Year: 2010

Categories
iPhone app

Back from Voices that matter: iPhone developer conference

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Last Updated on October 21, 2010 by stlplace

#VTM_iPhone

The conference was hold in Philadelphia, PA. Note there was a VTM_iPhone conference this past spring in Seattle. This is my first time attending an Apple themed conference, my first time to hear names like Omni Group, Mike Lee, which are almost like household names in Mac/iOS community.

Ok, let me get to the topic, the people and topics of conference. First I want to thank Chuck and Barbara (and all other Pearson Publishing organizers, venue helpers) for their hard work on logistics (food, drink, website etc.), if there is anything could be improved, I think it’s the Wifi access point. Probably due to the overwhelming of iPhone/iPad, and laptop, sometimes we had difficulty connecting to Wifi. But that’s a minor thing, compared the quality of speakers, and the openness atmosphere of participants (Mac community is much friendly than some of the other dev community as I know of).

Technical sessions are excellent, sometimes I had hard time to make a choice but I like to attend all 3 sessions running at the same time. Eventually I decided to take more UI (user interface) and Graphics Design classes as that is my weakness, coming from coder/programmer background and not graphics Q. Here is the schedule of classes. Some of the highlights: Aaron Hillegass talked about the product cycle and going form “independence to interdependence” as business grow. Not entirely new topic, but good reminder to me. Mike Lee reminds me a Chinese guy names Lu Xun (after I gave it more thought): he fired at a lot of places and I think many of his points are valid criticism of “lack of effort/thoughts” in design. I think yesterday Steve Jobs’ fire at Android fragmentation is along the same line. When “Open” is just for business and marketing purpose, how meaningful really is open of Android?

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iPhone app

At philadelphia voice that matters iOS conference

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Last Updated on October 16, 2010 by omaha

I am at Philadelphia now. I came here for the VTM iOS conference. Took southwest Air from STL this evening, arrived phl slightly after 10. Planned taking the shuttle, but could not reach the guy per his instruction. Took train to market east/Philly conference center , then called a taxi to hotel. Saw quite some people on street on the way to society hill Sheraton. It seems free AT&T wifi only works on my iPhone, not MacBook. So I settle on iPhone for tomorrow conference info and how to get there.

I also wrote this post via wordpress iPhone app. It requires wp 2.9 but my Stlplace blog was still at 2.0.2 🙁

Oh, by the way, it seems apple fixed myNestEgg app update (1.1) stuck in “upload received” status. It’s in “wait fore review” mode now. This update will fix some of the bugs.

Categories
iPhone app Software development

iPhone iOS dev blogs

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Last Updated on October 13, 2010 by stlplace

The following are iPhone development blogs I often read. Note I used Google reader to get them. I also listed some of the blogs under “dev” category in the side bar (small).

Technical
iPhone development by Jeff Lamarche. Jeff is the author of the best beginners book for iPhone dev “Beginning iPhone development”. Recently I found his profile at LinkedIn, and found he was a law school graduate, which is total surprise to me. He is definitely not a lawyer type in terms of writing (blog) and talking style (from his tweets).

Cocoanetics (aka Dr. Touch): Oliver Drobnik, the former Windows Admin turned full time iPhone iOS developer lives in Austria (Europe). Note he recently changed the name from Dr. Touch to Cocoanetics. Regardless the name change, I found he has a very good sense of both technology and business: I think his article on Notifications and “Part Store” (he sold his components software like parts) are very interesting.

iPhone developer:tips written primarily by John Muchow, who is the author of Core J2ME (which is the primary mobile development language pre iPhone, it is still used on Blackberry platform, and note Android used a different Java virtual machine developed by Google). I think some article such as “rename Xcode project”, “Prevent application being placed in background” etc. to be interesting.

iPhone development blog: written by Nick Dalton who got into iPhone dev early. A lot of goodies include this iPhone iOS app store reject reasons. I believe he is a co-founder and CTO of a mobile development firm in SF (can not recall the company name on top of my head, you may google).

Ray Wenderlich: the blog bears the author’s name. It has a lot of meaningful tutorials (not those “Hello world” stuff). Besides that, I found this How to host beta test for iOS app” to be interesting.

Other Resources, news, gossips etc
iPhone developer news (Apple): get it from Apple iOS developer center. The official place for all the announcement etc.

Mobile Orchard: used to be good technical stuff, stopped update this April, just resumed blogging.

43 iPhone app development resources: the list is a bit dated, but still useful.

