constructive nonconformist

FaceTime Over 3G via WiFi HotSpot

Back on March 2nd I wrote the following on Twitter:

If no available wifi but #VZW #iPhone4 with personal hotspot and #iPad2 connected to hotspot, will #FaceTime work on the iPad?

In longer words than 140 characters allow, if you find yourself somewhere where there is no available WiFi but you have a Verizon iPhone 4 with Personal HotSpot enabled and you have an iPad 2 connected to the Personal HotSpot, then, even though you can't use FaceTime on the iPhone, will FaceTime work on the iPad?

The answer is yes.

Hotspot Tethering Allows FaceTime Calls Over 3G

Review: "HTML 4 & 5: The Complete Reference" By O'Reilly Media for iOS

This is not a book stuffed into an app. It is an application. The second thing to know is that the content is very good.

The content is a refresh of the O’Reilly HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference, Fourth Edition and benefits from have been honed over multiple editions. As a pocket reference it shows a decision to opt for concision over being exhaustively deep. But it is good because it is on point.

The content can be browsed or searched. Browsing includes a list of elements and a list of attributes. From the attribute list attribute entries link back to element entries for the elements that use the given attribute.

The search feature works across both elements and attributes but apparently there’s no word stemming. Searching on ‘sel’ finds no results. ‘select’ finds results that include the select element but not the selected attribute.

The app was developed in HTML5, CSS3, and jQTouch. PhoneGap was used to create an iOS executable. There are plans to bring the app to Android so using PhoneGap probably seemed reasonable. But there are quirks present that probably result from not being directly developed to iOS. Overall I didn’t see performance issues on a first gen iPad and on an iPhone4 but scrolling and scrubbing in the elements and attributes lists was sometimes touchy. What seemed like a light flick would sometimes send the list flying to the end. Touching the scrub bar is not always recognized, so instead of scrubbing through alphabetically the list is only scrolling. There’s no visual cue when the scrub bar has been activated.

Despite a few deficiencies it’s a huge win in convenience and utility to have this content in the form of an application. I’ve been working on updating an older site and this application has proved its worth as what it claims to be: a complete reference.

HTML 4 & 5: The Complete Reference is on the iTunes App Store.

Thanks to O’Reilly for providing the application for review.

Update on the BlackBerry and CalDav MobileMe calendars issues

Solved this problem for my wife: BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac OS X does not support CalDav MobileMe calendars. She no longer uses a BlackBerry.

Me? I’m planning on resolving this issue for myself by dumping my BlackBerry in the late June/early July time frame.

BlackBerry Support has only been able to tell me that they don’t know when or if CalDav MobileMe calendars will be supported, but keep checking for updates. Great.

I’ll give the Support people the benefit of the doubt on this issue and assume they truly know nothing. But my guess, and this is truly complete speculation, is that BlackBerry will never support CalDav MobileMe calendars. RIM is busy circling the wagons in the corporate enterprise market which is Windows-centric. An issue for individual consumers on a non-Windows OS just isn’t going to get funded.

rentzsch.tumblr.com: [C4 release];

I believed the best way to move software forward was to inform Apple programmers about better ways to build software — to infect the best top-downer minds with fertile discontent.

My hope was that developers would care primarily about user experience yet also be passionate about utilizing lingual and tooling advances. C4 was my attempt to push on the Apple community from the bottom-up.

With that background in place, I hope you can understand how Section 3.3.1 has broken my spirit.

— Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch
rentzsch.tumblr.com: [C4 release];

I don’t know Jonathan Rentzsch. I never attended C4. I don’t have any stake in the iPhone application development space. I understand it is easy to armchair quarterback. I understand he may not be being figurative when he says his spirit is broken.

But will all respect, ending C4 over Section 3.3.1 seems odd.

It would seem that the mission of C4, as he describes it in his post, is needed more than ever.

Trial Phone Apps

From the department of ‘Oh, I want that in the Apple App Store’:

For Windows Phone 7 applications, the Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace will support trial versions.

