January 30th, 2009 in Mac OS X |
As someone who wants Microsoft to be cooler, I’m all for them making an aggressive pitch to consumers. I say make Windows 7 a simplified, colorful, fun experience for everyday users. Emphasize how it can store and share music and photos. Keep those potential Mac users from switching. Heck, open up retail stores while you’re at it.
Yeah sure. So he doesn’t like Apple at all, but wants Microsoft to copy everything Apple is. Maybe it would be best for Microsoft to just buy Apple Hard- and Software and exchange the Apple for a Microsoft Logo. I guess that’d make Paul’s day.
via OSNews Thom Holwerda
So after a small hiatus the first serious StyleMac iPhone application is out. OweMe, the Money Lending Manager has been created with a lot of attention to detail and based on a specific problem: I often experienced the situation that I lend someone a small amount of money (say $5) and forgot about it later on. On the other hand it just as often happened that I lend money from someone and forgot about it too – until I got a disappointed or even enraged call.
That’s where OweMe comes in. A slick and easy to use interface helps in quickly jotting down all these small amounts of money one owes or lends from time to time. I’ve been testing the application for about 4 weeks now as I wanted to make sure it works as advertised before I submit it to the App Store. And I’ve already used it a dozen times. It really, really helps me in keeping track of all the small amounts of money I tend to get or give. I wouldn’t want to miss it on my iPhone.
Features:
- Clean, simple and FAST UI, optimized for the task at hand featuring
- seperate lists for Credit and Debit values
- Add notes, names and due dates
- Use the iPhones location info to gain additional information on the whereabouts of an entry
- Secure your data with an optional access code
- Set detailed options like sort order or currenc
- Select between different wallpapers
…and more
You can find more information on the OweMe Website. The direct iTunes App Store entry can be found here.
January 20th, 2009 in Technology |
John Gruber linked to this interesting Project today. A group of people plans to optimize the instant film in order to bring it back to the mass market. They bought one of the old Polaroid factories, in Enschede, Netherlands. Funny thing is that I live(d) right next to Enschede. Best luck to those guys.
Palm’s Andrew Shebanow (former Adobe) on Cocoa on iPhone versus JS on the Palm Pre and it’s effect on application quality and developer interest:
That’s a complex question to answer. But the thing to keep in mind is that is not a zero-sum game: I expect many developers will work with both webOS and iPhone, and that is perfectly fine. But I also believe that we will be able to attract additional developers who want to leverage their HTML/CSS/JavaScript knowledge but can’t or won’t deal with the strictures of iPhone development.
I do think he’s right in that many developers will want to target both plattforms. In this case the Cappuccino Web Framework seems to be godsend. It doesn’t feature everything that Objective-C 2.0 and Cocoa on the iPhone offer, but it should seriously ease transitions. Actually, if I was 280 North, I’d try to add the Palm Pre Javascript extensions to Cappuccino as quickly as possible in order to attract that horde of iPhone developers on their gold rush.
I for one am happy that I can target Mac OS X, the iPhone and Web Applications with one framework (more or less) and one language (more or less). Sometimes it drives me crazy to jump between PHP/Symfony, Python/Django, JS/Prototype/Ext and Objective-C/Cocoa.
Looks like serious, and much needed, iPhone competition. Basic history (and The Windows) tells us that a healthy marketplace is not only good for the consumer, but also for the innovative motivation of the producer.
The Pre looks slick. Albeit the technical side looks good, it’s far more perplexing because this is Palm, who didn’t get their act together for the past 5 years or so.
Let’s wait, if the device will be like the demo – or another Storm. The lack of price and avaibility information makes me a tad skeptical.
Also, since all applications seem to be written in Javascript, I wonder if it’ll be possible to develop more sophisticated applications, like 3D games, audio engines or Google Earth.
But let’s wait until it’s out. For now, it looks great. Good, innovative ideas, and, most important, it’s Palm.
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