I will add more as time goes.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance iPhone app

Submitted 2nd iPhone iOS app collegeFund ~ college savings calculator

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Last Updated on October 26, 2010 by stlplace

(Update 10-26-2010) I forgot to mention that app is available at iTunes App store since Oct 5. The product support page is at uudaddy. Sorry for my omission 🙂

(Original) I submit the collegeFund app 3 days ago. This app is similar to the myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator, it helps parents (and other family members who are willing to help) to calculate the kid’s college savings fund vs. the retirement fund in the retirement calculator.

I got this idea more than a year ago when a close friend who is sending kid to college. I can felt financial burden of the father, while I can also fully appreciate the kid’s decision to go to a well known college instead of the college his dad and yours truly both went (btw, the job prospect of our alma mater was very good).

This March, our daughter was born, I was hoping I don’t have to be put into such as tough spot when my kid starts college (btw, her father will have to seriously think about the retirement plans then). Hence, I opened the Ohio 529 plan a month after her birth, and started to put away the money we received from family. Meanwhile, I set an automatic monthly deposit for her account.

CF_currentSaving0_age0_annual5000

Anyway, I wish this is a beginning for parents, grand parents, uncles, aunties etc. to plan for their kids’ college education. Now let’s hope the app gets approved soon 🙂

Categories
Stocks

Barnes and Noble: a declining book selling empire?

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Last Updated on September 25, 2010 by stlplace

I started writing this post a while ago, after I bought Barnes Noble nook (e-reader), and Barnes Noble stock (NYSE:BKS). BN recently changed its brand of e-reader app on Android from BN to nook (it already use nook on iPhone and iPad), so nook is more than an e-reader, it’s at the center of BN’s digital book.

What’s up with Barnes and Noble stock
Stock was under heavy selling pressure, after announcing price cut of Nook e-reader, and fiscal 2010 Q4 result (2011 Q1 and full year outlook), before the announcement of potential “taking private” and Ron Burkle (its second largest shareholder) proxy fight. The stock bounced from as low as about $12 to $17 in couple months since the announcement.

But the fundamental problem facing the company: transition from traditional book to ebook is too high a mountain for BN to climb. Back in “printed book” days, BN can use its scale to get better rate from publishers and commercial real estate companies, beating a lot of mom and pop stores on the way. Now physical stores become a liability. Compared to Amazon (kindle) and more recent Apple (iPad), nook is not standing out (both hardware and software, read this Mossberg review on 3 e-reader apps for iPad), and can not win from scale, even presence at BN book store does not overcome Amazon Kindle’s TV commercial and Target store presence. Target is going to carry iPad soon. BN does have presence at Best Buy, but Kindle is coming to Best Buy soon.

Burkle criticized BN founder and largest shareholder Riggio almost anything (Riggio did the same to Burkle). At the dispute is the recent transaction of BN buying College bookseller (valuation discussion below). Valuation aside, I think Riggio is trying to salvage his empire by banded the retail stores with more stable business – college book store. College book stores are perceived as more stable because students have to buy textbooks. As long as college enrollment does not decline (this usually holds as nowadays college degree is necessary for most white collar jobs). The only thing is here digitization is happening too. BN does have some initiative, Amazon Kindle DX was trying to make a dent here (was not successful), but Apple iPad is posing a serious player. This is causing more problem for BN.

So who should you vote in the Proxy fight? As I said earlier both sides accuse the other side as totally moron. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I don’t think Burkle has a magic bullet here, and I don’t think Riggio really understand this facebook era. I can see Kindle has a facebook page, and BN has a facebook page, but NO facebook page for nook. WOW. Notice BN does not air commercial on TV as well (this is more understandable because they don’t have deep pocket as Amazon and Apple). But NO free facebook page (for marketing and brand awareness). Something is broken in the BN management.

more readings at WSJ.

College bookseller buy valuation

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Categories
gadgets iPhone app

My first week impression of iPhone 4

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Last Updated on September 25, 2010 by stlplace

Graphics is very sharp
This can be demonstrated by the Netflix app. I installed it the first night right after I got home. Watched a movie, the graphics quality is very very good.

Installed apps
Besides Netflix and other usual stuff (google, twitter, facebook, linkedIn), I also installed NFL Score, Public Radio Tuner (a bit disappointed on this one, not multitasking enabled, so I can not read email and listen to the radio at the same time), Yahoo, iBooks, myWireless (AT&T), WSJ and VTT (Virtual Table Tennis) Lite.

fstream: this little program allows me to listen to Chinese radios via Stream, and it is multitasking enabled (can run in background). The only caveat is it eats the data limit in 2gb data plan fast, more later.

