Jasonified.

The tech sites are rife again with stories about Apple planning to release a branded television set within the next 18 months.

I say If they do, it’ll mean the death of the Cinema Display.

Why?

Any Apple TV set would have to work with external devices to be at all useful. Most likely this would mean multiple HDMI inputs, possibly a DVI, maybe a Component/Scart interface (although the latter are unlikely I admit).

Hell, it may even have a Thunderbolt port.

Also, being Apple they’ll probably add USB ports for connecting external media, charging devices, a variation of iOS like we’ve seen on the Apple TV 2 hardware and all this with ethernet and/or wireless connectivity built in.

They might even throw in a FaceTime camera - makes sense to have teleconferences through your “tele” right?

Finally, if they want to compete with regular TVs then they’ll probably have to consider a built in digital tuner with (most likely) recording capabilities. You could use an external tuner but built-in would tie in nicely with iTunes/iOS etc.

So what’s the problem?

Price.

If the price of a full-blown TV is too HIGH then they are too close to the cost of a full-blown iMac. We’ve already seen stories of people buying iMacs instead of Cinema displays and using the target display mode to use it as a monitor! 

If the price is too LOW then why buy a 27” Cinema Display when the TV will most likely come in sizes upward of 27” AND will have connectivity to your computer?

Apple are unlikely to release a TV set without external connectivity that is designed NOT to allow you to connect your Mac to it. So here’s what they’d need to do :-

a) reduce the price of the Cinema display dramatically,

b) price the TV set between the Cinema display and a base iMac,

That’s a pretty big challenge.

My feeling is that if Apple release an Apple Television then it WILL replace the Cinema display and on that basis an Apple Television would mean the death of the Cinema Display.

So iPhone 4S or iPhone 5?

If we look at what we know about Apple and how they release products and iOS updates, *and* the dates/time-scales involved I believe it’s possible to accurately predict what we’ll see happen this year.

Before I start, here are the constants:-

1. We know that Apple have an (approx) annual release cycle - iPhone 1 - 4 have been released around the same time each year. This is the same for most of their products.

2. We know that Apple are going to “preview” iOS 5.0 at this years WWDC in June

3. We know that following an announcement / presentation of a new iOS version, they go through beta testing with developers and this takes *around* 3 months to complete.

(so June preview, we’re looking at September…hold that thought)

4. We know that we’ve missed the usual annual cycle for the iPhone (it should have been announced already) which means it’s most likely to be released after June/July this year.

5. We know that every *major* release of the iPhone has had an iOS dedicated to it. iPhone 1 = iOS 1.0, iPhone 2 = iOS 2.0, iPhone 3G/3GS = iOS 3.0/3.X, iPhone 4 = iOS 4.0

6. Apple (to my knowledge) have never released a new version of a hardware product within a year. (waits to be proved wrong shattering everything else I’ve spewed out here)

7. Apple have never released information on an iPhone release more than 5 months before it’s launch (iPhone 1 was announced Jan 2007 and released in June 2007)

8. The world ends in October (let’s come back to this one…)

So given what we know here’s what I think we’ll see:-

1. Apple preview iOS 5 to the world then release an iPhone 4S with iOS 4.X with hardware improvements leaving an iPhone 5/iOS 5 to Q4 2012 giving their competitors a *massive* advantage.

2. Apple preview iOS 5 to the world then release an iPhone 4S with iOS 4.X with hardware improvements and *then* release iPhone 5 before Q4 2012 (which would have to be Q1 2012 therefore busting the annual release cycle)

3. Apple preview iOS 5 to the world then release the iPhone 4S in September which runs iOS 5 and they throw out the whole hardware/iOS version match up leaving us to wait to Q4 2012 for iPhone 5.

4. Apple skip a new phone, release iOS 5 for iPhone 4 owners and we have to wait until Q4 2012 for iPhone 5 which will run iOS 5.X, some 15 months after it was previewed?

5. Apple merely “talk about” iOS 5 at WWDC, don’t show specific details and don’t demo it and it’s going to come out “some time in the future” and in the meantime we see an iPhone 4S that’s faster etc. running iOS 4.X .

OK so given all of this here’s what I end up with:-

1. iOS 5 will be announced *and* demoed at WWDC in June

2. It’ll be made available almost immediately as a beta to developers

3. Over the next 3 months it’ll be beta tested and updated to become a GM release

4. It’ll go gold in September at the same time as the iPhone 5 is released.

5. The iPhone 5 will be based on the same physical size/shape as the iPhone 4. It will definitely have a better camera, more internal memory and the A5 chip and most likely will it’ll stick with 16/32gb models. It’ll run iOS 5 and will be announced/released in a “mini” event at Apple Town Hall.

There you go.

Mobile developers who offer in-app upgrades are current facing a potential patent dispute (and licensing issue) with Lodsys, a group that is claiming patent infringement.

The specifics of the patent deal with in-app upgrades and applications that are downloaded with limited features and offer the ability to “upgrade” to the full version *within* the application.

This usually consists of hitting a button in the app that invokes a transaction via the iOS in-app purchase API and at this point features in the App are “unlocked”. In some instances this can mean downloading new content (such as new levels etc)

Developers who offer in-app upgrades and purchasing are clearly worried about this whole affair but there are a couple of options available to them which would avoid breaching this patent.

