01:00dConstruct 2012<p>Catching up on publishing my notes from the last few months… Here’s <a href="http://2012.dconstruct.org/">dConstruct 2012</a> — a conference more about inspiring and provoking new ideas than specific technology.</p><p>The highlights were Scott Jenson demanding we come up with a better way to discover UIs for the Internet of Things; Tom Armitage telling us why we should build toys (and why they are different from prototypes); and James Burke (yes, <em>that</em> James Burke) taking us on a tour de force whirlwind journey through the history of technology. Not to mention Seb Lee-Delisle turning the entire audience into a giant fireworks display!</p><p>The audio for all the talks is <a href="http://archive.dconstruct.org/2012" title="2012 — dConstruct Audio Archive">available from the dConstruct archive</a>. What follows is my rough notes covering the points that caught my interest.</p><h3 id="theflowerthefieldandthestack">The Flower, The Field and The Stack</h3><p><em>Ben Hammersley</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/benhammersley">@benhammersley</a></p><ul><li>“if your code isn’t elegant, it’s probably wrong”</li>
<li>levels above individual UX:<br />
<ul><li>social UX</li>
<li>what the experience does to the rest of society</li>
</ul></li>
<li>how do we make those layers beautiful & elegant?</li>
<li>media does affect society<br />
<ul><li>we deny the Daily Mail fearmongering</li>
<li>but build gamification, add marketing, etc</li>
<li>you are changing society in some way</li>
</ul></li>
<li>what messages can or should we put out?</li>
<li>first generation in the history of humanity to have exponential growth in our capabilities (Moore’s law)</li>
<li>yet we are ruled by people who don’t quite understand that…</li>
<li>government wants us to be individual billionaires</li>
<li>but it’s not like that — the web is all community based</li>
<li>think about how to expose the interconnectedness — the symmetries</li>
</ul><h3 id="cureforthecommoncode">Cure for the Common Code</h3><p><em>Jenn Lukas</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/jennlucas">@jennlucas</a></p><ul><li><a href="http://girldevelopit.com">http://girldevelopit.com</a><br />
<ul><li>started in NYC but now spreading across the world</li>
<li><em>two UK movements are <a href="http://codeclub.org.uk/">Code Club</a> and <a href="http://gotofdn.org/">The Goto Foundation</a></em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>lots of reasons for people to learn to code<br />
<ul><li>even people who do not have code involved in their jobs</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://codeyear.com">http://codeyear.com</a> run by codecademy</li>
<li>lots of sites coming up…<br />
<ul><li><a href="https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-webcraft/">mozilla’s school of webcraft</a> (harry potter theme…)</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://girldevelopit.com/">http://girldevelopit.com/</a><br />
<ul><li>4 two hour sessions</li>
<li>set up expectations: make a basic web site, learn terminology</li>
<li>won’t become an expert</li>
<li>importantly: where to go for further information (bad education hurts!)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>w3schools comes up at the top of search results a lot, but it has a lot of mistakes (see <a href="http://w3fools.com/" title="W3Fools – A W3Schools Intervention">w3fools</a>…)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.khanacademy.org/cs" title="Computer Science | Khan Academy">Khan Academy computer science</a> - videos bring on the excitement</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/" title="In Time (2011) - IMDb">In Time</a> movie: time is currency, people gambling for minutes etc</li>
</ul><h3 id="beyondmobile-beyondweb">Beyond Mobile - Beyond Web</h3><p><em>Scott Jenson</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/scottjenson">@scottjenson</a></p><ul><li>no way that 60s mainframe guys would understand mobile phones<br />
<ul><li>even if we told them about it they still wouldn’t understand</li>
</ul></li>
<li>default thinking<br />
<ul><li>e.g. when TV first came out, they read radio plays in front of the camera…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Scott was first mobile designer at Google<br />
<ul><li>worked on Google Maps</li>
</ul></li>
<li>felt tectonic plates changing from mobile OSes, to apps, to web</li>
<li>built a simple test and sent it out to a google mailing list<br />
<ul><li>got 90,000 results in a few hours…</li>
<li>web-based — viral spreading</li>
</ul></li>
<li>whole new world opening up and apps is an old world model</li>
</ul><h4 id="whatshappening:">what’s happening:</h4><ol><li>app glut: is there really going to be an app for every different thing?<br />
<ul><li>the apps are like the Hitchhiker’s Guide mice – experimenting on us</li>
<li>value must be greater than pain<br />
<ul><li>SMS: great pain but bigger value</li>
<li>Google making page load 0.4s faster: reducing pain</li>
<li>if you get pain down to zero then people usage </li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>size & cost reduction<br />
<ul><li>e.g. pill bottle that calls your phone if you don’t open it each day!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>smart devices leverage other platforms<br />
<ul><li>e.g. withings scale has interface on your phone</li>
</ul></li>
</ol><h4 id="seenthisbeforewheresitgoing">seen this before? where’s it going?</h4><ul><li>yahoo: catalogued links — grew too big</li>
<li>google: just search</li>
<li>RFID & sensors in everything (Bruce Sterling spimes)</li>
<li>triggers from physical locations<br />
<ul><li>e.g. at bus stop want to see that departure board, not the whole app…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>just in time interactions<br />
<ul><li>use it, then lose it</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="paradigmshift">paradigm shift</h4><ul><li>kuhn cycle:<br />
<ol><li>normal science</li>
<li>model drift</li>
<li>model crisis</li>
<li>model revolution (because old science still works for most stuff)</li>
<li>paradigm shift</li>
<li>and back again…</li>
</ol></li>
<li>software: if it’s so important, you have to reuse it</li>
<li>need to move to experience: discover, use, discard</li>
<li>trapped in the browser:<br />
<ul><li>awesome experience with a command-line on top!</li>
<li>doesn’t really work so well on mobile without a proper keyboard…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="suggestion">suggestion</h4><ul><li>asking for a detente between native and web<br />
<ul><li>phones should have a <strong>discovery service</strong></li>
<li>google my room rather than my world</li>
<li>access a list of nearby services</li>
</ul></li>
<li>get the pain down to zero so I can get to the web as soon as possible</li>
<li>but web apps suck!<br />
<ul><li>native is awesome and will always be more so than web</li>
<li>but talking about basic small things that can’t do apps</li>
<li>toasters, movie posters, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>smart toaster, really?<br />
<ul><li>because pain is low, the value doesn’t have to be high</li>
<li>change the “done” sound</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use my phone all the time?<br />
<ul><li>once you’ve got the “digital soul” of a thing</li>
<li>you can access it from anywhere</li>
<li>e.g. Sonos system: only accessible from phone with app…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>no company will do this, no money…<br />
<ul><li>have to think in layers</li>
<li>discover</li>
<li>interact</li>
<li>export/communicate</li>
<li>organise</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="chickenegg">chicken & egg</h4><ul><li>need to start building it from both ends</li>
<li>are we all going to be using iPhones 30 years from now?</li>
<li>no company will make this:<br />
<ul><li><strong>we</strong> are the next Apple!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="thehackersguidetothegalaxy">The Hacker’s Guide To The Galaxy</h3><p><em>Ariel Waldman</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/arielwaldman">@arielwaldman</a></p><ul><li>black holes are like super-massive hackerspaces<br />
<ul><li>spewing out all sorts of stuff</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SETI are starting to look for light pulses as well as radio waves</li>
<li><a href="http://www.planethunters.org/">planethunters</a> - find exoplanets using human pattern detection</li>
<li>instead of discovering life in the universe, what if we put it there…?</li>
<li>astrobiology<br />
<ul><li>water bears can survive for several days in the vacuum of space</li>
<li>lichen good at breaking down bare rock surfaces, and can live in the surface conditions of Mars</li>
</ul></li>
<li>citizens in space<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative.html">cubesats</a>: 10cm^3 mini satellites</li>
<li>gathering ideas to send into space</li>
</ul></li>
<li>university rover challenge<br />
<ul><li>annual competition for universities to build next-gen robots</li>
</ul></li>
<li>beard detector at science hackday<br />
<ul><li>USB microscope connected to OpenCV</li>
<li>picked up by particle physicist to detect cosmic rays in a cloud chamber</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="pixelspeopleplay">Pixels People Play</h3><p><em>Seb Lee-Delisle</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/seb_ly">@seb_ly</a></p><ul><li><a href="http://seb.ly/work/pixelphones/" title="PixelPhones | Seb Lee-Delisle">PixelPhones</a><br />
<ul><li>synchronizes phones across wifi</li>
<li>then detects positions using camera</li>
<li>open source on github</li>
<li>nyancatch — catch the nyan cat as he goes past your pixel phone</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://seb.ly/2012/04/node-js-experiment-mmo-asteroids/" title="Node.js experiment: MMO Asteroids | Seb Lee-Delisle">MMOsteroids</a> (multi-player asteroids)<br />
<ul><li>but not actually real…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>digital fireworks based on motion detection at the bottom of the screen</li>
<li>using digital media to bring people together in interesting ways<br />
<ul><li>phones normally put you in your own private world</li>
<li>pixelphones makes a gathered experience using the same</li>
</ul></li>
<li>putting power in the control of the audience</li>
<li>web-based games: playing with the audience<br />
<ul><li>your expectation of the other players changes your experience</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="imaginedfutures">Imagined Futures</h3><p><em>Lauren Beukes</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/laurenbeukes">@laurenbeukes</a></p><ul><li>“those who can’t imagine the future are doomed to fuck it up”</li>
<li>the Cosby Show laid the way for Nelson Mandela<br />
<ul><li>he made it possible for racist white south africans to see black people as people</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Novel: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007323891/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0007323891&linkCode=as2&tag=expandhorizo-21">Moxyland</a><br />
<ul><li>looking at the gaps between the rich and the poor</li>
<li>how an apartheid state might come into being again</li>
</ul></li>
<li>science fiction’s imagination</li>
<li>makes the future personal<br />
<ul><li>Jeff Noon: <a href="http://www.metamorphiction.com/index.php/skull-flowers/" title="Skull Flowers « Metamorphiction">skull flowers</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>focusing on a single person allows you to get close and understand a shocking event</li>
<li>fiction allows you greater empathy than journalism</li>
<li>re-imagining monsters</li>
<li>“the universe is made of stories not atoms”</li>
</ul><h3 id="thesavebuttonruinedeverything">The Save Button Ruined Everything</h3><p><em>Backing up our digital heritage</em></p><p><em>Jason Scott</em>, Computer Historian, owner of <a href="http://twitter.com/sockington">@sockington</a></p><ul><li>“when my cat was being interviewed for People magazine…”</li>
<li>the floppy disk icon has no meaning to kids these days<br />
<ul><li>they don’t know what it is</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Timeshare system designed at MIT 1964<br />
<ul><li>based on IBM 7094</li>
<li>SAVE command to save status</li>
</ul></li>
<li>originally saving was a slow process</li>
<li><a href="http://archiveteam.org">http://archiveteam.org</a><br />
<ul><li>saving geocities etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t delete things just because you think you’re done with them</li>
<li>it’s a responsibility</li>
<li>always provide an export function</li>
</ul><h3 id="makingfriends:toystoyingandtoymaking">Making Friends: Toys, Toying and Toymaking</h3><p><em>Tom Armitage</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/tom_armitage">@tom_armitage</a>, <a href="http://infovore.org">http://infovore.org</a></p><ul><li>father worked as an amateur woodworker — made toys<br />
<ul><li><em>very impressive ones too — I’m jealous!</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>“I wonder if I make toys today because my dad made toys for me”</li>
<li>what is a toy: something you can fiddle with — a simulation</li>
<li>SimCity: not actually a good simulation of a city<br />
<ul><li>but does expose the moving parts</li>
<li>stuff left out also important</li>
</ul></li>
<li>caricatures:<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://infovore.org/archives/2008/12/29/twit-4-dead/" title="Infovore » Twit 4 Dead: more silly nonsense with Twitter bots.">twit4dead</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/markov_chocolates">Markov Chocolates</a><br />
<ul><li>use chocolate descriptions as a source corpus for a markov chain generator</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0898761050/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0898761050&linkCode=as2&tag=expandhorizo-21">Toys as Culture: Brian Sutton-Smith</a></li>
<li>modern day<br />
<ul><li>The Demoscene</li>
<li>elevated by RGBA (4k program)</li>
<li>craft by Linus Åkesson (runs off a 9V battery)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>free of work constraints</li>
<li>restricted by other constraints (file size, hardware, etc)</li>
<li>often have no utility</li>
<li>but definitely have purpose</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ghostcar_ta">Ghostcar</a><br />
<ul><li>a foursquare account of yourself - timeshifted from a year ago</li>
<li>made Tom checkin more ‘cos he wanted good data</li>
</ul></li>
<li>a time lapse video, with the scrubbing controlled by how close the viewer is to the screen</li>
<li>“we expose purpose and meaning through the making”</li>
<li>seamful design<br />
<ul><li>emphasising the edges and transitions</li>
</ul></li>
<li>LEGO is seams everywhere</li>
<li>so is twitter: it’s a messaging bus</li>
<li>tower bridge twitter account<br />
<ul><li>exposed seams by its interactions with other people</li>
<li>followed by cab drivers so they knew not to drive across when it was open</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Toca Boca: <a href="http://j.mp/Pts2xS">helicopter taxi</a></li>
<li>Chris O’Shea: <a href="http://j.mp/QgWr1D">makego</a> — incomplete car</li>
<li>Makies: custom dolls<br />
<ul><li>extended to transformer versions by <a href="http://mechkies.tumblr.com">http://mechkies.tumblr.com</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Toys are finished, not prototypes<br />
<ul><li>they have seams but not rough edges</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Thomas Heatherwick (designer of the Olympic Cauldron):<br />
<ul><li>get things into the world quickly</li>
<li>don’t keep things in your imagination</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Toys are small scope — that’s important: it means you can finish more stuff</li>
<li>when you’re making a toy, you have to imagine the player<br />
