News tagged ‘platforms’

Android phones have an advantage over Apple's iPhone in navigation, because Google includes their free nice Navigation program, while Apple doesn't have built in navigation in Maps. Here are some good news for iPhone users:

Google confirmed at a London press conference that it plans to bring free satnav to other smartphone platforms, including the iPhone, although it wouldn’t say when.

Unlike TomTom or iGo software, Google’s satnav software doesn’t store maps on the device but downloads them on-demand from the internet. However "Google Maps pre-caches the entire route," said Mobile Maps product manager, Steve Lee. "It needs a data connection when you ask for navigation. But while driving to your destination, if you intermittently lose the connection, it will still carry on. As long as you stay on the route."

Users can choose from several viewing options: standard maps and directions, satellite view and access to Street View, plus live traffic data. Sound like a good deal.

This morning Digg released their official iPhone app. It allows you to browse and interact with the popular news aggregator. You can view the top, recent and upcoming stories in any category; clicking a headline will lead to a built-in browser that will display a requested page. At the bottom of the screen you'll find a buttons to Digg or Bury (like or dislike) the story, Save The Story button (for this you need to be logged in with your Digg account), and an option of sharing the link. The latter is pretty convenient, as you can send the story to the Email, Twitter, Facebook or to the iPhone's clipboard.

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Yesterday the Associated Press announced plans to create a new unit named "AP Gateway". It will focus on creating an application for mobile platforms and particularly for iPad tablet device.

It is likely that their app will require a paid subscription, but at first it may appear as free, according to AP senior vice president Jane Seagrave.

AP Gateway will work with local news affiliates to create package of their own content.

Other publishers are still expressing concern over the profit that will be shared with Apple and the latter's unwillingness to report information about subscribers (which is important for marketing and tailoring publisher's content).

Opera had finally demonstrated new Opera Mini for the iPhone at the Mobile World Congress.

In comparison to the default iPhone browser it looks pretty quick - Opera Mini loads the New York Times like 5x faster than its rival. Its main disadvantage is that it lacks the all-important feature pinch-to-zoom, and the only alternative is a method of double-tapping the webpages. Generally, the iPhone owners will find that the usual silky smooth scrolling through favorite webpages and responsive interface are maintained at the very best.

Unlike other platforms, the iPhone variant actually remembers the website you happened to browse last - the feature that will obviously be favored by a legion of iPhone admirers.

Company says as soon as beta tag is removed the browser will be submitted for approval. And it is not obvious whether Apple approve it or not, because it maintains the option of rejecting any app that "duplicates functionality" of the apps Apple builds into the iPhone. Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner has his own point of view on this:

"Opera Mini is the world's most popualr mobile browser and users on the iPhone deserve a choice."

Opera Software company just announced that it plans to show Opera Mini browser for iPhone during the Mobile World Congress 2010 (MWC).

"We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices. Opera’s mission is to bring the Web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer."

But remember that Apple would never allow alternative browsers that are not based on WebKit. So what's the point of all this? A Cydia Store release? The real intent might be to draw attention to Opera's Mobile and Mini browsers running on other platforms where the software is actually released like Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android.

Telltale Games is a famous company that brought us new forms of retro games such as Sam & Max and Secret of Monkey Island. The rumors about Mac versions of their games are confirmed – they will release the whole catalog for OS X next month, just before the Macworld Expo. We may even see iPhone and iPad versions since most of the games use the same platform. This was expected as there are many Mac fans both in the customer base and in the team.

Telltale’s games are already available on other platforms (PC and consoles), but the company is known for putting fans first, so we can even expect some extra goodies to come.

AdMob has released their latest October 2009 October Mobile Metrics report with details on devices and platforms requests ads from AdMob network. The iPhone and iPod Touch platform (iPhone OS) has a comfortable 50% share of worldwide traffic and 55% of US traffic. In terms of top handset models, Apple’s iPhone accounted for 22.4%/24.1% (up 5.5%/5.2%) and iPod touch for 9.8%/11.4 (up 1.4%/2.3%).

Apple nearly reached the milestone back in May when it hit 49%, but the company's share temporarily dropped back over the next several months before beginning a sharp climb again in September.

You can read the full report in PDF here.

Bell Keller, Executive Editor of the NY Times, let slip on the still unconfirmed Apple tablet in a speech last week.

The New York Times speech comes from an internal "all hands" meeting at TheTimesCenter, which was intended to be off the record. However, the video was also provided to the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Skip to about 8:20, and you'll hear:

We need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.

Given the matter-of-fact way Keller refers to the slate, it sounds like a done deal versus a hypothetical.

via gizmodo, niemanlab

During the It’s only rock and roll Apple spent some time discussing numbers. And as usual the numbers were huge. So here's what we've heard:

• 30 million iPhones sold
• 20 million iPod touches sold

That makes 50 million iPhone OS X platform device on the market, up from 45 million on July 21.

