It seems all the hard work was worth it!

DMA case study
Judge’s comment: “This microsite allows advisers to assemble an email while they’re on a call and is as close to real-time CRM that the judges have ever seen. It’s very easy for call centre advisors to use, and very personal and relevant for the customer – pure genius.” Lazar Dzamic, Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

Crayon have just launched two new Drupal websites:

• Forevermark Diamond for De Deers – http://www.forevermarkdiamond.com
• Generation Green for British Gas – http://www.generationgreen.co.uk

These launches follow on from the 2011 BT DMA website – http://www.btdma.com

I am quietly optimistic about it. The video they showed which highlighted the many ways the new controller could be used was impressive.

Overall it was all a bit underwhelming though, mainly because they didn’t have one first party title to show. It suggests that launch is way off and won’t be available until late next year.

Nintendo realises that they have lost a lot of their long term fans and the “hardcore gamer” and say they want to put this right. However the one game they showed that “could” appear on the new console was a Mario game with Miis as in-game characters. This is not the type of game that will attract the hardcore gamer, Miis should be left to games such as Wii Sports, Wii Fit and others that the serious player overlooks.

I was more impressed with the upcoming Nintendo 3DS line up, the games announced including Luigi’s Mansion 2, Mario Kart and Super Mario 3D have made the 3DS a must have device now.

First up bounc3d.com for Sony. A site celebrating that Sony are the official 3D partner of Wimbledon and this year the broadcasting of matches will be in 3D for the first time. The site acts as a hub for the bounc3d game – the game involves collecting virtual tennis balls from across the internet, with each ball representing an entry to the prize draw. The game is accompanied with a viral video which can be viewed on the site or at YouTube.

Secondly btdma.com went live for BT. The website for the Digital Music Awards 2011 is very much a phase 1 offering with the full site coming later in August nearer the Awards evening. At this stage you can submit entries into a number of categories for the “Judges’ choice” and “Public voted” awards such as artist of the year and best event.

Although the Wii (and to a degree the Nintendo DS) has really shunned the hardcore gamer, there is no doubt it has been a success for Nintendo, returning them back to the top of the tree in terms of market share.

It will be interesting to see how they address the need to balance the next console to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers a like. I would like new F-Zero, Starfox and Super Smash Bros. games in HD. Although I would also love a new Zelda game, with Skyward Sword just around the corner for Wii that is unlikely to happen soon.

Nintendo also need to get more 3rd party support, this point is made every time a new console comes around but this time Nintendo need to reach out to developers such as Rockstar games and Infinity Ward and get the big hitters on the new machine.

Roll on June 7th.

Apple’s stance on the pricing of content sold through applications on their iOS platforms has caused a lot of controversy. It has raised two main questions, namely, is their behaviour morally acceptable and is the 30% rate they demand on all sales too high.

As the people at iFlowReader and others have found out to their cost, Apple can and will change the iOS rulebook when they see fit. Without warning. The latest change that has caused furore forces companies to give 30% of the purchase price, on all digital sales such as books, music and magazines, through in-app purchases to Apple. Apple did not create and do not own any of this content.

The problem here is that the publishers want 70% of the price. So for every pound spent the publishers want 70 pence and now Apple want the remaining 30 pence. It is not hard to see why many are going out of business.

It is of course up to Apple how they choose to run their App Store and iOS in general and anyone who follows Apple know they demand complete control over everything they do. In the past this has been to their detriment but they see it working for them in iOS. It certainly stops end users having to worry about downloading virus ridden applications or poorly written software but it comes at a price. If you are a company that develops apps for iOS your business is completely in the hands of Apple – they can pull the rug from underneath you at any time.

Changing the rules once companies are up and running, knowing in all probability you will put them out of business will not gain Apple any friends. However iOS is their platform and as such Apple have every right to charge the 30%. The question is, is that percentage too high? Well it is hard to justify this amount any way you look at it.

In terms of applications themselves you can make the case for Apple taking such a cut as they provide a store in which your application will be seen by millions of people. Apple will take care of the hosting and payment process for you as well. When it comes to content it is a different story; Apple do not own or host any of the content created. The usual percentage cut merchants will ask for using their payment gateways is in the single figures. I have yet to see a sound justification for the 30% and in the long run this could come back and haunt them. Google by comparison charges 10% on its Android platforms and if trends continue as they are most of us will be buying digital content on an Android-powered device in the future.

This article originally appeared on Crayon.

I think people who are thinking like this are missing the point. Google especially targeted businesses and how the OS can be used in business when they revealed Google Chrome OS last year. They don’t see your average user installing this on their home PC.