The Windows Phone Marketplace: A different shopping experience for a different kind of phone - Windows Phone Developer Blog - The Windows Blog:

“Marketplace now adds a new Trial API that gives every application or game developer the option, but not the requirement, to enable a single instance of their code to include trial usage limitations (like time or level) so that users can test drive the app/game they are considering.”

Update:

Clearly I’ve not been paying attention: Apple opens door to iPhone ‘freemium’ apps - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

Observations on David Tucker's Observations

DavidTucker.net — Observations about Apple, the iPhone, PhoneGap, and the Flash Player

If you choose not to follow the link above, understand that David develops in Flash and AIR.

Observation #1 — Apple has proactively sought to eliminate any cross-platform development platform on the iPhone.

What David wants is to be able to develop once to Flash and target multiple platforms including the iPhone.

He also mentions PhoneGap and quotes a section from the iPhone SDK agreement that prohibits applications that install or launch other executable code and he links to an Ajaxian post about apps that have been rejected from the App Store because of their use of PhoneGap. But the PhoneGap site says the iPhone is supported and has a gallery of apps that are in the App Store.

It’s not clear that the PhoneGap approach is actually prohibited. As I understand it, PhoneGap wraps a WebKit shell around your code and I would think that WebKit qualifies as an Apple API or interpreter. Maybe it’s a loophole Apple would like to plug. Maybe the App Store rejections were based on a misunderstanding of what PhoneGap is. The PhoneGap situation seems unclear.

There is no doubt about Flash. Flash is unequivocally prohibited.

Observation #2 — The Flash Player hasn’t been approved because it is a threat to Apple’s App Store Revenue.

There has been much concern within the development community about the downward race in prices on the App Store. Some developers have expressed disappointment that Apple hasn’t taken steps to curb the downward pressure on prices. Yet in terms of prices Apple has been very laissez-faire.

Apple is a hardware company. The App Store could be a loss leader. I know it isn’t. But the primary purpose of the App Store is to sell iPhones, not apps.

Observation #3 — Apple is only interested in helping Mac developers.

By ‘Mac developers’ David means Mac and iPhone developers. He’s essentially restating observation 1.

I don’t expect a Windows version of Xcode any more than I expect a Mac OS X version of Visual Studio.

Since the iPhone was unveiled in January 2007 attendance at WWDC has risen dramatically because of an influx of iPhone developers. And there’s a growing trend of developers that started as iPhone developers moving into Mac development. It would seem that learning “Objective-C, Xcode, Interface Builder, Cocoa, etc…” is not a high barrier.

David says that performance and battery life issues with Flash on the iPhone are “just not true.” I see performance and stability issues with Flash in Safari on Mac OS X. If Abode is uninterested in resolving these issues on the ‘full-size’ OS why should I even imagine Flash is better on an iPhone? If David is right, Adobe isn’t helping themselves.

David concludes:

Why is [Flash] not approved? In reality – because of Apple’s revenue stream.

The revenue David is talking about is revenue from the App Store and revenue from developers. I think this conclusion is wrong.

Time for a little history. Once upon a time there was a small computer company named for a piece of fruit. It developed and marketed a wonderful new peripheral for its computers. It was called a laser printer. The laser printer created a new market segment known as desktop publishing. Part of the magic of the laser printer was a built-in interpreter for a specialized language. The language and its interpreter were developed by an even smaller company. The even smaller company was able to leverage its technology into a lingua franca and take a large piece of the desktop publishing market for itself.

Apple doesn’t want Flash on the iPhone because they don’t want to repeat the ‘mistake’ of PostScript on the LaserWriter.

So yes it is about revenue but not on the tactical scale of App Store revenue today; it’s about long term strategy.

Apple is supporting HTML 5 in Safari. It’s not about being against cross-platform development. It’s about not ceding control to another company. Everything critical in the stack must be either proprietary to Apple or be an open standard. That’s why there’s no Flash plugin and no Java VM on the iPhone. And I don’t expect there ever will be.

iPhone SDK: Rogue Amoeba's Code Signing and You

From the Rogue Amoeba Blog post Code Signing and You:

However, the environment is different in one important way. Apple is the gatekeeper:

“Phones will only run apps signed by Apple. It also applies FairPlay to the package.”
Twitter message from Deric Horn on March 6, 2008

Let me repeat that: if Apple doesn’t sign your iPhone app, it does not run.