<ul><li>you have to play with it while you’re making it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>problem-solving is convergent but it’s obeying the problem</li>
<li>toy making is divergent… creative</li>
<li>making is playing is making</li>
</ul><h3 id="doespredictionhaveafutureadmiralshovelandthetoiletroll">Does Prediction Have A Future? Admiral Shovel and the Toilet Roll</h3><p><em>James Burke</em></p><p>These notes in no way capture James’s talk. Please <a href="http://archive.dconstruct.org/2012/admiralshovel">listen to the audio recording</a> and marvel!</p><ul><li>focus is for computers</li>
<li>creativity and imagination is humans’ strong point</li>
<li>Burke working on a learning system<br />
<ul><li>2800 historical figures, events & ideas</li>
<li>connected 35,000 ways</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Laplace: you want me to predict everything? fine! tell me everything<br />
<ul><li>may soon be possible to gather, look at links and spot inconsistencies</li>
<li>but institutions often exist to maintain the status quo</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="scarcity">Scarcity</h4><ul><li>representative democracy<br />
<ul><li>invented because roads were slow…</li>
<li>now we have much faster comms</li>
</ul></li>
<li>most of our social and organisational systems are based on scarcity</li>
<li>but the nanotech cornucopia machine will turn that into abundance</li>
<li>what happens to us socially? all the organisations and processes?</li>
<li>we may have only 40 years to work it out!</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/BkVrWe_76ko" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/10/dconstruct-2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-57424155882797449682012-09-17T22:52:00.002+01:002012-09-17T22:52:12.961+01:002012-09-17T22:52:12.961+01:00Over The Air 2012<p>Only just noticed (in September) that I hadn’t posted my notes from <a href="http://overtheair.org/" title="Over the Air | 36 Hours of Mobile Development">Over The Air</a> 2012 in <em>June</em>!</p><p>I had a fantastic time — and so did my dad and my son! We had three generations at the same tech conference :-)</p><p>I need to write a separate blog post about the LEGO hacks that people put together during and following my <a href="http://lanyrd.com/2012/over-the-air/stgrb/">LEGO Mindstorms workshop</a>, but in the meantime, here's my notes from the other sessions:</p><h3 id="hackingscienceandspace">Hacking Science and Space</h3><p><em>Ariel Waldman</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/arielwaldman">@arielwaldman</a></p><h4 id="invisibility">invisibility</h4><ul><li>dark energy pushing us apart</li>
<li>dark matter keeping us together…</li>
<li>invisible superpowers:<br />
<ul><li>belt that vibrates when you face north</li>
<li>synaesthesia for those that don’t have it…</li>
<li><a href="http://syneseizure.wordpress.com/" title="syneseizure | unmasking reality">syneseizure</a> — feel vision through a gimp mask!</li>
<li>particle windchime</li>
<li>what would particle collisions sound like?</li>
<li>being used as an augmentation interface in collision labs</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="cyborgs">cyborgs</h4><ul><li>your phone has loads of sensors, available all the time</li>
<li>quake canary<br />
<ul><li>monitor on your phone</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="interstellar">interstellar</h4><ul><li>humans are really good at pattern recognition<br />
<ul><li>galaxy zoo</li>
<li>planet hunters</li>
<li>the work you do actually gets credited to you!</li>
<li>grean peas galaxies</li>
<li>discovered as galaxy zoo lets you drill down into data behind images</li>
</ul></li>
<li>NASA makes stuff available, but not necessarily accessible<br />
<ul><li>spacelog.org</li>
<li>takes PDFs of transcripts and makes them come to life</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="sciencehackday">science hack day</h4><ul><li>weekend hack day<br />
<ul><li>isodrag: a typeface where all the letters have the same wind drag</li>
<li>DNAckery: cocktail of extracted Strawberry DNA…</li>
<li>arm alarm: won’t shut off until your pulse is angry</li>
<li>near death lamp: lights up when an asteroid gets close to the Earth</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="openwebdevice">Open Web Device</h3><p>Francisco Jordan <a href="http://twitter.com/mepartoconmigo">@mepartoconmigo</a>, O2 Labs</p><p><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/franciscojordano/presenting-the-open-web-device-by-telefonica">Slides available</a></p><ul><li>still lots more people with feature phones than smart phones<br />
<ul><li>4 billion feature phones will be sold between 2011 & 2015</li>
</ul></li>
<li>mainly because they can’t afford a smart phone</li>
<li>especially in Latin America, where Telefonica is trying to grow</li>
<li>want to provide a phone for $60-70!</li>
<li>Open Web Device - based on Boot 2 Gecko</li>
<li>plan to launch in Brazil at beginning of next year</li>
<li>Also partnering with Qualcomm to provide the chipset</li>
<li>still haven’t decided the OEM(s) who will be manufacturing</li>
<li>all open source: <a href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G">http://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G</a></li>
<li>can build your own ROM based on Android 3.0 or 4.0 kernel/driver backends</li>
<li>can also build B2G for desktop</li>
<li>Gaia is Mozilla’s front-end for B2G (also open source)</li>
<li>don’t <em>have</em> to use Gaia — B2G doesn’t even have to look like a phone</li>
<li>the keyboard itself is an application<br />
<ul><li>you can replace the keyboard with another web app!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>most new APIs in B2G are also finding their way into Firefox for desktop<br />
<ul><li>just download Firefox nightly to see what’s available</li>
</ul></li>
<li>apps are just webapps in a directory with a manifest.webapp JSON file<br />
<ul><li>can use appcache to store stuff locally as well</li>
</ul></li>
<li>using Sumon as a demo webapp<br />
<ul><li>runs about 3x faster on B2G than on iOS!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Marketplace: <a href="http://marketplace.mozilla.org">http://marketplace.mozilla.org</a><br />
<ul><li>open for developers, but not yet for users</li>
</ul></li>
<li>or install from web: <code>navigator.mozApps.install(manifesturl);</code><br />
<ul><li>install an app from directly a web page</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="anyonecancodeanembeddedcontroller">Anyone Can Code an Embedded Controller</h3><p><em>Nicholas Herriot</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/nicholasherriot">@nicholasherriot</a></p><p>Example device: connected printer — text questions to it and it will print them out!</p><ul><li>Vodafone trying to bring connectivity to embedded controllers</li>
<li>Arduino and other microcontrollers exploding since 2005</li>
<li>mbed (<a href="http://mbed.org/">http://mbed.org/</a>) similar to Arduino, but started by ARM<br />
<ul><li>96MHz</li>
<li>ARM Cortex M3</li>
<li>can run USB <strong>host</strong> and I2C slave</li>
</ul></li>
<li>online compiler & tool chain - works cross platform</li>
<li>easy to install & run code:<br />
<ul><li>runs as a USB mass storage device</li>
<li>just copy code across and press restart button</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can export from mbed online IDE to other toolchains:<br />
<ul><li>CodeRed: eclipse & gcc based</li>
<li>others</li>
</ul></li>
<li>wanted to set up a platform for microcontrollers</li>
<li>online IDE has a built-in SVN repository per project</li>
<li>built-in libraries has lots of common stuff</li>
<li>can extend with downloadable libraries (search available through online IDE)</li>
<li>Vodafone has an M2M network - GDSB<br />
<ul><li>used by Kindle, TomTom</li>
<li>SIMs don’t expire, don’t need to top up</li>
</ul></li>
<li>trying to open GDSB to developers…</li>
</ul><h3 id="youdoknowitisaphonedontyouaddingvoicetoyourmobileapps">You do know it is a phone, don’t you? (Adding voice to your mobile apps)</h3><p><em>Tim Panton</em> <a href="https://twitter.com/steely_glint">@Steely_Glint</a>, Tropo</p><h4 id="tropoapi">Tropo API</h4><ul><li>SaaS for server-side phone handling<br />
<ul><li>Voice (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, Skype, iNum)</li>
<li>SMS</li>
<li>Other services via HTTP or XMPP</li>
<li>Multi-lingual (with multiple voices in each language)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SaaS provided by Voxeo</li>
<li>Web API is JSON/javascript based</li>
<li>also scripting APIs for Python, Ruby, etc</li>
<li>example uses:<br />
<ul><li>making calls without sharing phone numbers (e.g. speaking to taxi driver)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>scripting vs web api<br />
<ul><li>scripting runs on Tropo servers and has no access to external data</li>
<li>web api runs on your servers - can access your data</li>
</ul></li>
<li>also a REST API to start outgoing calls and other control & management services</li>
</ul><h4 id="phono">Phono</h4><ul><li>jQuery plugin to make phone calls from the browser</li>
<li>open source client</li>
<li>picks up microphone from computer</li>
<li>can use server-side voice recognition…</li>
<li>can also pick up messaging from the tropo service</li>
<li>requires a back-end (but same API for all)<br />
<ul><li>Flash</li>
<li>Java applet - takes much longer to load</li>
<li>Panda (Flash with echo cancellation)</li>
<li>WebRTC - native in Chrome Canary</li>
<li>PhoneGap/Cordova plugin</li>
<li>iPad/iPhone actually works better than most laptops</li>
<li>pot luck on Android < 3.2</li>
<li>much better on Android >= 3.2</li>
<li>early version of native iOS (available in github/phono/phonosdk)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can run both Tropo & Phono from a car battery<br />
<ul><li>has been done at Burning Man</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="developmentcosts">Development costs</h4><ul><li>in the US can make free calls</li>
<li>outside the US, need to ping Tropo for permission</li>
<li>they will often let you run a demo server with small number of minutes for no money</li>
</ul><h3 id="mobilewebsitescanhavenicefontstoo...">Mobile Websites Can Have Nice Fonts Too…</h3><p><em>Laura Kalbag</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/laurakalbag">@laurakalbag</a>, front-end designer</p><ul><li>typefaces can evoke emotional responses<br />
<ul><li>not just in typographers!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iOS app: Fonts by AppEngines — shows you all the fonts available on your device</li>
<li>embed them on mobile using @font-face in CSS, just like on desktop browsers<br />
<ul><li>works on opera mobile, android mobile >4</li>
<li>doesn’t work on IE Mobile, Opera Mini</li>
</ul></li>
<li>sources of fonts:<br />
<ul><li>fontsquirrel - all free</li>
<li>fontspring - one off license per domain</li>
<li>myfonts - one off license per domain</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>but</strong> can have a high impact on performance<br />
<ul><li>and can flicker when load, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>tips for better performance:<br />
<ul><li>just use the fancy font for headers</li>
<li>can choose to subset a font on some services (e.g. FontSquirrel)</li>
<li>see <a href="http://24ways.org/2011/unicode-range">http://24ways.org/2011/unicode-range</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>hosted fonts:<br />
<ul><li>google web fonts - loads of free ones, but not so good quality</li>
<li>typekit, fonts.com, fontdeck are better - but pay subscription costs</li>
<li>but loaded using javascript… can be laggy</li>
</ul></li>
<li>watch out for missing fonts on mobile (e.g. no Arial on Android)</li>
<li>and fonts can render differently on different devices</li>
</ul><h4 id="choosingagoodfont">choosing a good font</h4><ul><li>heineman: designed for people with dyslexia</li>
<li>want to make something that’s really inviting to read, but then just sit back and actually read it easily</li>
<li>what makes a typeface relevant?<br />
<ul><li>context of content & features of typeface</li>
</ul></li>
<li>old style or humanist serif: based on early printing presses</li>
<li>transitional serif: high contrast, sharp</li>
<li>modern serif: modern classic, magazines, high class sophistication</li>
<li>egyptian/slab serif: marketing, shouting, very bold</li>
<li>humanist sans: clean & easy to read</li>
<li>transitional sans: utilitarian, clinical, swiss</li>
<li>geometric sans: clean, slick, structural, slightly childlike</li>
<li>script: lots of variety, generally not good for body text, better for logos or headers</li>
<li>novelty or themed: lack any subtlety, cheesy, decoration on a poster</li>
<li>watch out for free fonts — they’ll most likely be overused</li>
<li>choose the weight carefully:<br />
<ul><li>too heavy is hard to read</li>
<li>too light may disappear on smaller screens</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h4 id="laurastaste">laura’s taste</h4><ul><li>easy to read</li>
<li>attention to detail</li>
<li>subtle</li>
<li>well-balanced, consistent & uniform<br />
<ul><li>nothing jumps out too much</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><script async class="speakerdeck-embed" data-id="4fc92468af6a02001f01cb74" data-ratio="1.3333333333333333" src="//speakerdeck.com/assets/embed.js"></script><br />
<h3 id="epatient101">ePatient 101</h3><p><em>Mark A M Kramer</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/mamk">@mamk</a></p><ul><li>a lot of healthcare is based on communication between the doctor and the patient</li>
<li>often doctor <strong>communication</strong> is not very effective<br />
<ul><li>slow responses to email</li>
<li>constrained mobile devices due to privacy & security issues</li>
</ul></li>
<li>big issues just <strong>scheduling appointments</strong></li>
<li>quantified self — capturing and logging health information:<br />
<ul><li>especially <strong>body monitoring</strong></li>
<li>apps that take photos of food, confirm the food, then estimate the calories</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Dan Appelquist: most mHealth is focused on the hospital & medical enterprise</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/PswWVu0adoo" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/09/over-air-2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-72389788458501025812012-08-29T17:34:00.001+01:002012-08-29T17:34:28.836+01:002012-08-29T17:34:28.836+01:00Geeky August<p>This was the first Geeky event that I’ve attended (I <em>think</em> it was the second one so far…). I found it intriguing and inspiring — there were no massively new ideas, but just people celebrating the ideas that interested and excited them.</p>
<p>The venue helped too — Forward Technology have <a href="http://forwardtechnology.co.uk/venue" title="Our Venue | Forward Technology">very impressive offices</a> with a bar that almost rivalled the <a href="http://www.brewdog.com/bars/camden" title="BrewDog Camden | Craft Beer Bar Camden, London">Brewdog round the corner</a>.</p>
<h3 id="detachedheadsandthepracticeofempathy">detached heads and the practice of empathy</h3>
<p>Evgenia Grinblo, <a href="http://twitter.com/grinblo">@grinblo</a></p>
<ul>
<li>how to design error messages…</li>
<li>don’t do it like this: <a href="http://errorwallofshame.tumblr.com">http://errorwallofshame.tumblr.com</a></li>
<li>Talk human</li>
<li>Don’t blame the user — users already assume they messed up!</li>
<li>Tell the user what to do next</li>
</ul>
<script async class="speakerdeck-embed" data-id="503d3de88dd37a000201a921" data-ratio="1.7777777777777777" src="//speakerdeck.com/assets/embed.js"></script>
<h3 id="littleprinter">Little Printer</h3>
<p>Alice Bartlett, <a href="http://twitter.com/alicebartlett">@alicebartlett</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Little Printer from BERG — <a href="http://bergcloud.com/littleprinter/">http://bergcloud.com/littleprinter/</a></li>
