Magic from Apple

Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and other famous people from Apple often call their products ‘magic’ and in some respects they are right. In many cases Apple is ahead of the market for years, it manages to create really incredible devices that change the world — isn’t it magic?

Do you need examples? Here you are. Let’s remember iPad — What’s this? What for? Who needs this ‘iPod on steroids’? And it turned out we need it! Step by step this strange toy is being transformed into an extremely convenient and user friendly tool for professionals and can be a gaming console, an internet tablet, an e-book and many other things as well.  The fantasy of iPad app developers is not limited and it means that iPads opportunities also. Isn’t it magic?

Or let’s take, for example, iPhone. Look at the market of smartphones today: Android, webOS, Windows Phone, many various sensor devices, Nokia smartphones based on Microsoft OS — they are the result of releasing the first Apple phone in 2007. Without it today the market of would be completely different. Isn’t it magic?

Last year Apple presented MacBook Air of the second generation and this year Intel has introduced the concept of ultrabooks which are Windows analogues of that very ‘air’ macbook. Plagiarism? Piracy? No, that’s the natural development of the market when consumers win and the Apple magic was the impulse for this development.

Thus, every software development company tries to conquer this magic and design and develop something new, exciting and magical.

Electronic mobile wallets: from myth to reality

The idea to transform mobile devices into electronic personal wallets is being actively put into practice. Mobile app development companies take advantage of NFC capabilities to give mobile users the chance to use their gadgets as a payment means. The NFC technology has already been used in Japan, South Korea and Malaysia to carry out money transactions, while it is only on its way to be widely adopted by the USA, the UK and other European countries.
The coming upgrades of Apple’s products iPhone5 and iPad2 will support the NFC technology, while Android-powered Nexus S devices already come bundled with NFC capabilities. The ever growing popularity of iPhones, iPads and Androids provides a foundation to promote and introduce mobile wallet technology into everyday use. Though, at the moment for this technology to become ubiquitous retailers should be willing to install hardware that will scan mobile wallets and carry out money transactions.
The UK mobile carrier Orange is about to introduce a new service, allowing its customers to use their mobiles as wallets. Mobile wallets will save many people from extra headache connected with carrying cash and credit cards – people will get everything in their handhelds.
If mobile money payment system will catch on it will outline for software development companies a new trend in mobile app development services.

Android will be launched into space

Engineers from SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford have embarked on rather an uncommon, thus even more compelling project – to launch a mobile device to the orbit. Modern mobile gadgets have become very powerful and multitasking devices, therefore, British scientists have set a goal to challenge the capabilities of smartphones and check the efficiency of their work and their performance in a hostile environment.
The mobile phone, which is supposed to set off for space trip, will be powered by Android OS and will be mounted on a satellite, which is 30 cm in length. The overall aim of STRaND-1 mobile space project is to find more economical and resource-efficient ways to control complex spacecrafts and satellites.
Android-powered mobile device will partially control the satellite as well as take photos of our planet. In order to protect the “mobile astronaut” from disruptive impact of the environment it will be embraced by the satellite case.
It is not the first similar venture, undertaken by Google. Before the company showcased the capabilities of Nexus S devices powered by Android OS, which were flying high on balloons.
Who knows… Maybe this bold space project will usher software development companies into the new era of professional mobile app development for space industry.

First days of New Year with iPhone alarm glitch

Many iPhone users complained that their alarms hadn’t gone off on the first days of New Year. People all over the world faced New Year with a malfunction of their iPhone devices, which entailed disruptions in working schedules and holiday plans.
This bug was reported to have affected iPhone4 and earlier versions of Apple’s handsets with software updates and caused a glitch only for single set alarms. Apple administration admits the existence of software errors and advises to set recurring alarms to avoid iPhone malfunctioning until this software bug is absolutely tackled by Apple’s developers.
The iPhone owners express their outrage in various social networks and blogs complaining that they had to bear excessive expenses for travel fares or were late for work because they had failed to wake up on time. The users are even more irritated as it was not the first time that a similar glitch took place. In November when clocks changed in order to switch to a daylight saving mode, many iPhone users were affected by the same malfunction in the gadget’s alarm and overslept their planned raising hour, which caused lots of inconvenience.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said that the company was working on tackling the problem and promised that it would be fixed by 3rd January, though some users still claim that their iPhone alarm doesn’t go off. Despite the recent events iPhones still remain one of the dominating powers on the mobile phone and mobile app development market.

Android OS for Motorola tablets is about to be rolled out

Soon after the announcement of Android 2.3. release Andy Rubin showcased a new version of Android for tablet PCs. Honeycomb beta version was demonstrated on a Motorola tablet in early December, while the full-fledged version is to be launched in February 2011.
Nevertheless, the tech community and mobile developers are still unable to figure out whether Android’s Honeycomb will become just an upgrade to Android 2.4 and will be regarded as a simple successor of its fellow Gingerbread version or mobile world and software companies will see the Android’s February launch as a new generation of Android OS (Android 3.0).
Andy Rubin highlighted some of new features of Honeycomb OS. First of all, Google has made some improvements to make it more user-friendly and customize it for tablet PCs – Honeycomb OS allows to make use of touch screen functionality to the full extent. As it was demonstrated on a dual-core 3D NVIDIA processor of a prototype Motorola device menu bar pops up on the device screen, thus, excluding the necessity of having physical buttons. Furthermore, Honeycomb supports 3D version Google maps, a new version of Gmail app, which ensures better user experiences for tablet PC users, and some other features. However, most of the new treats for Android users, Google keeps up its sleeve and will reveal them in early 2011.

