Posted by Kieran on August 29, 2009 under Mobile, iPhone | 
List of fonts available on iPhone OS feel free to add or amend to in the comments
Font Family: American Typewriter
Font: AmericanTypewriter
Font: AmericanTypewriter-Bold
Font Family: AppleGothic
Font: AppleGothic
Font Family: Arial
Font: ArialMT
Font: Arial-BoldMT
Font: Arial-BoldItalicMT
Font: Arial-ItalicMT
Font Family: Arial Rounded MT Bold
Font: ArialRoundedMTBold
Font Family: Arial Unicode MS
Font: ArialUnicodeMS
Font Family: Courier
Font: Courier
Font: Courier-BoldOblique
Font: Courier-Oblique
Font: Courier-Bold
Font Family: Courier New
Font: CourierNewPS-BoldMT
Font: CourierNewPS-ItalicMT
Font: CourierNewPS-BoldItalicMT
Font: CourierNewPSMT
Font Family: DB LCD Temp
Font: DBLCDTempBlack
Font Family: Georgia
Font: Georgia-Bold
Font: Georgia
Font: Georgia-BoldItalic
Font: Georgia-Italic
Font Family: Helvetica
Font: Helvetica-Oblique
Font: Helvetica-BoldOblique
Font: Helvetica
Font: Helvetica-Bold
Font Family: Helvetica Neue
Font: HelveticaNeue
Font: HelveticaNeue-Bold
Font Family: Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W3
Font: HiraKakuProN-W3
Font Family: Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W6
Font: HiraKakuProN-W6
Font Family: Marker Felt
Font: MarkerFelt-Thin
Font Family: STHeiti J
Font: STHeitiJ-Medium
Font: STHeitiJ-Light
Font Family: STHeiti K
Font: STHeitiK-Medium
Font: STHeitiK-Light
Font Family: STHeiti SC
Font: STHeitiSC-Medium
Font: STHeitiSC-Light
Font Family: STHeiti TC
Font: STHeitiTC-Light
Font: STHeitiTC-Medium
Font Family: Times New Roman
Font: TimesNewRomanPSMT
Font: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT
Font: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT
Font: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT
Font Family: Trebuchet MS
Font: TrebuchetMS-Italic
Font: TrebuchetMS
Font: Trebuchet-BoldItalic
Font: TrebuchetMS-Bold
Font Family: Verdana
Font: Verdana-Bold
Font: Verdana-BoldItalic
Font: Verdana
Font: Verdana-Italic
Font Family: Zapfino
Font: Zapfino
Posted by Kieran on under Mac |
Heres the steps I went through to install Snow Leopard on my own machine using retail builds, turned out I was being far more paranoid than I needed to be, but as I usual I suspect taking these precautions always means nothing bad happens!
1) Take the opportunity to spring clean the Mac
2) Backup using Time machine
3) Mirror hard drive using superduper so that if all does goes wrong its easy to return to a previous state
4) Check superduper clone works!
5) Install Snow Leopard
6) Install XCode 3.2 which is on the optional packages of the Snow Leopard dvd, which for having the Clang static analyzer built into the ide (Build and Analyze) is worth upgrading to Snow Leopard for alone
7) Install latest iPhone SDK
Re peform back up rituals 
All in all took a little over an hour most of which I was not sat in front the screen so quite painless and every for me at least appears to be working first time!
Posted by Kieran on August 23, 2009 under Mobile, iPhone |
If your wondering how to have a dynamic multiple line UILabel its actually incredibly easy
theLabel.numberOfRows = 0
Posted by Kieran on August 12, 2009 under J2ME, Mobile, iPhone |
Erik Starck posted over on his blog at Sony Ericsson about the fact that Spotify will not be releasing a J2ME client until the user experience is good enough,
These thoughts are from an ex Sony handset user, my last four handsets have been as follows W800 -> K800 -> iPhone 2G -> iPhone 3G and when developing for J2ME the Sonys are always my reference device of choice (Since Jp3 and the K700)
I agree with Eriks comments that actually for a specific phone (especially a Sony JP8) its perfectly possible, with the utilization of modern libraries such as LWUIT to achieve an application that is as rich as the iPhone, especially for something like Spotify.
The problem here is that most people when they request a Java application, do not want a specific phone (iPhone) or family of phones (Sony JP8, Series 40 feature pack 3 etc), this is when fragmentation rears its ugly head and things get a little more difficult for people newer to mobile, as the write once run anyway promise breaks down rapidly.
The points Erik raises that are causing the headache for J2ME user experience right now can be broken down into certain areas
The fact that the alerts that pop up and alert the user for things such as http connection and saving to the file system are irritating, however the majority can be removed by self signing the application with a Verisign/Thawte certificate (however the root cert might or might not be present on a given phone) , submitting the application through the Java Verified process, this certificate is on the majority of MIDP2 phones but not all.
In the case of messaging however, you would need your application to be signed either with the handset manufacturer or operators certificate, the problem with the operators certificate is for the people who have transferred network or have purchased an open market phone, They will not have the operators root certificate present and therefore the application will be unable to be installed.
- Discovery of application to install
Assuming you have managed to install the application, where has it gone? Apple really got this process spot on. After the user chooses to install something from the app store, the user then sees where the application will live, whilst it is installing, contrast this to the Nokia S60 experience and you can see the problem!