<li>More personal than an email — a physical message arrives in your space</li>
<li>First units available to the public in October</li>
<li>Lots of publications available
<ul>
<li>BBC Worldwide: foods in season this week</li>
<li>Lanyrd, guardian, instagram, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Daily feeds / stories in parts / collections</li>
<li>API takes HTML and prints at 200.3 dpi</li>
<li>Also running “after school clubs” at BERG to test out the printers</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whenzeppelinsruledtheearth">when zeppelins ruled the earth</h3>
<p>Simon Willison, <a href="http://twitter.com/simonw">@simonw</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Norge: Italian zeppelin flew over the North pole</li>
<li>British Airship R100 had a smoking room… lined with asbestos to be safe!</li>
<li>USS Akron had a biplane inside it
<ul>
<li>They could launch — and be picked up later while the zeppelin was still flying</li>
<li>The “landing” was by matching speeds and being hoisted in from below</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_One_(Mountain_View,_California">Hangar One</a> “Hangar One (Mountain View, California) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”) near San Francisco is a beautiful Art Deco building</li>
</ul>
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<h3 id="crochetpixels">crochet & pixels</h3>
<p>Ruth Jones, <a href="http://twitter.com/rumyra">@rumyra</a></p>
<ul>
<li>comparing crocheting and pixel design</li>
<li>both done using squares of equal size but different colours</li>
<li>crochet can be done at different gauges, going down to really fine thread</li>
<li>crocheting starts with a 4” square swatch: allows you to measure before you start</li>
<li>crocheting has a limit of the smallest thread you can manipulate — do pixels have the same?</li>
</ul>
<p>See how dense you are with <a href="http://rumyra.com/test/" title="What's your pixel density?">Rumyra’s test page</a></p>
<h3 id="internetofthingssavestheday">Internet of Things Saves the Day</h3>
<p>Jessi Baker, <a href="http://twitter.com/jessibaker">@jessibaker</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Using internet of things (IoT) to help us make better choices</li>
<li>choosing to be selfish or selfless?</li>
<li>we’re becoming a society of quantified selves</li>
<li>Jessi worked with the people who made <a href="http://sourcemap.com/">http://sourcemap.com/</a>: open source map of supply chains</li>
<li>She then went on to design <a href="http://jessibaker.co.uk/Open-Object">Open Object</a>: digital shadows of real things</li>
<li>when we get to out-sourcing part of your mind… (creating your digital daemon?)</li>
<li>…how would you calibrate it with your morals?</li>
</ul>
<p>Jessi gave a similar presentation at <a href="http://www.mlove.com/" title="MLOVE">mLove</a>: <a href="http://prezi.com/ygo_9dfvfmk2/mlove-presentation-cycle/">see it here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="lessonsfromthezxspectrum">5 Lessons from the ZX Spectrum</h3>
<p>Meri Williams, <a href="http://twitter.com/Geek_Manager">Geek_Manager</a>, <a href="http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk">http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk</a></p>
<ul>
<li>learning is fun</li>
<li>creating is even more fun</li>
<li>creating it together is awesome</li>
<li>making stuff and sharing it with your friends is something we should all experience as children</li>
<li>break something apart, mess with it and make it cooler than it was</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk/2012/05/06/5-lessons-from-the-zx-spectrum/" title="5 Lessons from the ZX Spectrum « Geek | Manager">Meri’s notes</a> give a lot more detail on her talk</p>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/dCk1K1UcKQg" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/08/geeky-august.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-69934010426524553892012-07-05T21:40:00.001+01:002012-07-06T08:17:58.646+01:002012-07-06T08:17:58.646+01:00MomoLondon: Mobile Payments<p>I arrived a few minutes late and missed the beginning of <a href="http://twitter.com/dgwbirch">Dave Birch</a>’s introduction, but I gather it involved Star Trek and early Visa commercials…</p>
<p>Dave has posted <a href="http://www.chyp.com/media/blog-entry/story-time">his own summary of his introduction</a> which was all about needing a better story to tell about mobile payments. He reckons we don’t have a really good narrative to get people excited about the subject, and that makes it harder to get the future technologies more widespread.</p>
<p>Some other points he raised were:</p>
<ul>
<li>Keuffel & Esser (world’s largest manufacturer of slide rules) commissioned a report about the future in 1967. It was amazingly accurate apart for the bit where they went out of business 5 years later due to the invention of the calculator…</li>
<li>Facebook have money transmitter licenses in 38 out of 50 states — a good start, but not really useful if you need to pay someone and they go on holiday to a state that’s not covered…</li>
<li>In EU there was a regulatory barrier and now there isn’t — arrival of non-banks will be a big game change</li>
<li>UK Universal Credit system — payments won’t be by cheque any more
<ul>
<li>going for prepaid accounts</li>
<li>£2bn per month will be going through the new system</li>
<li>a big opportunity…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>He then challenged the panel to come up with some good narratives for digital, mobile money. My usual summarised notes are below. Dave did a good job of making the evening interesting to listen to, but we didn’t really come away with any new stories to tell. As <a href="https://twitter.com/MobileMaggie/status/220432338335711232">Margaret Gold tweeted</a> later, the most we talked about was buying coffee…</p>
<h3 id="panel">Panel</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dave Birch, Director, <a href="http://www.chyp.com">Consult Hyperion</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/dgwbirch">@dgwbirch</a></li>
<li>Jennifer Payne, <a href="http://www.pontis.co.uk/jsp/pontis.jsp">Ponti’s Group</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/pontisgroup">@pontisgroup</a></li>
<li>Russell Sheffield, <a href="http://www.paythru.com/">paythru</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/russsheffield">@russsheffield</a></li>
<li>Iain Herd, <a href="https://www.paypal-marketing.co.uk/mobile/index.htm">PayPal Mobile</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/iainherd">@iainherd</a></li>
<li>Nathan Cushnie, <a href="http://www.o2.co.uk/money">O2 Money</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/gncushnie">@gncushnie</a></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="nathancushnie:o2smobilemoney">Nathan Cushnie: O2’s Mobile Money</h3>
<ul>
<li>what is the user case?</li>
<li>just payment as utility is not very exciting</li>
<li>discovering deals, then paying directly</li>
<li>consolidating payments with other financial things — the rest of the wallet</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="iainherd:paypal">Iain Herd: PayPal</h3>
<ul>
<li>what is the value for the merchants?</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="russellsheffield:paythru">Russell Sheffield: paythru</h3>
<ul>
<li>has to be seamless, global & ubiquitous</li>
<li>fit the nuances of different cultures</li>
<li>Turkey have 10-12 merchant accounts for each merchant — they choose which to use
<ul>
<li>in Turkey, terminals are provided by the banks for free so this is possible</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="jenniferpayne:pontisretailer">Jennifer Payne: Ponti’s (retailer)</h3>
<ul>
<li>not enough benefits for the retailer</li>
<li>want the experience to be user friendly, social, tie in to marketing</li>
<li>want a little hub and want it to be handed to us</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="masabi-traintickets">Masabi - train tickets</h3>
<ul>
<li>merchants are terrified that they’ll install the wrong hardware (betamax)</li>
<li>masabi trying to provide several different versions all the time</li>
<li>what about a platform that will support multiple systems?</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="arewejustwaitingtoclearthelogjamsbeforeappletellsuswhattodo">Are we just waiting to clear the logjams before Apple tells us what to do?</h3>
<ul>
<li>RS: it is complex - have to make sure it’s secure and keeps customer confidence
<ul>
<li>better not to let the consumer decide</li>
</ul></li>
<li>IH: most players not looking at the whole journey
<ul>
<li>Apple good at making things work end to end</li>
<li>good at simplicity</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JP: so many people creating different wallets
<ul>
<li>do I wait for them? do I make my own app?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>NC: don’t want the consumer to have to choose technology</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="audienceexperiencesofpurchasingonaphone">Audience experiences of purchasing on a phone?</h3>
<ul>
<li>used an SMS to buy using a local currency (<a href="http://brixtonpound.org/">Brixton pounds</a>)
<ul>
<li>strong community narrative which was nothing to do with payment</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/Nq2DU1">starbucks app</a> — did what it needed to do
<ul>
<li>very simple</li>
</ul></li>
<li>been in a shop and got pissed off: used Amazon to buy direct</li>
<li>IH: used <a href="http://j.mp/Pl32fR">Pizza Express</a> payment app
<ul>
<li>audience: fairly simple</li>
<li>retailer had no difficulty using it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>audience: bought something in Macy’s
<ul>
<li>frustrated that had to take the phone out of his pocket</li>
</ul></li>
<li>audience: paid with NFC on iPhone at Starbucks</li>
<li>RS: all down to the customer — the moment they have to think about the transaction, the interruption can stop the payment</li>
<li>DGW: the goal with the phone is to make things better</li>
<li>DGW: no good experiences involved PayPal, Barclays, etc</li>
<li>IH: need big companies involved to get reach — all previous mentions were small scale</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="wanderingthroughthebuildingandpaying">Wandering through the building and paying</h3>
<p>Do we even need to get our phone out of our pocket? Is it better just to walk around and have things credited to our account automatically?</p>
<ul>
<li>Ben Whitaker, Masabi: femto cells on trains/buses… could just pick up people on the journey by being there
<ul>
<li>what about people on the bus stop?</li>
<li>track people across the journey…</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader">PayPal Here</a>/<a href="https://squareup.com/">Square</a>: check in to a merchant
<ul>
<li>next time you’re in the shop, the POS terminal shows your face</li>
<li>you can pay just by walking up to the till and talking</li>
<li>loyalty scheme — offers targeted at retail customers</li>
<li>POS machine shows how many times you’ve been in the store, what your last purchase was…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>what does the mobile channel deliver?</li>
<li>is just leaving your wallet behind enough of a change?</li>
<li>JP: people go to a restaurant for the customer experience
<ul>
<li>just ordering on your phone is a lonely experience…</li>
<li>want engagement as opposed to payment</li>
<li>if it comes to payment later then that’s good</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="mobileshoulddomore">mobile should do more</h3>
<ul>
<li>payments going through to expenses automatically?</li>
<li>want someone to help me budget & track my spending…</li>
<li>NC: narrative needs to be bigger than just a transaction
<ul>
<li>accounts departments won’t accept electronic receipts at the moment…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>RS: NatWest doing moneyless accounts in last couple of months
<ul>
<li>been that way for 15 years in South Africa because banks & mobile operators working together</li>
</ul></li>
<li>DGW: Orange & NatWest did a trial in 1996… unfortunately not much has happened since then</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="isitreallyjustasquabbleaboutwhoownsthecustomer">Is it really just a squabble about who owns the customer?</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: when working at a mobile operator, looking far too much at the commercial model than at what the consumer actually wanted</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="risk-mobilepaymentsshouldbemoresecureandthereforecheaper">Risk - mobile payments should be more secure, and therefore cheaper?</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: very large percentage of PayPal is risk management
<ul>
<li>when talking with partners, that’s one of the main things they bring to the table</li>
</ul></li>
<li><em>however, PayPal’s risk management seems to involve offloading a load of risk onto the merchant — see the <a href="http://aralbalkan.com/3898">various</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/04/paypal-buyer-destroys-violin">articles</a> <a href="http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/06/sooner-or-later-youll-pay-pal">about</a> PayPal seizing and freezing accounts</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whataboutidentityonmobile">What about identity on mobile?</h3>
<ul>
<li>RS: single sign-on</li>
<li>NC: not really looked at identity</li>
<li>IH: PayPal has less accounts than Facebook, but they’re all verified</li>
<li>DGW: if you figure out identity, then payment falls out in the wash…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whataboutpaymentwithnon-currencye.g.sellingpersonalinformation">What about payment with non-currency, e.g. selling personal information?</h3>
<ul>
<li><em>despite the promise of a new idea, this question didn’t get much of an answer…</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whycantitakethephoneroundasupermarketandscanproductsasigomyself">Why can’t I take the phone round a supermarket and scan products as I go myself?</h3>
<ul>
<li>NC: O2 Wallet does include a bar-code scanner
<ul>
<li>can scan a virtual/digital barcode poster shop</li>
<li>next step would be paying for real things</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dontwantstarbucksmcdonalds--iwantindependentmerchants">Don’t want Starbucks & McDonalds — I want independent merchants</h3>
<ul>
<li>Not just taking the payment utility, want community and local interest</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="replicatingexistingstorieshasntworked-successesarethosethatcreatenewmarkets">Replicating existing stories hasn’t worked - successes are those that create new markets</h3>
<ul>
<li>“What frustrates me is that those electronic, mobile transactions don’t appear any different in my bank statement”</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="workingbackwardsfromthefuture">Working backwards from the future</h3>
<ul>
<li>NC: consumer makes a gesture; consolidate offer & loyalty points; merchant gathers data</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="paymentofmediumsizedamountsbetweenpeoplee.g.600fordoingsomething">Payment of medium sized amounts between people (e.g. £600 for doing something)</h3>
<ul>
<li>PayPal is not legal tender — cannot force someone to be paid by PayPal…</li>
<li>the revolution is on the customer acquisition side, never on the usage</li>
<li>IH: PayPal focused on getting to Facebook size</li>
<li>it’s only a matter of time until you can send money via Facebook</li>
<li>audience: if you get a parking ticket, pay it by PayPal — it totally confuses them!</li>
<li>want to pay a builder, who pays his contractors, who use the money immediately to go down to the pub — cash is the only accepted mechanism right now</li>
<li>DGW: refuses to pay cash as he refuses to take part in the black economy!