Weakness
Battery: per Apple iPhone battery page
“iPhone 4 offers up to 7 hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours of talk time on 2G, 6 hours of Internet use on 3G, 10 hours of Internet use on Wi-Fi, 10 hours of video playback, or 40 hours of audio playback on a full charge at original capacity. In addition, iPhone 4 features up to 300 hours of standby time.”

This is about right, as I had to charge my iPhone 4 in the afternoon couple times (early in the week) as I was listening to the Internet radio.

So so speaker-phone? I had this feeling when I talked to my friend this evening.

AT&T Data plan
I picked the common 2gb plan. 2gb is a bit tight for me, I used 425 mega bytes as of day 3. Why? Because I was using this fstream app listening to Chinese radio stations. It’s cool, but it’s also a data hogger: for 64 k per second stream, it’s using about 25 mb in one hour per SuperUser. For the time being, I am using the following approach to relieve the data usage.

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Categories
iPhone app

Why I created myNestEgg retirement calculator app?

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Last Updated on September 21, 2010 by stlplace

More Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app

1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).

2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.

3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.

I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.

Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.

Categories
iPhone app

Why I created myNestEgg retirement calculator app?

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Last Updated on September 20, 2010 by omaha

More Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app

1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).

2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.

3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.

I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.

Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.

Categories
gadgets

Bought iPhone 4 today

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Last Updated on September 18, 2010 by stlplace

I bought my long anticipated iPhone 4 today, at local Apple store. The buying process is fairly straight forward, because I switched from T-mobile (have been with them for almost 6 years!), I need to bring the account number because I was going to port the number. The Apple sales rep used an iPhone app for the whole process, from input the data, to slide my credit card. Obviously his iPhone has card reader.

Why I bought iPhone 4?
I was a bit late to the iPhone revolution. I was not a believer at the beginning (Summer 2007, see my post iParty). But slowly I realized this iPhone app thing is going to be big, that’s why I bought iPhone 3g (refurb) at Dec 2008, and bought macbook in Jan 2009, starting learning iPhone app dev (I was working on CFA level one in year 2008). This year the No. 1 priority is our new baby. Yesterday (Sept 17, 2010) my first iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator was approved in iTune store. I certainly hope that’s just a beginning of my iPhone app development. Besides using for app dev, I think the new iPhone photo and video capability will be handy to record the growth of our baby.

The apps I am going to get
I was using my wife’s 3g (iOS 3.1.2) before getting iPhone 4. One app I plan to install is Netflix viewer (it requires iOS 3.1.3 or later). I already installed Public Radio Player app (I was using Nokia 5800 before iPhone 4, and I am a big NPR fan).

Odds and Ends
Free case: everyone knows the iPhone 4 antenna gate, and thus the iPhone 4 case program. Guess what, there is an app for that. After looking for “free case reviews”appadvice; macWorld; iLounge on the web, I decided to go with the flow: the Speck PixelSkin HD.

AT&T, T-mobile: I have been with T-mobile for almost 6 years, and for most part I am happy with them. Interestingly, I was AT&T (Cingular) before switching to T-mobile, now I am back. I am not too worried about the signal strength of AT&T amid all the stories about AT&T dropping calls.

No more fights on iPhone: my wife joked I will no longer fight for her iPhone as I got my own. I told her mine got Netflix, and now she is going to fight for mine 😀

Categories
401k and Personal Finance iPhone app

Announcing iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator

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Last Updated on October 22, 2010 by stlplace

(Update Oct-22-2010) The version 1.1 was released yesterday Oct 21, 2010. This link is the same. Release notes is attached at the iTune store description as well.

(Original) iTune store link here.

myNestEgg_iTune_store_2010-09-17

Product support page here.

What is it (myNestEgg)?
myNestEgg is a retirement (savings/income) calculator iPhone app. It runs on iOS 3.1.2 or later.

How much does it cost?
99 cents in the US (Apple tier 1 price, CA$0.99 GB£0.59 EU0.79 € AU$1.19 NZ$1.29 etc.)

Any special promotion for new product launch?
Yes, you can. If you can find a significant bug or suggest a meaningful feature, you can email me at , and I will give you the refund (via Paypal). And if you like, I can send you the Ad hoc version of my future products for free as long as you send me the feedback (note you will need to send me the UDID of your device for the Ad hoc version).