Think about when you telephone a call centre or set up a new account at your bank or look up a novel on the library computer system. You will notice that your request is handled through a web-based application. A fully featured operating system like Windows 7 is not needed in these cases; all that is required is a browser. Think of all the money companies could save by not having to pay for the hundreds, if not thousands of licenses they would otherwise have to purchase from Microsoft / Apple.

Of course there are free operating systems out there at the moment, Ubuntu being a personal favourite. There are also a whole host of reasons why Linux has never taken off as a desktop solution (most of them have nothing to do with how good the distributions are themselves). I think the difference with Google Chrome OS is that it has a big brand behind it. IT administrators will feel more comfortable installing Google software that they know will be kept secure, regularly updated and will have a large community behind it.

Only time will tell if Chrome OS turns out to be a success, but I wouldn’t write it off so early as some have.

This article originally appeared on Crayon.

While the device continues to be a success it has its limitations and so far no real competition. The only other tablet of note released in 2010 was the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Tab is a smaller device with a screen of 7” and runs the Android operating system – unfortunately Android designed for mobile phones. However the Tab does show promise and indicates the type of Android device we can expect to see in 2011.

I personally prefer the 7” form factor, I think it is more portable and better for reading e-books. I will be buying a tablet in 2011; this is going to be the year when the market truly takes off. We can expect the iPad 2 in April, Android 3.0 powered devices arriving in the next few months and all the other big hardware manufacturers entering the market. Below is a list of the tablets I am looking forward to seeing in 2011.

Blackberry Playbook

The Playbook from RIM looks an exciting product. It offers true multitasking that the iPad can only dream of, the following video highlights this perfectly.

As can be seen the Playbook is a 7” device and has some serious power behind it. Questions remain over how good the battery life will be and how the app market will attract developers when the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace seem to be the first stop for most programmers. RIM have reached out to developers offering the chance to win a Playbook if you design an enterprise app that is approved by them prior to the tablet’s launch. They also allow programmers to develop in Adobe technologies as well as HTML5 through the “WebWorks” framework. One to watch.

Motorola Xoom

It looks like the Motorola Xoom will be the first Android 3.0 Honeycomb powered device. Motorola think they are on to a winner, if this teaser video is anything to go by.

The Xoom is a bigger device than the Playbook with a 10” screen, the same as the iPad. The real selling point about this device is the fact that Motorola have worked closely with Google to make the Xoom the go to tablet if you are after the Android experience.

If you like the larger-sized tablet but are put off by Apple’s walled-garden approach to technology and would quite like to be able to view Flash-based websites this tablet is for you.

HP Palm Topaz / Opal

Rumour has it that HP Palm will release two tablets in the coming months. This will be confirmed or denied at their upcoming press event in early February. Unconfirmed reports state that the Topaz will be a 9” tablet and Opal a 7” version.

The reason these tablets are of interest is due to their operating system, WebOS. First appearing on the Palm Pre the OS itself garnered much praise and critical acclaim. It was one of the main reasons HP bought out Palm. While the Palm handsets failed to make any real dent in the mobile phone market HP could see the potential in WebOS.

WebOS uses a card system, each card representing a running program, through gestures you can navigate through your running apps. I had a Palm Pre and was impressed by the OS, in many ways it is far more intuitive than Apple’s iOS.

iPad 2

No preview would be complete without looking at what is in store for the iPad. While all the tablets mentioned above are seeking to outdo the current version of the iPad, Apple have been at it working on the next version.

There are lots of rumours as there always are surrounding Apple products but one thing we can be sure of is that Apple will not produce a smaller version of the device. Jobs has gone on record stating that he believes the 10” screen size is the way to go.

So what enhancements may we see in the next version? Will the second generation be a full upgrade or more of a minor overhaul à la iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS? In terms of hardware lots of new iPad cases have been popping up with new cutouts suggesting extra features such as a front-facing camera and maybe even an SD card slot. Apple will also update iOS with new features, iOS 4.3 is upcoming in the next month.

This article originally appeared on Crayon.

Rather than just watching some online video tutorials and ordering some books I decided I needed a proper project to work on, if only to keep an interest in learning the language alive and not forgetting about it two weeks later. I decided to build a mobile version of our company intranet system called The Shed. I built The Shed about 2 years ago now so am familiar with the features it offers.

