Is FaceTime over 3G really a good idea

post from Apple on 21 May 2012 01:03:26 PM. © Apple

Apple may be planning to add 3G data support for FaceTime on iOS devices if these screen shots from AppleInsider are a clue. Many have long desired to use FaceTime on a mobile broadband network instead of Wi-Fi, which is where Apple’s video chat service is limited to now, and I’m in that camp myself. But I’m not sold that it will happen or if it’s even a good idea just yet.

From a consumer perspective, FaceTime over mobile broadband networks sounds great, at least initially. But people may feel otherwise if the application doesn’t provide the same level of service as it does today over Wi-Fi networks. Apple runs the risk of negative feedback on the experience if FaceTime calls don’t look clear, if they offer broken audio or simply drop due to limited coverage.

I recently tried a similar experiment and experienced this problem firsthand. Using a data-only SIM card in my Galaxy Nexus smartphone, I signed up for a very low-cost SIP account which enabled free VoIP calls over a data network. This is a great alternative to paying for voice minutes and the service was fantastic … where I had coverage.

The problem of dropped or missed calls kept growing over several months’ time — and note that voice uses far less bandwidth than video — so I recently gave up the approach and went with a low-cost traditional voice and data SIM card from Straight Talk. And guess what happened? No more missed or dropped calls.

I suspect many consumers would find the same issue using FaceTime over 3G unless — and this is a possibility — Apple were to offer seamless Wi-Fi switching on a FaceTime call. Even then, there will still be some folks that move beyond available 3G coverage and not have a wireless hotspot nearby.

On the surface then, FaceTime over 3G or 4G sounds great; as long as you don’t move too much when you get a call. Once we have true nationwide 4G networks supplemented with Wi-Fi hotspots and vast roaming capabilities, FaceTime over mobile broadband might be a viable option that Apple considers.

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IOS developers believe larger iPhone won’t
cause big problems

post from Apple on 21 May 2012 01:03:26 PM. © Apple

If those pesky “people familiar with the matter” are to be believed, Apple will move to a larger screen with the next iteration of the iPhone, thought to arrive sometime this fall.

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News reported separately last week that Apple will introduce a screen of “at least 4 inches diagonal” or ?bigger than 3.5 inches,? the current screen size. What?s not clear is how Apple would go about this and satisfy both users — who may enjoy a larger screen but also want to keep the Retina display quality — and its army of third-party developers — who don?t want to have to develop for a wide variety of different screen sizes.

There are several theories out there as to how Apple could build a larger-screen iPhone. They include scaling up the screen and just dropping the pixel density a bit; changing the aspect ratio, increasing the screen height, and keeping the pixel density the same; increasing the width and the height; or going bigger than 4 inches and using a standard 16:9 resolution. Rene Ritchie at iMore has a good explanation of how Apple could get there.

But what do the developers who will have to deal with the implications of a larger screen think? I talked to a few iOS app makers, and interestingly, many of them are not convinced Apple would actually ?pull an Android,? as one developer put it, and make it more complicated to design for a bunch of different screen sizes (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4/4S and something new).

Sam Shank, the CEO of Hotel Tonight, a hotel-finding app for iOS and Android, said if Apple does change the screen size, he believes the phone itself would become slightly wider but not much taller. But he doesn?t believe Apple would mess with either the aspect ratio or pixel density.

?Changing the aspect ratio would be a lot of work for development teams. We found that maybe 50 percent of iOS development is [spent] in layout,? he said in an interview on Friday. ?If we had to do two versions of that, the current aspect ratio and a new aspect ratio, and had to lay it out again, that would add considerably to our development time.?

Lenny Rachitsky, the CEO of Localmind, a social discovery app for both iOS and Android, said he doesn?t see Apple creating fragmentation problems for its developers. ?We haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet, partly because we assume Apple isn’t going to pull an Android and fragment the device market unnecessarily. If they do, they must have a really good reason to do it, and we’re confident they’ll provide tools to make it easy to migrate. The last thing they want to do is put more friction in front of developers.?

Localmind’s lead iOS developer, Nelson Gauthier, sounded equally confident that Apple would make any transition, if needed, smooth. “Apple often changes the requirements for iOS applications but they usually give developers fair warning and decent tools to accommodate new devices. The transition to Retina display and iPad were both relatively straightforward,” he said.

Gauthier said in an e-mail:

A bigger display could mean a few things. It could mean that the display has a higher resolution while retaining the same aspect ratio. The new display might be a different shape. Finally, the display might simply grow while retaining the old resolution. But changing the resolution or aspect of the display need not have an effect on user interface elements, just their layout. Bars and controls could stay the same size while content areas expand to fill the additional screen real estate.
Apple might help developers transition between form factors by providing a system that would automatically adjust layouts for new resolutions and display aspects. Last year at WWDC, they revealed a component for Mac OS X called Cocoa Auto-Layout that allows developers to define layouts using fairly simple, freeform constraints. A system like this could also work on iOS.

