stlplace

Recently I cancelled iPad mini $30 per month 3gb data plan from AT&T, note I also have not have phone data plan since the beginning of April of last year, at which time I returned the employer iPhone 4s when I changed job. Now I am without the data plan on 3G, I am formally without the always on data. Some of the work around I have used to get around:

1) Wifi, at work place I usually get free wifi, and I asked the Wifi password at the places I will be for a while, my daughter’s pre-school, her gym class, JCC, the Chinese restaurant I go often, my friend’s house, etc. Most places have free wifi now. The only thing is just ask: the office manager, my friend. Usually they don’t laugh at me 🙂

2) Not all wifi are equal, besides speed, and coverage and reliability is the most visible. Personally, I like the JCC wifi the best, because they are reliable. At one time, I had Nexus 4 phone, it takes a bit work to get connected (Setting, turn Wifi off and back on).

3) GPS. I found out this lately, even without data plan, I can use GPS on my iPad mini, the only thing is before I start, I need the Wifi to set up the destination and the route. After that the navigation is just the same as the dedicated GPS. A small inconvenience. And one reason I still kept my TomTom GPS.

4) Apps’ working without Wifi. I found the iOS support for apps without Wifi varies greatly. I liked the Facebook “Internet connection required” status bar. And I tried to implement something similar in my app when the connection is required.

(Update 03-07-14) Found a solution to a puzzled problem for iPhone 5s on T-mobile pre-paid plan (no data plan). There is no visual voice mail, which is fine. The annoying part is once there is a voice mail, the red dot on the phone icon won’t go away easily. I found how to fix it, basically I turned off cellular data, I turned it on, then off, the red dot will be gone. A small tip.

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe golden era is over. Some readers/developers will argue it was over a while ago. I know I know. But this problem was confirmed as I read this article on BusinessInsider: it takes 107 swipes to get to the hottest app in app store.

Don’t get me wrong, Apple is still evolving and innovating on this space, with the new iPhone 5s, motion sensor (FitBit app), iBeacon (for retailers), the only thing is the momentum is definitely slowing. All these changes even Siri is not that impressive in my opinion. I do like Facetime, though, esp. I noticed an article talking about Facetime audio which essentially allow one to call other phone over Wifi fore free. Btw, I noticed the article over Zite.

For me personally, I have created 3 apps, and one (myNestEgg) of the 3 still have decent downloads. The problem there is two folds: 1) I did not spend enough time to work on some features to make the user happy; 2) Not many paying customers. I think I will still put some effort on it in the future, but I won’t put a lot hope there. Need to find something more interesting or scalable. It’s too hard to stand out from a million apps. Or even out of 50 and 100 apps in the category.

Competition
Another sign the iOS app developers has to expand their horizon, noticed the No. 1 iOS tutorial website (ebook producer) is doing the Android tutorial? Actually it’s not the first Android tutorial at RayWenderlich.com, I noticed this very first one here. So technically the new one is second series, but it actually helps confirming the popularity of Android platform.

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt has been almost 6 years since iOS SDK first came out (early 2008, source: wikipedia), and the industry is entering a consolidation stage. From my own experience, last year, iOS developers are widely sought after for enterprise app development, and among digital/marketing agencies. But it has a few caveats:

1) Many new developers, some with web development background, have gained experience on app store, and started working for consulting agencies. This trend drives down the hourly rate for iOS developers;

2) From development point of view, some customers realized it’s too costly to develop and maintain native app, and in some cases native apps are not needed. On the other hand, javascript/html5 apps gained some more momentum with the introduction of new frameworks such as AngularJS.

3) The consolidation of iOS/android/mobile custom development firms. Latest example: MartianCraft: its co-founder Jeff Larmache is one of the first iPhone author/developer (his blog here).

In the next series, I will talk about the app store. Got this idea from my own experience and this BI article.