1. Separate applications. In essence a developer would create multiple versions of it’s application in the AppStore. Each app would have a separate ID and cost.

Users could be prompted to download the new app from the Appstore thus bypassing the in-app purchase.

The downside of this solution is it would clog the AppStore with multiple versions of the same app.

2. Mini-apps that “unlock” features in a main app. I haven’t checked this against the Apple developer agreement but basically this would work by having a main application which includes ALL the features people can purchase on it’s initial download.

The additional features are hidden and locked when the application is installed.

To “upgrade” users are directed to NEW, separate applications in the AppStore each of which would offer a particular upgrade.

Each “mini app” would be purchased as a NEW application install (thus bypassing the in-app upgrade patent) and when launched they would make an HTTP call to the main app (e.g mainappUID://<VALUE>) passing some sort of token across that would “unlock” the features of the main application. 

Obviously there could be some security issues here in encrypting the URL key to ensure it can’t be called manually from say Safari but technically this should be possible.

Hope this helps!

The beta of the iOS 4.3 turns renames “Tethering” to a “Personal hotspot” and enables up to 5 devices to use an iPhones data connection via WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB.

This raises an interesting question relating to Facetime devices (including the soon to be announced and released iPad 2G).

“Can you connect a FaceTime device to an iOS personal hotspot via Wi-Fi and use Facetime over an iPhone 3G connection?”

Unless Apple are going to do something (or have done already) to stop this then it should be perfectly possible. FaceTime works over WiFi and you would after all be connecting to the iPhone via WiFi and we know it’s possible now using a MiFi personal hotspot.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Adding .attr() support to allow setting one attribute or many including an id property that will add that control to the stack I’m storing for $(‘#id’) retrieval.

Good progress today, working on a few new function in the library I’m building.

Examples:-

var controlArray = $(“textfield”);

will get a list of all controls of type = textfield in the current view.

var control = $(“#textfield1”);

will get the field of ID ‘textfield1’

$(“textfield#textfield1”);

will create a new field called ‘textfield1’

$(“textfield:first();

will get the first object back that is a textfield.

Jquery functions to manipulate and build native mobile apps - nice…..

Still work in progress - I’m working on a simple jquery-like syntax for accessing databases under Titanium developer. So far I’ve got the basics of opening, closing, querying and executing SQL plus iterating through the results.

Example usage:-

$(“databasename”).open()

.select(“* FROM mytable”)

  .forEach(function(e) { 
alert(e.fieldByName(‘name’));

})

.close();

So in sequence we open the DB, select a resultset, iterate through (displaying an alert in this case) then close the DB.

You could also split out the code too putting each stage into relevant variables.

Here’s an execute example (setting up the DB in this case) :-

$(“db”).open(databasename)

.execute(‘CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS mytable (ID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, NAME TEXT)’)

.close();

That’s it for now, comments welcome.

Note: Credit to RazorianFly for note on this today - my version requires less steps and doesn’t require you to use the primary iTunes machine.

If you’ve just upgraded to iOS 4.2 on your iPad or iPhone and you’ve suddenly lost any videos or music from your Videos/iPod app then there’s a quick and easy fix.

For this to work you should have an iPhone/iPad that shows it has Videos and Music available (in the about page or via iTunes) but non-show up on the device.

1. Connect to ANY computer running iTunes 10.1 (so doesn’t have to be your main syncing machine) and ignore any sync/wipe options (hit cancel)

2. Click on the device name, expand it and go to Music/Videos

3. Double-click/play a track/Movie/TV Show

4. Now go back to the device, go into Videos/iPod and you should get “Updating Library”

5. Bingo, music and videos restored.

There’s no doubt that with the number of manufacturers taking on Android and the backing it has from Google, it will become the dominant mobile platform but in what form?

Android developers are already suffering from the big issue related to developing for Android and that is :-

“What device profile/version do you target?”

The developers of Angry Birds have already said they have performance issues with “older” Android devices (the OS is only 3 years old in it’s current form btw) and they are hard at work trying to fix it.

If you look at Amazon for Android devices (as I have for testing) you’ll find different shapes and sizes of device from phones to tablets running version 1.6 or 1.7 or 2.2 etc.

I find myself in the position of not knowing which device to buy. Do I buy a cheap Android phone (< £100) to test with and if so will it be upgradable? Can I upgrade it from 1.6 to 2.2? Is there a consistant way to target the different devices/resolutions/versions out there?

Right now it sounds like developer hell.

Apple has it’s flaws as does iOS but right now there are limited devices to target, and most of the compatibilty is taken care of for you.

For example it’s easy to target retina and non-retina screens - the OS *knows* and takes care of it for you.  As long as you supply the higher resolution graphics as separate formatted files they are used instead. You can refer to 200 “pixels” for positioning on both screens and the OS will adapt accordingly. Simples.

As a mobile developer I can tell you that I’m not looking foward to developing for Android. The SDK and simulator is slow and I have to decide (read:compromise) on what platform version to target. I don’t want to alienate users by picking something that’s too “now” do I? Does that mean I have to choose the lowest common denominator and if so what will that do for features/quality/performance?

Oh and if Developers are facing these issues, what must users be going through?

Like I said, I have no doubt Android will be dominant but which version/flavour will it be?