<ul>
<li>part of the story could be that you’ll pay less tax if you pay by mobile :-)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>IH: can give people prepaid PayPal credit cards — they can withdraw cash from an ATM</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whataboutbeggarssmalltransactionstounknownpeople">What about beggars? Small transactions to unknown people</h3>
<ul>
<li>DGW: contactless terminals by busker pitches in the underground set at £1</li>
<li>DGW: Not a problem he’s trying to solve…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="shouldihavetherighttomakeananonymouspayment">Should I have the right to make an anonymous payment?</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: that’s where PayPal came from</li>
<li>Data that goes with the payment that seems to the root of the business models we were talking about earlier…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="woulditbegoodforpontistogetridofcash">Would it be good for Ponti’s to get rid of cash?</h3>
<ul>
<li>JP: it’s not on our radar — all that matters is that we get paid and the customer is happy</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whatisthemarketaskingpaypalfor">What is the market asking PayPal for?</h3>
<ul>
<li>in UK fashion group pay by barcode</li>
<li>all German shops close on a Sunday, but can put panels (with QR codes) in windows so people can shop online when you’re closed</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="isshowroomingaproblemforretailcomparisonshopandthenbuyonline">Is showrooming a problem for retail (comparison shop and then buy online)?</h3>
<ul>
<li>JP: Not particularly true in a restaurant…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="wrapup:">Wrap up:</h3>
<ul>
<li>need to look bigger than just replicating credit cards</li>
<li>In 1967 the USA banks thought it would take at least until the 1980s to get rid of cheques… Money changes very slowly</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 id="announcements">Announcements</h3>
<ul>
<li>Samsung Smart App Challenge - $4m worth of prizes</li>
<li>19th July — Smart Accessibility Workshop: 4-7pm
<ul>
<li>what to think about when designing apps on mobile</li>
<li>already a third full</li>
</ul></li>
<li>24th July — Mobile Apps Marketing</li>
</ul>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/ZfELPrv0MZk" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com1http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/07/momolondon-mobile-payments.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-74952741266763050872012-04-02T22:00:00.000+01:002013-01-24T11:39:36.600Z2013-01-24T11:39:36.600ZMomoLondon: Demo Night 2012<p>Demo Night is one of the most popular events in the Mobile Monday London calendar. Lots of new ideas all at once!</p>
<h3 id="langar">LangAR</h3>
<p>Peter O’Shaunessy (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/poshaunessy">@poshaunessy)</a>) & Rene Bastijans (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/renebastijans">@renebastijans</a>)</p>
<ul>
<li>Work for Pearson Future Technologies team</li>
<li>developed with BBC Active & DK + wikitude</li>
<li>AR tourist guide with audio phrases</li>
<li>available on Google Play and the App Store</li>
<li>uses wikitude’s beta AR engine
<ul>
<li>chose it because you get to write the app using web technologies (so two apps for free)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>would envisage the real app having embedded data</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="localsocial">LocalSocial</h3>
<p>Sean O’Sullivan <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/sos100">@sos100</a></p>
<p><a href="http://mylocalsocial.com">http://mylocalsocial.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>“offers, points and more that only unlock in-store”</li>
<li>proximity nerds (bluetooth, zigbee, NFC, etc)</li>
<li>actions: near, tap, scan</li>
<li>reactions</li>
<li>shopkick pioneered the format</li>
<li>collect points just for going in the venue</li>
<li>provide retailers with a beacon</li>
<li>“we like NFC for all the things that aren’t payment”</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="gomylife">Go my Life</h3>
<p>Michael Mulquin, IS Communications</p>
<p>Try it out on <a href="http://www.gomylife.eu">http://www.gomylife.eu</a></p>
<ul>
<li>online social networking platform tailor made for the over-60s</li>
<li>older people more concerned about privacy
<ul>
<li>cautious about posting as they’re not sure who will see it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>like things to be step by step</li>
<li>“facebook without the confusion”
<ul>
<li>but can post to facebook</li>
</ul></li>
<li>come out of a European project: <a href="http://gomylife-project.eu">http://gomylife-project.eu</a>
<ul>
<li>have a group of people in UK and Poland trying it out</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="six3videomessenger">six3 video messenger</h3>
<p>Simon Frost <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/spli">@spli</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/six3">@six3</a></p>
<p><a href="http://angel.co/six3">http://angel.co/six3</a> <a href="http://six3.tv">http://six3.tv</a></p>
<ul>
<li>asynchronous video messaging</li>
<li>either need the app or use it on the web</li>
<li>can send a message to someone’s email address</li>
<li>at the moment, it streams video but they plan to cache locally in the future</li>
<li>all messages are private</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ko-su">ko-su</h3>
<p><a href="http://ko-su.com">http://ko-su.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>lesson/activity creator</li>
<li>creates mobile-friendly content from a clean HTML interface
<ul>
<li>quizzes, videos</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can share content to people via an iOS app, mobile web, or mobile emulator on the website</li>
<li>subscription model with a transaction fee</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="movellas">movellas</h3>
<p><a href="http://movellas.com">http://movellas.com</a></p>
<ul>
<li>free self-publishing platform for readers and writers</li>
<li>mainly for younger people</li>
<li>social story-telling</li>
<li>had 280,000 comments since launch
<ul>
<li>very engaged audience</li>
</ul></li>
<li>featured as New & Noteworthy in the app store</li>
<li>app can send comments</li>
<li>website can create content</li>
<li>“we aren’t monetising at the moment”…</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="androidenigmasimulator">android enigma simulator</h3>
<p>Franklin Heath Ltd <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/heathcr">@heathcr</a></p>
<ul>
<li>very pretty enigma simulator</li>
<li>looks especially good on an Android Tablet</li>
<li>also collecting donations for Bletchley Park</li>
<li>spent a lot of time getting to work on all Android devices & versions</li>
<li>can send messages to friends via Android sharing intent</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="onemanmvno">one man MVNO</h3>
<p>impossible telecom <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/danlane">@danlane</a></p>
<ul>
<li>early adopters wanted: <a href="http://alpha.impossible-tele.com">http://alpha.impossible-tele.com</a></li>
<li>a new kind of MVNO focussing on:
<ul>
<li>innovation</li>
<li>customer service</li>
<li>transparency</li>
</ul></li>
<li>sharing bundles of texts, minutes, data between devices</li>
<li>3rd party APIs for core of network</li>
<li>divorcing devices and numbers
<ul>
<li>one number on multiple devices</li>
<li>multiple numbers on single device</li>
</ul></li>
<li>static IP addresses for M2M SIMs</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dtouchmobile">Dtouch mobile</h3>
<p>Shakir Ali, IntelliDzine</p>
<p>Horizon Institute, University of Nottingham</p>
<ul>
<li>Dtouch marker: <a href="http://d-touch.org">http://d-touch.org</a>
<ul>
<li>black borders with white children and so on</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/horizon-institute.com/tableware">https://github.com/horizon-institute.com/tableware</a></li>
<li>like QR codes but visually recognisable</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="tonepush">Tone push</h3>
<ul>
<li>“your ringtone on someone else’s phone”</li>
<li>web and app based</li>
<li>currently Android-only, but would work on iOS too</li>
<li>if the other person has the app, then this app/website will set the other person’s custom ringtone for you</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="sooqini">sooqini</h3>
<p><a href="http://sooqini.com">http://sooqini.com</a></p>
<p>Raj Singh, raj@sooqini.com</p>
<ul>
<li>“Your trusted mobile marketplace”</li>
<li>reverse market place: buyer does the posting, not the seller</li>
<li>initially focussed on students and housewives — 2,500 sellers in system already
<ul>
<li>created a “Campus CEO” system to drive adoption</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iOS first: “people who have iPhones think they’re cool and want other people to do things for them”
<ul>
<li>going for Android later</li>
</ul></li>
<li>have PayPal payment at the moment; planning to add bank account connection later</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="qrpedia">qrpedia</h3>
<ul>
<li>demo’ed at last year’s Mobile Monday London</li>
<li>more and more museums and galleries signing up</li>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/oH-WXku_uk0" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/04/momolondon-demo-night-2012.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-3172994031812431852012-03-23T10:13:00.000Z2012-03-23T11:25:10.277Z2012-03-23T11:25:10.277ZMomoLondon: Tablets Come of Age<p>The <a href="/2012/03/momolondon-barnes-noble-nook-developer.html">B&N NOOK Developer Workshop</a> was followed by a panel session. I found the discussion interesting in confirming my experience of tablets being used in a completely different way to laptops or smart phones. The hardware format is ideal for families and children to share the device, and apps and services that make use of this multi-user perspective are faring well. The conversation was peppered with stats from both Marek and Hesham (of MEX and comScore)</p><ul><li>Chair: Marek Pawlowski <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/marekpawlowski">@marekpawlowski</a> — Founder & Organiser, MEX</li>
<li>Stuart Dredge <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/stuartdredge">@stuartdredge</a> — Freelance Journalist <ul><li>writes various apps columns, including <a href="http://www.appsplayground.com/apps/">apps playground</a> kids apps review site and the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog">Guardian apps blog</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>Hesham Al-Jehani — Product Manager, Mobile, comScore</li>
<li>Ben Scott Robinson <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/bscr">@bcsr</a> — Creative Director, We Love Mobile</li>
<li>Claudia Romanini — Director, Developer Relations, Barnes & Noble</li>
</ul><h3 id="whytabletsuserstories">Why tablets? User stories</h3><ul><li>BSR: Ben’s mum (70+) was not comfortable with touch-screen phones — the interface was too small for her. An iPad was much more comfortable — she was much happier to play with it</li>
<li>CR: is a mum of a 7yo. This year she asked for a tablet for Xmas… As a parent CR was nervous, but has been happy since Nook is focussed on reading. Nook feels safe. <ul><li>most time is shared with parent, but as getting older and able to read by herself, more time by herself</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SD: collaborative shopping for presents — on the tablet on the sofa <ul><li>every night we have half an hour of iPad time</li>
<li><a href="http://quickr.es/peppamebooks">Peppa Me Books</a>: peppa pig but you can re-record all the voices</li>
<li>kids insist that someone joins in with them</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: has an 18 mth old daughter - she finds it and sits on dad’s lap and says “entertain me!” <ul><li>watches “In the night garden” videos</li>
<li>mother also engages much more with tablet</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MP: 21% of US tablet use is lying horizontally in bed (considerably higher than smartphones) <ul><li>more acceptable in a family context…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="istheoriginalkindleatablete-inkversuscolourdisplay">Is the original Kindle a tablet? e-Ink versus colour display?</h3><ul><li>Audience member reading more due to Kindle</li>
<li>CR: Nook Colour positioned as a reader’s tablet <ul><li>Android transformed into a reading experience</li>
<li>consumers want an undisturbed, dedicated reading experience</li>
<li>reading long-form novels (don’t want to be bothered charging)</li>
<li>colour device allows people to read magazines</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: 92% of tablet usage is over wifi <ul><li>indicated sedentary (stationary) usage</li>
<li>75% of Android access over 3G compared to 70% of iOS access on WiFi</li>
<li>perhaps indicates iOS users are data-hungry</li>
<li>peak around 12pm where PC traffic eclipses everything else</li>
<li>around the evening (9-11pm) tablet traffic takes over</li>
<li>weight of the iPad is an issue when lying down</li>
<li>people are complaining about neck & shoulder injuries from iPad use…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>BSR: still stuck with finger on glass; thinner and lighter screens will be welcome <ul><li><a href="http://quickr.es/lessmore">Morris Lessmore</a> won an Oscar — being taken seriously but a long way to go</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="contenttypes:whatsworkingwell">Content types: what’s working well?</h3><ul><li>CR: B&N customers are predominantly “moms” aged 25-45 <ul><li>B&N stores have Nook tables</li>
<li>in the US target audience doesn’t really buy apps</li>
<li>approaches device from a content perspective</li>
<li>children & education are key categories (and under-developed in Android world)</li>
<li>1/3rd apps in B&N catalogue are children’s apps (other 2/3rds split between games and lifestyle)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="wheresthewebontablets">Where’s the web on tablets?</h3><p>Dan Appelquist <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/torgo">@torgo</a></p><ul><li>BSR: for news, no reason why you can’t create these experiences through HTML</li>
<li>MP: disney started to take their apps in a different direction from content — see <a href="http://quickr.es/appmates">AppMAtes</a></li>
<li>SD: HTML5 being used for content, possibly wrapped in native container for discovery & sales</li>
<li>CR: magazines</li>
</ul><h3 id="whylimittablettomagazinesextendtomoviescompeteorcomplementcurrententertainment">Why limit tablet to magazines? Extend to movies? Compete or complement current entertainment?</h3><ul><li>CR: entry point is digital books, but certainly buying other entertainment products <ul><li>especially for Nook Tablet</li>
<li>think it complements & extends entertainment experience</li>
<li>entertainment content is huge for our customers</li>
</ul></li>
<li>BSR: tablets are the saviour of TV ads — intent to purchase, etc <ul><li>tablets used in conjunction with TV (see <a href="http://quickr.es/zeebox">zeebox</a> et al)</li>
<li>radio is still a growing medium, despite the introduction of the TV and the internet</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MP: 30% of tablet usage in US is in front of TV (cf. 20% of smartphone usage) <ul><li>people watch longer form videos on tablets than on their computers</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="whenarewegoingtoseesomegenuinecompetitionfortheipad">When are we going to see some genuine competition for the iPad?</h3><ul><li>HAJ: market segment dominated by Apple <ul><li>40m iPads sold in 2011, 15m in last quarter</li>
<li>40m installed based in US</li>
<li>took 7 years for smartphones to reach 40m in US market; iPads took 2 years…</li>
<li>if there was no iPad we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about tablets</li>
<li>iPad dominates revenue, number of units (over 70%), usage (90%)</li>
<li>Kindle Fire has already sold 10m units in US</li>
<li>Apple’s share of market will shrink in 2013/14</li>
<li>tablets will eclipse PCs in the next few years</li>
<li>areas where Apple is weak: more PC-style — USB, filesystem</li>
</ul></li>
<li>CR: have sold millions of Nooks <ul><li>many customers can’t afford an iPad</li>
