Category: Uncategorized

Nokia’s Hail Mary

One of the stories in the current issue of Wired is Nokia’s Last Stand: Can the 147-Year-Old Company Design Its Way Back?

With a former Microsoft exec at the helm (and their first non-Finn, a very unusual move for a company that could function as an embassy of Finnish culture) and a partnership with Microsoft that includes boatloads of funding, going with Windows Phone as their flagship OS is a “bet the farm” approach. Windows Phone and Nokia remind me of Laurence Fishburne’s and Stephen Baldwin’s characters from the 1996 film Fled, in which they escape from jail while shackled together, with the notable difference that I’d bet on the film’s characters meeting a happy ending.

“Dev City Kid”, a.k.a. The Nokia Lumia Rap

What happens when you take Tyga’s Rack City and change the lyrics so that they’re about Nokia Lumia 900 phones (“Nine hunnids”), Windows Phone, the Metro interface and a lot of wishful thinking (“Steve Ballma loves me / You know how it is” and “Hacking code on them apps and I’m getting cheques”)? This.

Other Mobile Dev News

• Intel-based Windows 8 tablets are expected to hit retail stores in November. Windows Phone came out about three years after the iPhone; Windows 8 tablets are shortening that gap to about two and a half. Some of the tablets will be iPad-style, while others will be “hybrids” — tablets that can transform into laptops. They won’t be hampered by the half-assed way that the telcos have been selling Windows Phones, but will vendors like Best Buy give them the push they need?
• LinkedIn releases its Windows Phone app. If you’re a Windows Phone developer, you should get this app, go over it with a fine-toothed comb and treat it as an object lesson in how to make great use of the Metro UI.
• The new 15″ MacBook Pro looks pretty intriguing. I know that all the cool developers are switching to the Air, but I like being able to go up to 8GB RAM (useful for audio/video editing), playing games (it has a better graphics card than the Air) and I walk around with an accordion, meaning that laptop weight isn’t as big a deal to me.

How’d I miss this little audio gem from last year? I just might have to make this my new ringtone.

At least 60% of iOS developers don’t even break even. That’s what the results from a survey taken by App Promo suggest, along with other observations shown in the infographic above. You can get the full survey in a free report titled The Necessity of Mobile App Marketing.

Here’s how an Israeli mobile developer sees the mobile world. Here’s Yosi Taguri chatting with Robert Scoble about iOS vs. Android vs. Windows Phone. The short version: iOS and Android are here to stay, and the others are circling the drain. The interview was recorded with an iPhone, of course, and you can use the player below to listen to it:

Mobile first, web maybe. Dylan Higgins, CEO of Kopo Kopo, talks about how Instagram, acquired recently by Facebook for a stunning 1 billion dollars, never had a web strategy and how it related to Kenya’s “mobile first, web maybe” model.

Mobile devices account for 10% of web traffic worldwide. According to StatCounter, about 8% of all US web traffic comes from mobile devices (phones, tablets and the like). That percentage is even higher elsewhere: 15% in Africa, and 18% in Asia.

Three-quarters of smartphone owners use location-based services. Pew Internet’s latest reports say that this is quite a jump up from a year ago, when it was 55%.

Richard Stallman required medical attention while speaking at a conference in Barcelona earlier today. He was treated by paramedics and the conference has been suspended indefinitely, but he has been reported as having left the building under his own power.

If you’re at Big Omaha, congratulations! It’s an in-demand conference and one where the “hallway conversations” — the meet-ups between speaker presentations — are of incredible value. Here are some tips on working the room from an expert on the subject: Susan RoAne, author of  How to Work a Room.

• Be more of a host and less of a guest. Make introductions. Say “Hi” to wallflowers and invite them into your conversation. Make other people more comfortable. Help them when you can.
• If you’re going to stay in the conversation, put down your stuff. Carrying your bag or coat during a conversation sends the signal that you’re about to leave.

• If you’re in a conversation with just one other person, don’t “hotbox” them. Hotboxing is when you square your shoulders front and center to them, and it excludes others from joining.
• If you’re in a conversation with more than two people, don’t form a huddle. Huddling feels safe, but it’s also antisocial. Try to keep part of your conversation circle open so that others can join.
• Share your core competency. It’s a perfect segue from the “So what do you do?” question, adds substance to the conversation and establishes your personal marque or brand.
• Learn. That’s at least part of why you’re at Big Omaha and it’s a great way to get into conversations. Here’s a little mental trick: try to learn 3 new things while you’re here.

• Eat lunch last. There’s a long lunch break…and a long lunch line. Use the first part of lunch, when the line’s long, to talk to others, then get your lunch once the line’s died down. You’ll still have plenty of time to eat. (Thanks to Megan Hunt, a.k.a. “Princess Lasertron” or @lasertron for this one!)
• Bring an accordion. Well, it works for me…
• Smile! It’s contagious, and it starts conversations.

Also worth checking out is Megan “Princess Lasertron” Hunt’s guide to getting the most out of Big Omaha. Check it out!

Eva chimed in with this comment, and I think it was so important I’d add it to the article body:

And if someone joins your group, acknowledge them and don’t let them stand there, invisible, awkward, while you pretend not to see them and continue your conversation. I get this about 50% of the time at conferences, but mainly from people older than me. There’s less ageism in tech/startups than in science/academia, so might not be problem for you guys.

If you’re comfortable programming in Ruby and develop (or want to develop) apps for iOS, you should give RubyMotion a try. Its creators came up with a nice way to sum it up: it’s “terminal-based workflow” that makes it easy for you to program iPhone and iPad apps in Ruby and build them with Rake. I’ve taken a couple of their starter apps for a spin, and the feeling I got was not unlike that first time I took Ruby on Rails for a spin.

I’m going to write a whole bunch of articles based on my experiences with RubyMotion here in Global Nerdy. I’m still doing my initial noodling, but I’ll write something up soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d post these screen captures from RubyMotion’s installer.

Many developer tools are content to go with a sparse installer or command-line recipe, but RubyMotion goes the extra mile and provides a beautiful installer. They didn’t have to do it; their target market is comfortable with installing and configuring development tools, but I appreciate the attention to detail and the effort.

Nicely done, RubyMotion! I’m looking forward to playing with you over the next few weeks.

For the curious, here’s RIM CEO Thorsten Heins opening keynote for the recent BlackBerry World developer conference (which took place May 1 – 3 in Orlando). It’s interesting to see what RIM have up their sleeves for BlackBerry 10, but I’m still not convinced that they can be saved.

I rather like the “time travel” editing that you can do with photos.

While I may not be convinced, the Blackberry World attendees in the video below are: