CityBlogz Design Studio / Blog

Here are some tips for modifying your existing website so that the user gets a different experience when browsing on the iPad.

• Test your website in Safari on iPad using the iPhone Simulator (Hardware -> Device -> iPad). iPad is available in the iPhone Simulator in iPhone OS 3.2 SDK.

• Test your website on iPad, and update user agent detection code if necessary. iPad user agent string is:
  

  Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10

• Simulating Safari on iPad HTTP requests in Safari on the desktop.  First, enable the checkbox next to “Show Develop menu in menu bar” in Safari’s Advanced Preference pane. Next, select Develop -> User Agent -> Other from the Safari menu. You will be prompted to enter a user agent string. Copy the Safari on iPad user agent string above, then paste in it into the dialog box that appears. Note: You can try this trick with websites like Gmail and YouTube to view how they display a different version of their website for iPad Safari.

• Using a constant for viewport width.
  

  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />

• Prepare for a touch interface. Don’t use a:hover pseudo class or mouseover events.
• Orientation media queries to automatically select the proper stylesheet based on whether the user is in landscape or portrait.
  

  <link rel=”stylesheet” media=”all and (orientation:portrait)” href=”portrait.css”>
  <link rel=”stylesheet” media=”all and (orientation:landscape)” href=”landscape.css”>

Pastebud — Looks like this new iPhone web app called Pastebud is out that does exactly what I had envisioned for the iCopyuPaste web service of mine.  Unfortunately for me and the rest of you out there, I’ve been swamped with too many other commitments to get mine out there first.  Therefore, I’ve decided to simply offer my help to the developers of Pastebud, and see if they’ll let me help out with this project.  The only thing that iCopyuPaste would have an advantage over on Pastebud is the fact that I didn’t plan on charging anyone for this service. Pastebud costs $5 to use once it officially releases. Also, I plan on giving iCopyuPaste an open-source license so that anyone that wants to see how it works can. I’ve got a lot of work to do to get my code published. Stay tuned.

News about Pastebud:

• Copy and Paste Comes to iPhone – Wired News
  
• iPhone Copy and Paste Now Working Between Safari and Mail – Gizmodo

This is wonderful news. According to the Apple Developer Connection website, 

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

What does this mean to you?  This means that developers can now share to the world any technical articles or tutorials related to developing iPhone apps or web apps.  Now, I can finally proceed with publishing my iCopyUPaste technical article.

Head on over to CityBlogz Labs section of the website, to check out the latest code iteration of a user interaction model demo that I’m prototyping.  It is a little bit rough around the edges, but it showcases a little bit of how I envision the Copy and Paste to work on the iPhone Safari client.  I will be describing some of the code in detail over the next couple weeks, so stay tuned.

Lately, I have found that I rarely have a need to use desktop software for any of my computing needs. These are the online-based services that I have found to be indispensable in my everyday life to organize, communicate, and stay informed.

• Google Gmail – I can access my mail from home, work, Wi-Fi hotspot, my iPhone.
• Google Calendar – Anything that relates to time/date/place/to-dos, it goes in my Google Calendar.  I can access this from practically anywhere.
• Google Reader – This is my online RSS Newsreader. With Google Gears offline support, I can catchup with all the latest news feeds even when I am on a plane.
• Del.icio.us Bookmarks – I find that I have not bookmarked a page in IE or Firefox in ages! Instead, all my bookmarks are on this handy service.
• MP3tunes – All my iTunes music safely stored and synced online with MP3tunes.com.  I can stream my music from the Internet.  This service doesn’t store and sync my iTunes videos and movies, so I use other means to backup and sync these files.
• .Mac – I use the iDisk service to keep any storage of files and folders that I need to access from anywhere.  The one other feature that I do like is the Photo sharing capabilities.
• SlingBox – Ok, its not really an online service, but its how I watch TV now.  Place-shifting means I can watch TV shows streamed online from any single Slingbox location.  Place one SlingBox hardware in your parent’s home in Canada and you can catch international TV right on your computer.  Quality is not the greatest, as it depends a lot on the upload speeds of the SlingBox locations you are getting the streams from.
• Google Docs – This service can almost replace your traditional Microsoft Office apps. Unfortunately, it is not as speedy as having a desktop app.  Speed and offline portability are the biggest factors in me not completely switching over to using online-based office apps.
• Google Alerts – This is how I read the latest news. I give search terms that I find most interesting, and everyday they will send me the top links to news stories and blog entries that match my keywords.
• Kayak – I give it my top flight destinations and the maximum price I am willing to pay, and I get a daily report of any matching deals.
• Twitter – This service is basically a mashup of fan site / blog / and alerting service. You can alert all your followers via SMS text, IM, and email with “what you are doing now”. I am still a little weary of letting everyone know what I am doing now, but I can see how it can be used to alert a large number of people at once, with whatever information you wish to share. This is most useful for people with a mobile lifestyle, who may not get a chance to post their thoughts to a blog.

Here’s part of the announcement that Steve Jobs forgot to mention…

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