tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57922043470112189462024-03-05T19:45:08.872-08:00Red3 Standing by...Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-72469365272938450742018-05-05T22:54:00.000-07:002018-05-06T21:54:52.496-07:00Been to Hutton Orbital - Got the Mug!I did a crazy thing yesterday. I took a data transfer mission to Hutton Orbital in the Alpha Centauri system.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinP9OAbaWy5XTHdR8beN4gB2KWnk6QwnMKpqNcqqFWcMeaAqVISlWFC3Iwr3_leHFMJc1sXNvUK00FJcbbYSDdkHWA0mqUcgvkhIjOcCnzcc7ZQsY6bbXlgh6yshMuSJwEAOFwFhbJShdC/s1600/20180504232930_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinP9OAbaWy5XTHdR8beN4gB2KWnk6QwnMKpqNcqqFWcMeaAqVISlWFC3Iwr3_leHFMJc1sXNvUK00FJcbbYSDdkHWA0mqUcgvkhIjOcCnzcc7ZQsY6bbXlgh6yshMuSJwEAOFwFhbJShdC/s640/20180504232930_1.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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What's so crazy about that? Well, Hutton Orbital is 0.22ly from the system arrival point. That's 6,784,404 ls! In game it takes over 2 hours.<br />
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Why would one suffer such an arduous journey?<br />
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Data delivery missions usually fetch only a few thousand credits. But they are multiplied by distance.<br />
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A data mission to Hutton Orbital pays over 1 million credits!<br />
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So hold on to your seat and prepare for the journey.<br />
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Hutton Orbital is satellite to Eden, sole planet of Proxima Centauri.<br />
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Make sure you check out the Commodities Market for a prize - The Hutton Mug!<br />
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A rare commodity, it will only cost a few credits, but will multiply in value the further you travel from its source.<br />
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Getting the Mug got me thinking. Do I want to lose the mug? It's an achievement; a trophy. Shouldn't I be able to record my achievements somewhere? As soon as I sell it, it's gone, sold and forgotten. Having achievements like this would give more sense of ambition and achivement in the game.<br />
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And maybe the game could at least hint of the achievements possible. And what if it could lead you on a quest? I'd like to see a graphic of the mug. I'd like to examine the mug and find a clue on it. Maybe it could lead me to a specific place or individual who could tell me of other achievements in the game. Hidden locations, places of special interest, mysterious objects which could enhance my ship's capabilities or how to get special permits for locked systems.<br />
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We have a vast sandbox here, c'mon Frontier, bury some treasure in it!<br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-56636155049280940492018-04-06T12:54:00.003-07:002018-04-14T08:11:38.626-07:00Elite: Dangerous - I need to feel part of you!I know there are ways in which I could feel more involved in Elite: Dangerous.<br />
I could join a private group. Make friends with commanders, and get involved in their activities.<br />
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However, I am a lonely soul and I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of involvement. I don't have the schedule to be responsible to other people in a group and ultimately I feel like I'd just end up letting them down.<br />
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I need to feel involved in the game in a different way. And I think others do too. In fact I think they're silently screaming out for it. The other day, I was contemplating the comments I've heard about E:D. How people are enjoying the general experience of being in such a large sandbox, but not feeling any true sense of purpose.<br />
I think there are so many people out there who love the IDEA of E:D. But it's a game that unleashes imaginations, and meeting <i>those </i>high expectations is a monumental task.<br />
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Then it hit me - I had an epiphany. I had been doing a lot of missions for factions aligned with the Federation. First I got the permit to enter the Sol system. Then I got some missions that allowed me to rank up to Chief Petty Officer with the Federation. Now I can purchase a Federation Dropship.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did you know you can deploy your SRV and drive around when docked at Ehrlich City on Mercury?</td></tr>
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So I go to Erlich City on Mercury and notice that the Dropship is cheaper here: CR 12.8m. Next I travel to Mars High station, expecting the price to be the same, but no, it's regular price, over 1 million credits more: 14.2m. It feels weird that there is no pattern here. I'm at the Capital of the Federation and there's really nothing special about Mars High.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhzwIZYe7kdMf6-b70y2_eKGeBxMHtfGY74hxZtCuHygxel2j_OtCWiN6wLYcG0ZVS5Yvm53Juft1QdR_CbhchQ-byXmi8savE1td7l__uH54nnNpNb7r98klaNIN6cHD476ZbVx6iQ6p/s1600/Screenshot_0010.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhzwIZYe7kdMf6-b70y2_eKGeBxMHtfGY74hxZtCuHygxel2j_OtCWiN6wLYcG0ZVS5Yvm53Juft1QdR_CbhchQ-byXmi8savE1td7l__uH54nnNpNb7r98klaNIN6cHD476ZbVx6iQ6p/s640/Screenshot_0010.bmp" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdH3Skoekx_YYJkvrCe-XsaIHGUNsrBAKsSWYZRnNB5MC4qj-PqKoYhh4hkrsZ7p8XGux9G0qjQSIQDqXz4b6MJJi4dnLDUBmuLE5gE6jj9Ze197GwGwYJtTjvNwQtoQ5ACiOF_RiJoNq/s1600/Screenshot_0006.bmp" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdH3Skoekx_YYJkvrCe-XsaIHGUNsrBAKsSWYZRnNB5MC4qj-PqKoYhh4hkrsZ7p8XGux9G0qjQSIQDqXz4b6MJJi4dnLDUBmuLE5gE6jj9Ze197GwGwYJtTjvNwQtoQ5ACiOF_RiJoNq/s640/Screenshot_0006.bmp" width="640" /></a><br />
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The first thing that strikes me is that other than Mars High looking pleasantly different to most other space stations (notice the Palm Trees?), there's nothing <i>really</i> special about it. The missions are the same, there are no special commodities in the market, nothing special about the ships for sale and the modules you can buy. (In fact there are only 8 ships for sale here!) The only thing that stood out to me is that finally I can buy some more passenger cabins. (Most stations don't have them in such variety.)<br />
And what perhaps surprized me most: At Mars High - one of the most civilized and controlled systems at the heart of humanity, there's a Black Market! That just feels wrong!<br />
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<h3>
It could be so much more</h3>
<div>
What I realized was that none of this landmark experience feels really special or exciting. Buying my first Federal ship should be a special event. It should be a milestone in the game. A gateway to new content and adventures. But no. There's nothing to see here. Just continue doing what you did in a new ship. The only incentive I have at this cross-roads is to go on earning credits to buy bigger and better ships. Or stop playing. (And I'm sure Frontier didn't intend that.)</div>
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<div>
What if there were places in the Galaxy you can <i>only </i>enter in a Federal ship? Special military stations where there are only Federal factions with a completely different agenda. Now I'd truly feel like I had progressed in the game.</div>
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These stations would have a different look about them. Here you can only buy certain ship upgrades specifically for Federal ships. Here there are special missions and covert operations only for Federal allies. Here there are special commodities that need transporting and special projects to help the Federation further its reach. Here I would <i>feel </i>like I'm part of the Federation.</div>
<div>
And if I arrive in a non-federation ship and ask for docking permission here, I'm know I'm going to be denied - unless I have special permission because I'm running a special mission for the Federation. (Or I'm flying a stolen federation ship and hoping the access code checks out!)</div>
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And that doesn't just apply to the Federation. We should (and do) have Empire and Alliance stations. But these stations equally need an identity. They need to really FEEL different. And that even goes for the uncontrolled, anarchic systems. Stations out there should feel seedy and out of control.<br />
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Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Federation controlled systems only have Federation stations. Corporations are still free to run stations and do commerce. And various factions can run out of them, just as they do in-game today. I'm proposing that more stations with specific restrictions and identity are added to allow a player to really feel like they side with the Federation, Empire or Alliance. (And swapping allegiance needent be anything more than turning up in a different ship with the appropriate minimum rank.)<br />
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None of these suggestions seem like they're unreachable. All the elements are already there in the game to tighten it up and make it that much more like I can identify with the game and <i>truly feel</i> like I'm part of it.<br />
I truly think Elite:Dangerous is a game worth spending time with. But given the right tweaks it could be <i>so</i> much more immersive!Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-44859299579505661602018-04-03T15:19:00.002-07:002018-04-14T08:24:22.897-07:00<h2>
What Elite:Dangerous Needs</h2>
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I've been playing Elite:Dangerous for a few weeks now, and I must say that my second foray into the black was much more compelling than the first. I bought the first edition about a couple of years ago, tried a few basic missions and put it back on the shelf. Not through any lack of desire to play it, but more from a lack of time to dedicate to the pursuit and frustration that, as a MMO, it was not a game that I could pause at any time.<br />
I've been watching the progress of the game closely and I finally bought into the Horizons expansion. Landing on moons is very cool, and certainly adds some dimension to the game that many are hoping for, but we're still left feeling like we're just being teased. So much of Elite:Dangerous just whets your appetite for something more...<br />
One of my biggest barriers has been removed - you can save the game at any time in any location in space or on a planet's surface, unless you are in danger (meaning that you're under attack).<br />
This makes it so much more accessible to someone like me who has limited time to devote to it.<br />
<h3>
Barrier to Entry - Steep Learning Curve</h3>
There's one common sentiment that seems to resonate with this game and that is that it's <i>"Not a game for everyone"</i> and it's <i>"Going to take some time to get into it - but there are lots of online resources than can help you."</i> What's wrong with that picture? A game where you have to research how to play it online sounds more like a chore, a problem to solve, or a career choice - not a fun pastime!<br />
I really don't feel it needs to be that way. Even though it's not a "game for everyone", I think it could be wildly more popular than it is. And the fear is that the community is waning.<br />
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<h3>
Coherence</h3>
I don't know for sure if E:D has a guiding principle for design, but I get the feeling that one thing they won't do is define your role for you. Phrases like <i>"Play your way"</i>, <i>"Plot your own course"</i> and <i>"Be who you want to be"</i> keep coming up in their marketing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjly3ur_mr4eSj2PNHQyrz1xNmF6rxVoRU8Ur-E1-CaT6v6Iif9yE7aJu6szor6N50IjLSctPOwz4QK-eNZ8F3n0GrB9XbLF-_zSITePGZP7K4XTnqxJVK4boDIzmwU8qA96r7qZn8bYWRJ/s1600/EliteSite.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjly3ur_mr4eSj2PNHQyrz1xNmF6rxVoRU8Ur-E1-CaT6v6Iif9yE7aJu6szor6N50IjLSctPOwz4QK-eNZ8F3n0GrB9XbLF-_zSITePGZP7K4XTnqxJVK4boDIzmwU8qA96r7qZn8bYWRJ/s640/EliteSite.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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They seem to shy away from admitting actual Role Playing features, while continuing to add elements of Role Playing into the game. Holo-Me allows you to define an avatar for yourself. With the Livery you can paint your ship, add decals and even put decorations into your cockpit. (Other than major game module upgrades, of which Horizons is currently the only one, this is the only thing you pay for once you own the game.) Faction reputation & influence allows you to define who you want to align yourself with and the type of missions you will undertake. Wings and teaming up allows you to play in groups with other players.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7XM9hbgq0swn-pti23AHcGuE2uTIOkjoqC6T2w0I13S7H1lGqRfaCpACVoKDrNn7MmiTvJTMVmAdbJapHoB9837rmU0uhdNLUznCNy4N-Y3id0J07ekarfYZDoO_kiWbhfZdAAr2sGWW/s1600/Screenshot_0011.bmp" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7XM9hbgq0swn-pti23AHcGuE2uTIOkjoqC6T2w0I13S7H1lGqRfaCpACVoKDrNn7MmiTvJTMVmAdbJapHoB9837rmU0uhdNLUznCNy4N-Y3id0J07ekarfYZDoO_kiWbhfZdAAr2sGWW/s640/Screenshot_0011.bmp" width="640" /></a><br />
