browngeek

I love Apple products.

But today I hate one product - the iPhone Developer program.

I applied for a beta developer certificate and I receive this email -

Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time.

Thank you for applying.

Apparently, it was not just me but pretty much everybody got rejected.

So, you can download the iPhone SDK and start writing apps now. You can even test the app in the Aspen simulator. But if you want to install the app on your iPhone, you are out of luck. You have to wait…until Apple decides to let you in.

WTF? Is Apple only allowing high-profile companies (EA and AOL) to build the first wave the iPhone apps? Or did they under-estimate the number of developers that are itching to write an app for the next big thing?

Whatever the reason, Apple screwed up with this. I hope they fix this shit ASAP and make me love them again.

Google just released a preview video of its new Andriod mobile platform. Many have made jokes about the video - Sergey Brin’s hangover look or how cold it is. The real joke, however, is the 10-million-dollar developer “challenge”. Its not a challenge - its a PR gimmick. Google’s attempt to attract media spotlight.

Shouldn’t I be enthusiastic about this challenge - myself being a developer and all. No. The real developers, the ones that are passionate about building apps on the next cool platform, don’t do it for the money. They do it for the heck of it - or for fame amongst peers. Sure, there will be plenty of developers that will take up Andriod’s challenge - after all, Google is known for being very developer-friendly. And therein lies Android’s pitfall. Courting developers from the outset.

Again, being a developer myself, I appreciate and agree that developers rule. But not when it comes to building mobile apps. The apps that run on your cellphone should have the simplest and the least confusing user interface. The unfortunate fact is that developers suck at designing simple user-interfaces. By definition, developers are more analytical than the average user and therefore can handle - in fact, expect - complex user interfaces. Thats why ALL mobile apps are too cumbersome and suck ass. They are designed by developers. Except the iPhone.

Why did the iPhone succeed? Yes, there was a lot of hype built in - but the key reason for its success is its darn simplicity. And why is the iPhone so simple to use. Its squarely because the user-interfaces were developed by designers, not developers. Designers are more creative than analytical. They understand the average user. They *get* the simple user experience.

Apple shunned the developers by releasing the iPhone without an SDK. Google shunned the cellphone users by releasing an SDK without a phone. The iPhone is already an household name. And Andriod?

The new Dashcode tool in Leopard is pretty nifty. In 60 seconds, I created a very useful RSS widget for the comments on “theWhole > sum(parts)”. No kidding. The tool is packaged with a slew of templates for various kinds of widget and is definitely a surprising little gem.

The RSS widget is neatly parked in my Dashboard. Now in one keystroke (F12) I will be on top of what is happening in this blog. Not that much happens, but that is not the point.

There are 300 reasons to upgrade to Leopard (Vista 2.0) - including the venerable Time Machine. Most of them are big and well publicized. But here a list of 7 little-known gems that is going to make me super-love Leopard.

1. Automator - UI Recording and Playback
   “Use a new action called Watch Me Do that lets you record a user action…and replay as an action in a workflow.”
2. Finder - Path Bar
   “Just choose Show Path Bar from the View menu and the path is visible at the bottom of the Finder window. You can also drag files to any location in the Path Bar.”
3. iChat - Tabbed Chat
   “Consolidate your chat windows into a single tabbed window.”
4. Imaging - Enhanced Wireless Capture
   “Wirelessly import images from many 802.11-enabled digital cameras and Bluetooth devices.” aka the iPhone.
5. Photo Booth - Video Recording
   “Use Photo Booth to make movie clips.”
6. Spotlight - Dictionary Definitions in Spotlight
   “Quickly find the definition of any word by entering it in the Spotlight search field.”
7. Terminal - Tabbed Windows
   “Keep multiple Terminal sessions going in a single, tabbed window.”

Via Flickr

The sequence of events-

1. East coast trip last week.
2. Loads of photos.
3. Plugged in iPhone to Mac in the morning.
4. Photos started to sync to iPhone.
5. Didnt want loads of photos on iPhone, so manual kill of the process.
6. Somewhere there, the Address Book on Mac got corrupted. But automatic backup was there.
7. Well, I didn’t know about the corruption since the Address book on iPhone was fine.
8. Plugged in iPhone again last night.
9. The corrupted file overwrote iPhone and the backup.
10. The End.

Moral of story - Even though the Address Book issue is a known one, have a separate, manual backup of everything!

I noticed that some of the podcasts in my iTunes library had an exclamation (!) icon next to them. Curious, I clicked on one and got the message-

iTunes has stopped updating this podcast because you have not listened to any episodes recently. Would you like to resume updating this podcast?

Rather than waiting for me to unsubscribe from the podcast, iTunes subtly points it out to me - while saving space by not downloading.

Smart Little Detail.

There is a kabillion great things about the iPhone, including my personal fav - Safari. But what about the little things…those little attention to details that make you smile.
Well, after one day of using it, here are three things that made me smile about the iPhone.

1. The spring-like bounce to indicate end of page/album/list. Rather than settling for the boring scroll bar to denote current position of a document, Apple decided to maximize real estate and innovation by doing the bounce.
2. The display is turned off. I’m listening to a song. I get a call. The song fades. The display turns on, shows the photo of the caller. I answer the call. Talk. Hang up. The music comes starts back where it left. And the display turns off.
3. If I’m looking for directions to a friend’s house, all I have to do is to tap on his name in the Contacts list.

What kind of a 2-bit operating system:

1. Cannot differentiate a user-initiated action via double-click with that of an automated spyware?
A: Vista. When you double click on the Control Panel->Administrative Tools, the whole UI freezes into black and a popup appears saying “Somebody wants to open something!” Are you stupid?

2. Puts the Desktop as an application in the ALT-TAB sequence?
A. Vista. I mean seriously…when did the desktop become an app?

3. Asks no confirmation from the user when installing updates.
A. Vista. Click on the little Sleep (Power Off?) icon and the freaking updates are automatically downloaded and installed. Who cares about the user’s choice!

4. Replaces the horizontal scrollbar in favour of automatic scroll?
A. Vista. The file explorer has no horiz scrollbar. The scroll happens automatically when you mouse-over. Brilliantly pathetic.

5. Has a copy conflict resolution popup that is greater than 1 line?
A. Vista. Try to copy a file to replace an older version. Vista pops up a thesis.

6. Has non-resizable widgets…I mean gadgets?
A. Vista. Cannot resize any of the gadgets in the sidebar. I mean WTF?

7. Has an option to turn-off the new look?
A. Vista. Has a checkbox to turnoff the new transparent windows. Yes, I’m thankful for it and checked it immediately. But seriously, why go for a new look if you are so unsure of it to provide an option to turn it off.

8. Has me wanting to undo my installation?
A. Vista. Enough said.

My bank, Bank of America, shows a credit card ad as their landing page when logging off from their site. I’ve always found it extremely annoying. For one, I hate these big stupid ads. Secondly, I *already* own their credit card. Surely, they should know this?

Well, today, when I signed off, instead of the annoying ad page, I get an obscene error. Some “Server Error in ‘/NonCard’ Application….please create a customerrors tag within a “web.config” configuration….”. Looks like they use still use JSPs. I can sympathize with that. But thats no excuse for such an obscene error.

Google is hosting its (first?) Developer Day on May 31st, 2007. The MV agenda looked interesting enough for me to sign-up for the event. Expectedly, I got a confirmation email to my GMail account. Unexpectedly, however, when I opened the email, GCal did not prompt with “Would you like to Add this Event to your calender…”.

Why not? Well, the email text did not include the date of the event.
Oversight? Possibly.
Did it render the GMail-GCal integration useless? You bet.