CityBlogz Design Studio / Blog

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.

According to the Netbiscuits blog…

The main advantages of client based mobile Web applications are that they provide very good possibilities for graphic design of user interfaces and keep content available even offline. Furthermore, they often show faster reaction times and are sometimes easier to link to other telephone functions such as directories, camera, etc. The main disadvantage of every client-based solution is that they initially need to be downloaded by the user and installed on the mobile – a practice that will need to be repeated for every new release. Many users are prevented from taking this step due to technical problems, security issues and a lack of clarity concerning costs involved. Furthermore clients are always dependent on the mobile phone operating system and must often undergo costly adjustments for each individual terminal.

Mobile sites, on the other hand, do not require any installation. They are immediately available over the browser and the sites’ content and software are continuously updated unobtrusively to the mobile user. Mobile sites also provide a greater scope of outreach than clients do, as nowadays practically all mobile phones have a browser. Adjusting mobile sites and rich media content to various mobile terminals can be made 100 percent automatic. This means a massive reduction in development and testing expenses. User interface design is also no longer an obstacle. Modern mobile phone browsers enable use of AJAX and Flash, thus creating a user experience similar to that of PC Web. If a company is looking for a larger audience reach with as little hassle as possible, the mobile site is the clear winner.

I totally agree. The one thing that I advocate is to have some kind of markup language that allows the browser to have access to native device functions such as the PIM, camera, etc.

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.

Still no copy and paste for iPhone 2.0. Apple has admittedly said that copy and paste is in the works, but it is not a big priority.  Time to take matters into my own hands by creating a “iCopy uPaste” web service for the iPhone.  I figure it would be a nice side project for me to learn more about iPhone web development and get some exposure in creating a REST-based web service.

The premise is simple.  I want a way for anyone using an iPhone to open a bookmarklet on any Safari web page that activates a hidden dialog menu.  They can select any text from the web page and copy the text to a “Copy and Paste” web service up in the “cloud”.  The user can paste the text on another page’s form input field or somewhere else on the same page.  I can already think of several hurdles such as cross-domain JavaScript, server-related security issues, and iPhone limitations on JavaScript events.  I plan on sharing every morsel of information that I find on my journey and I invite anyone to help.  I will start putting up the code in some form of source control (more on that later).  By the time I’m done, perhaps Apple will already have implemented a nice solution to this problem.

The wonderful part of this idea is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to iPhones.  Creating it as a web service and opening up an API allows any platform that can consume web services to have access to a “cloud-based” Copy and Paste.  Therefore, I can envision native iPhone apps to simply create the following options: “Copy to iCopyuPaste” and “Paste from iCopyuPaste“.  They can hook those events to consume the “iCopyuPaste” web service.  Of course, the down side is that it won’t work if you aren’t immediately connected to the 3G or Edge or Wi-Fi network, but that’s the trade off for copy and paste.  Another use case scenario could be for someone who needs to copy some text from one computer’s browser over to another computer’s browser.  If they needed that text to be pasted into a native app via the system’s clipboard, someone could conceivable use Adobe AIR to create a widget that consumes the “iCopyuPaste” web service and store that text onto the system clipboard, ready to be pasted on any application on the desktop. Thoughts?

Just take a read at this NYT article entitled “New iPhone Pricing Model Is a Step Backward for Consumers” and it explains exactly why I am not going to be in the market for the new iPhone 2.0.  Apparently, Apple and AT&T have closed off the biggest loophole that existed that enabled iPhone 1.0 users to ability to jailbreak their iPhones and do with them as they pleased. What exactly was that loophole? They won’t let you walk out of the stores with the new iPhone 2.0 without signing up for the new 2 YR contract!  That’s right.  Loophole closed.

What does iPhone 2.0 offer that warrants an upgrade?  GPS, 3G, and slightly larger storage.  That simply is NOT enough to warrant the extra $30 / month I’d have to shell out to get the new iPhone 2.0.  I currently pay $55 incl. taxes and fees for my iPhone 1.0 plan, and I thought that was pretty hefty to begin with.  This new plan simply is highway robbery!  Apple and AT&T, no thanks, but I’m sticking with iPhone 1.0.

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.