<h3>
Identity</h3>
But all of this lacks real personality. What seems to be missing is the true assignment of identity. If a new player got to choose a role up front: Federal Cadet, Law Enforcement Agent, Rebel, Bounty Hunter/Vigilante, Empire Recruit, Corporate Hireling, Entrepreneur: I believe it would tie all these elements together. (See my <a href="http://blog.red3software.com/2018/02/getting-into-elite-dangerous.html">previous post</a>.)<br />
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<h3>
Story Involvement</h3>
Even though E:D has a back story and a lore, there are more stories developing in E:D. You could say that each player writes their own story. I'd love to see the E:D have a log so that you could review the systems you visited and remember the log of missions and activities you undertook.<br />
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<h3>
Drama/Tension</h3>
Elite can have its moments, for sure. But one of the challenges is that they are few and far between and the game can be merciless. For example, I'm going about my business collecting salvage from half a dozen systems. I get to the fifth system and I'm just about to collect my salvage when, suddenly I'm under fire. The signal said <b>Threat 0</b>. But without warning I'm being assassinated by a band of five pirates. Not only this salvage is now lost, but four other missions failed too, and without fair warning or ability to flee. Now that is drama. It is tension. But it is not fun!<br />
Players have stopped playing E:D for things like this. Frontier needs to do something about it.<br />
The kind of drama we want is situations where you realize you're in danger. Give me a stand-off situation - you can give me some of your cargo or I'm coming for you. You have 60 seconds to comply. Give us a module to call the police or signal for help. Give us a way to prepare to run. Give me a way to fight or flee with a reasonable chance of success. Because this whole idea of getting blown out of space in 5 seconds flat without fair warning is getting tedious.<br />
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<h3>
Building</h3>
There's a massive amount of empty out there. Why can't a player claim some of it and start to build their own Empire? What a curve this would be! Find an unexplored part of the Galaxy, clear out any small factions that are trying to contend it, purchase/claim your own planet/moon. Start a coalition/group. Mine resources. Build stations around it. Start stocking it up for trade. As the money and resources roll in, start building outposts. Terraform your world. Build cities and commerce. Attract trade. And be ready to defend yourself!<br />
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<h3>
Wonder!</h3>
True Exploration (Atmospheric Planets - things to find, explore, go into, experience).<br />
Elite can produce some wonderful sights - planet-rise, landscapes on rocky moons.<br />
Passenger missions encourage us to go to tourist sights which are often just beacons in interesting locations, but can also be natural wonders such as Ice Geysers on planets. As the terrain becomes more interesting we can only expect the graphics and wonders to improve.<br />
We are all waiting for so much more - planets with atmosphere and weather and much more varied landscapes. Cities, oceans, clouds, vegetation and terrain.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9XBkjd6Et7MgnBBZu_-iQaypKdVHGJJQrasF2O-17pxKB-z6XLGvWnSzAG2jC6e9YBSsJsPhdRhSVyXrfCFPi4LJ7rP4bSgzb3z6U5Pd31y7fkpk-n-YRDH4tMh-O17tEi4Zymp0X5U8L/s1600/20180402152356_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9XBkjd6Et7MgnBBZu_-iQaypKdVHGJJQrasF2O-17pxKB-z6XLGvWnSzAG2jC6e9YBSsJsPhdRhSVyXrfCFPi4LJ7rP4bSgzb3z6U5Pd31y7fkpk-n-YRDH4tMh-O17tEi4Zymp0X5U8L/s640/20180402152356_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strange, beautiful looking planet. Now wouldn't it be great if I could go down there!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Things to discover: Puzzles and Mysteries to Solve</h3>
There are some puzzles to solve in E:D. But they seem to cater to only the 'Elite' few. Reports of Alien activity. Find the Alien outpost site. (Why can't there be more of these that individuals can search for and find in the general course of the game? Why do all the puzzles have to be momentous & global? Why can't we have smaller puzzle chains that lead us to fun bonuses. IMO, this would have been a much better way to introduce Engineers that to have specific individuals in specific locations dotted throughout the Galaxy.)<br />
<h3>
Interaction</h3>
What E:D desperately needs is more things to fly into. Fly through. Canyons, Cave systems, Outposts, Cities, Landmarks. Race courses and tournaments.<br />
(Edit: I recently discovered that you can deploy your SRV <i>when docked!</i> This is awesome! You can actually drive around certain cities and stations in Horizons. If only there was something more to do that explore and scan data panels! Opening possibilities like this just makes us want more. What if there was a race track on the base? What if I get to a station, and I drive to an establishment, and I could then get out and walk to meet a shady contact who gives me a secret mission not available through the normal bulletin boards... What if the last stage in contending faction control was a ground combat scenario on the planet's surface to overthrow the base?)<br />
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<h3>
My Current Take</h3>
E:D continues to whet our appetites but in many ways it still feels like an elaborate preview.<br />
Even though it is at least a released game with actual gameplay, sadly, sometimes it does not feel much more involved than watching a Star Citizen demo.<br />
<br />Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-23779882897973871942018-02-20T11:02:00.001-08:002018-04-06T13:04:12.667-07:00Getting into Elite: Dangerous<h3>
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<h3>
Never heard of Elite?</h3>
The original Elite was one of the first games that people bought computers for. It started on Acorn's BBC Micro and spread to the Sinclair Spectrum, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and PC. It was revolutionary. It has been claimed that for every BBC Micro sold, a copy of Elite was sold.<br />
In just 16K of RAM you could explore a procedurally generated Galaxy (in fact 8 galaxies, each containing 256 solar systems) with government systems, 3D space, stars, planets and rotating space stations. You could hunt pirates for bounty, trade goods between systems and scoop fuel from stars. Later editions allowed you to take on missions to further your career and rewards.<br />
True, the wireframe graphics were rudimenary, but any sort of 3D renderings were revolutionary for their time. But even more miraculously, Elite unleashed the imaginations of its players. Some even wrote novellas about their adventures in space.<br />
And we dreamed that maybe one day we'd be playing games with solid 3D ships, spherical planets (not just big hollow circles) and maybe we would even be able to land on those planets and even interact with other players?<br />
Just like the visualization of The Lord of the Rings, it has taken technology years to catch up with our imaginations. Subsequent attempts to expand the Elite Universe failed to truly impress. Maybe something to do with suspension of disbelief?<br />
<h3>
Resurrection</h3>
Then in 2013, A Kickstarter campaign resurrected the Elite franchise with an injection of community interest. Elite was one of those pioneering games that spawned a genre in the gaming world. Its great successor and rival was Chris Roberts' Wing Commander, which differed in that it was episodic in its story-based/scripted gameplay. Wing Commander was the biggest game of its era, spawning sequels and spin-offs - arguably the first ever video gaming blockbuster franchise. Now Elite:Dangerous has its own current revival in Roberts' Star Citizen - the largest, most ambitious crowd funded project ever. (And also heavily anticipated and seriously delayed.) Other classics which could be traced back to inspiration from Elite are Privateer, Freelancer, Starglider, Freespace, Homeworld, X3, Eve and, more recently, No Man's Sky. (Even Grand Theft Auto has roots in Elite's mission-based gameplay.)<br />
Back in the day, Elite wowed and inspired us. Not just the idea of flying our own spaceship in an open, vast universe, but also in the possibility of what new technology could really do. We dreamed of games with filled-in 3D graphics and wondered how many years it would take to get there. Elite:Plus whet our appetites further by delivering on filled in panels in the ships. Then Frontier and Frontier II implemented habitable planets that you could actually land on, but the physics of interplanetary travel spoiled the gameplay, and it was time to reflect on what truly made Elite a great game...<br />
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<h3>
Elite: Dangerous</h3>
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Elite: Dangerous (E:D) is what we were all waiting for. A vast galaxy of 400 billion star systems with highly detailed ships which can be kitted out for dog-fighting. A sensible travel system that ensures we can go from space station to space station in a sensible amount of time to trade and pick up missions. A strong economy-based universe in which you can trade, bounty-hunt, mine ore, explore, scoop fuel and salvage goods. And do this in an MMO environment with real friends and rivals online.<br />
Elite: Dangerous is capable of delivering epic moments. But it can also be a very lonely and sparse place to spend your time. The game was originally released more on it's promise to supporters and potential than on it's completeness. Only three years into its development are we truly seeing it come to fruition. And with the hype of Star Citizen hot on its heels you can see why the rush to market. Frontier Developments didn't have to worry quite so much because three years on and Star Citizen is still not released. However, in that three years we have experienced some significant enhancements to Elite, including planets you can land on, surface-based missions and engineers to add to your ship's crew to enhance your performance. Oh, and we can't forget THARGOIDs, the great alien threat in Elite lore.<br />
But let's not get too excited... Planetary landings are only on rocky moon-type bodies. We're still waiting for atmospheric worlds. Qualifying to impress an engineer requires you fulfilling certain missions and requirements. And you won't want to take on a Thargoid until you're deep into the game and prepared to make scores of inter-stellar jumps to find them. We're talking <i>weeks</i> of activity to increase your wealth.<br />
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<h4>
Hindering its own Adoption</h4>
So this brings us to the thing that is preventing the adoption of Elite. Elite has always had this philosophy of throwing you into the great big Universe and letting you learn and figure things out for yourself. This Open Play concept is what contributes to the great sense of accomplishment you can get when you have the time to dedicate to it. However, it is also the greatest barrier to entry (and contributor to buyer's remorse). It is extremely disheartening to start getting to grips with the game, fulfilling some missions to make enough cash to buy your first ship upgrade only to be attacked by an merciless pirate who rips your ship apart in mere seconds and throws you right back to square one.<br />
Elite has training videos and some training scenarios, which are recommended as essential in all the <i>"How to get started"</i> videos and articles I've seen. But you feel like you have to watch them all and train yourself before you're ready to start playing. It's intimidating.<br />
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<h4>
But I have a better idea.</h4>
What Elite really need is some hand-holding for new players. It needs to drop the open play idealism and teach people how to play the game. Not through anterior training missions, but by leading them into this wonderful universe in a way not dissimilar to a Role Playing Game.<br />
And the great thing is that it already has all the tools to do it!<br />
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<h3>
Elite needs coherence</h3>
Anyone who has played Elite for a period of time, and stuck with it, enjoys the immensity of the game. They like trying out the different things to do. But the recurring consensus is that there is a lack of belonging. They would like more interaction. They would like to feel a sense of purpose. That they are working towards more of a goal than just being able to afford a bigger ship. When avid players, even fans, talk about the 'grind' of the game to achieve the next goal, we have to question whether they're really enjoying the journey?<br />
