Who try to clone who ?

This week-end I made something interesting : i activated my iPhone and updated my nexus to ics at the same time.
While discovering the new ics, i also discovered how they cloned iOs.
Every change made from 2.2 to 4.0 are only from iOs. It was a very bad discovery....

Finally, it's my turn to follow Apple law...

After many years trying to avoid Apple and every iThings, I finally had to move on the Apple train.
I'm very late but, after some interviews, I finally realized it costs me a lot to blacklist Apple.

I so followed last week a 5 days training on iOS development.
It was great because I met some great people but the iOS ecosystem is still, for me, anti-freedom.

Of course, I realized what people may like on iOS, how easy it is to navigate, to swipe, to tap, to scroll...
Of course, I confirmed an iPhone is easier to use than an Android phone.
But seriously, anything you want to do, even as a developper, has to be validated by Apple.
For exemple, even to distribute an app for review to your client, the guy who pay this app, you need to register your client's device to Apple.
And I won't talk about guidelines which change each version.
And how you can't develop for older versions (yeah sorry, 3GS users, your 400$ phone is now good for trash because noone could develop for it anymore)

He Apple, do you remember I PAID for an iThing, a MacBook, an entreprise license ... ?
so please, let me do what I want !

I also learnt how fast you could create a first version of your app using XCode and Interface Builder :
it's just 3 times faster than for Android.
It's more difficult to be professonial (no doc generation, fake MVC, just awfuly difficult to reuse custom UI components...) but you could create a prototype in few hours

Anyway, I already reached my first goal : I'm now able to write ANE for any platform which is a good thing !
I can't wait for the last part of the training, in 2 weeks (about iCloud, private appStore, core data, ...), to reach my second goal : be able to answer any iQuestion of my clients about iThings or, at least, to know where to ask or find the answers

How to produce an app for iPhone/iPad

If you ever want to make a Flash game/app for iPhone/iPad, this post is the main one !
All you need to know in 6 links.

Did Adobe miss something in 2007 ?

I first would like to be clear:
I know you can see my posts like rockets against Apple.
Yes, a lot of things make me upset against Apple.
Yes, iPhone has a very great UI, so much that I was about to buy an iPhone for my wife...but I canceled it yesterday (boycott mode on)
But NO, I'm not a PRO Adobe, I'm just trying to choose the best path, as a developper, I must follow in the coming months/years.

For what could be seen as my own moral, I can't follow Apple path, sorry.
But, at the same times, I'm really asking myself if Flash is the future.
If you read some of my other posts, you'll see how much I hate to fight with bugs on Flash Lite, how much I dislike to be unable to talk with the OS and how I'm afraid when Adobe drops the low phones market to focus on smartphones only. (And I won't talk about the heavy AIR for mobile).
I already said "flash on every screen" was a dream. It recently became "develop one, release to many" which is also a dream, from my point of view (close to Steve Jobs' point of view about optimized code I think).

And so I read this post on Wired : did Adobe really miss the iPhone train 3 years ago ?
Like every post on the web recently, it's not neutral since Corona competes with Flash. But it should be something I must be aware of.
If I focus on Flash technology, I must know if Adobe decisions are good or not.
It's not the first time someone critizes the Adobe strategy about mobiles.

I personnaly like Flash for its ability to make something great really fast.
But I personnaly think Android is the future. Flash will be soon on Android so we'll see how it works, even if I already started to develop on Java for Android.

So, finally, will Flash become a prototype tool ? If so, I really think Adobe should start to think about code export (Flash to Java, Flash to ObjC...) but I read a post on an Adobe blog (sorry, can't find the link) it isn't an option.

2 years ago, I was waiting for Adobe to make an useful Flash mobile solution. Flash Lite 3 was near to succeed...
I don't know what is Flash Lite 4 (apart to be AS3 based, at last) and I know Flash 10 won't be a solution for my main target : phones, not smartphones.
Perhaps Adobe is right : smartphones are the future. But, for now, I'm making money from Europe and India's gamers, on standard phones.

So, again, wait and see.

Android is slowy but surely coming after the iPhone

It's not an opinon, it's the number which said that

Of course, it's the based on the number of connections but, he!, it's what's we're looking for : connected people !

I still don't understand why Motorola's Droid is such a success...
perhaps because people liked the Razor ? and so Motorola ?

iPad : the revolution..but not the one we were waiting for!

Last week, Steve Jobs made another of these geek presentation, wearing jeans and basket.
Until you lost your internet connection, you know what I'm talking about : the "so waited" iPad.



now, this is the kind of reaction you have all over the web



I won't talk you much about the lacking Flash support because, this times, it's not the main problem.
If you read my post about the lastest Ads mobile networks bought by Google, Apple and Opera, you knew what I'm afraid of...and Apple made a new move on this step.

After Microsoft which tried and failed, Apple is actually trying to make an AppleWeb...
Like they're doing with their AppStore when they control what you are allowed to install, they are trying to control what you are allowed to see.
No USB to transfert data, DRM everywhere, no plugin to see what you want (PDF?), video and music by iTunes again...