<li>Nook Colour is $169 and prices go up, but still less than an iPad</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Audience: Dell have abandoned Android but have said they can see a place for themselves with a Windows 8 tablet</li>
</ul><h3 id="whataboutpensinsteadoffingers">What about pens instead of fingers?</h3><p>David Wood <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/dw2">@dw2</a></p><ul><li>HAJ: welcome development that pens are making a comeback <ul><li>writing your signature</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SD: crayola did an app and sold a big fat crayon with it <ul><li>felt like it was getting the wrong end of the stick…</li>
<li>other than signing things, what’s the killer app for a stylus</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: scribbling notes?</li>
<li>SD: but I much prefer to type!</li>
<li>BSR: David Hockney using an iPad to paint (often using <a href="http://quickr.es/brushesforipad">Brushes for iPad</a>) <ul><li>using styli (bits of wood at different sizes)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MP: actually capacitative touch screens are <em>worse</em> at figuring out handwriting than resistive screens <ul><li>seeing new stylus development to fix this</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="post-pc">post-PC?</h3><ul><li>SD: for some older people who never got used to PCs, tablets are a way in</li>
<li>CR: not there yet, but using tablet more and more for non-PC things <ul><li>still using laptop for email (prefer keyboard)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MP: more comfortable taking a tablet into the kitchen <ul><li>what kinds of things make things move from one device to another?</li>
<li>tends to be security and reliability concerns that shift people up in size & established reputation</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="keyboardtabletformfactor">keyboard + tablet form factor?</h3><ul><li>CR: on-screen keyboards not good enough</li>
<li>BSR: problem is carrying keyboard around <ul><li>fold it up — back to a laptop!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: ASUS Tranformer is a great idea</li>
<li>SD: iMac is already a giant tablet with a wireless keyboard… <ul><li>voice is coming soon…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MP: keyboard starts becoming important when people spend more time creating rather than consuming <ul><li>tends to be a 90/10 split at the moment…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="tabletstendtogetsharedalotmorethanphones...">tablets tend to get shared a lot more than phones…</h3><ul><li>board games — multiple users at once</li>
<li>BSR: looking at things then passing it over and sharing it</li>
<li>SD: split screen iPad app — Pinterest for her, reddit for him!</li>
<li>CR: see a lot of Nooks shared in the family <ul><li>reading can be a personal experience</li>
<li>sharing a reading tablet could be odd</li>
<li>but in a family it’s a common thing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SD: would be good to have a locked down mode <ul><li>no in-app purchases, </li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: screen lock — avoiding kids pressing home button to exit the app</li>
<li>SD: <a href="http://quickr.es/famigosandbox">Famigo Sandbox</a>: android app that sets permitted app list & behaviour</li>
</ul><h3 id="whattabletwouldyoubeusingin3years">what tablet would you be using in 3 years?</h3><ul><li>CR: focus on content rather than the device <ul><li>would love to see content become transparent — shouldn’t matter if it’s a book or a magazine or an app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>BSR: would like a piece of paper! <ul><li>get away from the “finger on glass”</li>
<li>need 3D & haptics for a more tactile experience</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HAJ: windows 8 tablet — dragging & dropping content to and from PC <ul><li>Nokia tablet?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SD: don’t want skeuomorphs of what went before <ul><li>no d-pads on the screen, or page turning</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><hr /><h3 id="upcomingevents">Upcoming Events</h3><ul><li>next Mobile Monday London: <a href="http://www.mobilemonday.org.uk/2012/02/demo-night-returns-2nd-april-call-for.html">Demo Night!</a> — 2nd April</li>
<li><a href="http://www.pmn.co.uk/mex/">MEX 2012</a> — 9th & 10th May</li>
<li><a href="http://overtheair.org">Over The Air</a> — 1st & 2nd June at Bletchley Park</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/tp6V1CVWH08" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/03/momolondon-tablet-come-of-age.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-45904976651743837652012-03-23T10:06:00.000Z2012-03-23T10:24:40.317Z2012-03-23T10:24:40.317ZMomoLondon: Barnes & Noble NOOK Developer Workshop<p>This evening had a two-parter Mobile Monday London. First was the Barnes & Noble NOOK developer “workshop”, which was followed by a <a href="/2012/03/momolondon-tablet-come-of-age.html">panel session on tablets</a>.</p>
<p>I expected a hands-on workshop for the first part, but it was a presentation — and an odd one too. Barnes and Noble are the biggest bookstore chain in the US but they have no presence out of the States at all. Here was their developer relations team, inviting UK developers to register and release apps into their US-only store, for which they would be paid (and taxed?) in US dollars. Outside of the US, you cannot purchase apps at all… at least for the moment.</p>
<p>B&N are promising that they will expand their electronic sales worldwide “soon”, but they weren’t able to give details of when, or even in which countries. It was an interesting proposition (especially given the different demographic), but I suspect not one that will attract many European developers.</p>
<ul>
<li>Barnes & Noble US: 60m customers per year</li>
<li>1300+ stores in 50 states</li>
<li>Currently only US-based, but expanding electronic sales worldwide “soon”</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="nookhardware">NOOK hardware</h3>
<p>All run Android, but only the Color and the Tablet have the B&N store and user-installable apps. All the readers have WiFi connectivity, though the first NOOK (no longer on sale) had a 3G option as well.</p>
<ul>
<li>NOOK — Android 1.5; separate eInk & LCD displays</li>
<li>NOOK SimpleTouch — Android 2.2; eInk display (no apps)</li>
<li>NOOK Color — Android 2.1; LCD display (1024 X 600, 169ppi)</li>
<li>NOOK Tablet — Android 2.3; LCD display (1024 X 600, 169ppi)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="bnknowalotaboutcustomers...">B&N know a lot about customers…</h3>
<ul>
<li>NOOK target customer: Julie</li>
<li>70-75% of customers are female</li>
<li>38 yo, 3 kids</li>
<li>1-2 books purchased per month</li>
<li>technology should be simple — it just has to work</li>
<li>not highly technical</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="apps">Apps</h3>
<ul>
<li>apps are fastest-growing content area</li>
<li>includes Netflix, games, kids’ games</li>
<li>apps selling 4-10x over other store</li>
<li>curated app store (only 1000s of apps)
<ul>
<li>organically growing…</li>
<li>pleased with growth as discoverability & curation for market is important</li>
</ul></li>
<li>carefully designed recommendation engine</li>
<li>customers will review!</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="typesofapp">Types of app</h3>
<ul>
<li>what would your mum want? what about your sister?</li>
<li>really responded to education, kids & learning</li>
<li>B&N is #1 in kids books</li>
<li>don’t have ad-supported apps…</li>
<li>98% of apps are paid, though apps can have trial versions (see later)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="appexposure">App exposure</h3>
<ul>
<li>banners on website</li>
<li>content on digital screens in store</li>
<li>nook boutiques in stores</li>
<li>develop mechanisms to entice customers back into stores…
<ul>
<li>have a private “InStore” API</li>
<li>e.g. Angry Birds got access to Mighty Eagle for free</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can read any book on the Nook in-store for free</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="nookdeveloper">nook developer</h3>
<ul>
<li>Need a US tax ID (EIN) to register…</li>
<li>to get an EIN:
<ul>
<li>call 001 215 516 6999</li>
<li>or visit <a href="http://1.usa.gov/GUfDR">http://1.usa.gov/GUfDR</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>SDK contains emulator & adb settings (essentially just skins)
<ul>
<li>uses a standard emulator so doesn’t have additional Nook APIs</li>
<li>similarly may have some Android features not supported by Nook…</li>
<li>only solution is to test on a real device (as always)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>two SDK versions: NOOK Color & Nook Tablet</li>
<li>special access for T1 level developers: adb access to real devices
<ul>
<li>not available for customers</li>
<li>only provides 16 provisioning files (side load to max 16 devices)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>widgets are not supported</li>
<li>microphone input supported for Tablet only</li>
<li>no camera, no location, …</li>
<li>additional features:
<ul>
<li>shop intent — jump to an app in the B&N market</li>
<li>single shop page can have both “buy” and “free trial” buttons</li>
<li>InStore API — uses store WiFi network to identify location</li>
</ul></li>
<li>testing on device:
<ul>
<li>from apps, hold volume up key and tap on top-left to open “extras”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>app submission
<ul>
<li>meta information must be approved before APK can be uploaded</li>
</ul></li>
<li>developer account is free, but you must pass an interview process to get full (T1) access</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="salespayment">sales & payment</h3>
<ul>
<li>Two clicks to purchase (credit card attached to account like iTunes)</li>
<li>don’t support in-app purchases at the moment</li>
<li>subscriptions for magazines but not within apps</li>
<li>credit card through BN account, but other payment mechanisms not allowed</li>
<li>no sale of physical goods</li>
<li>app sales come through to the developer as a cheque in dollars…
<ul>
<li><em>this is particularly dreadful for European developers, as banks make a charge on each payment</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li>sales are only to the US at the moment
<ul>
<li>sale transaction happens in the US (with a US-based credit card)</li>
<li>can purchase other content internationally, but not apps (how can they tell?)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>ebooks
<ul>
<li>can use pubIt to self-publish through B&N stores</li>
<li>for existing publishers, ebook & kids publishing are separate content groups in the US</li>
</ul></li>
<li>devices are sold in bulk to educational establishment in the US
<ul>
<li>done via regional managers</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="followupnotes">follow up notes</h3>
<ul>
<li>apparently Amazon launched the Kindle in Europe with similar targeting at 30+ mothers — they flopped, as in Europe it was mainly bought by (non-early-adopter) businessmen</li>
</ul>
<div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/9ErT56P0XgM" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/03/momolondon-barnes-noble-nook-developer.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-38665806265415957492012-02-14T20:20:00.000Z2012-02-14T20:24:18.537Z2012-02-14T20:24:18.537ZMomoLondon: Data Driven Mobile Apps - Open data and more...<p>I missed last month’s Mobile Monday on <a href="http://www.mobilemonday.org.uk/2012/02/event-round-up-28th-jan-mobile-games_06.html">Mobile Games</a> but this panel more than made up for it.</p>
<p>Thanks to Jo Rabin and the rest of the Mobile Monday team for organising, and to Kasabi for the drinks!</p>
<h3 id="panel">Panel</h3>
<ul>
<li><em>Chair:</em> <strong>Matt Biddulph</strong> <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/mattb">@mattb</a> - <a href="http://hackdiary.com">http://hackdiary.com</a>
<ul>
<li>used to run <a href="http://dopplr.com">http://dopplr.com</a></li>
<li>then worked for Nokia as Head of Data Strategy in Location & Commerce apps</li>
<li>any mobile phone company is becoming an information company</li>
<li>a data driven app is one that gets better the more data it has</li>
<li>good example is the evolution of Foursquare</li>
<li>in the last few months, they have added features to let you explore the area around you</li>
<li>human interaction and input makes data come alive</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Leigh Dodds</strong> <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/ldodds">@ldodds</a> - CTO, <a href="http://kasabi.com">Kasabi</a>
<ul>
<li>Kasabi trying to make data more accessible and easier to use</li>
<li>most of the apps I use are just interfaces to content, though not really data driven</li>
<li>data driven would be getting data from lots of people, or from historical data</li>
<li>favourite app is <a href="http://www.myfitnesspal.com/">MyFitnessPal</a>: a calorie tracking app that tracks everything he eats — either barcode or search</li>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Jeni Tennison</strong> <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/JeniT">@JeniT</a> - Linked Data Expert, Technical Architect for <a href="http://legislation.gov.uk">http://legislation.gov.uk</a>
<ul>
<li>been involved in data.gov.uk esp. linked data</li>
<li>mobile devices have a lot of context available</li>
<li>how do we create the API that allows us to get out just the data we need for right here, right now?</li>
<li>what is the UI to summarise the data and pull out the really interesting bits?</li>
<ul>
<li>pulling in data from multiple sources</li>
<li>feeding back data</li>
</ul></ul></li>
<li><strong>Ian Holt</strong> <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/IanHolt">@IanHolt</a> - Developer Programme Manager, Ordnance Survey
<ul>
<li>quality of data is paramount</li>
<li>OS run masterclasses to help people use their data</li>
<li>favourite data app: ASBOrometer</li>
<ul><li>what was important was people’s perception of the data…</li></ul>
</ul></li>
<li><strong>Hannah Donovan</strong> <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/han">@han</a> - Design Director, <a href="http://thisismyjam.com/">This Is My Jam</a>
<ul>
<li>used to work at last.fm</li>
<li>thisismyjam is just coming out of beta</li>
<li>data driven apps provide a key to the mess of the universe around you</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whatareyourfavouritedatasets">What are your favourite datasets</h3>
<ul>
<li>LD: NHS dictionary of medicines and devices
<ul>
<li>recently been relicensed under new open govt license</li>
<li>everything that you could ever be prescribed</li>
<li>annotated with mappings through to product codes — so can scan a barcode and get a reference</li>
<li>good base data set as can reliably ensure people are talking about the same thing</li>
<li>a crucial problem in big data…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>IH: often the geo data is a backdrop rather than the actual IDs</li>
<li>HD: <a href="http://the.echonest.com/">echonest</a> <a href="http://runningwithdata.com/post/1321504427/danceability-and-energy">danceability</a>
<ul>
<li>at a hackday made a prototype to throw a track at a robot to dance to it</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="doappsgetworsewithmoredata">Do apps get worse with more data?</h3>
<p>e.g. twitter signal/noise dropping?</p>
<ul>
<li>HD: bad example: Spotify getting hooked up to facebook and timelines being spammed…
<ul>
<li>thisismyjam trying for a slower pace</li>
<li>doing things realtime is hard but just becoming possible</li>
<li>has been a trend just to add more realtime ‘cos it’s cool</li>
<li>but actually we want to see more useful social & cultural info not just realtime firehose (“API vomit”)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>IH: crowdsourcing is great but watch the quality…</li>
<li>JT: developers like to put everything on the screen
<ul>
<li>but need to think about that the user wants to do and how they’re going to do it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MB: should be a symbiotic relationship between designer and developer
<ul>