Elite as a game defined a genre. But since then, genres have been defined, created and refined. We can use some of this knowledge gain to improve on the potential of Elite. MMO's have struggled, but there are some elements that we can use to improve camaraderie between players. RPGs have been immensely successful, and there are many elements of this genre that can be applied to E:D. In fact, I believe Elite Dangerous has the potential to be the ultimate RPG in space. At the moment the party line is "define your own role". There is some fun in this, but a big part of the fun of a game is that you get to play a role, not define your own role. Come on, Frontier Developments, hire some writers: step up and become the story teller/dungeon master!<br />
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<h4>
Make it accessible</h4>
Here's how I see it working:<br />
You install Elite and the first thing you're presented with is <i>"Welcome new recruit. There's a vast universe out there waiting to be discovered. There are many factions in need of new talent. Who would you like to join? The Federation. The Silver Rats Pirates. The Explorer's Guild. The New Stellar Corporation. Or just go it alone?"</i><br />
The Federation gives you an Eagle. The Pirates a Viper. The Corporation a Sidewinder. The Explorers an Adder. And a small budget to work with.<br />
Who you choose determines the first chapter of your story. But it does not define your path. Whoever you align with at first, will give you a basic ship, teach you how to handle it. You could be mentored by a basic engineer/trainer who walks you through the basics and gives you a few basic tasks: take out this drone, scan this ship, pick up this canister, dock with this station, mine fragments off this asteroid, scan this data panel.<br />
Then when you're ready, you can go it alone and you're given some story-based missions consistent with the faction you're being trained by: Take this cargo here. Locate and scan this ship and report back to us. Pick up this salvage. Go mine some ore and take the refined materials to this location for the space station we're building.<br />
This would create a safety net around new players. It would teach them the game through gameplay, not make them feel intimidated by the game until they've gone through all the training scenarios and videos.<br />
And once you feel confident you can continue your journey with the faction you started with, or break free and chart your own path to discover the wonders of the universe for yourself.<br />
I truly believe it would make Elite accessible and fun for a whole new generation, immersing them in both a compelling story <i>and</i> an uncharted universe.<br />
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<h3>
<b>Will Elite Survive?</b></h3>
I'd hate to see E:D become the 'also ran' pre-cursor to Star Citizen, fading into Oblivion when the main act finally arrives on stage. It has so much potential to be the greatest game, deserving of so much more exposure and love than it now enjoys. Still 'open play', and less scripted than SC, but not a complete blank page in which you're expecting your players to write their own story from scratch. The original 1983 Elite included a novella to get you immersed into its version of the universe entitled "The Dark Wheel". Maybe this is the missing piece that E:D forgot?<br />
<br />Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-26546738330919752362013-02-27T14:48:00.003-08:002013-11-01T14:48:20.661-07:00(Windows) 8 Deadly Sins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After the marathon that was getting Windows 8 onto my Mac, I am now finally in a position to comment on the usability of the desktop experience. It's nearly as painful as getting the thing installed in the first place!<br />
I am flabbergasted by number of UI sins it commits. Here are the 8 of the most 'deadly':<br />
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<h4>
1. Removing the Start button</h4>
For some reason Microsoft have been obsessed with 'cleaning up the desktop' for some time. The Start menu just grew and grew until it dominated the whole offering. It now feels like a shroud over the desktop - which we all <i>thought </i>was the main work area. But Microsoft wants to retrain us into using full-screen apps in the Metro 'style'. (Metro is a name they were using for the tiled Start Screen, which got dropped before release.)<br />
We used to talk about getting 'lost in hyperspace' on a website when we were left on a page with no links. Metro apps will give you the feeling of being left in a vacuum.<br />
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<h4>
2. Cornered by Edge cases</h4>
After getting completely lost and not knowing where to go, you might start moving the mouse around the screen. The hotspots are in the very corners of the screen. There is no visual indication that the corners are hot and significant. You're somehow expected to 'know'. Without this knowledge, you'd be hard pressed to guess. You might be lucky and stumble across them. But why not indicate. It would be easy to highlight the hot corners with some kind of visualization as the mouse pointer neared the corner. Microsoft has gone for visual simplicity and clean interface to a fault here. Where ar the visual cues we need to follow our intuition? What would be wrong with just placing a start logo (or even a partial one) in the bottom left of the screen?<br />
What's more, when you finally get the bottom left corner trick, you get a thumbnail of the start screen. As a mouse user, you might, like me, instinctively, move away from the corner to click in the centre of the icon. However, if you move you're dead. The icon disappears and you end up clicking on whatever was behind it! Talk about punishing the user. It feels like a slap on the wrist for moving the mouse.<br />
And up in the top left corner, it's just as confusing. Somewhere the system has a list of apps or processes that are running. You get a thumbnail of the next process appear, which, when you click will switch to that task and the preview will change to the next one in the rotation. Why oh why don't you show me a list? All I want it is my familiar Windows 7 taskbar back! (On further investigation I discover that Windows key + TAB shows the very list I want. Why doesn't the top left corner hotspot work this way? It's a complete mystery!)<br />
Now, to get system level configuration options. Move to the top right <u>or</u> bottom right corner - to get a panel that fills the whole right-hand side of the screen. Why can't get this panel when I move the mouse to anywhere along the right edge, top middle or bottom?<br />
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<h4>
3. No going back - I can't Escape!</h4>
One of the most frustrating things I've encountered with Windows 8 is the feeling of hopeless isolation when I'm in a Windows application with no apparent way out. In just about every other environment I've worked in, the ESC key is my back-out clause. Not here. ESC does nothing. Try Backspace. Nothing. Try just about any other key. Hopeless. The last thing I try is the Windows key. (Command on my Mac!) Well, what do you know, I'm back on the home screen.<br />
Stuck in a application and I can't get out of it. Windows key - obvious, Not! All it does is toggle between Start and the App I was in. How do I get back to the desktop?<br />
(Now I know, I'll tell you: Press Windows-D, or Windows-Tab repeatedly until you highlight the desktop. Seems Microsoft realized what a problem this is, because just before release the added a desktop tile on the Start Screen as well.)<br />
<h4>
4. Displaying things that just aren't there!</h4>
The finance app tile shows an article "Apple still has magic innovation", Strangely a woman handling meat is the thumbnail. On clicking it I find a feature article about horse meat being introduced into beefburgers in Europe. Nowhere can I find the article about Apple innovation.<br />
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<h4>
5. Consistent Inconsistency</h4>
The only thing consistent about this UI is the blatent inconsistency.<br />
- scrolling up and down to go sideways.<br />
- In settings there are three word commands: Start Tiles and Help. But Start is disabled! At the bottom there are 6 icons: 5 bars (network) shows the name of the network connected to. Speaker (Sound) shows the volume. Sun (Brightness) shows the word Brightness - inconsistent. Card with greeked words (Notifications) shows Notifications. On/off switch icon (Power) shows Power. ENG icon (Locale/Keyboard) shows description US. If I change it to French (Canada) it changes the icon to FRA and the description to Keyboard! If I change it to English (Canada) Canadian Multilingual Standard the icon changes to ENG and the description to CMS.<br />
Underneath this it says Change PC Settings. This might seem like a sub-title. But it's actually a clickable command! And what's more - it's the most significant command. And it appears last in the list, right-aligned. A sure way to imply that it's insignificant.<br />
- Pressing Windows key when the OS loads will do nothing. However, if you have an app open, it will switch to that app, and then pressing again will toggle back to the Start Screen. Why doesn't it just switch to the desktop instead of doing nothing?<br />
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<h4>
6. One OS cannot rule them all</h4>
It's clear that Windows 8 is designed for touch screens. This may be Microsoft's biggest mistake yet. Their primary audience is clearly desktop users, but here we have a UI which is designed for touch, but 90% of the users will be on desktop PCs. If they had only spent more time testing this on desktop PCs using mice and not on their precious Surface tablets - which may end up selling less units than Blackberry's Playbook!<br />
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<h4>
7. Right click - it's just not right!</h4>
One of the most useful features of traditional windows is the right click context menu. It's intuition in a bottle (once you know it's possible!)<br />
However, right-clicks on this beast are a completely different experience. Right-click with either yield no result, or give you a pop-up panel, usually at the bottom of the screen, with very few options. It feels like all the power in you middle finger has been taken away.<br />
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<h4>
8. Search</h4>
Everything about search is wrong here. First off, did you know that you can start searching the PC just by typing on the Start screen? This might be a good thing, if Windows searched the whole system. For example, I had a problem with the screen brightness on my MacBook Pro being too dim. Search for 'brightness' - no results. But under Settings (just below the Search box) you can see that there's an option for Screen brightness, the very word I searched for!<br />
The search paradigm is all wrong here. The principle of type to search is very powerful. But the problem here is that all the search categories are on the right. It's hard to know straight away that your search is within a domain: Apps, Settings, Files, and other categories which look very much like Apps. The results appear on the main area of the screen on the left, but with your attention on the left of the screen, you don't intuitively realize that the control panel is on the right.<br />
Eventually you might realize that Windows-Q brings up the App Search, and Windows-F brings up File search. But they behave differently. As you type to search for apps, the Apps are filtered in the left hand pane. As you type to filter for files, the list appears underneath the search box, and the left pane remains blank, until you hit the enter key. Inconsistent and disconcerting!Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-87856134913850592882013-02-20T12:32:00.005-08:002013-02-20T12:32:31.418-08:00Quest for optimal MacBook Pro with SSD+HDD combo dual-booting Windows 8<h3>
One Laptop to Rule them All</h3>
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One of the reasons I finally pulled the trigger about a year ago on a > $2k Mac was the promise that I could run all current popular OS configurations on it: OSX, Windows and Ubuntu Linux.<br />
I finally parted with my cash in December 2011 (note that date - it will be relevant later), and my shiny silver MacBook Pro arrived just before Christmas.<br />
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<h3>
Setting it all up</h3>
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It took me a little while to get used to OSX, and one of my first projects was to fire up a VM or two. Being a bit cheap, I opted for <a href="https://www.virtualbox.org/">VirtualBox</a> instead of Parallels, a free product I had grown to like a lot while I was working at Sun (but is now owned by Oracle).<br />
Ubuntu was easy. Download the ISO, create a new VM and point it at the ISO. Done.<br />
Windows created more of a challenge. Partly because I wanted to see if I could make my old laptop 'virtual'. I imaged my laptop's disk and attempted to convert it for use in the VM. I was almost successful, but lets just say I don't use that VM - it's just there in the list to remind me not to waste time on stupid things in future...<br />
