Giuseppe Taibi's Techlog » android http://www.giuseppetaibi.com Impressions and bookmarks about my technology journeys Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:44:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Boston Startup Weekend http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2010/11/12/boston-startup-weekend/ http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2010/11/12/boston-startup-weekend/#comments Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:50:45 +0000 yus http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2010/11/12/boston-startup-weekend/ wpid-Boston_logobanner-01-2010-11-12-11-50.jpg
The 2010 edition focuses on mobile and I am happy to help out by leading a session in iPhone application development Nov 12 from 1pm to 6pm.

]]> http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2010/11/12/boston-startup-weekend/feed/ 0 RedLaser vs ShopSavvy. The Battle of iPhone Barcode Scanners http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/11/17/redlaser-vs-shopsavvy-the-battle-of-iphone-barcode-scanners/ http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/11/17/redlaser-vs-shopsavvy-the-battle-of-iphone-barcode-scanners/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:42:08 +0000 yus http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/?p=420 I have tested both apps and so far I prefer the performance and ease of use of RedLaser. While ShopSavvy does more than RedLaser, it shows that it is a port of an Android app and it does not feel like a real native iPhone app. For example, RedLaser product detail page fetches the very well done iPhone-optimized version of Amazon.com, while the same page on ShopSavvy opens the desktop version of Amazon.com, which is practically impossible to navigate.

]]> http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/11/17/redlaser-vs-shopsavvy-the-battle-of-iphone-barcode-scanners/feed/ 1 Public Radio Player 2.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch is now available on iTunes App Store http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/07/24/public-radio-player-20-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-available-on-itunes-app-store/ http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/07/24/public-radio-player-20-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-available-on-itunes-app-store/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:37:51 +0000 yus http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/?p=327

I am pleased to announce the immediate availability of Public Radio Player 2.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch. This app is already half way in the top 10 free Music apps on the iTunes App Store. PRP 2.0 was developed by a team assembled by the great minds at Public Radio Exchange (PRX). Bringing this app to life has been possible thanks to the contribution of many stakeholders. My involvement with this project has been primarily as an expert in hybrid development techniques for the iPhone. Hybrid apps are a class of apps developed primarily using web standards (HTML, CSS and Javascript), then wrapped around a native Objective C/Cocoa Touch so that they can be conveniently distributed as binary via iTunes App Store. There are several advantages of following this approach to building iPhone apps:

  1. Short learning curve: Objective C is not as easy to learn as Javascript
  2. Faster development time: no need to compile app to test it as Javascript is interpreted
  3. Tapping into a large pool of talent: there are far more web developers than Objective C ones
  4. Portability: WebKit, the core engine for Mobile Safari, is also the core engine for other evolved smartphones web browsers such as Android, Palm Pre and Nokia’s Symbian.
WebKit is the fastest web engine on earth. It is also the one with the lightest footprint and, to top it off, it is also open source. In addition, WebKit has full support for HTML 5, including local client-side persistent storage via SQLlite, another popular open source technology. Unless an app requires access to fast graphics, as is the case for most videogames, it can be developed as an hybrid app leveraging the powerful features of WebKit and reaping the many benefits of it. Google has already demonstrated a cross-platform version of the popular Gmail web app built with WebKit that works on both Android and iPhone, and works offline because it caches messages in its local SQLite database.
While developers can build hybrid apps completely from scratch, it helps using some of the already available hybrid apps frameworks. The most popular of which at this moment appears to be PhoneGap. While PhoneGap is definitely a step in the right direction and would be a great fit for apps that are not trying to do too much, more advanced developers should consider QuickConnect for iPhone as it exposes a greater list of native iPhone SDK objects via Javascript than PhoneGap does, at least at the time of writing this. PRP 2.0 was developed using QuickConnect for iPhone. Lee and the QuickConnect community have been very helpful to get to the finish line. Both frameworks are open source and I find that QuickConnect is very actively developed by its founder Lee Barney, currently a professor at Brigham Young University – Idaho, with deep experience as CIO/CTO of a web and mobile software company. Lee Barney’s recently published book on iPhone hybrid apps development, available also at Amazon.com in paperback and for the Kindle. I am tracking all iPhone Hybrid Frameworks on my blog at: http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/iphone-hybrid-frameworks-tracker/
Cross-platform hybrid mobile apps development is also the main focus of “Smartphone Application Development”, the class I teach at Harvard University Extension School (see  http://www.extension.harvard.edu/2009-10/courses/23263.jsp )
I get a kick listening the audio promos voiced by Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me host Peter Sagal:
On Air Promo 1 - MP2 download
On Air Promo 2 - MP2 download
On Air Promo 3 - MP2 download
On Air Promo 4 - MP2 download
Web Bumper (with music) - MP2 download
Web Bumer (dry) - MP2 download
More info on the Public Radio Player at www.publicradioplayer.org
]]> http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2009/07/24/public-radio-player-20-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-available-on-itunes-app-store/feed/ 1 See Android in Action http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2008/05/30/see-android-in-action/ http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/2008/05/30/see-android-in-action/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 13:08:20 +0000 yus http://www.giuseppetaibi.com/?p=75 AndroidCommunity.com has posted lots of videos demonstrating the capabilities of Android on a multi-touch cellphone. Here is my favorite video demostration about Google Maps:

Full list here.

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