Then you run into the other problems that Apple have made easier for a third party developer
- Worldwide Distribution
- Favourable revenue share
- Payment handled for the developer by Apple
- Payment does not matter whether the user is accessing on WIFI or their cellular radio
- Update process (achievable in J2ME but has to be coded into the application from the start and is not as pleasant)
- Discovery of application
- Device with a large screen, fast and plenty of heap memory
- Educated users who know their phone is able to run applications
- Trusting users who are happy to consume applications
Spotify should run well on Sonys and their developer program has long provided the following document which at least shows the promise of what a Java solution can enable if tailored for the Sonys, rather than employing the lcd approach to J2ME development. The problem of course then is there is a lot of handset groupings out there and tailoring an application for each platform needs to be done for a reason and unless the user experience is there for them to find the application once installed on their phone are they going to use it?
One thing is for certain though as the Java platform is open and you can self distribute, you can at least guarantee the application will be able to be placed upon the device it was developed for.
Spotify may say no to J2ME but Apple might say no to Spotify! (hopefully not)
Posted by Kieran on August 5, 2009 under Mobile, payment |
Introductory video can be found here over at x.com
Interesting stats on Paypal:
on average more than $2,000 goes through PayPal every second of each day.
It has 75 million active accounts, and it’s available in 190 markets and 19 different currencies.
However whilst these stats seem impressive you can see where Paypal see room for their growth when compared with Visa and Mastercard FT article on PayPal opening up
From a mobile perspective obviously obtaining payment on device is something that until fairly recently has always been difficult, recent initiatives such as payforit which can be enabled by providers such as Bango and WIN, have improved the situation, but still only allow primarily “point of download” business models, which is cumbersome for many digital content apps such as ebook providers.
Indeed in app payment is pretty much still a nightmare for a developer, even the commendable carriers that do have systems to integrate with from an application; which have achieved the sort of scale that Paypal would be envious of active subscribers in the 100s of millions those numbers, however assume the API interface is the same across a given carriers territories. Fragmentation aside these carrier based solutions often suffer from the problem that if the user suddenly switches to a WIFI network then the billing system breaks down. People consuming data rich applications, and therefore probably the ones they are willing to pay for are probably likely to move to WIFI enabled handsets. Moving to WIFI handsets is something Bango highlight in their recent press release.
Even without the WIFI issue one of the problems has been scaling payment systems, something that RIM (using Paypal Screenshot of Blackberry app world payment system) and Apple have done better than most.
Googles checkout for Android unfortunately suffers from a couple of irritating problems in that the currency is fixed, so as a end user if I purchase something from the store it could well cost me a couple dollars, however many UK banks will then charge a overseas transaction fee of a £1 and 3% or more (useful comparision of overseas transactions fees from UK banks here) , as a developer this means you would have to present the user the item in a foreign currency, which is far from appealing! As the same developer looking to accept payment, scaling with each individual carrier is time consuming and difficult and becomes a project in itself and is in my mind one reason the advertising route for mobile applications has been so successful to date, because it achieves scale so much more easily.
So I am hoping that Paypal can provide the trusted partner that is needed in the mobile ecosystem to enable (preferably) micro payments from mobile websites and mobile applications whichever flavour they come in Android, Blackberry, iPhone, J2ME, Symbian or Windows mobile, as at the moment the only platform this is available for is iPhone with some restrictions on the inApp purchase side
Posted by Kieran on August 4, 2009 under Mobile, iPhone |
Apple announced at WWDC the price points for the new iPhone 3GS and a price reduction for the iPhone 3G
3G 8GB goes from $199 to $99.
3GS 16GB to be $199 (same as old price for 3G 8GB)
3GS 32GB to be $299 (same as old price for 3G 16GB).
From O2 in the UK looking at the same 24 month price plans you would have to sign up for with ATT
the 3G 8GB is free on all 24 month contracts
The 3GS 16GB is £90 on £35 a month contracts and free on £45+ contracts
The 3GS 32GB is £175 on £35 a month contracts, £97 on £45 and free on £75+ contracts
The cheapest ATT contract I can find for a San Francisco zip code would be $30 for data + $39.99 for nation 450 + a one time activation fee of $36 .
Another thing to note many people forget that o2s contracts all include unlimited wifi with the cloud, whilst I would rather have a great hspda network everywhere I go, the inclusion of being able to use the cloud for me personally is very useful
So was it more a case that o2 was subsidizing the 3G iPhone more heavily than ATT? rather than rip of Britain being the usual case?
One thing is for certain I would be very happy if the rumours that Tmobile and Orange may be stocking the iPhone in the future are true, as competition can only be a good thing for the consumer and hopefully people who would purchase an iPhone, if it was not restricted to o2 without unlocking it will be able to do so.
Posted by Kieran on August 3, 2009 under J2ME, Mobile |
Well another handset manufacturer opens up their application store which will launch in 20 countries
information is here and Samsungs developer portal for Java is here
For those of us that are experienced at dealing with the Samsungs this is great news. However if Samsung are hoping to stimulate applications on their platform, specific information on the APIs and any device specific nuances that are implemented in their phones would be very useful. Simple information such as maximum jar size for a given phone is absolutely vital for any would be developer and is sadly lacking at the moment on Samsungs developer portal.
Ideally any handset manufacturer should provide device groupings like Sony Ericsson do, this would enable developers to have an understanding of what phones their application might run on and therefore allow them to support more phones, which benefits the would be end user, the developer and the handset manufacturer if they wish to encourage the eco system.
However as this and other recent entrants to the current app store craze, Should take notes it has not just been the application store distribution model that made Apples app store a success…