So then I thought I'd finally use that Windows 7 upgrade disk I got shortly after purchasing my Vista desktop PC.<br />
But how to do it?<br />
I went through all my disks trying to find a full version of Windows. Finally I found one that would install so I could use the upgrade. After way too much wasted time, I had a Windows 7 VM on my Mac!<br />
Then, a short while later, Windows 8 release preview comes out. Thankfully this was much easier to install into a VM. (It's relevant - see later...)<br />
<h3>
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<h3>
SSD Mecca</h3>
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Fast forward a few months - it's nearly Christmas again, and to my complete delight I see an Intel 480Gb SSD on sale for $329. That will make my Mac sing, I thought! (In actual fact it made it groan before it sang...)<br />
My mistake was to get storage greedy and purchase an OptiBay drive enclosure. The idea is that you take out the little-used DVD 'super' drive and place a second hard drive in its place. You then place the DVD in an enclosure and plug it into your USB port when required. (Actually, you might need to occupy two USB ports, especially when writing to DVDs, because they consume more power than your average USB device.) Which brings me to another beef with my Apple - why only two USB ports? Would it kill them to put another one on each side of the laptop, making 4?<br />
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Back to the OptiBay story:<br />
<b>Issue #1</b> - OK, I'm about to mess with drives here - better be prepared for the worst - where's my OS recovery disk? Can't find it. Call Mac support - don't need a disk - go to some obscure website and download the OS, create a recovery USB.<br />
"Why do you need it?" They ask.<br />
Innocently, I reply: "I want to install my own hard drive and install OS X on it."<br />
Apple guy: "It'll void your warranty."<br />
Me: "But I did my own memory upgrade."<br />
Apple guy: "That's OK, we let you do that - but don't even think about putting your own hard drive in, it'll void your warranty unless you get an authorized Mac Dealer to do it. and BTW, it can only be an SSD make & model we approve of, which you purchase through our Dealer."<br />
Seriously?! Forget that, I'm doing it my way.<br />
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<b>Issue #2</b> - Open up the Mac, locate the drive. Undo some screws only to find that some won't unscrew. Look closer - it's a different kind of screw with a star shaped head! Check Optibay documentation - use <i>provided</i> Torx bit - Torx Size 6 to be precise. Only they didn't provide one...<br />
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<b>Issue #3</b> - Finally found right screwdriver bit - try again. Slot SSD into OptiBay slot and boot up. Drive is recognized - time to format it. Format successful. Check disk - disk has errors! What? Format it again. Disk does not have errors. Check again 2 secs later - now it has errors! What?!?@#?$?@!<br />
Browse forums - eventually discover that the Optical bay slot will recognize a 6Gb/sec drive, but doesn't support it - on my particular MacBook Pro 8,2 late 2011 model. Earlier models will accept the SSD and run slower, newer models will accept the SSD and run fine at full speed.<a href="http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/DDAMBS0GB/"> See compatibility notes on this page.</a> Solution: swap the drives. Finally with the SSD in the main slot and the HDD in the OptiBay slot I'm finally up and running with close to 1Tb storage.<br />
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<a href="http://cdn.gottabemobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/m-w630-windows-8-logo-620x322.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="103" src="http://cdn.gottabemobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/m-w630-windows-8-logo-620x322.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b>Issue #4</b> - Microsoft emails me offering Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $40, because I downloaded the release preview. Pretty good deal, no? Do I need it? Well it would be nice to dual boot - enter the wonderful mystery world of Apple's BootCamp. How will I get this onto Bootcamp? Plan A - Burn Win8 Preview to DVD, run Bootcamp, create Windows partition, plug in external DVD drive, re-boot and load up the Windows installer. Easy, right? Except Bootcamp won't let me proceed - no optical drive. Yes there is - it's plugged in right there! Forget this: reboot anyway. Disk whirs, blank screen. Wait several minutes. Disk spins down. Nothing. Hold down power button for a few seconds. Remove disk from USB port. Restart system. "No bootable media found - press key to try again." Insert USB drive again. Press key. Nothing - it's frozen. Reboot again. Same thing.<br />
At this point I'm really worried that I might be screwed. Thankfully I knew about the option key boot option. Restart system, hold down option key, breathe relief when your Hard Drives show up and you can get back into OS X.<br />
So what can I do? How about booting from a USB? Surely that works - many MacBook Airs and Pros don't have a DVD drive. Surely that must work. So I use Microsoft's Windows USB Loader program to create bootable USB. Plug it in. Try again. Nope! "No bootable media found."<br />
Then I find out you can also press the C key on boot to force it to boot from CD/DVD drive. Nope. "No bootable media found."<br />
Seriously? Burn gparted to DVD. Try again. Hold down C and gparted boots up Linux no problem. But not Windows. Hmmm.<br />
Search forums online. Some people can, some can't install Windows via Bootcamp. Then I discover that someone put their DVD drive back into the Mac - it worked!<br />
Open up Mac, replace HDD in optical bay with DVD drive containing Windows setup disk. Close up Mac. Reboot. Hey presto, the Windows logo appears!<br />
So the evidence here is that Apple has specifically locked MacBook Pros with Optical drives from booting via USB. What's with that?!!<br />
<h4>
So in summary:</h4>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Put your SSD in the main drive bay, and if you want a second drive, place that in the optical bay, especially if you have a late 2011 MacBook Pro.</li>
<li>Make sure you have the right screwdriver bits before dissecting your Mac. (Including a Torx 6 bit.)</li>
<li>If you took your optical drive out, and you want to dual-boot Windows, put it back in before starting Bootcamp. It will save you a lot of grief and time.</li>
<li>If you didn't have Windows already installed on that bootcamp partition, the official line is that you won't be able to activate it unless it's a license for a brand new full version of Windows. (An OEM version you got with an older PC may work. Then you should be able to upgrade it once loaded. If you're really stuck, see <a href="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_install/windows-8-activation-after-clean-install-does-not/01047349-516a-485f-b88d-68c1c9ac0e9c">this Microsoft community thread</a>.)</li>
<li>If during setup, Windows doesn't recognize your Bootcamp partition, use disk tools in Windows Setup to format your bootcamp partition as NTFS before proceeding.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Now I finally have Windows 8 on my SSD on my Mac, I'll be able to tell you what I think of it in my next post.Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-17522025127421182702012-04-30T12:44:00.000-07:002012-10-05T08:09:07.105-07:00Mobile Framework ShowdownI recently got a new project to work on, and thought it was time to step back and re-evaluate the lay of the land for mobile app development.<br />
I offered both native and mobile cross-platform approaches to the client and they requested the latter. (I think that many businesses with smaller budgets will be making the same choice, sacrificing a little usability and responsiveness for flexibility and economy. After all, they want the biggest bang for their buck.)<br />
The landscape is changing really fast, and so it's always a good idea to stick your head up now and again to survey the landscape.<br />
My current assessment is that, although there are many emerging solutions for developing mobile apps with web technologies, there are three frameworks which seem to have gained significant adoption. And the interesting thing is that each embodies a significantly different approach. Here are my top three picks:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>jQuery Mobile</b></li>
<li><b>Sencha Touch</b></li>
<li><b>Titanium Appcelerator</b></li>
</ul>
What are different approaches?<br />
<ul>
<li><b>jQuery Mobile</b>: HTML5 defined views, and CSS provided styles with JavaScript code behind</li>
<li><b>Sencha Touch</b>: Pure Javascript defined views and code implementation producing proprietary HTML5 & CSS</li>
<li><b>Titanium Appcelerator</b>: Javascript code written by you is cross-compiled into native code. (Runs as Objective C on iOS, Java app on Android.)</li>
</ul>
It would be easy to assume that these three frameworks were three variants of making the same meal. A more appropriate metaphor is that there are three very different ways of using the same ingredients to create similar, but fundamentally different tasting meals.Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-66350410186067677032012-04-02T15:19:00.001-07:002012-04-02T15:21:06.051-07:00Presenting at Mobile Mondays Calgary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.techvibes.com/public/cache/event/220x145/54355_startup_calgarys_mobile_monday_momoyyc_255255255.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.techvibes.com/public/cache/event/220x145/54355_startup_calgarys_mobile_monday_momoyyc_255255255.png" /></a></div>
I'll be presenting on Mobile Cross Platform solutions at MobileMondaysCalgary (@MoMoYYC) this Monday, 2nd April, 2012:<br />
<a href="http://www.techvibes.com/event/startup-calgarys-mobile-monday-momoyyc">http://www.techvibes.com/event/startup-calgarys-mobile-monday-momoyyc</a><br />
<br />Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-14474987318603656742012-03-20T09:26:00.000-07:002012-04-15T22:53:42.616-07:00Home screen splash images in iOS5It seems that Apple slipped-in a resolution to the bemoaned lack of high resolution splash screens for webapps added to the home screen for phones with retina displays. However, there are a couple of gotcha's that you might want to be aware of.<br />
<br />
First some background. Here are some examples of how you make you web page capable of providing a home screen icon and splash image with iOS devices:<br />
<script class="brush: xml" type="syntaxhighlighter">
<![CDATA[<link href="images/icon-114.png" rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114"></link>
<link href="images/icon-72.png" rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72"></link>
<link href="images/icon-57.png" rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed"></link>
<link href="images/startup.png" media="mobile" rel="apple-touch-startup-image"></link>
<link href="images/startup.png" media="(max-device-width: 480px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)" rel="apple-touch-startup-image"></link>]]>
</script>
<br />
With iOS5 there are now a few scenarios you need to handle:<br />
iOS < 5 - Retina splash not supported - image <span style="font-weight: bold;">must</span> be exactly 320 x 460<br />
iOS >= 5 - Retina splash supported - will <span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> use lo-rez splash - image <span style="font-weight: bold;">must</span> be 640x920<br />
iOS >= 5 - on non-retina phone - retina splash not supported Retina splash not supported - image <span style="font-weight: bold;">must</span> be 320 x 460<br />
<br />
There are basically two techniques that should work here to determine the right image to use: CSS media queries and Javascript injection.<br />
<span style="font-size: 100%; font-weight: bold;">CSS media queries</span><br />
It seems that CSS media queries are not fully supported on older phones. I found that when adding several directives with different media queries that things stopped working as expected on some devices. Older iPhones on older versions of iOS were either ignoring the media query or somehow parsing them wrong.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Javascript injection</span><br />
I found the best path to sanity was to use javascript to inject the right directive into a script tag in the header:<br />
<br />
<script class="brush: js" type="syntaxhighlighter">
<![CDATA[
function () {
//Write the correct directive into the page for the splash screen when app is saved to the home screen
var DEFAULT_IMAGE = 'images/startup.png';
var RETINA_IMAGE = 'images/startup@2x.jpg';
var filename = DEFAULT_IMAGE;
//Need to keep the file size down - so use jpg for hi-rez
filename = window.devicePixelRatio === 2 ? RETINA_IMAGE : DEFAULT_IMAGE;
//Test the iOS version
filename = navigator.userAgent.indexOf('OS 5_') >= 0 ? filename : DEFAULT_IMAGE;
var retinaMedia = '(max-device-width: 480px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)';
var directive = '<link rel="apple-touch-startup-image" media="">= 0?retinaMedia:'') + '" href="' + filename + '" />';