Android-powered Nexus S – an attempt to rival iPhone4

Nexus S operating on Android OS will soon appear on the smartphone market. These devices built by Google in cooperation with Samsung are predicted to compete for the market share with the latest version of iOS-powered devices – iPhone4. Moreover, Nexus S user experience is planning to be enhanced by an upcoming release of Android 2.3.
Nexus S devices support NFC, which enables users to perform basic money operations and with the help of chips embedded in various posters and ads extract information and upload it to Nexus S phones. Nexus S provides an opportunity to make SIP calling as Gingerbread OS comes bundled with VoIP features – the users will have a chance to make calls over the internet in the range of any wi-fi spot.
Moreover, Android 2.3. for Nexus S ensures improved GUI interface. It is aimed at harnessing touch screen features of the devices and enhances greatly user experience. Apart from this, Gingerbread allows managing the work of mobile apps. Hence, Nexus S users will leverage the device’s capabilities in full.
Google will undoubtedly rejoice not only mobile users but also software development companies. As with Android 2.3. the process of mobile app development for Nexus S smartphones will be streamlined and speeded up by the use of NDK and other features as garbage collection and new APIs.

BlackBerries are to be enhanced with 3D design

Soon after QNX purchase and BlackBerry 6.0 OS release it was announced that new changes are about to come. BlackBerry mobile devices are going to be enhanced as a result of RIM’s collaboration with The Astonishing Tribe (TAT).
BlackBerry manufacturer strives to catch up with its main competitors on the mobile devices market – Apple and Google. Currently iPhones and Androids are more desirable among mobile users who prefer these devices twice more often than business-oriented BlackBerry smartphones. Thus, BlackBerry producer lays its hopes on the new partner in an attempt to gain enough share on this lucrative market and raise its sales.
TAT is a Swedish company that specializes in the development of visually appealing and intuitive user interfaces for various mobile gadgets. It has extensive experience in working with such well-known manufacturers of mobile devices as Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. The company has also worked on UI solutions for Androids.
New BlackBerry solution is mainly aimed at developing 3D-based design and enhancing user interfaces. The mobile manufacturer believes that this software company will help it raise BlackBerry brand popularity. Recently RIM has also introduced some changes to its app store, which gives better opportunities to mobile app developers to showcase their BlackBerry-based apps.

Microsoft announced Silverlight 5

Microsoft announced the release of the fifth version of the Silverlight multimedia platform.  At the conference Silverlight Firestarter 2010 Scott Guthrie, a vice-president of the Microsoft Developer Division, presented the new functions of Silverlight 5.

The new version of Silverlight has an improved support of HD video. Thus, according to Guthrie announced that using Silverlight plug in users will be able to watch HD video on the netbook screens with the reduced load on the system resources. It will contribute to a longer time of the offline work of the devices.

Thanks to the option Trickplay, users will be able to change the speed of music and video presentation and launch them in the reverse side. Also Silverlight 5 will have a remote control support.

The beta version of the platform as well as the corresponding plug in will be released in the first half of 2011. The final version will have been released by the end of 2011.

Silverlight is one of the main competitors of the Adobe Flash platform and is used for creating multimedia content and interactive elements for web pages. For reproducing the content, users have to install a special plug-in. The first version of Silverlight was released in December 2006. At present Silverlight exists in the versions for Windows and Mac OS X as well as for the browsers Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. Silverlight is very popular among web application developers.

Apple iPad accused of violating the trademark rights in China

The American company Apple is accused of violating the copyright law in China where the local manufacturer of computer monitors claims that Apple doesn’t have rights for using the trademark iPad. The Chinese company Proview Technlogy Co claims that it registered the brand name iPad in China in January 2000 and since that time it has been using it at the Chinese market.

According to Beijing News, the Chinese company has all the required documents and the local player is planning to protect its right for the brand. Apple started selling its tablet computer iPad in China last month, although ‘grey’ iPads have been selling in China practically from the moment of iPad release in the USA.

Some reliable sources say that earlier the companies negotiated the issue of transferring the trademark but didn’t reach an agreement. Now the reasonable price for the trademark iPad is about $800,000. In the official statement Proview Technology states that the decision on launching the sales of tablets under the name iPad was illegal from Apple’s side.

Nobody knows how it will influence the device itself but mobile application developers have already liked this device and have already created hundreds of devices for iPad.

BlackBerry and iPhone Funerals

The operation system Windows Phone 7 has reached the RTM stage and is ready for installing on mobile devices. It’s release is being planned for October 11 and the launch of communicators for the end of October, although in the USA they can appear only in November.  The Microsoft staff has celebrated this important milestone very originally. In the company’s campus in Redmond they held a symbolic funeral of BlackBerry and iPhone: a group of people in weeds were carrying big maquettes of these devices, there were even catafalques.

That’s evident such show should mean that BlackBerry and iPhone will die after launching the new generation device under the management of the operation system Windows Phone 7. Indeed, Microsoft lays great hopes on the new platform and supposes it can be a worthy competitor to the popular at present BlackBerry OS, iOS and Android. Now it’s difficult to say how Apple and RIM users will appreciate Microsoft’s joke of burying these devices.

But no matter what the reaction will be, mobile application developers have already started thinking about applications for the new platform or moving the existing one to this platform.