Tag Archives: apple

Tablet screens: Playbook vs Galaxy Tab vs iPad

This is just a bit of technical numbers trivia.
I made these calculations to have a reference for comparing things.

Platform

BlackBerry
Playbook

Samsung
Galaxy Tab
Apple
iPad
Resolution
(pixels)
1024 x 600
1024 x 600
1024 x 768
Diagonal size
(pixels)
1186 diag
1186 diag
1280 diag
Diagonal size
(inches)
7"
7"
9.7"

pixels-per-inch
(dots per inch)

169 ppi/dpi
169 ppi/dpi
132ppi/dpi
App icon width (pixels)
90px
(90 x 90)
72px
(72 x 72)
72px
(72 x 72)
(divided by ppi)
169 ppi
169 ppi
132 ppi
App icon width
(inches)
0.53"
0.43"
0.55"
Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS – Introduction

Other blog sites probably have content about this subject, but I felt a desire to share my two-cents-worth.

Now I’ve begun to learn Google’s Android OS and it’s helping me appreciate Apple’s iOS more.  Another reason, I found a blog with some good info on it yesterday and had an article something like “10 great things for ____”, and the author created a list of 5 things, and finished the list saying “I’ll get more written soon.”  That was 2 years ago.  Nothing was posted on the blog afterward.  Seems like one of those late-1990’s websites that were PERMANENTLY “under construction”.

So, this is the beginning of a number of writings about the two mobile smartphone operating systems, and I’m writing a bunch of this now, but posting it separately.

Topics:

  • Introduction
  • Hardware
  • OS & Software
  • User Interface
  • Apps
  • … more later, possibly!!

 

Introduction

Recently, I chose to put effort, serious and dedicated effort, into learning the Android OS for smart phones.  When doing development, it helps very much to have one of the real physical devices to test and give a sense of “yes it works!” excitement, and the money expense also helps force the progress, since a financial commitment has been made.

So I now own an iPod Touch 2nd generation, iPhone 4, and Acer Liquid E running Android.  These are my mobile development devices, and I am really getting to understand them both more than I could with only the simulators.  Having the iPod touch for two years before the iPhone 4, and having that 2 months before the Android phone, I would think I understand most everything in terms of how it works on iOS, and be irritated when the Android environment is different.  Well, it’s true in most cases, there are a lot of things I prefer about iOS than the Android OS, but the interesting thing is: I realize that I don’t appreciate Apple’s operating system as much without having something different to compare it to.  Thus I am now beginning to understand some philosophy behind the design in iOS, and how it is different to the Android philosophy.

The main difference is the open-versus-closed models; Android being open-source and you can mess around with the OS and recompile it, and install it on the phone, making it do what you want. That’s for the way-out-there developers, but people can install apps anyway in their own home, downloaded from the internet and installed using the Eclipse IDE, if a person is ambitious enough, and patient enough to go through the necessary steps.   The iPhones and iPod Touches can’t have any app downloaded from the internet and installed… they must be downloaded through the device’s App Store app, or through iTunes on the desktop/laptops and synced onto the phone.  Apps are developed in Xcode on  Mac computers, and can only be installed on the device if a person has paid $100 for a yearly subscription to the “iOS Developer Program”.  Then you can download sample apps from the internet, and install them on your device.

Most the other differences are under the hood, which only developers will see or understand.  For example:  Apple expects apps to be singular, and it’s the normal way of apps on a desktop like Microsoft Word or Firefox/Safari/Google Chrome.  You double click an icon for the program,  or a file that is viewed by the program, and the program opens.

With Android, an app can have different bits that are each disconnected from each-other, but are loosely joined together… for example an app that is designed for note taking, allows you to write notes.  But it can also convert notes to PDF files, and you can email those PDF files with the app.  The PDF part is secondary to the note-creation, and yet the app can be made so that any other app can “create a PDF” and this app will be run, but instead of showing the standard note-taking component, ONLY the PDF converter component will be activated.  I haven’t seen this in practical action yet, because I’m only just learning, but this is the way it is according to the introduction on http://developer.android.com.

So those are two examples of philosophy differences, each with a description for Android and iOS.

 

Next, the more useful information begins.

 

Posted in Activities & Adventures, Technology, Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The “freemium” business model.

From Wikipedia’s Freemium page:

Freemium is a business model that works by offering basic Web services, or a basic downloadable digital product, for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features. The word “freemium” is a portmanteau created by combining the two aspects of the business model: “free” and “premium”.

There are hundreds or thousands of games on the Apple AppStore.  The popularity of it is rising according to numerous reports, and probably it is a very profitable model.  I just heard of the term and so looked it up.  It seemed fairly obvious given the context: a review written for an iPhone game, talking about the free nature and how the extra features are paid (something this particular reviewer did not like).