Massive Damage Inc., which makes location-based iOS games, is also betting against major changes for developers. As CEO Ken Soto points out, there are already two resolutions many developers have to worry about for iPhone games: standard resolution for older iPhones and Retina for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

?I can’t quite imagine how they will introduce yet another retina resolution standard. Overall, I think if Apple does increase the screen size, they will be careful to not introduce too much fragmentation. They will likely keep the aspect ratio the same so developers won’t have [to] refactor their UI,? he said. ?I have a feeling a bigger iPhone will automatically scale up existing retina resolutions as the screen would likely only get a little bit bigger.?

But the feeling that any changes would be negative isn’t necessarily universal. Donnie Dinch, the co-founder of iOS last-minute ticketing app WillCall, said because of the content of his company’s app, a screen size change may not have a huge impact for it, especially if Apple went the route of simply making the screen taller.

“It doesn’t really matter how tall it is for us, it’s probably a bigger deal for games . . . I think that a lot of the things we do is just list screens [of ticket information], so having a taller screen makes sense,” he said.

But lowering the pixel density to accommodate a larger screen? The screen is the most important part of the iPhone, said Dinch: “If they augment that in any way negatively, that would be insane.”

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ems/

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Apple and Microsoft’s “patent
exploitation” pact, plus 4 other Apple stories to read today

post from Apple on 21 May 2012 01:03:26 PM. © Apple

With so many people writing about Apple, finding the best stories and reports isn’t easy. Here’s our daily pick of stories about the company from around the Web that you shouldn’t miss:

Wired gets an in-depth look at Rockstar Consortium, the group that grew out of the companies that banded together to buy Nortel’s patent portfolio last year. The member companies include Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Sony and Ericsson. According to Wired, Rockstar is a “pure patent exploitation operation funded by all of the winning bidders except EMC.”
Apple’s iPhone may carry a high cost for carriers — in the form of subsidies paid to Apple — but the return they get in the form of new customers and upgrades is worth it. AllThingsD breaks down a research note from BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman.
Computerworld connects the dots between Apple CEO Tim Cook’s earlier observations about the market for prepaid phones in developing regions and an analyst note this week that suggests Apple might make the iPhone 3GS available without contract at a lower price in emerging markets.
Cook tops The Wall Street Journal’s list of the highest-paid CEOs, thanks to his grant of a million stock options last fall and an ascendant Apple stock price.
Apple and Foxconn sent in third-party auditors to Chinese factories that produce the iPhone and iPad, and promised to jointly improve working conditions. But, as CBS reports, the group behind the “ethical iPhone” protests earlier this year isn’t satisfied and plans to keep acting as watchdog on iPhone production safety and ethics issues.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ioan Sameli

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r-apple-stories-to-read-today/

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iPhone Charger Teardown

post from Daring Fireball on 21 May 2012 01:03:23 PM. © Daring Fireball

Ken Shirriff:

Disassembling Apple’s diminutive inch-cube iPhone charger revealsa technologically advanced flyback switching power supply thatgoes beyond the typical charger. It simply takes AC input(anything between 100 and 240 volts) and produce 5 watts of smooth5 volt power, but the circuit to do this is surprisingly complexand innovative.

?

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Skyfall Teaser

post from Daring Fireball on 21 May 2012 01:03:23 PM. © Daring Fireball

“Some men are coming to kill us. We’re going to kill them first.”

?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mTIE4D9JM

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Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School Selects
GroupLogic's ExtremeZ-IP

post from prMac on 21 May 2012 12:55:00 PM. © prMac

GroupLogic, the industry's leading provider of software products that unlock the power of new enterprise platforms, and the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School today announced the K-12 school's successful installation of GroupLogic's ExtremeZ-IP solution to dramatically reduce server crashes and increase connection speeds to the school's just-implemented Windows-based network. Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School selected GroupLogic's ExtremeZ-IP to solve a problem.

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http://prmac.com/release-id-43056.htm

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New app Curly's Pocket Guide to Sports launched
today

post from prMac on 21 May 2012 12:50:00 PM. © prMac

The Curly's Pocket Guide to Sports app, officially launched today, is the perfect on-the-go companion to the upcoming, jam-packed summer of sport. Featuring 72 different sports, the app demystifies the rules and offers a wealth of interesting and entertaining background information. The rules of the different disciplines are explained on sets of cards, which can be swiped through. A tap on each card will turn it over to reveal the complete rules of the sport with tongue-in-cheek illustrations.