<li>not even back and forth, but an exploration</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="goodbadexperiencesofdesigneranddeveloperhowdoyouavoidapivomit">Good/bad experiences of designer and developer? How do you avoid API vomit?</h3>
<ul>
<li>LD: pairing up with a designer to explore some ideas is really interesting
<ul>
<li>designer asking “can I do this?” - stretching the developer</li>
</ul></li>
<li><em>attendee:</em> disagree completely! esp. govt should <strong>not</strong> pre-judge data based on use cases</li>
<li>IH: there has to be cartographic decisions at some point
<ul>
<li>what do we do <em>now</em> that we want digital output from the data that was collected <em>previously</em> for paper use</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JT: there’s difference between what is available in the API and what’s shown in the UI</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="historicallydatawasinlibrariesbydefault--inthepublicdomain.butnowownedbycorporations.havewesleepwalkedintothepolicestate">Historically, data was in libraries by default — in the public domain. But now owned by corporations. Have we sleepwalked into the police state?</h3>
<ul>
<li>LD: in a library is not public domain - now data is more accessible</li>
<li>HD: there were also people who controlled the content in libraries and only a few people had access
<ul>
<li>now the data is accessible from anywhere, not just in a big city centre</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="combinationoflicensesfromdifferentdata">Combination of licenses from different data</h3>
<ul>
<li>Creative Commons movement has tried to clarify the concepts of collaborative works etc</li>
<li>If I want to take open govt data and combine it with wikipedia…?</li>
<li>LD: there aren’t any hard and fast answers
<ul>
<li>still in a murky state</li>
<li>Creative Commons is very useful and people are starting to apply them to their data, but <strong>creative commons licenses do not apply to content in Europe</strong></li>
<li><em>though there does appear to be <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/UK:_England_and_Wales">CC 2.0 licenses available</a></em></li>
<li>been some work in Creative Data Commons</li>
<li>commercial data has custom licenses</li>
<li>generally assume that the most restrictive license applies</li>
<li>attribution stacking problem — might have to attribute 1000 people to use one piece of data</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="wheredoesthedatainanappcomefrom">Where does the data in an app come from?</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: data may be untraceable</li>
<li>HD: really important to tell your users where the data is coming from
<ul>
<li>we still need quite a lot of different sources</li>
<li>content, editorial, user generated</li>
<li>depending on what you’re looking for, the answer might be different every time</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JT: in legislation data, trying to maintain audit trails
<ul>
<li>if something goes wrong, want to know where</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ifdataisimportanttopeopleitwilltendtobecomefree...">If data is important to people, it will tend to become free…</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: OpenStreetMap are a wonderful bunch of people
<ul>
<li>OS remit is to capture a high degree of detail</li>
<li>have to have a universal coverage of Britain</li>
<li>some of data has been released as open, and some is licensed</li>
<li>keep pressuring for what you want and it might be delivered…</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="amobiledatadrivenapp:integrationandconsequence">A mobile data driven app: integration and consequence</h3>
<ul>
<li>MB: important word is “driven”
<ul>
<li>there are plenty of static data sets, and data based applications</li>
<li>the thing that I do is magnified either by the depth of reference, or the other people who have done a similar thing</li>
<li>need to involve connected reference data and activity data</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HD: people are the special sauce
<ul>
<li>navigating a mess - the layers that people create around what’s around</li>
</ul></li>
<li>MB: in the first year or two, delicious.com/popular or the twitter hashtags were actually interesting
<ul>
<li>but with too much data, everything tends to bland</li>
<li>this is a huge issue with data driven apps</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HD: last.fm data was indie focussed
<ul>
<li>but when integrated with XBox suddenly changed overnight to reflect country wide</li>
<li>overall stats now reflect national taste</li>
<li>but can drill down by category</li>
<li>but need to watch out for the important filters — make sure you don’t lose the “friend dataset”</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dataprotection:needtoaskuserstoexplicitlyopt-in">Data protection: need to ask users to explicitly opt-in</h3>
<ul>
<li>IH: MapAction in Haiti
<ul>
<li>some events will create a lot of noise</li>
<li>needed to concentrate in specific countries</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JT: UK is pretty near the forefront of open govt
<ul>
<li>open data institute</li>
<li>hard to work in balance with legal framework</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="privacy:userbacklash">Privacy: user backlash</h3>
<p>e.g. Path uploading your address book without asking</p>
<ul>
<li>LD: product development — want to get as much data as possible as that’s where the value is
<ul>
<li>from the consumer side, want to know where the benefit is for me</li>
<li>don’t want to give it away just for marketing or selling on</li>
</ul></li>
<li>HD: we’re currently working with blunt tools when explaining to user how we want to use consumer’s data
<ul>
<li>OAuth screens don’t offer room to tell you <em>how</em> your data will be used</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="weborapps">Web or apps?</h3>
<ul>
<li>MB: most exciting thing is the phone being full of sensors
<ul>
<li>the map (generated data) can become worth more than the territory (the app you build)</li>
<li>so always think about native apps over web</li>
</ul></li>
<li>JT: (as W3C contributor) should always be using proper web apps, of course…
<ul>
<li>but apps can always get more data than generic standard APIs</li>
<li>payment model is good on devices but not good at the moment on open web</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="isthereagooddescriptionofdifferenttypesofdataandhowyoumightneedtocombinethem">Is there a good description of different types of data and how you might need to combine them?</h3>
<ul>
<li>HD: use cases are fundamental
<ul>
<li>often see a tendency to make things consistent</li>
<li>but the different things may have different contexts</li>
<li>for example, last.fm on a TV with XBox is different to what you would want on your phone</li>
</ul></li>
<li>LD: took a while for the language of film to evolve
<ul>
<li>maybe we’re going through the same thing in mobile?</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="whatkindofdatastoresarepeopleusinginreallifenosqlrdforacle...">What kind of data stores are people using in real life? NoSQL, RDF, Oracle…?</h3>
<ul>
<li>MB: more about really rigorous approach to data identity
<ul>
<li>have to keep provenance and individual promises</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="isthereanywayicouldbuyandsellmydata">Is there any way I could buy and sell my data?</h3>
<ul>
<li>LD: lot of work going on in this area
<ul>
<li>storing personal data and allowing apps access to it</li>
<li>My X (?) in the UK</li>
<li><em>Ed.: I couldn’t find a reference for this one</em></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="announcements">Announcements</h3>
<ul>
<li>19th March: ePublishing/eBooks</li>
<li>2nd April: DEMO NIGHT
<ul>
<li>applications open very shortly!</li>
<li>looking for 16 companies</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://mobile360live.com">Mobile 360 Live</a>
<ul>
<li>20% discount for Mobile Monday London members</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/pT9hlXWqreQ" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2012/02/momolondon-data-driven-mobile-apps-open.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-37490682215583762922011-10-04T12:20:00.001+01:002011-10-04T12:21:00.007+01:002011-10-04T12:21:00.007+01:00Over The Air 2011: The FT Web app - We've Got a Website for That<p><em>Andrew Betts, Assanka <a href="http://twitter.com/triblondon">@triblondon</a></em></p><ul><li>An app is:<br />
<ul><li>responsive design</li>
<li>responsive to human interface (mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, TV remote, …)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>The Daily app is now generating less than 50 tweets a day (and still going down)<br />
<ul><li>Down from over 200</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iPad web app also works on other devices<br />
<ul><li>not just tablets – phones too</li>
<li>currently only accessibly on iPad</li>
<li>works on Android & QNX but not released yet</li>
<li>Android imminent, QNX a few months</li>
</ul></li>
<li>server serves the same code to all devices<br />
<ul><li>client does customisation and caches as much as it can</li>
<li>so can go offline and still access pages</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/">FT web app</a><br />
<ul><li>8 months with 3 people</li>
<li>then additional 4 months with same people to get Android & Playbook</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="issues">issues</h3><ul><li>flowed columns and flowing text around fixed elements<br />
<ul><li>adobe webkit fork has great flow additions - but not available on devices</li>
<li>css3 template layouts – but again not supported</li>
<li>so have to measure content and cut it into positioned containers using Javascript</li>
</ul></li>
<li>content balancing<br />
<ul><li>always show a whole number of items across the width</li>
<li>done by classifying devices into four groups according to screen size<br />
<ul><li>small, medium, large, large wide</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>podcast pages<br />
<ul><li>want to keep playing audio even when move to another page</li>
<li>put audio player at the top of the DOM, so not altered</li>
<li>entire app is in a single page – just swap content in and out</li>
</ul></li>
<li>swiping between sections<br />
<ul><li>continuous carousel made out of three divs</li>
<li>middle one is always the current</li>
<li>outer ones are preloaded as required</li>
<li>implemented swipes using touch gestures</li>
<li>have to do your own gesture interpretation<br />
<ul><li>distinguish between slow drags and flings</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="tools">tools</h3><ul><li>playbook has remote web debugging</li>
<li><a href="http://lanyrd.com/2011/ota2011/shdtk/">WeinRE</a> can do similar, but can’t debug Javascript</li>
<li><a href="http://uxebu.com/blog/2010/09/15/touchscroll-0-2-first-alpha-available/">TouchScroll</a> allows you to keep headers fixed and snap to columns when swiping across</li>
<li>web debugging proxies (e.g. <a href="http://www.charlesproxy.com/">Charles</a>)</li>
<li>use desktop for layout, but real device for interaction (swiping)</li>
</ul><h3 id="discoveries">discoveries</h3><ul><li>people use native apps differently<br />
<ul><li>they tap lightly and fast</li>
<li>the web browser waits for fast taps in case there’s a double tap to zoom</li>
<li>if you don’t want double tap to zoom</li>
<li>Assanka made <a href="http://assanka.net/content/tech/2011/08/26/fastclick-native-like-tapping-for-touch-apps/">fastclick</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="offlineaccess">offline access</h3><ul><li>launching app offline<br />
<ul><li>need to specify URLs in app manifest</li>
<li>if you change a single file, all of the manifest needs to be re-downloaded</li>
<li>store as little as possible</li>
<li>the more you store, the longer your app will take to launch</li>
<li>iOS manifest is buggy – you can get name conflicts with other webapps<br />
<ul><li>so make sure you give your manifest a custom name</li>
</ul></li>
<li>development is hell – things get cached the whole time<br />
<ul><li>instead, add a comment that changes every minute (for dev)</li>
<li>still leaves you time to refresh a few times to check the cacheing</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>manifest is no good for editorial content<br />
<ul><li>local storage is much faster than SQLite</li>
<li>so if you only access by key then use it</li>
<li>you need permission to store > 5Mb</li>
<li>strategy:<br />
<ul><li>launch app from web, just store <= 5Mb and prompt to save to home screen</li>
<li>saved from home screen, immediately ask for 50Mb and never ask again</li>
</ul></li>
<li>images downloaded from server as base64 encoded strings<br />
<ul><li>can combine images into single requests</li>
<li>and can then gzip the whole thing</li>
<li>stored in local SQLite</li>
<li>rendered into DOM as a data: URI</li>
<li>base64 transfer also avoids operator image recompression!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>analytics<br />
<ul><li>can’t use Google analytics</li>
<li>log user actions into local DB</li>
<li>POST the log when requesting updated content</li>
<li>on the server, rewrite the log into an Apache format access log</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="unresolvedissues">unresolved issues</h3><ul><li>SSL security: no browser chrome, so no browser padlock<br />
<ul><li>trusted, because we tell you…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Social media integration – OAuth in separate window doesn’t work<br />
<ul><li>have to reload completely when return to app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>offline adverts:<br />
<ul><li>not technically hard, but ad server companies don’t know how to deal with them</li>
<li>can’t retract the ad</li>
<li>can’t measure clicks</li>
<li>can’t click through at all…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>automated QA – selenium doesn’t really work<br />
<ul><li>ended up using lots of people and lots of devices</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="platforms">platforms</h3><ul><li>Android is by far the poorest web environment when compared with iOS and QNX<br />
<ul><li>mainly due to lack of hardware-accelerated CSS transitions</li>
<li>so FT have a native Android app which has a single native component – the gallery to enable swiping</li>
<li>the rest of the app is HTML/CSS/JS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>QNX has a native app too, but only to have a home screen icon and to provide distribution</li>
</ul><h3 id="qa">Q&A</h3><ul><li>upset Apple?<br />
<ul><li>probably not – FT are specific market</li>
</ul></li>
<li>differences between web app and native<br />
<ul><li>web has more sections than native ever had</li>
<li>web app preloads content, so people swipe more often</li>
<li>as a result web app gets much more interaction</li>
</ul></li>
<li>is not appearing in the app store an issue?<br />
<ul><li>yes, but instead making tactical native apps</li>
<li>e.g. FT Top 100 Companies – tells users if you want the full edition, go to the web app</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/OEI2v_x2-nE" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-ft-web-app-weve-got.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-13666916408326176322011-10-04T11:39:00.001+01:002011-10-04T11:39:54.574+01:002011-10-04T11:39:54.574+01:00Over The Air 2011: OpenBTS - Open Source GSM<p><em>Will Rogers, Senior Consultant at Detica</em></p><ul><li>Open Base Transceiver Station: <a href="http://openbts.sourceforge.net/">http://openbts.sourceforge.net/</a></li>
<li>software implementation of radio towers</li>
<li>USRP: universal software radio peripheral</li>
<li>written in C++ on top of GNU Radio</li>
<li>fairly stable – maintained by Free Software Foundation</li>
<li>only acts as an access point – doesn’t simulate entire mobile network<br />
<ul><li>another project: <a href="http://openbsc.osmocom.org/" title="OpenBSC">OpenBSC</a> does more</li>
</ul></li>
<li>but, can translate GSM into VOIP – Asterix</li>
<li>originally built by David Burgess (Range Networks) and Harvind Samra<br />
<ul><li>Range Networks building commercial implementations (e.g. Femtocells)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>originally designed for:<br />
<ul><li>signals intelligence…</li>
<li>disaster relief</li>
<li>developing countries</li>
