Appdots » Platforms

Palm OS On WebOS – Take 2

brett — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:00:40 +0000

Justin joked about the Palm OS being the ultimate undying mobile OS. In many ways this is true. For a while now, a company called StyleTap has created a Palm OS emulator that runs on Windows Mobile or Symbian. I was actually very surprised at Palm’s announcement that it was a company other than StyleTap that would be developing the Classic app for WebOS. At the same time, I am glad. I have never had much luck with applications that use large database files on StyleTap. But, this means that now Palm OS applications can be run on Symbian, Windows Mobile (Pro, Classic, and Standard), and now WebOS. That sure is a lot of market availability for a dying OS!

I really think that an application like this is going to be a huge hit (if it is implemented properly), especially since Palm has said that they plan on making tools that will transfer data over from a Palm OS device to the Pre running Classic. There are a ton of medical databases that were made for the Palm OS that are still being supported. This will allow these programs to be available to use on the Pre as soon as it is released.

Is this a long term solution? Of course not. But it will make a lot of users very happy that they can use some of the Palm apps that they have been using for years (and years and years and years…) until their favorite developers start making native applications for WebOS.

And honestly, one of the most played games on my Nintendo Wii is Mario Kart 64. Some things just never get old.

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Good News for the Lonely

justin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:00:21 +0000

It’s been a rusty nail hanging on the coffin of the Palm brand. Ever since they moved to Windows Mobile for their devices, people programming for the zombie PALM OS are in luck. It’s been announced that all the legacy code will work on WebOS. Now the only missing link in the Palm plan would be compatibility with Windows Mobile code . . .

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Microsoft Becomes Slightly More Developer-Friendly

brett — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:00:54 +0000

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…

The basic info that Microsoft announced was that it would be $99 for the first 5 applications a developer puts in the Marketplace, and then $99 for each additional application. Last week, istartedsomething reported that Microsoft was going to consider application updates (bug fixes, point releases, fixing spelling mistakes, etc.) as an application. Basically, if a user paid $99 and released 1 application, but had to do 4 revisions, that would max out their 5 application credits and then they would have to start paying $99 for each additional update to the application. The blog and developer community went crazy upon hearing this news.

Since the initial post, istartedsomething reports that first Microsoft changed it so that any application updates within 7 days of the initial release would be free. Nice try, but seriously even if a user submits a bug to a developer…is that developer always going to have that bug fixed, tested, and resubmitted in 7 days? Not bloody likely.

Finally, Microsoft did the right thing and dropped the 7-day limit and now allows free updates for certified applications.

From the source:

Q: Do I need to pay the $99 fee again to submit an application update?

A: No, if your application has been previously certified and published in the catalog, you can submit subsequent updates without incurring any additional fees. The application update will be made available through Windows Marketplace to all customers that have downloaded your application in the past.

Q: I previously heard that you only had 7 days to submit a free update. Has this changed?

A: Yes, we originally communicated that only application updates submitted within 7 days of their publish date would benefit from a free submission. After talking to the developer community and better understanding the dynamics and frequency of application updates, we have decided to extend the original 7-day window and make it permanent. This means that if an application has been previously approved in the marketplace the developer can submit updates to it without incurring any additional fees.

Well it took some pushing, but they finally did the right thing. It is good to see them making this change and hopefully keeping Windows Mobile an attractive platform for all developers. I am also a fan of their 5 application limit, free or not. Users can install Windows Mobile programs without the Marketplace, so free apps can take that route and should make way for the quality applications to make their way into the Marketplace.

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Getting Started with Windows Mobile

justin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:00:05 +0000

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.

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Is Mobile Diversity A Good Thing?

brett — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:00:16 +0000

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?

Some Windows Mobile developers have to go just a little bit crazy because Windows Mobile is all about diversity. You can tell this just because Microsoft can’t even decide on what to call their devices:

Windows Phone – Microsoft recently announced that going forward, their new devices will just be called Windows Phones
Windows Mobile Professional – touchscreen devices that can be used as a cell phone
Windows Mobile Standard – non-touchscreen devices that can be used as a cell phone
Windows Mobile Classic – Anyone remember before these things could be cell phones? These are your normal touchscreen PDAs without the cell phone option.
Pocket PC – the same as Windows Mobile Classic before the name change
Smartphone – the same as Windows Mobile Standard before the name change

Which platform do you think would be easier to develop for? As a developer, how much would this factor into trying to decide which platform you wanted to start developing applications on?

Most of the time, diversity is great for the customers because they get to choose a device that works best for them. The problem comes in when a user buys a different device on the same technical platform with a different form factor and realizes that sometimes the software they had either no longer works or does not work the same.