//Write the directive directly into the HTML<br />
document.write(directive);
})();
]]>
</script>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Make sure your image file is still small</span><br />
The image you will be transferring is four times larger than before, and I've observed that if it's too large it may not show up on the first load. Our client's splash screen art was quite detailed, which doesn't compress well. My initial hi-rez image as a PNG was 400K. In one test, I thought that something in my markup was wrong until after about the tenth time starting the app from the home page, the loading image finally appeared. Obviously my file was too large to transfer quickly...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Consider JPEG</span><br />
It's not common knowledge that the splash screen image format can be PNG, GIF or JPEG. Most of us have got used to using PNG, but if your PNG is too large try a JPEG, tweaking the settings until you get a good compromise between image size and quality. I found that just by saving it out to JPEG with 90% compression setting cut my image file size by 75% without losing too much noticeable detail.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">References:<br /><a href="http://miniapps.co.uk/blog/post/ios-startup-images-using-css-media-queries/">http://miniapps.co.uk/blog/post/ios-startup-images-using-css-media-queries/</a><br /><a href="http://paulofierro.com/archives/568/">http://paulofierro.com/archives/568/</a></span>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-48320533058743153602012-03-19T13:08:00.000-07:002012-03-27T22:22:58.499-07:00Application Craft Impressions<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWOHdiGf99GIRJmiqatR3itP01qvKmlCakDsXaBUM6NgIlymBuhzTmE6WWE2jghhwA6m7kh6esiv2YkhcVcB21aW_Xa5hx_uw0tRQTvC6blJqVdLrRGlJTRwBK-w6gcYc3gpJoDYu_pc/s1600/ac-logo-sq.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 215px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZWOHdiGf99GIRJmiqatR3itP01qvKmlCakDsXaBUM6NgIlymBuhzTmE6WWE2jghhwA6m7kh6esiv2YkhcVcB21aW_Xa5hx_uw0tRQTvC6blJqVdLrRGlJTRwBK-w6gcYc3gpJoDYu_pc/s320/ac-logo-sq.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721727306257841586" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.applicationcraft.com/">Application Craft</a> (AC) is a very ambitious attempt to put modern HTML5 development, including mobile, onto the cloud.<br />The premise is this:<br />Sign up, sign on, start developing. All for free.<br />And you really can. It sports a WYSIWYG drag'n'drop form designer, a comprehensive smorgasbord of droppable widgets with property sheets, including layout containers and integrated jQuery Mobile UI components, and an embedded Javascript IDE within the browser. (It really reminds me of an online Visual Studio-like IDE for HTML5 and Javascript mobile apps.)<br />The big advantage of all this is that you can develop and deploy in your favorite HTML5 browser without the need for a web server to host on.<br />And what's more, they claim to support desktop, tablet and phone all from the same app, using in-built adaptive layout strategies.<br />The widgets can even be bound to a datasource, either inherent to the Application Craft framework, or linked to a SQL database on a different server.<br />Application Craft does have a monetizing model based on number of developer accounts, data storage and bandwidth.<br />New features are server-side javascript modules and file-based data sources.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">My Take</span><br />One of the things that impressed me about this framework is that it has the potential to get prototypes and proof of concept apps up and running at virtually no cost.<br />I have a couple of pet projects I'm working on that are well suited to this. One is completely green-field and the other is a mobile version of an existing web site with its own database backend.<br />I found the online documentation quite comprehensive, if a little thin, and the many short video tutorials are very helpful to get you started, but are really just feature explanations with examples. A real step by step tutorial would be very helpful.<br />The online forums are worth using. The AC team is very responsive and will often offer to diagnose an app that you're having problems with if you're willing to share your password with them, or seem more than willing to do a Skype session with you to talk you through an issue. It's obvious they care about their product. However, I do wonder if it takes off, whether they will be able to keep this level of customer care up. For now, though, it's fresh air for early adopters.<br /><br />It's clear that the AC team has covered their bases - there are ways to preview populated forms instantly in the IDE, run your app in Live mode on the desktop. There are plenty of hints and tips in the documentation on how to test out your app in desktop phone simulators and to set it up for debugging.<br />And because this is all hosted, if you happen to have an iPhone or iPad laying around, it's easy to test it out on the real thing.<br />AC also support wrapping with PhoneGap as a service if you really want your warez on the App Store or Google Play (the store formerly known as the Android Market).<br /><br />All of this may seem too good to be true. Well, I can assure you it's all true, but it's an ambitious product, and there are definitely some rough edges. After playing with it for a couple of weeks, here's the good, the bad and the wish list:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Good</span><br /><ul><li>The Javascript IDE is almost as good as day-to-day coding in Eclipse. It has themes, a level of context sensitivity</li><li>It's built on jQuery and jQuery Mobile, and so both of these libraries are available for your use if you know how to use them.</li><li>The layout containers make it really easy to construct a well-behaved UI. Combined with the adaptive layout rules, you really can make a one size fits all UI, if you have the patience.</li><li>An impressive set of UI widgets with the ability to add custom widgets of your own make or from third parties.</li><li>Ability to create multiple apps within your console and have them up and running on your own application craft sub-domain in no time.</li><li>Being a hosted end-to-end IDE, you can develop on one PC and pick up where you left using any other.</li><li>A built in security model to ensure your developments stay private until you're ready to release them to the world.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Bad</span><br /><ul><li>Many web developers are used to tweaking styles and CSS to adjust the look of their apps. AC all but alienates you from that. Not good.</li><li>Application Craft's data storage is a good idea but really badly implemented. It's cumbersome and too complicated for anything but the very simplest of apps. I got the feeling that this was just an experiment that went wrong. Try to build out a data model using the AC system and you'll soon be tearing your hair out wondering where the productivity gain is. AC would do much better to recommend that users find a free database hosting service and link it up to the AC front end, instead of implying that they have a fully integrated solution.</li><li>I'm still not really sure how customizable AC is, unless you're game to create custom widgets to fit into their framework. I get the impression that if you step outside the walled garden, you're going to wish you hadn't strayed.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Wish List</span><br /><ul><li>The AC API has quite a bit to be desired. It's quirky and overloaded, and has some annoying idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. It could really do with a clean up by someone who has, well, developed an API intended to be used by other developers. It is a high level API and pretty powerful. However, when AC says you'll be programming in javascript, you'll really be programming in their version of event driven javascript, with a few lines of jQuery for the informed.</li><li>True fixed headers and scrollable panels. The true fixed headers are promised with a near future integration with jQuery Mobile's updated widget set. The absence scrollable panels is more obvious when you upsize your app from phone-size to more complex pad-sized layouts.</li><li>It would be nice to develop AC apps on iPad and iPhone devices on the go. Unfortunately the advanced AC IDE tools only seem to run inside modern desktop browsers.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Conclusion</span><br />I was able to get things done in AC, but not without several failed experiments and lots of property tweaking. Without a good understanding of HTML I'm not sure if I'd have made it without giving up. I'm not sure that it's really quite ready for prime-time just yet, but for getting a free hosted prototype hooked up to an online database it definitely has some merits.<br />Application Craft holds a lot of potential in its hands. I wish them good luck in reaching it as they round out and refine out the service.Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-74170119154788824442012-03-07T10:15:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.667-07:00Apple announces iPad 3, 1080p Apple TV, iOS 5.1Apple is bring Siri to the Japanese in iPhone iOS 5.1<br />Apple TV is now 1080p interface and movies, with updated UI and photo streaming.<br />iPad 3 (not iPad HD as some had speculated):<br /><ul><li>Retina display is 2048x1536 pixels. Over 3 million pixels.</li><li>Dual-core A5X chip & new Quad-core GPU (claimed 3x faster than NVidia Tegra 3)<br /></li><li>5MP Camera full-HD 1080p video</li><li>Voice recognition & dictation (not SIRI)<br /></li><li>LTE hi-speed digital wireless (Verizon and AT&T in US; Rogers, Telus & Bell in Canada)<br /></li><li>Same pricing as iPad2</li></ul><p>Biggest surprize is that a full-blown SIRI experience is NOT part of the initial iPad 3 launch. It will probably turn up in a future update.<br /></p><p>Neither is any space-age haptic feedback feature...<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2012/03/07/something-to-touch-haptic-feedback-rumor-gains-traction-for-ipa/"><br />Rumours were flying</a>, but it seems that April 1st came early this year!<br /></p>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-2720587857788221432012-03-06T13:48:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.362-07:00iOS is king... of HTML5!<a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ios-vs-android1.png?w=288"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 288px; height: 181px;" src="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ios-vs-android1.png?w=288" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Backs up what I have observed. Android has similar hardware specs, but is lagging terribly behind in its browser implementation:<br /><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/05/html5-game-performance-survey/">HTML5 Game Performance: iOS Performs 3x Faster Than Android</a><br />(Thanks to my work colleague for sharing.)Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-68396676761990162442012-03-06T13:45:00.000-08:002012-03-28T23:13:47.609-07:00Some advantages of HTML5I just posted this on the jQuery Mobile forum. My motive to inform people on there that it's not all about performance. (And the sole purpose of this is to concentrate on the advantages. Before you flame me for being one sided, I recognize there are disadvantages and that there are many reasons to NOT go HTML5.)<br />
<blockquote>
<i>"One of the primary drivers for adopting JQuery Mobile was flexibility in an uncertain world.</i><br />
<i>Todd, we realize there are many who are under the delusion that native simulation is achievable with HTML5, and I respect the reality check.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>However, there are other major advantages of HTML5 adoption - let's not get hung up on the pure 'performance is king' topic. Please bear the following in mind, and don't lose sight of the fact that users of HTML5 frameworks will EXPECT to host them in native wrappers. I'm glad that you cited that it is a secondary aim of jQM to support the Hybrid model of deployment.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>1. Flexibility</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">1a. Adaptability</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Consistent looks across platforms</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. True cross-platform "write once run anywhere" </span><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">potential</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Future proofing</span></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>5. Fast track adoption of new platforms</i></span><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>1. Flexibility</i></span><br />
<i>Building in HTML5 gives them the option to deploy as a web app, support HTML5 off-site installation (i.e. install to home screen) or use a native wrapper solution to get into the app stores. There may be many reasons that a solution builder may not already know their deployment strategy, not least because they are unsure that they will be pass compliance with an app store's ever changing policies.</i><br />