This makes more sense than what I was thinking. It means an iPhone OS device doesn’t need to know thousands of valid certificates.

In addition to upgrading applications will the App Store be capable of removing applications?

iPhone SDK and More Questions

John Gruber has posted More Questions on his Daring Fireball blog about the iPhone SDK. I can answer one of his questions.

• So it seems like the answer to my question yesterday about how users will be prevented from running apps downloaded directly from developers (rather than through the App Store) is that unsigned apps will only work on your iPhone if you pay (and get approved) for a $99 iPhone developer account. But does that mean that approved developers will be able to freely exchange unsigned apps with each other?

An unsigned app will not run on an iPhone at all.¹ The only place an unsigned iPhone OS application will run is on the simulator.

I doubt that the barrier for the $99 iPhone developer program is higher than for other types of code signing certificates. The iPhone code signing certs are issued to either individuals or organizations. Apple’s approval for the App Store will be on a application by application basis.

If you as a developer get an application or two approved for the App Store and it later turns that you’re breaking Apple’s rules, it seems safe to presume that one of Apple’s possible recourses is to revoke your certificate and all your (as in signed with your cert) iPhone OS applications will stop working.

¹ iPhone OS Programming Guide: Working with a Device

iPhone SDK and App Code Signing

In iPhone Enterprise and SDK: First Impressions and Questions John Gruber notes “there is no option to circumvent the App Store” and asks:

My question, though, is how will this be enforced technically? If developers can install on their iPhones the apps they’re working on, what will stop users from doing the same? I’m guessing it’s tied to digital certificates, but that’s just a guess. There must be something, though.

From the Macworld Apple iPhone Event live update page I think that question is answered.

11:10 PT: “We think a lot of people are going to want to become an iPhone developer.” It’s really easy. Go to our web site and download our SDK for free. Run the Simulator on your Mac. You can join the iPhone Developer Program if you want to run the app on an iPhone or iPod Touch, and distribute your app. To join the developer program costs $99.

…

11:24 PT: What are you doing to make these applications secure? “This is a big concern. It is a dangerous world out there. We’ve tried to strike a good path here. On one side, you’ve got a closed device like the iPod, which always works. You don’t have to worry about third-party apps mucking it up. And on the other side, you’ve got a Windows PC. We want to take the best of both, the reliability of that iPod and we want to take the ability to run third-party apps from the PC world, but without malicious applications.

“The developers have to register with us, and for $99 they get an electronic certificate, and that tells us who they are. If they write a malicious app, we can track them down, we can tell their parents, and we will know who they are. And we can turn off the spigot if we need to.”

I added emphasis on two sentences above.

Here’s my interpretation and, I think, the answer to John’s question. For free anyone can run a Cocoa Touch iPhone OS application on the simulator but the SDK and the Xcode tools alone don’t allow an application to be installed on an iPhone or iPod Touch. To get an app onto an actual iPhone requires paying the $99 for the iPhone Developer Program. The Developer Program is essentially a certification program.

John assumes the $99 is for getting listed on the App Store. I think he’s off. I think the $99 is for the code signing certificate. Getting listed is a separate (but no-charge) hurdle.

But I haven’t watched the video (via TUAW) for myself yet.

Update: I wonder if for a developer with a cert if there is any limit to the number of iPhones that Xcode will drop the app onto.

The Apple iPhone will be a Raging Success

I think the Apple iPhone will be a Raging Success. Not because of Apple's hype. Not because of the Jobs RDF. But because it is advertised by its interface. Because the interface is straight out of science fiction. (That would be the happy shiny world of tomorrow type of science fiction, not the dark dystopian type.)

Most importantly I think the iPhone will be a success because my six year old son is excited about a phone.

"Daddy, it comes with pirates."

"Daddy, to make the picture big, you pinch out -- like this."

"Daddy, can we get one?"

(No. I'm not buying a $500 phone for myself let alone a six year old. But there will be enough people buying version 1.0 that Apple will be able to build an iPhone platform.)