Frank Carver’s musings about software and life
The world of mobile systems and software is potentially a very exciting place to work, even if sometimes I am so close to the code that it seems just like every other piece of software I have ever worked on. Nice to note that the BBC see some crossover potential, too.
A while ago I spent some time banging my head against the needless inconsistencies between US mobile carriers for a project which remained at the prototype stage. If we ever pick up such a project again, the following list of email-to-SMS/MMS addresses could well be useful.
How to Send Picture Mail via SMS / MMS on the iPhone at JAW Speak
More indication that mobile technology is continuing to change the process of education. This time students at a university are all issued with iPhone or iPod touch handsets so they can use specific collaboration software at university and outside course times.
I’m very interested in both mobile technology and education, particularly distance learning, so the concept of “m-learning” (mobile learning) is doubly interesting. Clark Quinn has put together a useful summary of the field.
Initial reviews from Ars technica and the New York Times.
A few days ago Apple finally changed the terms of their iPhone development license to allow people to talk (and write) about how to develop software for the iPhone and iPod touch. The Pragmatic Programmers already had a book project waiting in the wings and have made it available as a “beta” available to buy for download now.
No excuse not to get started writing that killer mobile application now!
My “blog about this” pile is growing too high again. Time to lump a few links together. This post is a bunch of stuff related to usage and technology of mobile phones.
ABC News: Beware of PedTEXTrians!
Gorenje puts you in control of your appliances via iPhone
Motion-Powered Cell Phone Charger Coming Soon
Greater Mobile Use Brings Bigger Virus Threat
Social Networking’s Next Frontier: The Mobile Phone
That should do for now.
An interesting analysis from the New York Times of the progressive replacement of traditional fixed-line phones by mobiles.
The Count - Users Are Tossing Their Landlines Overboard - NYTimes.com
Working in a company which is very much involved in mobile and digital music publishing I’m always interested in how other parts of the industry views the key issues in this field. It seems like a few people got together for a conference on this topic on 23 September in London. Here’s a few links about the event
EconMusic - the economics of digital music : Blogs : BCS
EconMusic Video: Billy Bragg In Reuters’ Conference Wrap-Up
EconMusic: Direct-To-Fan: Radiohead, Marillion And The End Of Labels
There’s a certain amount of “duh” in this article, but what fascinates me is not that reading and writing text messages while driving is a distraction (there’s that “duh” again), but the statistics of how many people do it.
At work, among other things, we make and sell systems which provide a way to buy and download mobile content, including games and applications. Over recent years I have found myself largely involved in the web and mobile front-end of such systems and I am always on the look out for information about what works and what doesn’t. Here’s a critique of T-Mobile’s App Store:
Wendong’s Smart Phone Weblog » T-Mobile’s new App Store: huge disappointment
An average article about the nature of the mobile market to teenagers. Do read some of the pro/anti iPhone comments, though!
For teens, the future is mobile | News - Digital Media - CNET News.com
An important part of my work is producing web and mobile user interfaces. Both cases have traditionally had trade-offs: A modern desktop or laptop computer web browser is so powerful and potentially has so much screen space to play with that deciding how best to make use of all that resource is a daunting task. Typical lowest-common-denominator mobile devices, on the other hand have so little power, flexibility and screen territory that getting enough information and interactivity on any single screen-full is a struggle.
In this arena, the success of the iPhone is especially interesting. For many application developers, the iPhone has already gained enough market presence to be worth re-building mobile and web applications to suit the particular blend of size and features offered by the device. This in turn has led to some surprisingly usable condensed applications.
Slipstream - On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff - NYTimes.com
Developing a consistent and appropriate look and feel on mobile devices is a tough job. It looks like Yahoo Blueprint is another attempt at cracking this particular nut.
Yahoo’s approach seems to be to write their own kind of browser as a J2ME application, and feed it with device-independent XML.
A quick Blueprint how-to - your first widget (Yahoo! Developer Network blog)