<i>(My personal situation is a case in point - we deploy our HTML5 app on Android as a Hybrid but were unable to reach agreement with the AppStore, and so deploy for iPhone on a web server with the option to install as an HTML5 application.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>1a. Adaptability</i></span><br />
<i>Another strong potential has been mentioned above. The potential to reach across formats with one adaptable solution is a very strong one, even if it is not front and center of people's minds at the present time. Frameworks like jQM have the potential to change the face of tradition site design by adopting and supporting a unified, adpatable interface across phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and desktops. The advent of touch gestures and interfaces has revolutionized even the way people now expect to use their mouse.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>2. Consistent look across platforms</i></span><br />
<i>Whereas the platform providers recommend certain style guidelines for apps built for their platform, some companies also have their own standards of usage and l&f. HTML5 apps can be styled to the unified standards of the company, not the platform provider.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>3. True cross-platform "write once run anywhere" potential</i></span><br />
<i>By doing an HTML5 app, I am writing to a cross-platform standard. I have one code base, and have the potential to reach many platforms. My alternative? Invest in teams to develop the same app multiple times, or make a decision that only certain platforms are important to me, and shun the others.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Future proofing</span></i><br />
<i>So I have an HTML5 app. It doesn't work well on platform X. The trend towards HTML5 standard compliance means that someday it will work on that platform (and someday after that it may even work well!)</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><i>5. Fast-track adoption of new platforms</i></span><br />
<i>Getting my existing HTML5 app working on a new or future platform will be far less work than re-writing it in their proprietary native language. And if new providers are not on the HTML5 train, they might as well not be in the game.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>I hope that the jQM team will realize that these are valid and achievable goals for HTML5 mobile developers, and decide not to leave anyone behind. We're passionate because we care!"</i></blockquote>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-26159954114979182272012-03-06T10:18:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.339-07:00Overthrow - an attempt to repair scrolling regions on mobiles<a href="http://filamentgroup.com/images/overthrow-comic.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 147px; height: 230px;" src="http://filamentgroup.com/images/overthrow-comic.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div>The guys over at the jQuery Mobile project recently made me aware of the Overthrow initiative at Filament Group (the main guys behind jQuery) to resolve the internal scrolling issues being experienced on so many mobile devices:</div>Here's the blog post, which links to the project page: <a href="http://filamentgroup.com/lab/overthrow">Overthrow project</a><div>I'm looking forward to the slaying of this dragon!<br /><div><br /></div></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-69031827669680744932012-03-01T09:40:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.653-07:00jQuery Mobile 1.1 fixed headers and footers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eoJ-roq979OgnIOGuPsw1U3-czrF3o4PQGm7o9f1kQNv1q7ce46BB5pBW2OZNeTC9lit0Tw-j1VJCEc1j8GrHwb1UvNPaGfQUym3FhvaRg0CwRQiWJ3shEW_1zbiT1evcVgS52V3TZQ/s1600/fixedtollbars.PNG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eoJ-roq979OgnIOGuPsw1U3-czrF3o4PQGm7o9f1kQNv1q7ce46BB5pBW2OZNeTC9lit0Tw-j1VJCEc1j8GrHwb1UvNPaGfQUym3FhvaRg0CwRQiWJ3shEW_1zbiT1evcVgS52V3TZQ/s400/fixedtollbars.PNG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714999175985657442" /></a>In general, jQuery Mobile's fixed headers and footers are a nice solution. Mobile browsers are getting better at supporting it properly with no visual artifacts, but they're still not all the way there.<div>Here's the jQuery Mobile 1.1 RC1 test page to try out your mobile devices:</div><div><a href="http://jquerymobile.com/demos/1.1.0-rc1/docs/toolbars/bars-fixed.html">http://jquerymobile.com/demos/1.1.0-rc1/docs/toolbars/bars-fixed.html</a></div><div>(Note that jQuery Mobile has disabled page zooming on pages with fixed headers and footers to suppress some crazy behaviour!) </div><div>Their solution is based on this suite of test pages by Brad Frost: <a href="http://bradfrostweb.com/demo/fixed/index.html" style="font-size: 100%; ">http://bradfrostweb.com/demo/fixed/index.html</a></div><div>You can comment below if you find anything weird.</div><div>To my surprise, three Android 2.3 devices do very well, (Hallelujah!) and our iOS5 device supports it very nicely - well, that is until you allow the user to pinch-to-zoom the browser page content! (Controlled by an HTML header page directive.) Then some very weird things start to happen. On Android 2.3 it seems to forget that it knows how to do fixed positioning, and on iOS5 it's even more entertaining: the fixed header will move at a different rate to the page content, and when you hit the right extent of the page, the header actually moves in the <i>opposite</i> direction to the page text! Who knew the iPhone supported parallax scrolling effects!!!</div><div><span style="font-style: normal; ">And here's the really bad news, if you're still on iOS 4 (or earlier). Since this platform doesn't support fixed positioning well, the jQuery team decided to 'degrade gracefully'. Unfortunately they put the emphasis more on </span><i>degrade</i> than <i>gracefully</i>, and now iOS 4 doesn't support any type of fixed header and footer at all without putting the onus on the developer. The previous solution was to have the header and footer fade out during the page scrolling (since it would move with the page content during the scroll) and then fade back in when the scrolling was done (since the browser would <span style="font-style: normal; font-size: 100%; ">correct the position of the fixed position elements once the user lifted their finger).</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I pointed out to the jQuery Mobile team that their new degradation strategy was biased toward web pages and not web apps, since now iOS 4 users could not have toolbars at the bottom of the screen, only at the bottom of their content. What a bad user experience that is! It's now virtually impossible to position a navbar at the bottom of the screen, which to me defeats the object entirely.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; ">It appears that they see my point and we will at least have a way of falling back to the 'old way' soon, even if it is through a plugin or extension library.</div><div style="font-style: normal; ">I actually think there's an even better option for iOS 4, and that's using a javascript scroller div like the iScroll component. We already use a scroller in our mobile app and it works just fine on iPhone, (with the exception of textarea controls which grab the swipe event overriding the scroller). It was Android that was the problem. (See previous posts.)</div><div style="font-style: normal; "><br /></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-6820755428783261092012-02-28T10:32:00.001-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.581-07:00jQuery Mobile 1.1At last! jQuery Mobile has released the much anticipated 'Fixed headers and Footers' fix we've been waiting for.<div>As discussed previously, there was no good option for Android. The third party js widgets were slow to respond, jittery and buggy.</div><div>But now we can have fixed CSS headers & footers using native page scrolling.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to test it out and report my findings. Stay tuned...</div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-77267406082934967002012-02-28T10:32:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.702-07:00jQuery Mobile RC1.1<a href="http://www.parorrey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/jquery-mobile-logo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 243px; height: 142px;" src="http://www.parorrey.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/jquery-mobile-logo.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />At last! <a href="http://jquerymobile.com/">jQuery Mobile</a> has released a candidate for the much anticipated <a href="http://jquerymobile.com/blog/2012/02/28/announcing-jquery-mobile-1-1-0-rc1/">version 1.1</a> with the 'Fixed headers and Footers' fix we've been waiting for.<div>As discussed previously, there was no good option for Android. The third party js widgets were slow to respond, jittery and buggy.</div><div>But now we can have fixed CSS headers & footers using native page scrolling. (If you want to know why it was such an issue, see <a href="http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/mobile/fixed-position/">this blog and vlog by Brad Frost</a>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to test it out and report my findings. Stay tuned...</div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-43887023912163026332012-02-13T08:55:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.469-07:00Sencha report on Mobile Chrome<div>Sencha Labs does a good job of putting HTML5 browsers through their paces.</div><div>As I was, they're quite well impressed with Mobile Chrome, but have already found some things lacking. This quote just about sums up my feelings on the subject of compliance versus real-world performance:</div><div><i>"As we’ve said many times previously, many mobile browsers do well on the checkbox tests like Modernizr, but fall short when it comes to real world applications and content. (In some cases, mobile browsers have even reported support when none exists.) So for real world testing, we use a collection of our own favorite HTML5 sites and demos.</i></div> <div><i>First up, the new <span class="caps">CSS</span> properties for mobile content. On our <a href="http://www.sencha.com/blog/our-top-ten-html5-wishes-for-2011/">HTML5 wish list for 2011</a> we asked for high performance position: fixed. And Chrome for Android delivers. For simple pages, Chrome for Android does a top notch job of glueing fixed position content to the screen. Fixed headers and footers for simple mobile optimized pages are now easily implemented without having to use a framework. However, the browser struggled when trying to maintain fixed positioning on more complex pages, particularly when combined with pinch/zoom. We saw poor frame rates and occasionally content disappeared or was misplaced. Happily, the <strong>very new</strong> <code>-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch</code> property, which debuted in iOS 5, is also now available in Chrome for Android. It’s smooth and fast. (Nice job Chrome team!)"</i></div><div><br /></div><div>See the full report here:</div><div><h2><span ><a href="http://www.sencha.com/blog/html5-scorecard-chrome-mobile-beta/">HTML5 Scorecard: Chrome for Android Beta</a></span></h2></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-84940289292275994572012-02-08T15:40:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.745-07:001st Impressions: Google Chrome Beta on Android ICS<a href="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/chrome-logo-2011-03-16.jpeg?w=288"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 143px;" src="http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/chrome-logo-2011-03-16.jpeg?w=288" border="0" alt="" /></a>Turns out I was right: Google have been working on Mobile Chrome. (I assume it will eventually replace the deficient default Android browser.)<br />As a x-platform HTML5 webapp developer, I have been burned BADLY by the default Android Browser. It sucked in four main ways:<div>- internal scrolling widgets (like iScroll)</div><div>- form rendering</div><div>- non-GPU accelerated 2D transforms</div><div>- inconsistent implementation from different OEMs.<br /><br />The ICS default browser was a slight improvement in forms, but still full of rendering glitches and obviously not utilizing GPU acceleration for ops like scrolling and map panning.<br />First impressions on Android Chrome: Logistically we should see almost no fragmentation through Chrome than we do through the mangled browser implementations we are getting from the OEMs. (However, it remains to be seen whether some phones (typically HTC) will still <a href="http://www.phonearena.com/news/No-Multi-touch-on-DROID-browser-because-Andy-Rubin-hates-two-handed-operations_id8736">omit to implement multi-touch in the browser</a> from ICS forward, but it's a real problem for advanced web apps today.) Form rendering is better, rendering glitches are reduced, but performance is still on par with the ICS default browser. What gives? Chrome claims to implement hardware accelerated rendering? Compare Google or Bing maps on the web with the native implementation and you'll notice obvious lag. Then browse to the same URL with iOS Safari and you'll see how it should be done.