On platforms like Windows Mobile, Symbian, and recently Blackberry, developers have to make a decision about whether or not they want to support all of the different versions and form factors. These are all things new developers need to keep in mind when they are starting out in the mobile development game.

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And now for something completely different.

justin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:55:30 +0000

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.

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Break it down!

justin — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:00:46 +0000

30,500 iPhone apps

Games	6144
Entertainment	4226
Books	3183
Utilities	2552
Education	2118
Lifestyle	1681
Travel	1379
Reference	1284
Productivity	1126
Sports	1078
Music	943
Healthcare & Fitness	806
Navigation	803
Business	676
Photography	585
Finance	580
Social Networking	479
News	409
Medical	307
Weather	141

At an average cost of $2.69 per app, and only about a quarter of the apps being free (including the advertisement driven), some people out there are making some money. The iPhone AppStore has really opened up the market for programming for mobile phones. Every smartphone platform is getting their own version of the appstore, this is the gold rush of the digital age. Grab your toolkits and SDK’s and lets get diggin!

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iPhone 3.0 Downgrade Success Without Jailbreaking – The Missing Step

brett — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:00:46 +0000

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.

But…it isn’t. Thanks to Jesse Miga’s comments on the Gizmodo article, I was able to get my iPhone back on 2.2.1 and activated without jailbreaking:

I have a correction for the last part of the tutorial using Windows. When you use QuickPwn the first time after getting the 1013 error, do not do a complete jailbreak or you will end up without an activation. Just go through the steps that come up in after loading quickpwn (Hold down power/home for 15 seconds, wait to reboot). Then you can set it up in iTunes as a new phone, then jailbreak. You’ll have to go through all those steps every time you restore.

The missing step was to close out of QuickPwn once your iPhone reboots and shows the graphic to plug it into iTunes. At this point you can fire up iTunes and it will activate your iPhone like nothing ever happened. If you have a restore for 2.2.1, you can restore your iPhone, like nothing ever happened. Nothing to see here…move along!

Thanks to Jesse Miga for this nugget of information. After reading the guides on countless sites, this is the piece of information that helped me get back to my nice locked down non-beta iPhone 3G.

UPDATE: I did this on my Windows XP computer because I do not have a Mac. The Mac instructions may be different, so YMMV.

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VMWare. Never Leave Home Without it.

justin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:00:44 +0000

Victory at long last. Long ago I left the Apple IIGS for Windows 95 and hadn’t looked back since. This handy little guide brought me home. I named my VM Sex Panther, because 60 percent of the time, it works every time. That’s about the success rate I’ve had with these hacked together distros for Leopard.

In addition to VMWare’s 6.5 Workstation offering a fantastic test environment, the best ISO out there I’ve found to date is the iDeneb. The customization options are commented so that even the average person can make sense of what they’re clicking. Success rates may vary, but I now have my development environment set up. If you plan on undertaking a similar project, I highly suggest either paying to become an apple developer for $500, buying a license for Leopard (even though this is against the EULA), or taking the easy way out and spending the $600 on a Mac mini. Next on the docket is a review of the training videos/materials available through apple.

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I’m PC, and I can program for the iPhone . . . Sort of

justin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:00:09 +0000

After some further research my journey has led me back to windows or linux. I have a PC, and I should stick with what it runs best right?

There are a few options out there for people that want to utilize a PC to develop for the iPhone, but I can almost guarantee that none of the apps developed using these tools will see the light of day in the Apple Appstore. Regardless this might be a good starting point for learning.

I’m starting to see VMware as my savior as much as I’ve been trying to avoid virtualization. More on that in a later.

This tutorial by PJ Cabrera misses out on a lot of the features that the Apple SDK provides, but it’s a working solution for Windows and Linux developers. I’m already feeling a bit more in my element. This was released last summer, but unfortunately this was not a major interest of mine at the time. The basic premise of this method is using the Eclipse C Development Toolkit, an open source project, to release applications for jail broken phones. Not an ideal solution, but again, it could be a good launch point to start learning the process of writing code in C.

Another option I ran across in my quest is called winChain. At first glance it looks like the bees knees for installing the environment and getting coding, but after reading the comments below the guide it seems far from simple. Another cause for concern is the last update date – December 7th 2007. The iPhone OS has evolved significantly since the last update of this tool, so it gives me cause for hesitation. I think I’ll try the final route I want to look at – I’d like to develop the way Apple intends people to develop rather than hacking together something similar.

Back to the doldrums of the osx86 project. This is basically the same as my Hackint0shing article minus the commitment of altering my native partitioning/OS.

To be continued . . . VMWare and BEYOND!

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