Reboot

 

New blog

I am moving my blogging over to blogger. I hate not having a draft feature with posterous because I think of a blog idea and have no place to gather my thoughts. Here is the link:

 

http://exabot.blogspot.com

Posted November 27, 2009
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Mobile web apps redux

In a series of tweets (see links below, in order), Raven Zachary, a leading iPhone developer, has brought to light a few points I missed with my rambling on mobile web apps:



Posted November 15, 2009
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Prescient

Almost 4 1/2 years ago Stephenson noted what many are now citing as a major reason for current economic malaise:

"Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/opinion/17stephenson.html

 

Note: I am referring to the implication that we are only buying what others make and selling nothing of our own.

Posted November 15, 2009
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Leverage in the mobile market

This is a good post about the current leverage enjoyed by entrepreneurs in the web application/services arena: http://startupboy.com/2009/11/09/the-returns-to-entrepreneurship/

Being as my day job, at http://phodder.com is (mostly) focused on mobile apps, I of course thought about what sort of leverage we enjoy (or don't enjoy) in this market.

Currently the Mobile apps space is in the Age of Operating systems. Much like the computer industry in the early 80's there is a huge land grab to figure out which platform is going to dominate. The difference from the 80's is much of the web tools are available through the newer mobile browsers (overwhelmingly WebKit based). That leaves a mobile developer with two options when developing an app: super quick and easy with mobile web tools or more complex/longer dev time with native development kits.

Apparently the market, namely the iTunes AppStore, agrees that the native tools are the way to go. The market is purposefully sacrificing some of the advanced leverage of the web universe for the ability to write native tools for the mobile market. As a developer I understand the technical reasons for the use of native tools, but I would like to know what the business case is? (e.g. I find myself more often than not wanting to do the implementation of a mobile app with the native platform tools because they generally provide a more natural way of interfacing with the system).

The more I think about it the more it seem the market is backwards on it's current positioning of native over web on mobile platforms. HTML 5 provides access to the hardware for storage and location. I am sure they can fit a camera in the HTML 5 spec some where too. This said, there are 4 distinct advantages for native that I can think of: Games, VOIP, accessing external accessories, and the ability to sell discreet units of software.

The other interesting thing to note, is about 80% of all mobile apps I have written for customers required a web service backing it to distribute data between devices. Essentially, we are writing 50% or more of the web app that would need to be developed for an all web solution anyway.

Anyone want to explain to me why more mobile apps are not web based?

Posted November 9, 2009
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2 days, 1 bug

I spent two days fighting a really dumb bug. Apparently I was autoreleasing an object and manually releasing it (Objective C if the terminology did not tip you off). Anyhow, I tweeted the problem and another local Houston iPhone dev pointed me to this. That should really help in tracking down double free and other memory management bugs.

Posted October 23, 2009
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Hulu Fail Wall

Hulu is heading for disaster. According to the LA Times they will be instituting a pay wall in the near future. The problem is that they have already taught their users (like me) that their service is "free". "Free" in their definition is content with paid commercials, which is obviously not free as I have to waste my time watching said commercials to view their content. With the coming pay wall I imagine very few users will register as this nation has been taught for the last 60 years that TV should be "free", as it was defined above. Only high quality content, like the excellent programming HBO and Showtime sometimes put out, is something Americans are accustomed to paying for. Hulu, you were a great fling, but I think you are past your prime now if this is the direction you are taking.

Update: Hulu's CEO says it isn't so: http://www.theweek.com/article/index/102055/Paying_for_Hulu

Posted October 23, 2009
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