<br />C'Mon Google - We expect better than this. You're LAGGING behind. (Pun intended.)</div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-9562897393843862872011-12-19T08:55:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.763-07:00No Festive Goodwill from AppleYou are chatting with Alicia, an Apple Expert<br />Hi, my name is Alicia. Welcome to Apple!<br />You: Hi - I am considering a MacBook Pro.<br />Alicia: Hi!<br />Alicia: Ok<br />Alicia: How can I help?<br />You: Wondering if there are any plans for a Boxing Day Sale price in Canada?<br />Alicia: We do not have sales for Boxing Day in Canada. I'm sorry.<br />You: Oh! Boxing Day is my birthday! Can you offer me any special deals?<br />You: :)<br />Alicia: If I had any promo codes, i sure would!<br />Alicia: But I don't.<br />Alicia: I'm sorry!<br />You: Where might I get a special promo code from?<br />Alicia: We don't have them right now.<br />Alicia: That space is for when we have any (like shipping codes).<br />You: When do you have them? When is the best time to buy a Mac?<br />Alicia: It is very rare that we ever have them.<br />You: I bet you have them on Black Friday? Why not on Boxing Day for Canadians?<br />Alicia: This chat service is here to help with the Apple Online Store. How may I help with your shopping?<br />You: I have the items in my cart and I'm having trouble hitting the buy button...<br />Alicia: Ok. What seems to be the issue then?<br />You: It costs too much. A little seasonal goodwill from Apple would help.<br />Alicia: I'm sorry. If I had any promo codes to offer, I would offer them to you. Apple is known to be a company with little to no sales.<br />You: Well you may have just lost a customer. I think I'll buy an ASUS for $1000 less.<br />Alicia: That's fine. keep in mind, their quality is not the same as ours. It won't last you half as long either.<br />Alicia: If that's what you choose.<br />You: I don't think that you can qualify that statement. A friend of mine (loyal Apple customer) told me to buy the AppleCare warranty because he has ALWAYS needed it.<br />Alicia: Well, his situation might be different. I'm not going to argue with you.<br />Alicia: I don't have any discounts or promo codes to offer you.<br />Alicia: Is there anything else today?<br />You: I didn't come here to bash Apple. I want to buy one but I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy that would make me a happy customer. I will have to think about it some more... Thank you for your time.<br />Alicia: Well you are asking me to give you something that I simply do not have. If I did, I totally would. But you thinking that I do and just won't give it to you.<br />You: If you threw in a free 1 year One-to-One membership or something like that, I think I would buy it today. All I want is a little good will or flexibility.<br />You: But it sounds like your hands are tied.<br />Alicia: My hands are tied. I have absolutely nothing I can "throw in" or any promo codes I can even offer. If I did, it would be no problem giving it to you!<br />You: OK. Bye Apple.<br />Alicia: Thank you for visiting the Apple Store. We appreciate your business. If you would like more help, please chat with us again.<br />Thank you for choosing the Apple Store. If you have any additional questions, please chat us again.Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-79063142076262806042011-11-23T12:21:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.727-07:00Layout strategies for iPhone & Android, Portrait & Landscape, Web App and installed App<div>Tactile Mobile apps are where it's at - they've revolutionized the user experience to become so intuitive that even babies claw at their parent's phones to make the pretty lights move with their fingers.</div><div>We are no longer talking about clicking, double-clicking and dragging, but about tapping, holding, pinching and swiping.</div><div><br /></div><div>With this revolution come certain expectations. I now expect an immediate response to my gestures and to have the phone sense when I turn it and adjust accordingly.</div><div><br /></div><div>This post is about how to meet the user's expectations around resizing when developing HTML5 in the mobile browser.</div><div>"But isn't that the browser's job to layout my app properly no matter which way the phone is turned?" I hear you ask.</div><div>No. Unless your web app is really just a web page with no special layout restrictions, you are mistaken to think that the browser will do this for you with no effort on your part.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, play with your phone's browser a little to understand what it does with a regular web page. Don't get caught in that 'false security zone' which makes your brain think that it's so intuitive that it always knows what it's doing. After a few minutes you'll probably be surprized at what you thought you knew.</div><div><br /></div><div>One common scenario is that the browser zooms out to a predetermined width by default, making the page elements look very small and sometimes illegible. This is great when you're browsing the web, but not what you want when displaying a web app UI. So the first thing you should know is that there are special HTML5 mobile directives which tell the mobile browser how to present your web page.</div><div>I won't go into that here, there are plenty of references on the internet, like this one:</div><div>http://learnthemobileweb.com/2009/07/mobile-meta-tags/</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I will tell you that what you probably want is this configuration:</div><div> </div><blockquote><div><meta name="MobileOptimized" content="width" ></div><div> <meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true"></div><div> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0"></div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div>This will encourage the phone to size your page to the width of the device, disable the ability to pinch-zoom the page content, and prevent the browser from scaling your content when rotating the phone.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>But what about more complex layouts?</b></div><div>A common goal for mobiles apps is the iPod interface layout on the iPhone: A header bar along the top with back and forward buttons either side of the title, a toolbar with icons along the bottom and a scrollable area in the middle showing a list of things (Artists/Tracks/Genres, etc).</div><div><div><div style="orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; widows: 2; "><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1Oh3P36Aa9qcXVKPV7malJFUrV2EyT5xVLx6ZKZK7D6lDhHmiLQQbzSk19R13K_k0P-UT_D0YAFVb1EZVrfrV8fE2Vs7jSwagH5AGaxiR3CngdUhcdiEIZ_xtWsk-OtInPff_3LrZfQ/s1600/Scrollable_iPhone_UI.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1Oh3P36Aa9qcXVKPV7malJFUrV2EyT5xVLx6ZKZK7D6lDhHmiLQQbzSk19R13K_k0P-UT_D0YAFVb1EZVrfrV8fE2Vs7jSwagH5AGaxiR3CngdUhcdiEIZ_xtWsk-OtInPff_3LrZfQ/s320/Scrollable_iPhone_UI.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717216950473447058" border="0" /></a><br />One of the fundamental differences with browsers compared to application layouts is that fixed height layouts are hard to implement. The idea being that if you constrain the width the content must be shown and should therefore flow down. Doing fixed height layouts on browsers has often been a challenge. On mobile, the challenge has been further complicated by the fact that internal scroll areas have encountered problems. (iPhone has only in iOS 5 started supporting scrollable divs.) Widgets like iScroll have emerged to try to give web apps the ability to mimic native layouts. However, as I have discussed in previous posts, Android has some serious issues in this area.<div>However, let's suppose that in an ideal world (i.e. on an iPhone) the center panel scrolls smoothly. What hurdles do we have to leap to support device rotation in the browser?</div><div>In essence, assuming the top toolbar stays in place, there are two main things to do: size the central scroll view and position the navbar at the bottom.</div><div>This turned out to be a lot harder to implement on Android than on the iPhone.</div><div>I came up with a strategy to determine the available screen dimensions and divide up the UI into its proportional parts: status bar, toolbar, content area and navbar. I could then determine the dimensions for each based on the device type and orientation.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span>Cross-platform (in)compatibility</span></b></div><div>Things were pretty straight-forward on the iPhone. My strategy seemed sound. The browser did what it was supposed to do and soon I was rotating the device and seeing the layout adjust accordingly. The theory was that this would 'just work' on Android. How wrong I was.</div><div>The two main things that made this difficult on Android were:</div><div>I soon discovered that the Android browser did not report the physical screen dimensions correctly.</div><div>Using jQuery Mobile, Android was also challenged in reporting what mode it was in: landscape or portrait. In fact, much of the time it was opposite to what was reported on iPhone! I discovered that the orientation change was fired from the resize event, and so ended up just working it out from the browser's resize event instead.</div><div><br /></div><div>To resolve the first issue on Android, I used the bottom css property to compensate for the fact that it could not tell me the dimensions of its own screen. Fortunately this worked, or I would have been really stumped. Ironically, the same approach didn't work on iOS, so I needed to handle each platform differently.</div><div>A further issue with the Android resize event is that it gets triggered when the keyboard is up, and reports the new dimensions of the area displayed above the keyboard. And on certain devices, the available height is now less than the available width, which makes the code think it's in landscape mode! What's more, the navbar is repositioned just above the keyboard, since that is now, temporarily the bottom of the webpage... Grief like this makes you wonder if it's worth it!</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span>iOS Standalone Mode</span></b></div><div>On iPhone, you can save a web app to the Home screen. You will want to tell the iPhone that your app supports this mode using this directive in your HTML page's head section:</div><div><meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes"/></div><div>You can even define a custom home page icon and loading image:</div><div></div><blockquote><div><link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="images/icon-114.png" /></div><div><link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="images/icon-57.png" /></div><div><br /></div><div><link rel="apple-touch-startup-image" media="mobile" href="images/fl_startup.png" /></div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div>This is awesome for mobile web developers who don't need the App Store. This mode gives a less cluttered interface to the user, and makes the app feel more like a native app than a webapp. The address bar no longer is accessible, and the web browser's toolbar is gone. :)</div><div>In javascript, Apple provides a special flag to determine the mode you're in:</div><div><blockquote>window.navigator.standalone</blockquote></div><div>You can use this to help when laying out code to determine whether the web toolbar is taking up space.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span>Supporting high resolution displays</span></b></div><div>Here's an example of how to use a high resolution image on wide or high pixel density devices:</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5),</div><div>only screen and (min-resolution: 240dpi) {</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>.ui-icon-spinner {</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>background-image: url(../images/spinner@2x.gif);</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>}</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>.ui-icon-spinner {</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>-webkit-background-size: 16px 16px;</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>background-size: 16px 16px;</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>}</div><div>}</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span>CSS Only Solutions</span></b></div><div>This is a bit beyond the scope of this article, but there's a school of thought that CSS3 media queries can be used to cater for 90% of the situations without 'resorting' to code. The irony is that the media queries themselves are quite 'code-like' in their formulation, and so it's really just a case of picking your poison.</div><div>However, the possibility exists to do some great things with layout on different sized devices using CSS3 queries. A classic example is to define a layout which stacks layout blocks vertically for small devices, but horizontally for larger devices like tablets and desktop browsers. One can even hide certain elements when available screen space is at a premium.