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Fun Science Lab for iPad - A New Children's App,
On Sale for 1st Week

post from prMac on 21 May 2012 12:30:00 PM. © prMac

Zonkey Interactive, a new children's app developer, is excited to announce the release of our debut app Fun Science Lab. The Fun Science Lab, ages 5+, is an educational app that is meant to give children a fun way to learn some basic principles of science, through a set of 9 unique "experiments", mini-games. Each one has a theme, such as electricity, water, heat, etc. Fun Science Lab will be available at a special launch promo price for a limited time only.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-43051.htm

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Who Touched my Phone for iPhone - find out who
when and where

We have all suspected at one point or another that somebody might be snooping through our phone. The fact is somebody can go through your email, read all your text messages, and look at your personal photos without your permission or knowledge. App & Joy of Tel Aviv - Israel announced in May 2012 a new app - "Who Touched my Phone" that helps you to determine whether somebody snooped through your phone whenever it was left unattended. The user arms the application and locks the screen.

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iOS developers believe larger iPhone won’t
cause big problems

If those pesky “people familiar with the matter” are to be believed, Apple will move to a larger screen with the next iteration of the iPhone, thought to arrive sometime this fall.

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News reported separately last week that Apple will introduce a screen of “at least 4 inches diagonal” or ?bigger than 3.5 inches,? the current screen size. What?s not clear is how Apple would go about this and satisfy both users — who may enjoy a larger screen but also want to keep the Retina display quality — and its army of third-party developers — who don?t want to have to develop for a wide variety of different screen sizes.

There are several theories out there as to how Apple could build a larger-screen iPhone. They include: scaling up the screen and just dropping the pixel density a bit; changing the aspect ratio, increasing the screen height and keeping the pixel density the same; increasing the width and the height; or going bigger than 4 inches and using a standard 16:9 resolution. Rene Ritchie at iMore has a good explanation of how Apple could get there.

But what do the developers who will have to deal with the implications of a larger screen think? I talked to a few iOS app makers, and interestingly, many of them are not convinced Apple would actually ?pull an Android,? as one developer put it, and make it more complicated to design for a bunch of different screen sizes (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4/4S and something new).

Sam Shank, CEO of Hotel Tonight, a hotel-finding app for iOS and Android, said that if Apple does change the screen size, he believes the phone itself would become slightly wider, but not much taller. But he doesn?t believe Apple would mess with either the aspect ratio or pixel density.

?Changing the aspect ratio would be a lot of work for development teams. We found that maybe 50 percent of iOS development is [spent] in layout,? he said in an interview Friday. ?If we had to do two versions of that, the current aspect ratio and a new aspect ratio, and had to lay it out again, that would add considerably to our development time.?

Lenny Rachitsky, CEO of Localmind, a social discovery app for both iOS and Android, said he doesn?t see Apple creating fragmentation problems for its developers. ?We haven’t put a lot of thought into it yet, partly because we assume Apple isn’t going to pull an Android and fragment the device market unnecessarily. If they do, they must have a really good reason to do it, and we’re confident they’ll provide tools to make it easy to migrate. The last thing they want to do is put more friction in front of developers.?

Localmind’s lead iOS developer, Nelson Gauthier, sounded equally confident that Apple would make any transition, if needed, smooth. “Apple often changes the requirements for iOS applications but they usually give developers fair warning and decent tools to accommodate new devices. The transition to Retina display and iPad were both relatively straightforward,” he said.

Gauthier said in an e-mail:

A bigger display could mean a few things. It could mean that the display has a higher resolution while retaining the same aspect ratio. The new display might be a different shape. Finally, the display might simply grow while retaining the old resolution. But changing the resolution or aspect of the display need not have an effect on user interface elements, just their layout. Bars and controls could stay the same size while content areas expand to fill the additional screen real estate.
Apple might help developers transition between form factors by providing a system that would automatically adjust layouts for new resolutions and display aspects. Last year at WWDC, they revealed a component for Mac OS X called Cocoa Auto-Layout that allows developers to define layouts using fairly simple, freeform constraints. A system like this could also work on iOS.

Massive Damage Inc., which makes location-based iOS games, is also betting against major changes for developers. As CEO Ken Soto points out, there are already two resolutions many developers have to worry about for iPhone games: standard resolution for older iPhones and Retina for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

?I can’t quite imagine how they will introduce yet another retina resolution standard. Overall, I think if Apple does increase the screen size, they will be careful to not introduce too much fragmentation. They will likely keep the aspect ratio the same so developers won’t have refactor their UI,? he said. ?I have a feeling a bigger iPhone will automatically scale up existing retina resolutions as the screen would likely only get a little bit bigger.?

But the feeling isn’t necessarily universal that any changes would be negative. Donnie Dinch is the co-founder of iOS last-minute ticketing app WillCall, and he said because of the content of his company’s app, screen size change may not even have a huge impact for them. Especially if Apple went the route of simply making the screen taller.

“It doesn’t really matter how tall it is for us, it’s probably a bigger deal for games … I think that a lot of the things we do is just list screens [of ticket information], so having a taller screen makes sense,” he said.

But lowering the pixel density to accomodate a larger screen? The screen is the most important part of the iPhone, said Dinch: “If they augment that in any way negatively, that would be insane.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/ios-developers-believe-larger-iphone-wont-cause-big-probl
ems/

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