<li><a href="http://openbts.sourceforge.net/NiuePilot/" title="Niue Pilot System">Island of Niue project</a> - March 2010</li>
</ul></li>
<li>enables GSM network for $1/month per subscriber</li>
<li>hardly uses any power</li>
<li>range depends on antenna & height<br />
<ul><li>Burning Man covered 5km – with a microwave backhaul</li>
</ul></li>
<li>supports handset registration<br />
<ul><li>requires no pre-provisioning</li>
<li>get a text with a code – reply and your IMSI gets added to the asterix</li>
</ul></li>
<li>some branches support USSD (free data)</li>
<li>requirements:<br />
<ul><li>hardware:<br />
<ul><li>can run the whole thing in a VM</li>
<li>USB (for USRP 1), or ethernet (for USRP 2)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>software:<br />
<ul><li>most linuxes (Ubuntu well supported)</li>
<li>GNUradio</li>
<li>Asterix PBX</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>USRP was chosen as it was available, but it’s not really designed for GSM<br />
<ul><li>better to have multiple of 13MHz clock</li>
<li>daughterboards available for various RF frequencies</li>
<li>need to have GSM-specific one</li>
</ul></li>
<li>resources<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://gnuradio.org/redmine/attachments/219/fordummies.pdf">OpenBTS for Dummies</a></li>
<li>Will has an Ubuntu installer script that just works</li>
</ul></li>
<li>channels<br />
<ul><li>default is one logical channel for control</li>
<li>everything else (7) for voice</li>
<li>that means 7 simultaneous handset calls at once<br />
<ul><li>e.g. 3 on-network conversations + one outbound</li>
</ul></li>
<li>if you want more then you need multiple BTS units</li>
<li>if want SMS then need to steal a voice channel for control</li>
</ul></li>
<li>SMS messages need routing, so OpenBTS includes smsqueue which forwards messages</li>
<li>limitations<br />
<ul><li>doesn’t support live handover of calls</li>
<li>no data support (GPRS or Edge)</li>
<li>no way of supporting roaming or billing</li>
<li>3G/UMTS boxes are available, but not yet open source<br />
<ul><li>OpenBSC may get there first</li>
</ul></li>
<li>doesn’t support encryption</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use CC/MNC of 001/01 – these are the test values</li>
<li>OpenBTS console has various commands<br />
<ul><li><code>timsi</code> lists connected IMSIs and IMEIs</li>
<li><code>testcall</code> creates a UDP connection to the phone<br />
<ul><li>you can then send Layer 3 packets</li>
</ul></li>
<li><code>sendrrlp</code> sends a request for location (as mandated by US Gov)<br />
<ul><li>can provide info about cell tower locations and phone will calculate location itself</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/C2UifhheydM" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-openbts-open-source-gsm.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-82546033307693551352011-10-04T11:34:00.000+01:002011-10-04T11:34:24.135+01:002011-10-04T11:34:24.135+01:00Over The Air 2011: Exploding the Gap Between Web and Native<p><em>James Hugman - Engineer at <a href="http://www.futureplatforms.com">Future Platforms</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/jhugman">@jhugman</a></em></p><ul><li>Web vs Native is a false dilemma<br />
<ul><li>the answer is: it depends, or it’s both</li>
</ul></li>
<li>often a lot of display in UI</li>
<li>story of the glastonbury app<br />
<ul><li>Orange app for iPhone, Android and Nokia</li>
</ul></li>
<li>three/four phases of content:<br />
<ul><li>before (and before embargo)</li>
<li>during</li>
<li>after</li>
</ul></li>
<li>lots of data<br />
<ul><li>3000 bands, 65 stages – timings could change</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="experimentationresearch">experimentation & research</h3><ul><li>assumed offline and native UI</li>
<li>but native was too expensive for three platforms</li>
<li>how do you make native in web technologies?<br />
<ul><li>every phone has a different web view</li>
<li>Android users don’t like seeing iPhone UX</li>
<li>and Android back button can exit app if you’re not careful</li>
<li>there is no release cycle of WebKit<br />
<ul><li>manufacturers just take the trunk and fix bugs</li>
</ul></li>
<li>dev and cpu time spent getting UI just right</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Titanium: write your UI in Javascript, render natively<br />
<ul><li>ListViews either don’t look right, or leak memory</li>
<li>doesn’t always deal with latest design patterns – can’t override platform-specific behaviours</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Impact for iOS: javascript talks to OpenGL<br />
<ul><li>experimental & proprietary</li>
<li>morphed into appMobi’s DirectCanvas</li>
</ul></li>
<li>game{closure}<br />
<ul><li>pre-alpha – HTML5</li>
<li>also node.js</li>
<li>debug your mobile app and your browser app all in the same browser</li>
</ul></li>
<li>but Game UI is not platform UI<br />
<ul><li>easier to make cross-platform game UI as the UI is brand-specific, not platform specific</li>
</ul></li>
<li>important to get events passing between rendering and UI logic<br />
<ul><li>all frameworks bundle their own Javascript engine</li>
<li>Android users don’t like big apps – Titanium hello world is 6Mb!</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="newplatform">new platform</h3><ul><li>Kirin requirements:<br />
<ul><li>native, platform appropriate UIs</li>
<li>minimal download</li>
</ul></li>
<li>design:<br />
<ul><li>native UI</li>
<li>JS application logic</li>
<li>native platform</li>
</ul></li>
<li>advantages:<br />
<ul><li>raw events processed natively</li>
<li>only app-specific events passed through to app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>“the keyhole”<br />
<ul><li>instantiate an invisible web-view</li>
<li>build proxies for objects</li>
<li>javascript calls into native and the other way</li>
</ul></li>
<li>modular javascript using CommonJS<br />
<ul><li>each screen has its own module (one file each)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>threading using asynchronous APIs, inspired by node.js</li>
<li>native-specific features available as services<br />
<ul><li>e.g. Location, SQL, Network access</li>
<li>same Javascript to native bridge</li>
<li>JS just uses a <code>require(...)</code></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><h3 id="releasingasopensource">releasing as open source</h3><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/kirinjs">available now on github</a></li>
<li>as a 0.5 release</li>
<li>apache license</li>
<li>looking for feedback</li>
<li>iOS and Android only at the moment (Qt coming later)</li>
<li>Windows Phone 7 might come later</li>
</ul><h3 id="qa">Q&A</h3><ul><li>testing & debugging:<br />
<ul><li>build script runs node.js<br />
<ul><li>so can include unit tests at build time with assert</li>
<li>have console access</li>
<li>no actual debugger</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>why port model code – isn’t it simple?<br />
<ul><li>but if using database on device, then model not so portable (Core Data doesn’t port well)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>porting pain? scaling to iPad?<br />
<ul><li>most of pain was electronic programme guide</li>
<li>download & syncing</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/7TsKEWqLOL8" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-exploding-gap-between-web.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-47900573008273627792011-10-04T11:30:00.001+01:002011-10-04T11:30:05.146+01:002011-10-04T11:30:05.146+01:00Over The Air 2011: Crap! It doesn't quite look right!<p>Or… how I learned to stop worrying and set my web sites free</p><p><em>Lyza Danger Gardner, co-founder Cloud Four <a href="http://twitter.com/lyzadanger">@lyzadanger</a></em></p><div style="width:425px" id="__ss_9518337"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lyzadanger/crap-it-doesnt-look-quite-right-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-set-my-mobile-web-sites-free-9518337" title="Crap! It doesn't look quite right, or, how I learned to stop worrying and set my mobile web sites free" target="_blank">Crap! It doesn't look quite right, or, how I learned to stop worrying and set my mobile web sites free</a></strong> <iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/9518337" width="425" height="355" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lyzadanger" target="_blank">Lyza Gardner</a> </div></div><ul><li>Founder of Cloud Four in 2007</li>
<li>Explicitly for mobile web</li>
<li>Lyza was on the team that built the Obama app</li>
<li>Went through the app and realised that there was nothing in the app that couldn’t be done with the web</li>
<li>hautelook.com – high performance mobile web</li>
<li><a href="http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/">deschutes brewery</a> – one web<br />
<ul><li>uses geolocation to find where to buy the beer</li>
</ul></li>
<li>mobile web is hard and getting harder<br />
<ul><li>and it’s not just phones any more…</li>
<li>car radios, televisions, …</li>
</ul></li>
<li>and there’s a whole stack every time (any of which can change)</li>
<li>in the 1990s, took print ideas and applied them – pixel perfect<br />
<ul><li>customers believed that we had control…</li>
<li>“could you move the logo a half pixel to the right?”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>no one can possibly know enough – devices are continually appearing and you still have to deal with the old stuff</li>
<li>how do you deal with WYSIWYG for customers…?</li>
</ul><h3 id="mobilewood">mobilewood</h3><ul><li>10 highly experienced mobile developers</li>
<li>working on where we wanted the mobile web to go</li>
<li>built <a href="http://futurefriend.ly">http://futurefriend.ly</a></li>
<li>three pages, two images, no interactivity</li>
<li>100 man hours</li>
<li>-> <strong>not scaleable!</strong></li>
</ul><h3 id="testingisveryhard">testing is very hard</h3><ul><li>Cloud Four helped set up a <a href="http://mobileportland.com/device-lab">device laboratory in downtown Portland</a></li>
<li>multiple operators, device manufacturers</li>
<li>but even a well-stocked device library will not help</li>
</ul><h3 id="takeheart">take heart!</h3><ul><li><p>relinquish control over a few things we thought we had down pat</p></li>
<li><em>four considerations:</em><br />
<ol><li>content like water<br />
<ul><li>consider wireframes that demonstrate the flow and flex of content across a continuum of device and window sizes</li>
<li>design approach: like proportion – not pixel perfect</li>
<li>build functional mockups, so you can show (not tell)</li>
<li>it <em>will</em> be an iterative process</li>
<li>will not be an overnight change – it’s not a brochure, despite what we told you earlier</li>
<li>it’s often surprising how willing customers will be to adapt or modify their content APIs</li>
<li>try using textile or markdown in CMS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>essentials first<br />
<ul><li>not just mobile – pare down to the essentials</li>
<li>not just about design – about process, performance, experience for every user</li>
<li>start serene and simple</li>
</ul></li>
<li>arm the weapons!<br />
<ul><li>responsive web design</li>
<li>fluid media: 100% width images</li>
<li>fluid grids</li>
<li>use media queries to enhance (mobile first)</li>
<li>see also Responsive Images (by Scott Jehl)</li>
<li>Boston Globe is a showcase</li>
<li>it’s ok to leave unmanaged gutter in % widths</li>
<li>use Modernizr’s modular approach (don’t test everything)<br />
<ul><li>but it’s not infallible</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use server-side work:<br />
<ul><li>reordering – moving navigation around<br />
<ul><li>android devices are too buggy</li>
</ul></li>
<li>reduction – smaller images</li>
<li>respect – your users: don’t download graphics if you don’t use them</li>
</ul></li>
<li>user agent sniffing – it ain’t perfect, but it gets the job done</li>
<li>don’t be afraid to do some server-side optimization</li>
<li>optimise!<br />
<ul><li>especially your htaccess or apache config</li>
<li>use YSlow</li>
<li>make sure you gzip everything you can (not just html)</li>
<li>cache manifests are a little tricky to deal with</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Cloud Four images:<br />
<ul><li>server side sizing using WURFL for major sizes</li>
<li>common images are then cached</li>
<li>then 100% fluid sizing</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></li>
<li>draw the line<br />
<ul><li>set expectations with your customers</li>
<li>explain how you don’t have control over everything</li>
<li>don’t be afraid to pull out egregious hacks!</li>
<li>be ready to fail gracefully</li>
<li>this isn’t religion!</li>
</ul></li>
</ol></li>
<li>frameworks:<br />
<ul><li>Lyza likes the <a href="http://www.columnal.com/"><strong>columnal</strong> CSS framework</a></li>
<li>most complex projects end up rolling their own…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>iOS rotation<br />
<ul><li>use <code>-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;</code></li>
</ul></li>
</ul><p>Lyza is writing a book – <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1449302661/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=expandhorizo-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=1449302661">Head First Mobile Web</a></p><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/dH9g0pOfxjs" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-crap-it-doesnt-quite-look.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-25402908528263055242011-10-04T11:02:00.000+01:002011-10-04T15:16:34.263+01:002011-10-04T15:16:34.263+01:00Over The Air 2011: BBC Digital Public Space<p><em>Mo McRoberts - Developer, BBC Archive Development <a href="http://twitter.com/nevali">@nevali</a></em></p><div style="width:425px" id="__ss_9518628"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/momcroberts/digital-public-space-at-over-the-air-2011" title="Digital Public Space at Over The Air 2011" target="_blank">Digital Public Space at Over The Air 2011</a></strong> <iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/9518628" width="425" height="355" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/momcroberts" target="_blank">Mo McRoberts</a> </div></div><ul><li>Trying to make BBC Digital Archive accessible</li>
<li>Then working together with other organisations:<br />
<ul><li>BFI, Kew, national maritime museum, royal opera house, british library, national archives, national library of scotland</li>
<li>have 25–30 organisations who have said yes to accessing data</li>
<li>but only have Mo to connect things!</li>
</ul></li>
<li>lots of separate catalogues</li>
<li>each catalogue refers to things in asset stores<br />
<ul><li>may not be able to get to asset stores, but linking catalogues by itself is useful</li>
<li>also link to external sources such as dbpedia, geonames, etc</li>
</ul></li>
<li>want to make the archives accessible to people other than archivists</li>
<li><strong>golden rule:</strong><br />
<ul><li>give everything a single, permanent URI</li>
<li>make the data about that thing accessible at that URI</li>
</ul></li>
<li>could try to fit everything into one giant, extensible XML schema<br />
<ul><li>or else just go with RDF…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>can put all the RDF from catalogues into an RDF Aggregator</li>
<li>wanted to find overlaps in the catalogues</li>
<li>aggregator evaluates all info coming in and tries to find matches<br />
<ul><li>not just exact matches, but close matches too</li>
<li>disambiguating is the hard part</li>
</ul></li>
<li>create lots of stub objects<br />
<ul><li>people, places, events, things, …</li>
</ul></li>
<li>eventually want to have spindle in the hands of the public</li>
<li>the archives themselves are slowly being digitised, but it takes quite a while</li>
<li>BBC Redux captures and stores TV and radio, transcodes them and makes them available in various forms<br />
<ul><li>been running since July 2007 for everything that’s been running centrally (not all local opt-outs)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>now has an API and developers’ guide</li>
<li>available to developers for the duration of OverTheAir:<br />
<ul><li>prototype RDF aggregator to query</li>
<li>API to Redux</li>
<li>references to Redux are not fully tested – may or may not work</li>
</ul></li>
<li>genome project:<br />
<ul><li>scan in, OCR and codify all of the Radio Times issues</li>
<li>from 1920 to 2009</li>
