Global mobile Internet usage is expected to overtake ‘desktop’ within the next 2 years and has already been leading the race in regions such as South-East Asia. Although native mobile apps are still able to exploit more of the ‘lower level’ hardware and system API, modern mobile browsers such as Mobile Safari, the Android 4 browser or Chrome for Android are progressing very fast. The mobile web is technically ready for apps, living the ultimate “native vs web” choice to developers, business and end-users.
If you’re a developer interested in some best practices to design and build better mobile web apps, here is the presentation I recently gave a Buzzcity Developer Garage in Singapore.
A few days ago, Singtel and e27 announced the 2011 edition of Asia’s Top 50 Apps Award. As a independent developer in the region, I decided to submit my main two apps, Muslim Pro and Frenzapp. While trying to include a small “vote” button on my various websites in order to maximize the visibility of my apps, I came across a security hole in the voting system. I could easily have kept it for myself and exploit it to promote my two apps to the top of the leader-board by the end of the contest. It was of course not an option and I quickly, via an email to e27 as well as a public tweet, disclose the hack and warned the community that the vote was at risk of being biased if the organisers did not address the issue quickly. Here is the rest of the story and why I offered to forfeit my apps…
[UPDATE] read the comments, I actually did confirm my request to boycot the contest by removing my app
Read more…
“Gone Google“, as described here, usually refers to organizations (schools, universities, startups, MNC’s, etc…) switching to the web-based Google Apps platform for their email, productivity and collaboration tools. A choice that I had actually made on the very first day I founded Bitsmedia and which I posted about on this article.
“Gone Google“ has taken a whole new meaning for me today as I am very excited to announce that I will soon be joining Google and more specifically the Developer Relations team in South-East Asia. For the most curious of you, here are the main reasons which have driven such decision. Read more…
The official release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) is just around the corner (AppleInsider reports that it might be launched tomorrow Wednesday together with the new Macbook Air) and I thought I’d share three very quick tips that could help you get around Apple’s new system once you’ll hit the “buy” button on the Mac App Store.
Read more…
In just 24 hours, Steve Jobs will be opening the 2011 edition of Apple’s yearly developer conference (WWDC) which will focus on:
- Lion: the new version of Mac OS X (10.7), Apple’s desktop/laptop operating system (OS);
- iOS 5: the 5th major edition of Apple’s mobile OS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad);
- iCloud: Apple’s 3rd attempt to crack online services and cloud computing (after Mac.com and MobileMe), as well as, should the rumours be correct, a new online music service.
As much as I love Apple’s products and my iPhone(s) (I believe I’ve owned them all since the very first one in 2007), I have recently surprised myself using Android devices as my everyday phone (my two favorite ones are the Nexus S and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc). Two main reasons:
- I never got used to the edgy and squarish design of the iPhone 4 (I miss the curved line of the 3G/3GS)
- I got bored of using the very same user interface for 4 years.
I therefore have very high expectations of tomorrow’s keynote, hoping that iOS 5 will finally feature some key functionalities which I believe have been missing. Make sure to read further to discover which ones. Read more…
Before the recent boom of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, the only list of friends or contacts most people would manage and interact with was their address book. The hardcover indexed address books and the electronic databanks (remember those cool Casio devices with enough memory to store 128 contacts) are the true ancestors of your social graph. Read more to understand why I believe the address book is still very much the key to success of any social network today. Read more…
Global mobile Internet usage is expected to overtake ‘desktop’ within the next 2 years and has already been leading the race in regions such as South-East Asia. Although native mobile apps are still able to exploit more of the ‘lower level’ hardware and system API, modern mobile browsers such as Mobile Safari, the Android 4 browser or Chrome for Android are progressing very fast. The mobile web is technically ready for apps, living the ultimate “native vs web” choice to developers, business and end-users.
