Pundits of all types have been predicting the end of the iPad’s dominance since it was launched in April of 2010. Fortunately for Apple, and Apple investors, the enemy hasn’t been able to muster a proper offensive yet. Will Amazon’s Kindle Tablet finally end the iPad’s dominance over the burgeoning tablet computing market?
The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) SDK provides a set of core Java APIs and Widgets - speeding the development of powerful AJAX applications in Java that can then be compiled to highly optimized JavaScript that runs across all browsers, including mobile browsers for Android and iOS.
However, when working with GWT, you quickly find that the toolkit’s implementation of the Java API’s are incomplete, and that using types that Google hasn’t provided as translatable will result in a GWT compiler error.
We wanted to be able to use the java.net.URI and java.util.UUID classes in our client-side code, neither of which are supported by GWT. This tutorial describes a method for implementing client-side versions of JDK classes that GWT doesn’t support. Fortunately, GWT provides support for overriding one package implementation with another.
Last year we had the privilege to partner with one of the oldest and most respected names in the information industry: Encyclopedia Britannica. Founded in 1768, Britannica has amassed an amazingly diverse array of media over the years, all well-curated by a team of great minds.
Britannica approached us to design a mobile strategy that would take advantage of their content without sacrificing the editorial quality for which they are known. Together, we envisioned a series of small, easy to follow educational apps focused on specific areas of interest to the K-6 market - areas where we could inspire that spark of fascination that makes learning fun. We settled on the iPhone/iPad as an intuitive learning tool that would enable us to make the learning experience deeply engaging.
Here it is! Our (belated) post about this year’s WWDC adventure. It was a high profile event and Apple did not disappoint.
We hear from various sources that the FTC may be preparing a challenge to Google’s acquisition of AdMob. Like many in the industry, we believe this would be a serious mistake. There are much better places for the agency to focus its attention.
As an independent development shop with apps on several platforms, we’ve been tapped by the FTC to provide expert witness testimony on the matter. We’ve spent several weeks giving testimony, helping the FTC understand mobile technology and the mobile advertising space as a whole. It is apparent to us from these discussions that the FTC is not in a good position to understand - let alone regulate - the mobile ad market.
It sounds like science fiction - but as mobile devices make more and more computing power available on the go, cyberspace and physical space are beginning to intersect in some very interesting ways. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the trend toward Augmented Reality. AR aims to make the entire world digitally interactive - and this opens up some fascinating possibilities.
With the Internet-crushing hoopla surrounding the release of Apple’s widely anticipated iPad, not much attention has been paid to the exciting additions Apple has made to the iPhone OS to support it. Here we’ll explore some of these changes and discuss what they mean to publishers and application developers alike.
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When we were approached by the Oregon Research Institute to build a classroom survey for the State of Oregon using portable devices, we immediately thought of the iPhone. The slick interface and ease of use seemed like a natural way to encourage kids to interact with the device and get them to complete the surveys. The per unit cost for the iPhone was a bit too high - so we settled on the iPod Touch instead. The devices are functionally similar and both run Apple’s iPhone OS.
The notion of the iPod as a classroom tool is rapidly gaining traction. Unsurprisingly, Apple encourages educators to make use of their technology - and a number of prominent educators are actively discussing the pros and cons of classroom use. A recent issue of the “ezine” iLearn addressed many of these issues in some detail.
Recently I attended the “Changing the Odds” conference put on by the Harlem Children’s Zone and PolicyLink.org. The HCZ has a storied history of helping youth with evidence-based harm reduction techniques. It has seen such success that it is currently being used as a model by the Obama Administration.
I was invited as a member of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium where I hold Concentric Sky’s seat on the steering board. The PNRC is an NIH funded consortium with a mandate to extend the mission of the HCZ to communities around the US. Concentric Sky is the PNRC’s primary technology partner.
Our friends at Google contacted us last week to invite us into the AdSense for Mobile beta program. AdSense is one of those subtle technologies from which Google derives most of its revenue. I’ve always been curious about its inner workings, so I signed us up right away.
After some discussion, we settled on Astronomy Picture of the Day for iPhone as the best candidate for the program. Google is looking for high traffic applications from which it can derive usage metrics before going live with the new system. APOD for iPhone generates millions of screen views from around the world, with the majority coming from North America.
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