So the revolution is here...Apple made a public presentation of a system to control the information. It really fears me!
I'm not alone and even if it's from an Adobe employee, I'm totally agree with him.
I'm not for the OpenSource everywhere but we can't let ONE actor decides on what is good for us.

I'm trying to think "he! it will be a failure, it's so dumbass" but when I see the success of the iPod and iPhone 1 & 2, I'm not sure...
When I saw how 'professional' journalists claims how much the iPhone is a revolution, forgetting all what had been done by Nokia, I'm not sure...
When I saw how iPhone maniacs are...maniacs, I'm not sure...
When I saw how some of these 'extremists' iPhone maniacs are able to say "great! they are cleaning the web of the flash ads! HTML5 powa!!!", I'm not sure... (see Lee's blog for this, it seems they are all there!)

My only hope is that people were waiting for a real revolution, the next step of the netbook and so won't see a reason to buy a 'big' iTouch....

To everyone looking for a "good" tablet, browse Scott's blog...a lot of useful (and not locked) systems exist like the litl

Iphone vs NDS & PSP ? Is it April fool's day ?!

Last week, Apple announced "DS & PSP games are not fun and too expensive...Iphone and its games are better" (or something like that)
Yeah sure...and the coming Apple Tablet will be better than PS3+X360+Wii, for sure!
I don't know if I must laught or cry.....

I'm pretty sure fun factor on pittyPhone games are great....but how many games in the AppStore are REALLY games, not casual games (ie games you end within 30minutes) ?


I also can't resist to compare these 2 speaks of Id Software' Carmarck :
The first is one year old and say how much the "iPhone [is] more powerful than Nintendo DS, PSP combined" (sic)
The second is from 2 months ago where he said the iPhone can't compete with DS or PSP on ' complete, dedicated titles' (so he means on good games?) and is not a true game platform because it lacks button
I also reproduce these lines because they explains why the pittyPhone will NEVER be a gaming platform (just a casual platform)

I mean, you look at DS and PSP titles, and you're talking a $20, $30 price point. But on the app store, a $10 game is considered super-ultra premium. So while the numbers are good in terms of sales, you certainly couldn't put in a Mario or Zelda-like development budget and expect to have a great chance of getting your money back.

Another interesting point of view is from a 'veteran game developper' :
too much people, too much games...no way to make a game on front of others ugly ones (unless big money and marketing of course)


Honestly I was waiting for this announce....since I discovered the pittyPhone had a TV Output, a feature which like some others are in fact present since the pittyPhone2 but not available until you jailbreak it...or buy the pittyPhone3

Wait and see...I'm happy to see pittyPhone lovers suddenly lost their smiles with this announce ("What is Apple thinking ?!!!") but, with no doubt, Apple will fix it soon ("Don't worry, We are genious")

Why Android won't beat iPhone

I found an interesting post about the 'Android opportunity'.

The author explains why android couldn't 'beat' pittyPhone : to keep it simple, if Google doesn't follow the marketing machine of Apple, Android won't success.
The Apple's marketing bulldozer worked like a charm, you won't beat the pittyPhone if you don't beat its main weapon : marketing.
And, right now, Google isn't fighting with marketing...it lets device makers do this.
And right now, a Samsung Android phone or a Moto Android phone isn't as much wanted as a pittyPhone 4.0....because it's not more than 'another Samsung/Moto phone'.


Even if it makes me sad, I think I'm agree with this....and it means future won't be as good as it should be :(
As always fight agains the pittyPhone because of this and now, it's becoming the way to do : how many years before we see a b&w flat screen sold as 'the best TV in the world' just because the marketing was the best ?!
I already knew marketing is the 'science' to sell you a 'dream' (read sell you trash as if it was gold) but I realized with the pittyPhone WHICH trash for HOW MUCH. (and I won't talk about the air book, the first Apple computer even Apple Fans critizes!)


On a side, it's interesting to notice people which start to complain about pittyPhone are...developers (or any people trying to make money with pittyPhone).
So, unfortunalty, and even it the pittyPhone got some minor problems (everybody knows exploding is only a minor problem), it will take some times before Apple will start to loose market share....and while I'll waiting for this, Apple already started to fight with its competitors not with great phones (it would be a surprise) but with lobbying and false informations.

AppStore : the magic disappears slowly ?

You could find a very instersting post at TechCentral about the App Store "anti-competitive and arrogant"
Also this very interesting point of view (which I share!) about the viability of the AppStore for developer.

(i)Phone UI prototyping

While reading info for the new iPhone (I still doesn't like it...for an user and developer point of view!), I found a very interesting idea : iPhone Stencil Kit

It could help a lot prototyping an app!

For more tools, I found an old post from Thomas Joos very interesting

From comments, I also found this "iPhone-Catalyst" :)



All of this may, of course, be ported to anything else than pittyPhone !