</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><br /></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-35754645612533159952011-11-16T11:09:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.404-07:00I am Android - for we are many...<div>A picture of health? In this case green is healthy and iPhone is in excellent health compared to Android which is red and burning hot with a fever.</div><div>I think this pretty much sums up my statement in the last post that Android is not a platform but really a minefield of similar but significantly different devices derived from a common base.</div><div>This is based on research published in a <a href="http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support">blog post by Michael Degusta</a>.</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://media.theunderstatement.com/016a_android_orphans.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="http://media.theunderstatement.com/016a_android_orphans.png" border="0" alt="" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 590px; height: 810px; " /></a><br />This picture is like a burning fire which should have the effect of warning developers to stay away!<div>And the best supported phone on this chart is the HTC Nexus One. But it's the end of the line for the Nexus - "<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/26/the-nexus-one-isnt-invited-to-the-ice-cream-sandwich-social/">it's just 'too old' for the new software</a>". (Link to news article.)<br /><div><div><br /></div><div>(Thanks to <a href="http://www.erikyuzwa.com/">Wazoo</a> for pointing this out to me - and for quoting my blog!)</div></div></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-41177442038540724122011-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:002012-03-27T22:22:58.454-07:00This is not the Droid we are looking for!My previous post indicated that I had frustrations with Android.<div>I will tell you why.</div><div><br /></div><div>But first of all let me congratulate Steve Jobs & co for raising our expectations so high! The iPhone really is a product that deserves its place in the history books of technological advancement. It really does deliver exceptionally well on all fronts - including its excellent embedded browser. It is a shining example of standards support and best-in-class implementation. Steve Jobs had a theory that user experience should drive your business. With the iPhone he realized his vision and exceeded my expectations.</div><div><br />Back to Android. Android is assumed to be a direct competitor to the iPhone and somewhat on par with it. At least it's marketed that way, and I would say perceived that way, by many.</div><div><i>The reality is a very different story.</i> The difference is that where iPhone controls the hardware of their platform and is therefore working from a common hardware base, Android is an open architecture. The Android software is available for all the wannabe hardware manufacturers to base their software build on. Each manufacturer puts a different hardware configuration together and tweaks the basic software to work with their hardware. For competitive advantage, some manufacturers will also tweak the browser software and other components to their own whim. So when a phone says it is Android 2.2, it will not necessarily work the same as another 2.2 phone. There will be differences. Not all 'droids are created equal.</div><div>To compound the problem, the carriers will also want specifics for their own purposes. For example, custom apps bundled in to the base build to be pre-installed on the phone.</div><div>Furthermore, where it falls apart is in the software landscape. How do you get a software update for your phone? From the provider. Who releases the build? The manufacturer through the provider. So now the manufacturer is a software development house. They have branched the code for all their devices, and are stuck with supporting them. They not only have specific builds for each of their hardware configurations, but also have to customize that build to satisfy the demands of the network providers. And it's not in their best interests to be caught in a support cycle. There's no revenue in that - the phone has already been sold. They are interested in getting the next product out the door before their competitors do. And as we've seen, getting updates for Android has proven extremely frustrating for end users. Think of all the effort required to put the next great Android release from Google onto an already released phone. Chances are that the effort will be put into the next phone to be bought, not the one that has already been sold.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>So how does all this affect the developer?</i></b></div><div>Well, to deliver on Android we have to contend with many, many different devices, many of which have different software configurations and patches on them. And this assumes that there are no hardware glitches or known issues - a very naive assumption when you realize that most of these products have been rushed into a highly competitive market.</div><div><br /></div><div>Steve Jobs actually addressed this situation in what is called his 'Google rant'. I just think he was trying to expose the truth and help Google to see that they were going down a path that would induce pain on all fronts. You could see this as an arrogant 'told you so' rant, but I see it as a fair warning and glad you told us.</div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc</a></div><div><br /></div><div>So taking all this into consideration, as a software architect you might look for ways to alleviate the pain. No development shop wants to manage any more code branches than they have to.</div><div>As an architect, you would not be at all blamed for following this line of thought: Android is not really a standard, but a myriad of very similar, but significantly different products. I need a common platform to deliver on. Is there an alternative?</div><div>Hang on, isn't that excellent HTML5 compliant iPhone browser based on webkit? Yeah - it's actually called Mobile Safari. Isn't Google Chrome based on webkit too? That browser on the Android phone is also webkit-based and HTML5 compliant. It must be Mobile Chrome. Why don't we build our apps to web standards instead? I've heard you can do some really nifty animation effects with CSS3... this could be just what I'm looking for, and it actually might be a lot of fun!</div><div><br /></div><div>STOP RIGHT THERE!</div><div>Time for a reality check (or two)! (Remember that I'm biased towards creating cross-platform HTML5 mobile apps, so I'll talk a lot about the browser.)</div><div><ul><li><b>Reality check #1:</b> The current Android browser is not Mobile Chrome. Remember - Google bought Android, they didn't make it. It may pass the HTML5 compliance tests, but that does not mean to say it does it well. My experience with the Android browser is that it's glitchy, inconsistent across devices and rough around the edges. For example, its rendering of CSS3 rounded corners is noticeably jaggy, and positioning of elements is often off by a pixel creating gaps where there should be none. (My suspicion is that Google are frantically re-implementing the Android browser to become the Mobile Chrome many think it is.)</li><li><b>Reality check #2:</b> All Androids (and their browsers) are NOT created equal. Manufacturers tweak the browser code too for their own purposes.</li><li><b>Reality check #3:</b> There are also certain commercial, political and legal reasons why things are different on different Android devices. Don't believe me? Load up Google maps <i>in the Android browser</i> and try doing pinch to zoom on a 2.x HTC phone. Now try the same on a Samsung phone. The difference? HTC does not want to impinge on multi-touch patents, hence no pinch to zoom in the browser. (Samsung supports pinch-to-zoom. But they had to withdraw some devices in some countries because of patent infringement. Could there be a link?)</li><li><b>Reality check #4:</b> Just because it's got it, doesn't mean to say it flaunts it. Android devices have some of the most impressive hardware specs around. Multi-core processors, GPUs & gobs of memory. However, try panning Bing Map in the Android browser. Then try it on an iPhone. The difference: Android does not implement hardware acceleration in the browser rendering of elements, and it shows.</li><li><b>Reality check #5:</b> Even though it's in the best interests of Google to improve Android fast (to live up to the expectations of its customers and become a truly viable competitor), this does nothing to rectify the myriad of broken/deficient devices that are already out there. And even when they do fix the Android reference build, how will they enforce standards on an 'open' community who will continue to tweak the core to meet their own agendas?</li></ul></div><div>In short, if you were expecting Android to be a platform you could deliver on, be ready for a reality check. You might have been looking to extend your application to other devices, and assumed that Android was a platform just like iOS. However: "<i>This is not the Droid we were looking for!"</i></div><div>Welcome to the minefield that is Android. To mis-quote a biblical verse: <i>"I am Android, for we are many."</i></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-61740903341850327782011-09-27T08:45:00.000-07:002012-03-27T22:22:58.551-07:00The Reality of Mobile Web DevelopmentI'm just coming out of the other end of our mobile web project. What an interesting, and sometimes frustrating ride!<div>Here are some conclusions:<br /><ul><li>jQuery Mobile is now at release candidate 2<br /></li><li>iPhone rocks on the mobile web</li><li>Android browser is deficient</li><li>Blackberry is seriously deficient - don't go there - it'll be stone dead in a moment!</li><li>Windows Mobile - Late out of the gate, initial signs are good, but it's too early to tell<br /></li></ul><div>If the promise of cross-platform mobile web applications is going to be fulfilled, standards need to be conformed to, and implementation of those standards must be done well. Android should really be a contender, but they need to get their act together.<br />The theory of cross platform mobile web development seems sound: both iPhone and Android phones are smart devices with large memory footprints and state of the art processing power. Both have WebKit-based HTML5 compliant browsers. However in the real world they are worlds apart. You see the devil is in the details. In the final analysis, iPhone is a platform and Android is a minefield of different software and hardware configurations based on a core reference implementation. Android is not a platform, so much as a legion of platforms built out of similar materials.<br />It's PC vs Mac all over again in the mobile space.<br /></div></div><div><br />As I have time, I'll go into details in other posts, including:<br /></div><div><ul><li>This is not the Droid we were looking for!<br /></li><li>Layout strategies for iPhone & Android, Portrait & Landscape, Web App and installed App</li><li>Delivering flexibility - versatile deployment strategies</li><li>Optimization & caching techniques</li><li>Integration with Facebook<br /></li></ul></div>Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5792204347011218946.post-3795254294551327032011-03-16T08:41:00.000-07:002012-03-27T22:22:58.438-07:00Native vs HybridI read an <a href="http://www.thebestisyettocome.co.uk/web-or-native-a-quandary-of-our-design/">interesting post</a> reporting on a debate between developing mobile Web Apps vs going Native. This has been a hot topic at work lately, and I'm a big advocate of doing what fits best. I like to keep my options open, and not be forced into a corner. So in many instances, I come down on the side of cross-platform HTML5 WebKit apps.<br />Whereas some applications are definitely best implemented as native, (arcade style games come to mind as obvious), many business & productivity applications are content driven, and must be connected. Sure we need a slick user experience - and Apple devices have certainly raised the bar in this respect. But in many cases the emphasis from a development point of view should be on cross-platform capability, not device-specific slickness. The quandry is, that this is not really in the best interests of the device manufacturer who has so much more to make than the price of the device if they can just lock you in to their platform.<br />That said, you can have the best of both worlds with tools & frameworks like WebKit, jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap. WebKit transitions are as good as native, jQuery Mobile promises to give a consistent & performant cross-platform experience (just give it a few more months) and PhoneGap gives you the choice to wrap it all up in a native shell and enhance only the parts of a WebApp that <STRONG>need</STRONG> to be native without having to go completely down the one-way dead-end street of single platform implementation.<br />Objective-C and Cocoa Touch taught us a lot about how to do mobile right, but now it's time to leave the Apple University and realize that the real world does not revolve solely around Apple.Sam Biggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01628274399693885524noreply@blogger.com1