So I began. I started by knocking up a simple REST based API that I could use to get all the relevant data out of the system. I then settled on the features the mobile app would support, it would:

• Display a list of the latest posts that appear on the home page of The Shed (known as the shoutbox)
• Include functionality to enable users to add a post
• Display a mobile-friendly version of the company wiki
• Include a phone list that would allow users to email and / or phone contacts
• Allow users to book a meeting room and check the status of the rooms.

I grabbed myself a copy of the latest SDK and Xcode weighing in at a whopping 3.5GB (why do you have to download the whole thing again every time there is an OS update?). After doing some reading and watching some tutorial videos I was ready to start coding. It’s fair to say I found the Objective-C experience a colourful one. For the first two weeks I couldn’t stand the language. I thought using Occam and Haskell back at University was bad enough, and I was ready to lump Objective-C in with these two as languages to always stay well clear of.  I found the syntax style a real barrier to entry and some of the Cocoa Touch conventions and method name lengths ridiculous. I wasn’t overly crazy about Xcode and coming from a Java background was disappointed with the lack of a garbage collector.

However I persisted, I decided if a 10 year old can code a fart app I wasn’t going to be beaten so easily. As I spent more time with the language it grew on me, I found Xcode actually quite a good IDE and the long names becoming less of an issue with the predictive text completion. Garbage collection wasn’t missed as memory management, it turns out, is not too tricky. (To start with I was dreading running into malloc issues – my only recollection of using C way back when and it isn’t a good memory). As a language it had a weird pulling power over me so that when I ran into a bug or memory leak I would get fed up and leave it for a while only to want to come back a few hours later and solve it.

I found using Interface Builder relatively straightforward and hooking components up to data sources and delegates a breeze. The time consuming parts of the app were writing the API connection classes and parsing the XML responses. I used the excellent ASIHTTPRequest and TBXML classes for these tasks respectively.

Here are some screenshots of the finished app:

So what now? I will maintain the app but I am not too sure whether I want to write any more applications in Objective-C. The reason for this is I don’t think learning a language only used by Apple is a good use of time. I coded The Shed more out of curiosity of Objective-C and wanting to give mobile development a try. I gave The Shed API documentation to a developer working with me at Crayon to use to create an Android app. He is well versed in ActionScript 3 and managed to code an AS3 solution in about a quarter of the time that it took me to build the iOS app. His app can now be repackaged for other devices such as the upcoming Blackberry Playbook with minimal fuss. The build once, deploy to many model is obviously the way forward.

The advantage of using Objective-C and indeed Java for Android is that you can use the provided components and make your app look and feel like a native iOS or Android app. However with Android gaining market share; I imagine it will sail off into the distance in the coming years I can’t see lots of companies wanting to code an app in Objective-C for iPhone, an app in Java for Blackberry and Android and an app in C# for Windows 7 Phone Series. It looks like ActionScript 3 / Adobe Air and indeed HTML5 is going to be the way forward.

Overall I enjoyed learning the basics and getting to grips Objective-C but I have no desire to start Mac / iOS development full time!

Recently I have found myself having to defend Flash – a position I never thought I would find myself in. This is mainly due to Apple fanboys jumping naively on Steve Jobs’s ‘Flash is bad’ bandwagon without thought or reason. I believe Jobs’s animosity towards Flash is nothing more than a personal vendetta, he couldn’t care less about HTML5. If he did and had genuine concerns about open standards he would start getting behind them, like ensuring Safari supported the Ogg Theora (and going forward WebM) video codec.

All my computers and devices are Apple machines so I have nothing against Apple and count myself as one of the company’s fans. However I wont blindly follow Jobs like most Apple fans do; I think his banning of Flash on iOS devices sets a dangerous precedent. His stubbornness is holding his company back from what it could be.

There were various reasons why I switched from Windows to Mac OS X. Vista being terrible and generally having enough of Microsoft being Microsoft were the main ones. It is looking increasingly likely that I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Even at their worst Microsoft never acted in such a bastardised way – they may have charged you a fortune to develop software for their machines but they never stopped you completely in your tracks. Jobs is essentially putting people out of business and attempting to change how we digest online media based on personal preferences.

There is a reason why Flash is used for video on the web – it is the best solution. Try streaming a live broadcast through HTML5 and see how you get on. I hope HTML5 does become the standard for audio and video embedding but Jobs shouldnt be deciding that for us or what software we can install on our phones.

It makes you wonder what he will take a dislike to next and try and ban. His behaviour clearly highlights why he miserably lost in the desktop wars – it remains to be seen if his control freakery will fair better for his company this time around. Luckily Google have stepped up to the plate, otherwise the mobile arena would have been controlled by Jobs and his dogmatic view of the world.