• 75,000 apps in the iTunes App Store
• 1.8 billion downloads (not counting updates)

In terms of games, compared with other mobile platforms, here’s the library count:

• 21,178 for Apple iPhone/iPod touch
• 3,680 for Nintendo DS
• 607 for Sony PSP

Here's more:

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Duke Nukem 3D for the iPhone has just made its debut in the App Store. This version of the popular first person shooter game first appeared in 1996 for the PC, with subsequent ports to other platforms along with multiple expansion packs and add-ons made available in the years since.

This app appears to be a rather full implementation of the PC original though there are some on-screen analog control issues that hamper gameplay.

Let's watch the video from TouchArcade:

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Citrix is porting XenApp to the iPhone. XenApp is a remote Windows application that is presently available for Mac, Windows and some mobile platforms. XenApp allows users to remotely log into their corporate networks to access their Windows applications.

The functionality seems similar to existing VNC clients for the iPhone, but Citrix's XenApp apparently transmits window display information rather than the raw graphics (wikipedia link). This is much better than VNC over network connections such as 3G and WiFi.

MSNBC recently spoke with several GPS manufacturers about their plans to develop a turn-by-turn GPS solution for the iPhone. Such a program is likely some months away. Several of the 'bigs' in the business — TomTom, Garmin and Magellan — are interested.

"We have made our navigation system run on the iPhone; it looks good and works very well," said Dutch-based company TomTom, in a statement to MSNBC.com. "We will have to look more closely to Apple’s strategy before we can say more about what kind of opportunities this will bring us,:".

"We’re always looking at new phone platforms to expand into for Garmin Mobile, but we don’t have any announcements regarding the iPhone at this time," said Jessica Myers of Garmin International. Magellan spokesman Raphel Finelli said the company does "not have immediate plans for this, but we are looking into it."

via macdailynews

Here are some extracts from JavaOne 2008 conference press-releases about Java for IPhone:

"To show Java's prominence in multimedia, rock icon Neil Young made an appearance onstage to promote his video and music catalog offering based on Java and Blu-ray technology. A Sun official also briefly commented on Sun's predicament in trying to put Java on the Apple iPhone, leaving the ball in Apple's court to help make that happen."

"During the post-keynote press conference, Green gave a progress report on Sun's ongoing quest to put Java on the iPhone, something that Apple has not publicly, at least, supported.

Sun, Green said, is well along its way in creating the technology to enable Java to run on the phone, Green said. But he deferred to Apple, which governs which platforms can be distributed with the iPhone. It is Apple's right to decide this, Schwartz added."

JavaOne is one of the most interesting events in IT industry. We are expecting a lot of talks about Java and other technologies. One IPhone+Java - related talk was already mentioned at Java4IPhone.com (link). There are couple more of them.

• How to Port phoneME™ Advanced Software to Google Android, iPhone, OpenMoko, LiMO, and MoreHinkmond Wong (Sun Microsystems)

  May 07, 14:50 - 15:50

• Dancing Duke on Your PlayStation Portable: Porting phoneME™ Software to PlayStation Portable Max Mu (Sun Microsystems); Kuo Wang (iaSolution Technology Limited)

  May 08,19:30 - 20:20

• Extending Swing to Run Multitouch Applications (Multitouch Software)Michael Riecken (Trissential, LLC)

  May 09,16:10 - 17:10

Sessioin details:

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The objective of the phoneME project is to further expand the usage of Java™ Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME platform) technology in the mobile handset market. The goal in making these technologies available to the Mobile & Embedded Community is to reduce implementation variation, increase the rate of innovation and enable new devices to leverage the power of the Java ME platform.

During JavaOne 2008 conference at San Francisco senior staff engineer Hinkmond Wong (Java Micro Edition group at Sun Microsystems) will speak about porting phoneME Advanced Software to different mobile platporms, including IPhone:

Session Title: "How to Port phoneME™ Advanced Software to Google Android, iPhone, OpenMoko, LiMO, and More".

Session Abstract: "This presentation discusses how to port phoneME™ Advanced open source mobile platform software to the latest hot cell phone and embedded device environments such as Google-OHA, Android SDK, iPhone/iPod (touch) SDK, OpenMoko, and LiMO.

The objective of the phoneME project is to further expand the use of the Java™ Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME platform) in the mobile handset market through open source. The project scope includes a focus on the emerging next-generation phone segment with the phoneME Advanced software stack. This session concentrates on how to use the open-source phoneME Advanced project as the core Java virtual machine and libraries to enable the most-recent popular mobile development platforms to become Java technology-enabled. "

Make sure to attend this event and this sesson in particular. Hinkmond Wong is an expert from Sun Microsystems, who can answer many questions about IPhone, Java and more.