<li>this and /programmes will provide a public API for all broadcasts ever</li>
</ul></li>
<li>three windows of content availability:<br />
<ol><li>free to air on iPlayer</li>
<li>commercially useful</li>
<li>out of commercial time: e.g. desert island discs (but no music)</li>
</ol></li>
<li>aiming to have content available in 10 years’ time<br />
<ul><li>BBC Director General has committed to this</li>
</ul></li>
<li>1 recent episode of Doctor Who has 80 rights clearances<br />
<ul><li>an older episode would be worse as you would have to find the appropriate rights holders</li>
</ul></li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/HrL8jFp241Q" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-bbc-digital-public-space.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-70450668873059025212011-10-04T10:52:00.001+01:002011-10-04T10:57:14.352+01:002011-10-04T10:57:14.352+01:00Over The Air 2011: Stolen and lost phones - can mobile phone applications help with the problem?<p><em>Detective Sergeant Andy Williams</em></p><ul><li>National Mobile Crime Unit – based in Notting Hill</li>
<li>Criminals stealing to order</li>
<li>Cops are not the most technologically advanced people – when Andy wants something done, he asks his children…</li>
<li>in 2001, 45% street crime linked to mobiles<br />
<ul><li>this was from the British Crime Survey – not reported crime, but surveyed</li></ul></li>
<li>current stats:<br />
<ul><li>9.7% of all UK crime accounted for by theft of a handset</li>
<li>60% of mobile phones stolen in personal robberies are iPhones or BlackBerrys<br />
<ul><li>not just the phone is high value, but the data on the phones</li>
</ul></li>
<li>avg 8,000 phones stolen every month in london</li>
</ul></ul></li>
<h3 id="whathappenstostolenphones">what happens to stolen phones?</h3><ul><li>used until blocked (by IMEI)<br />
<ul><li>IMEI blocking works across UK, 60% of Europe, plus North & South America coming in soon</li>
<li>but main export markets are North Africa (mainly Algeria) & Romania</li>
</ul></li>
<li>some handsets are vulnerable to having their IMEI changed (so can be unblocked)</li>
<li>phones used for parts (broken screens, etc)</li>
<li>phones used for non-phone functions – mp3 player, etc</li>
<li>blocking:<br />
<ul><li>operator will block SIM</li>
<li>will also request IMEI to be blocked</li></ul></li>
<li>individual can install a theft tracking app, but police would need a signed warrant<br />
<ul><li>police can’t monitor 8,000 phones a month</li></ul></li>
<li>IMEIs are personal data in Germany</li>
<li>phones offered on eBay, shown as blocked or no signal</li>
</ul><h3 id="immobilise--nationalpropertyregister">immobilise – national property register</h3><p><a href="http://immobilise.com">http://immobilise.com</a></p><ul><li>if device is registered with immobilise, police don’t need to go through RIPA</li>
<li>can put anything with a serial number on there</li>
<li>can check on people’s phones when stop people on the street</li>
<li>private company set up and operated in conjunction with the police</li>
</ul><h3 id="formationofnmpcu">formation of NMPCU</h3><ul><li>initially front line - reducing robbery</li>
<li>expanded to all acquisitive crime</li>
<li>working at all levels of crime - local through to organised</li>
<li>now an offence to offer to reprogram a phone (change the IMEI)</li>
</ul><h3 id="policecentralecrimeunit">Police Central eCrime Unit</h3><ul><li>trying to combat cyber-criminals</li>
<li>looking at denial of service attacks, etc</li>
<li>front line police notoriously poor at dealing with cyber crime</li>
<li><strong>but</strong> no law enforcement agency that specialises in all areas of cyber crime</li>
<li>most expertise is in the forensic area</li>
<li>judicial system is not set up to deal with cyber crime</li>
<li>judicial boundaries don’t help – if online connections are not in UK…</li>
<li>recently starting up new kind of officer: Covert Internet Investigator</li>
<li>not very many across the country</li>
</ul><h3 id="casestudy:organisedcriminalstargetingmusicevents">Case study: organised criminals targeting music events</h3><ul><li>following same bands the whole time<br />
<ul><li>bands with mosh pits…</li></ul></li>
<li>Download 2010: 3 people found with 140 phones buried under their tent</li>
</ul><h3 id="securitynewmobiletech">Security & new mobile tech</h3><ul><li>Man City gave 20 season ticket holders their tickets on their phone</li>
<li>if someone steals your phone, they have access to your wallet, your ticket, your flat…</li>
<li>NFC requirements requested by police:<br />
<ul><li>PIN required for all payments – not gonna happen!<br />
<ul><li>at the moment, 5 payments of £10 until a PIN required</li>
</ul></li>
<li>capture IMEI during transactions<br />
<ul><li>possible but not gonna happen</li>
</ul></li>
<li>compulsory registration with financial institution<br />
<ul><li>may happen</li>
</ul></li>
</ul></ul></li>
<h3 id="keyareas">key areas</h3><ul><li>registration at point of sale</li>
<li>carphone warehouse register 25,000 phones a day at Xmas</li>
<li>only 4 in 10 PIN lock their phone<br />
<ul><li>significant barrier</li></ul></li>
<li>locating devices post theft<br />
<ul><li>works ok, but not great – won’t work if someone goes into a block of flats</li></ul></li>
<li>identification of a SIM change post theft</li>
</ul><h3 id="checkmend">checkMEND</h3><p><a href="http://www.recipero.com/checkmend">http://www.recipero.com/checkmend</a></p><ul><li>can find out if an IMEI is stolen</li>
<li>some operators run this service for free</li>
<li>but otherwise may cost £1 a shot</li>
</ul><div class="feedflare">
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/K5SiDYgd3wQ" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/10/over-air-2011-stolen-and-lost-phones.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-25449151574661230042011-09-09T21:11:00.000+01:002011-09-09T21:32:59.343+01:002011-09-09T21:32:59.343+01:00iOSDev UK: The Eternal Sunshine of the Developer Mind<p><em>Steve “Scotty” Scott, iDeveloper iDTV, <a href="http://twitter.com/macdevnet">@macdevnet</a></em></p>
<p>Scotty gave a great talk complete with loads of cartoons that I can’t remember here. I’ve just noted down the more serious bits…</p>
<p>However, the best slide was by far:</p>
<p>
<img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6203/6131170682_5ec20e5d31.jpg" width="500" height="330" alt="Pocket Dan - from @macdevnet's presentation at iOS Dev UK 2011" /></p>
<ul>
<li>programming is:
<ul>
<li>10% science</li>
<li>20% ingenuity</li>
<li>70% getting the two to work together</li>
</ul></li>
<li>embrace your pain and draw positives from it</li>
<li>just because something has failed, doesn’t make you a failure</li>
<li>unless you can own the failure, you can’t understand the problem and move on</li>
<li>if you’re trying to learn what went wrong, make sure you’re looking at the real issues
<ul>
<li>keep on asking why until you hit the real reason</li>
<li>was it the people or the technology?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>you don’t have time <em>not</em> to do this</li>
<li>when you next find a situation that’s negative, find a positive</li>
<li>make sure you learn to understand what people are saying, rather than what you are hearing
<ul>
<li>“developers get confused between Xmas & Halloween because DEC 25 = OCT 31”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>it is impossible to mentor yourself
<ul>
<li>you can’t get out of your own assumptions</li>
<li>you don’t need someone highly experienced to mentor you — you just have to explain yourself and get someone to ask, “how do you know that’s true?”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>often our thinking is shaped by a whole load of things that you haven’t let go
<ul>
<li>process it and let it go</li>
</ul></li>
<li>we don’t tend to learn a lot from success
<ul>
<li>that’s ok - we just need to do the same thing again</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/sTMfwclysDk" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/09/iosdev-uk-eternal-sunshine-of-developer.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6382212051821902995.post-19599106446701477002011-09-09T20:45:00.000+01:002011-09-09T21:32:52.060+01:002011-09-09T21:32:52.060+01:00iOSDev UK: Design Considerations for Educational Apps<p><em>Fraser Speirs, Head of Computing & IT, Cedars School of Excellence, @fraserspeirs</em></p>
<p><a href="http://speirs.org">http://speirs.org</a></p>
<ul>
<li>last year gave every child an iPad
<ul>
<li>only 100 pupils</li>
<li>had 220 people come to visit the school…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>when you give people the internet the whole time, you sometimes get unexpected results
<ul>
<li>Fraser showed a slide of coursework on cell nuclei, decorated with a background showing the <a href="http://www.generallyawesome.com/photos/funny/statue-of-darth-liberty" title="Darth Liberty | A Scarier Version of the Statue of Liberty | Funny Photos | GENERALLY AWESOME">Statue of Darth Liberty</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>sitting around iPads — everybody faces each other rather than all facing the screen at the front</li>
<li>avoiding the ceremonial computer lab — moving to casual computing</li>
<li>beautiful artwork created by kids on iPads, within a month of receiving them</li>
<li>it’s not just the iPads, it’s the 1:1 — the 1:1 is more important</li>
<li>Fraser’s daughter is 4.5 — just started school
<ul>
<li>will graduate from university in Summer 2029</li>
<li>“we are already teaching the citizens of the 22nd century”</li>
</ul></li>
<li>looking at investment as kids’ chairs & tables
<ul>
<li>not as a guarantee that scores will go up</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dosanddontsforappsinschools">Do’s and Don’ts for apps in schools</h3>
<ul>
<li>don’t assume the internet works correctly
<ul>
<li>schools change what internet is available through frequent policy changes</li>
<li>youtube is often turned off</li>
</ul></li>
<li>teaching fashions come and go regularly</li>
<li>in-app purchase doesn’t work in schools
<ul>
<li>central purchasing or gifting</li>
<li>e.g. PCalc has a full version that can be purchased at once</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t assume your users can (will) read
<ul>
<li>use conventions wisely (keep the back button in top left corner)</li>
</ul></li>
<li>use push notifications sparingly
<ul>
<li>no good advertising to kids in school — they don’t have the app store password anyway</li>
</ul></li>
<li>watch out for number of devices nearby
<ul>
<li>could be 20-30 devices around</li>
<li>infrastructure may cope, but leave room in your UI</li>
</ul></li>
<li>limit or prevent app store interactions
<ul>
<li>no good in schools</li>
<li>confuses kids; annoying for teachers</li>
<li>that goes for “review me now” too</li>
</ul></li>
<li>teachers need access to content
<ul>
<li>support the photos app</li>
</ul></li>
<li>don’t promote facebook
<ul>
<li>facebook can be a major source of anxiety for many children</li>
</ul></li>
<li>watch out for shaking gestures — not good for</li>
<li>don’t use bad language (and try to avoid double-entendres and local slang too). Some examples:
<ul>
<li>Rasterbator</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/pETfHy">Procreate</a></li>
<li>Little Snapper</li>
<li>hardware growler</li>
<li>mental case</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/p5eDnB">FlashToPass</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gojobby.com">http://gojobby.com</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>be very careful with user data — especially with location</li>
<li>talk to teachers and test with actual children
<ul>
<li>Fraser’s school does not have the scale to be a beta tester…</li>
</ul></li>
<li>watch out for different curricula in different countries</li>
<li>walk through guide in the app
<ul>
<li>see <a href="http://j.mp/n6XuRb">toontastic</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li>kids can use loads of apps to edit graphics, passing the image through the photos app</li>
<li>use sharing effectively
<ul>
<li>use “Open In…”</li>
<li>avoid huge sharing option lists</li>
</ul></li>
<li>show proof of completion</li>
<li>avoid (penalise) random hits</li>
<li>structure + headroom = creativity
<ul>
<li>app idea: make toontastic for creative writing</li>
</ul></li>
<li>show user activity
<ul>
<li>e.g. <a href="http://j.mp/qComhR">Brushes</a> lets you record all your strokes and play them back as a quicktime video</li>
</ul></li>
<li>localisation is useful even if your app is UK-specific
<ul>
<li>e.g. Iraqi boy with a 1:1 iPod touch switched it to Farsi and used Google Image Search to show pictures of what he wanted to the teacher</li>
</ul></li>
<li>support projectors & AirPlay
<ul>
<li>don’t offer resolutions for external display — just pick one and do it well</li>
</ul></li>
<li>there is a control to turn off Game Center at a policy level
<ul>
<li>so go ahead and put it in the app but make the rest of the app work without it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>gap in the middle for 7-10 year olds
<ul>
<li>need more apps like <a href="http://j.mp/n6XuRb">toontastic</a> — structure provided, but space for creation</li>
<li>older kids can use general content apps</li>
<li>younger kids don’t need so much freedom</li>
<li>using <a href="http://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?grid=606&GR_URL=http%3a%2f%2fitunes.apple.com%2fgb%2fapp%2fithoughtshd-mindmapping%2fid369020033%3fmt%3d8&TRACK=ADAMBLOG">iThoughts HD</a> for mindmap, then writing in Pages</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="examples">example apps</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/onbhMw">preschool memory match</a></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/q7gPZx">the history of jazz</a></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/qSRUkD">slice it</a> — but gets too hard too quickly</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/panRBL">DrawRace 2</a></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/qvQ0Au">Real Racing 2 HD</a> — but uses up huge amounts of battery</li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/ruc3R9">toca tea party</a> — not a game but a digital toy
<ul>
<li>have a virtual tea party around the iPad</li>
<li>lots of other other toca “games” available — see <a href="http://toca.com">http://toca.com</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/rqBBpZ">math bingo</a>
<ul>
<li>gather “bingo bugs” and then use them in a breakout game</li>
<li>15 year-olds were saying “why do we not have math bingo?”</li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="http://j.mp/qZKBlu">penultimate</a>
<ul>
<li>write on a project as you walk around</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="qa">Q&A</h3>
<ul>
<li>research?
<ul>
<li>study with university of western scotland</li>
<li>two lessons back to back: one with iPad, one with paper & pencil</li>
<li>same teacher, same children</li>
<li>with paper & pencil, boys and some girls had less emotional engagement</li>
<li>with iPad emotional engagement of all pupils was brought up to same level as best kids</li>
<li>being submitted to <a href="http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0007-1013" title="British Journal of Educational Technology - Journal Information">BJET</a>, but may not be published yet</li>
</ul></li>
<li>separate educational version of an app?
<ul>
<li>kids want the real thing</li>
<li>universal design is best</li>
<li>Fraser tries to buy things off the shelf rather than waiting for educational specific versions</li>
</ul></li>
<li>damages?
<ul>
<li>only had one — parent ran it over with Land Cruiser!</li>
<li>kids are careful — the iPad has their name on it</li>
</ul></li>
<li>teachers adapting to technology?
<ul>
<li>about half of the teachers had iPhones/iPod Touches before the programme started</li>
<li>the iPad is significantly more approachable than other computers</li>
</ul></li>
<li>how do you find apps?
<ul>
<li>school subscribes to Tap! magazine…</li>
<li>more popular than the TES :-)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
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</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AdamCohenRose/~4/Xz02-fPWZeY" height="1" width="1"/>Adam Cohen-Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12286496556944495325noreply@blogger.com0http://blog.cohen-rose.org/2011/09/iosdev-uk-design-considerations-for.html