It seems that everyone is talking app stores these days.  Apple started the trend and is doing a very good job selling applications through their App Store.  It probably helps that users cannot install applications in any other way unless they risk jailbreaking their precious iPhones.

Microsoft recently announced their own Marketplace that will be included with every device running Windows Mobile 6.5 on.  Of course developers will probably still be able to distribute their applications through other means, whether that be sites like Handango and MobiHand or through their own means.  You would think that would mean that Microsoft would make it easy for developers to get their applications into the Marketplace, right?

Well…it is Microsoft after all…

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Einstein said that once, pretty smart guy. I remember days in school where memorization was the method to learning. The teacher says something, the student repeats, and the test questions were all the same memorization tasks required during class. At this point in our culture have we gotten to a point where human long term memory is no longer necessary?

It used to be that tribal history and methods for hunting food were passed down through oral traditions. Anymore I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast, let alone the history of my country. In only a few moments I can open a web browser and find the answer to almost any of life’s questions. Directions on how to live better, how to ride a bike, even a do it yourselfers guide to making a biodiesel engine.

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I have used lots of different devices over the years.  One day I may actually try to list them out, but even then I am bound to miss a few.  I have used devices from Palm, HP, Compaq, RIM, Apple, HTC, Motorola, and Saumsung in just about every form factor available.

The main lesson I have learned from all of these devices is that I like buttons.  I like buttons that can be remapped.  I like the buttons even more if they can be mapped with both a press and hold action.  I like devices that have a physical keyboard (lots of buttons) that allow you to launch programs from the keyboard.

On my Treo Pro, I have the button on the left setup so that when I press it, it emulates Alt-Tab so that I can easily swap between applications that are running at the time.  This one button saves me countless other button presses or touches on the screen and saves a lot of time.

I really really like buttons.  Now, time to find the buttons on the coffee pot.

The experience of searching for and finding the SDK, and a beginners guide couldn’t be easier.  A google search provided immediate results for the 6.1 SDK refresh, and a search of a well known community (MSDN) provided plenty of information to get started writing apps using the .net development platform.  Microsoft Windows is still one of the most widely used operating systems, making it an easily accessible native platform.

WineHQ has a write-up on installing Visual Studio .NET 2005 Express natively in Linux, but is mostly rated as garbage.  I suggest using the same technique here as installing the Apple SDK – grab a copy of windows and install it in a VM session.  Running a Mac you could easily run this using Parallels or VMware Fusion.

If you are an Apple fanboy, you would probably say no.  If you are a Windows Mobile or Symbian fanboy, you would probably say yes.  My guess is if you are a developer, that answer is a lot harder to answer.

Since Apple released iPhone 2.0 and allowed native applications, the developers have jumped on board to develop 30,500 iPhone apps.  This is a huge win for Apple because developers can have a huge impact on a platform.  Of course…so far Apple has a total of 2 iPhone models and 2 iPod Touch models that all use the same screen resolution and features with pretty much the same hardware.  This means that iPhone developers have an advantage over most other smartphone platforms.

And what about a truly diverse platform?

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Last weekend I went out to watch some March Madness and drink a few beers.  One of the people that was supposed to show up with her boyfriend was running late.  Other people were getting worried, and to make a long story shorter, it ended up being because she doesn’t text and drive.  I had to say I admire her for being one of the few people who takes into consideration safety while driving.  A conversation took place later talking about how voice recognition software had been around since the 90’s with Dragon Natural Speaking, and how great it would be to have a program that would do voice recognition text messaging.

A quick search for voice recognition and SMS provided some results, but the most words per minute I found was 20.  I admit, most text messages I send are less than 20 words, but wow does that seem like a low number?  Anyways back to the morning joe.

I know we’ve talked a lot about the iPhone this opening week.  There’s been a lot of excitement over the 3.0 updating coming soon to a phone near you.  Windows Mobile fans out there have a reason to celebrate too.  If version 7 of the mobile OS is shaping up anything like the desktop OS or the server 2008 OS, Microsoft has a bright future.  Some screenshots of the new UI have been posted on several sites, and it looks like Microsoft has taken a page from Apple’s book.  Regardless of the assimilation, lets face it, Microsoft still runs a majority of business services out there from Exchange to Sharepoint, and as a business phone with the direct integration into these services, that gives M$ the advantage in that arena.

30,500 iPhone apps

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Ok, so after hearing all of the new stuff in iPhone 3.0, I had to test it out.  I joined the iPhone dev program (which I was planning on doing this month anyway) and downloaded and installed the iPhone 3.0 beta to my iPhone.  I played with some of the new features and then loaded up all of my programs.  I then attempted to setup my work Exchange account.  I say attempted, because it never worked.  It would never get me to the step to input my actual server address.  Then I started trying to use some of my clutch programs only to notice extreme lag and some quirky issues.  Using the Facebook application, it would load all of the text and menus, but would not load the pictures for any of my friends.  Tweetie would sometimes not load all of the avatars.  Evernote just seemed to drag.  None of these are issues with the programs or the developers…it is a beta OS.  This stuff is to be expected which is why there are warnings all over the place when you download the 3.0 beta that you will not be able to downgrade back.

Of course, that is not true.  Leave it up to the wonderful mobile community to figure out that you can downgrade back to the 2.2.1 firmware, but the baseband would stay the same on the iPhone 3G.  Not a big deal.  You get an error in iTunes after the restore, but QuickPwn will get you out of that issue.  I followed the steps over at Gizmodo, but I was still having issues.  I have not had my iPhone jailbroken for a long time and I really have no desire to do it now, but if that was the only way to go back to 2.2.1, then I can accept it.

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I enjoy listening to the NPR station in my area on the way in to the 8-5 in the morning, and this morning they had a piece that particularly interested me.  Some mad scientists over at UCLA had hacked together a Sony Ericsson to run blood tests out in remote  third world areas.

The results of the blood sample get compared against a database to determine if the patient is infected.  This thing isn’t even a smart phone!  Obama wants to bring medical costs down; Invest in technologies like this.  You will see people flocking from misdiagnosing themselves with WebMD to getting highly accurate test results.

After listening to this broadcast, I couldn’t help thinking of any running sci-fi series where they had a handheld device to automatically scan the sick or hurt individual on the fly.  Is this the beginning of that kind of technology?  As medical research pushes the envelope of this technology, there is going to be a whole host of new applications to write and the possibilities are limitless.