So, now the question of the moment: should this app I am developing follow the freemium model?  I don’t think I can answer that during the time of this blog post writing, but I will give it some writable thought.

A freemium app gives the public something to try-before-you-buy, but the Apple acceptance for new apps to the AppStore requires all apps to provide a “complete” product, even if it is minimal.

Pros:

  • You can get more initial market penetration
  • Possibly take advantage of alternate marketing techniques.
  • “Free-buyers” may be able to customize their experience of the product in the extensions
  • Coming from the previous point, the buyers may find their experience enhanced by a product that can interpret specific combinations of extensions, for example: a car-building game, buying a “racing stripe” paint job and an “air foil” extensions separately may each add individual looks or enhancements to speed, but together they gain a bonus, a synergy from the two.

Cons:

  • The product’s “extras” that are premium may not be accepted as “worth the money”, and a greater majority of people may consume the product’s free version, and then carry on with the next shiny thing that catches their eye.
  • The “extras” require specific development that extend beyond the core “Free” product scope.  More levels, more characters, etc, cost more time and money to create.
  • A buyer may be surprised to find “extras” that he or she, individually, naturally expects as part of the “Free” product, and complain or spread bad reviews complaining about “premiums that ought to be free”
  • An update to the free product that requires the previous purchase of a (very) popular extension should only be publicly released after making the popular extension become part of the core free product.  The Apple AppStore’s in-app purchases feature does not permit game logic upgrades, but does permit static data files like artwork (decals) and 3D models (new cars or whatever) and sound.  No new multi-player features, however there are ways around that…  So, realistically, an update to the free product that requires the previous purchase of an extension should not be an update to the free product, rather it should be a paid extension, perhaps one that absorbs and eliminates the previous popular extension

After this analysis, it seems the benefits are all mostly in favour of the end-user, and to a lesser extent, benefiting the company/developer.  The Cons are all weighing more heavily on the company/developer.  There are no major cons to the end-user except for those people who have personal expectations of extra free things, and the free-release of previously paid for products.

I like the idea of the fremium model, and may chose it but for now, the core game must completed.

Posted in Technology, Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Documentation and 3D game engines

I am progressing slowly but surely. The 3d rendering engine for the iPhone that I am using is called SIO2. I am finding it slow going because the documentation is not what I call good. There are no step by step procedures in the tutorials and the reference doc materials are very raw, with no clean summaries,except those on the front page of the website that describe, in point form, the most general capabilities. Those capabilities are great,but after putting in the time to download the engine and try out the tutorials, I am coming to a question: is a pre-existing system better than developing a system in-house, if the existing system is so time consuming that the learning curve is almost as long as the development process?

Here I am frustrated with the lack of good quality and complete learning materials, but the existence of the system is still better than developing my own system. That is because in the time it would still take to devlelop my own thing, the existing thing may (or may not) improve, and in other cases I may find some help that I had not found at first. So the learning of an existing system is better.

This experience is going into the heaping pile of experiences of bad documentation for products I have seen. There is a wiki, and I might start contributing to it.

Going forward in the future, the skill to produce good documentation may become a very valuable transferable skill in the workplace. It seems very boring in some product contexts, ie. Vacuum cleaner manuals, software application manuals, inflatable air matress instruction sheets. Yet this world needs a better, universal, written method of learning that appeals to the reader. Something like google’s API doumentation, and apple’s iPhone and iPad documentation.

Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

iPhone & iPod Touch apps

Last night I succeeded in enrolling in the iPhone Developer Program.

This permits two major activities:

  1. Installing in-development projects onto a real iPhone/iTouch (compared to only running projects in the iPhone simulator on the macbook)
  2. Submitting developed projects to the Apple’s AppStore.

Soon a few ideas I have will be submitted, but first they need to be designed on paper.

There are some free resources for creating the visual design of an app on the iPhone/iTouch.  Stencils exist for most, if not all major image editor programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and Omnigraffle. Also I found some graph paper of all things, but with the iphone body printed overtop, and when printed off it’s at 1:1 scale, and it’s just great stuff.  So this needs to be my focus next.

Boat, screenshot from ipod touch

Right now I am still burning through the Blender wiki, learning the 3D modelling program as fast as I can, so I can get a better ship modelled.  Earlier this week, I created a 9 polygon little boat.  two sails, a rudder, a deck, a stern, and a 4 polygon hull.  Wooohooo

The tutorials teach how to build a person, and a mountain range, and then a lot more crazy things.

The objective is creating a couple of 3D content files that I can load into a 3D game engine which I’ve downloaded called SIO2 and use it to build a demonstration first, then a full app after.

Later, I may make a tank game and call it TomTank.  Revisit the dumb but funny days of QBasic in highschool.

Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment