Search results matching tag 'iTunes'

Going Native: How to Develop Native iOS Applications with NucliOS – Webinar

ActiveNick — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:29:57 GMT

A few weeks ago I wrote about the launch of NucliOS, the new Infragistics suite of native controls for iOS developers. NUCLiOS provides the core controls developers need to build high performance, highly visual iPad & iPhone applications. NucliOS is part of the Infragistics MobileAdvantage suite of mobile developer tools, which also includes NetAdvantage for Windows Phone, Ignite UI web & mobile controls for HTML5 & jQuery, and Iguana UI native controls for Android developers.

Last Thursday, my colleague Brent Schooley and I had the pleasure to host a webinar on iOS development titled “Going Native: How to Develop Native iOS Applications with NucliOS”. In this 1-hour webinar, we walk you through the features of the NucliOS Grid and Charts for iOS, including demos using Xcode and Objective C, as well as MonoTouch and C#. MonoTouch is a product by Xamarin that allows you to build native iOS apps using C#.

Use the following links to watch the webinar and access the webinar materials.

All the demos are taken from our NucliOS Samples Browser. You can find the source code for the Samples Browser in the NucliOS installer, available here. Be sure to also read Brent’s post on NucliOS and MonoTouch and Steve Zaharuk’s series on iOS development.

To download an evaluation version of NucliOS, click on the banner below:

To try the NucliOS Samples Browser app on your iPhone or iPad, download it from the iTunes App Store here.

If you have any questions about NucliOS or what is discussed in the webinar, you can post them in the comments below or contact me on Twitter at @ActiveNick. Brent can be reached on twitter at @bschooley. I also want to thank key members of the NucliOS team who answered questions during the webinar: Steve Zaharuk (@codebystevez) and Torrey Betts (@torreybetts).

You can also post questions in the NucliOS forums here.

From iPad to Surface – Head-to-Head Comparison: Surface vs. iPad

ActiveNick — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:40:27 GMT

I’ve been an avid iPad user for 30 months and counting. I still love and use my Pad a lot, but I also bought a new Surface RT. Will my Surface ever completely replace my iPad? I don’t know yet, but I’d love to find out. This blog series is aimed at comparing the two devices in all sorts of situations, from work to home, and analyzing the pros and cons of each. You can read other entries in the series using the links below.

Surface vs. iPad: One Month Later

I started this blog series exactly one month ago. I bought my Surface, full of hopes that it would become my favorite device and dream tablet. If you’ve been following this series, you know by now that was not the case. The Surface is an awesome device, but it certainly isn’t ideal. It’s got its pros and its cons. I found that out the hard way last week. I was vacationing in Spain during Thanksgiving week and carried both devices with me, and it turns out I was using my iPad 90% of the time. I probably would have used my Surface more if it had been a business trip, but in the end, I’d like to just use one tablet. Period.

It’s now time to score this contest. The table below shows various comparison aspects and I’ll be attempting to score this. Note that I’m only counting 1 point per comparison. It’s up to you to weigh in which aspects are more important and which are more trivial.

If you feel there are important comparisons I’m not making here, let me know in the comments below and I’ll add them.

Device Aspects	iPad 4th gen.	Surface RT
*Device Construction & Quality* Both devices sport superior design, construction materials and overall quality. Both easily win against virtually every Android tablet device out there. This is a really close one, but I have to give it to the Surface for integrating the Kick Stand without any compromise.		Surface
Dimensions & Weight The iPad is a 4:3 device whereas the Surface is a 16:9 device. Both can be used well in landscape mode, but the iPad definitely feels better in Portrait mode. The iPad is also slightly lighter (652g vs. 680g).	iPad
*Storage* Surface gives you double the storage space for the same price compared to the iPad. Surface also has a microSD slot and a USB port to plug in USB drives. No contest.		Surface
*Performance* On paper, the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad core 1.4 GHz in the Surface sounds better than the Apple A6X dual core 1.4GHz. In practice though, the iPad is more reactive and feels less sluggish	iPad
Screen Quality I wrote extensively about the respective screens and the bottom line is the 2048x1536 Retina display on the iPad is just plain superior to the Surface’s 1366x768 screen.	iPad
Cameras Remember how disappointing the iPad 2 camera was? You’ll then understand why the Surface camera can’t win this one.	iPad
Battery Life I don’t have hard numbers to share. The iPad has a 42.5 W-h battery vs. 31.5 W-h on the Surface, but it’s all about the consumption rate, especially given the higher resolution screen on the iPad. Based on my experiences, things still look better on the iPad, but the Surface is also quite good.	iPad
Wireless Options Both have Bluetooth support. Both have Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, but the Surface’s MIMO Wi-Fi radio is iffy and often drops, or can’t give me an IP. There’s also no GPS or 3G/4G radio in the Surface, and that’s disappointing.	iPad
Ports & Extensibility The only iPad port is proprietary, and even though many accessories support it, this was invalidated with the introduction of the Lightning connector. The Surface’s charge port is also proprietary, but is joined by standard USB, microHDMI and microSD ports/slots.		Surface
App Store Selection 700,000+ iPad apps vs. 20,000+ Windows Store apps, and most of the key apps are still missing on Surface. This is a HUGE win for iPad.	iPad
Shell & Navigation The iPad’s shell has virtually not changed since iPhone v1. Some conveniences were added on the home button to switch to other background apps, but that’s it. This is an easy win for the Surface’s Live Tiles, Charms bar, edge gestures and dynamic lock screen information.		Surface
*Operating System Configurability* The iPad offers a lot of conveniences in a greatly simplified and easy to use model, but the Surface does have greater configurability. It might scare off a few average users, but you also don’t need to use them.		Surface
*Document Management & Sync* One of the biggest pains with the iPad is moving files in and out. Everything is silo’d in application storage and it’s just plain hard. Surface lets you manage files like a normal Windows machine, you can connect to network drives and add USB drives & storage cards. SkyDrive is also integrated in the OS. Strong Surface win here.		Surface
*Use Case: Email* The iPad mail client has received several improvements over the years and works relatively well now. The Windows Store Mail is just plain bad and is very sluggish on Windows RT devices. This is a huge strike for Surface.	iPad
*Use Case: eReading* The iPad feels better since most read books in portrait mode and the 4:3 screen aspect ratio is closer to a standard book. The iPad Retina display also enhances the reading experience with smaller pixels.	iPad
*Use Case: Facebook* With 1B users, Facebook is a standard use case. Facebook is well integrated in the People hub in Windows RT and Windows 8, but this doesn’t come close to the full experience. It took a while to get an official Facebook app for iPad, but we have one now, and we don’t on Surface.	iPad
*Use Case: Gaming* The Surface has a lot of potential as a gaming device, especially given the integration with Xbox LIVE, the premier online gaming service. Sadly, the selection of games is still pitiful on Surface compared to the iPad’s massive catalog at this early stage.	iPad
*Use Case: Movies & TV* Both devices offer a premium movie watching experience. Both offer Netflix and HuluPlus. Both have their own video stores. The Surface has an edge with the 16:9 movie-friendly screen and the storage card to store media, but the iPad has a LOT more apps that stream content at this point.	iPad
*Use Case: Music* Just like movies, both devices are great music players. There are also more music apps on the iPad and a bigger catalog in iTunes, but the Xbox Music service clinches this win here. The deep synchronization between your Surface, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Windows 8 computers makes it all so seamless, much more so than in an all-Apple ecosystem.		Surface
*Use case: Presentations* Keynote is a nice presentation software with cute little effects, but the iPad version is actually a subset of the Mac version. Both also pale in comparison to the full-fledged PowerPoint 2013 on Surface, which is THE benchmark presentation tool in the business world. The standard microHDMI port also clinches this win.		Surface
*Use Case: Sharing* All iPad apps are on their own when it comes to sharing data and documents with other apps. Each developer needs to fully implement sharing support. The Share Charm on Windows 8/RT makes everything easier here and once you start using it, you won’t want to go back.		Surface
*Use Case: Spreadsheet* Full Microsoft Excel 2013 vs. watered down Apple Numbers. No contest. None. Next!		Surface
*Use Case: Twitter* The selection of Twitter clients in the Windows Store is sadly quite disappointing. Looking at the three leading apps (MetroTwit, Tweetro, Rowi), they are slow, unreliable, suffer from usability/design issues. The iPad has great Twitter clients for all tastes.	iPad
*Use Case: Web Browsing* Internet Explorer 10 on Surface is a very powerful browser. The problem is most websites still don’t fully support it as well as they do Firefox or Safari. The partial Adobe Flash support on Surface also doesn’t make up for it given how badly Flash runs un those white-listed sites. The edge goes to Safari on iPad here. There are also more browser options on iPad (though they’re all wrappers around Safari, even Google Chrome)	iPad
*Use Case: Word Processing* Again, just like Surface easily won in the Presentation and Spreadsheet categories, the same goes for Microsoft Word 2013 easily beating Apple Pages. Word is the King.		Surface
TOTAL SCORE	iPad 4th gen.	Surface RT
	14	11

iPad vs. Surface – The Verdict

Surface RT is a v1 product, and a very impressive one at that. In fact, if this was Surface v1 vs. iPad v1, the Surface RT would win a lot more points. Unfortunately, Surface needs to be competitive against the 4th generation iPad. The 14-to-11 score above shows how the Surface has a lot of great qualities, and once the Windows Store expands, Surface might even win a few extra points. The potential is definitely there. However, I’d like to carry just one tablet, and for now, I still need to carry two.

Don’t take my scoring at face value. Assign the proper weight to each score based on which usage scenarios matter more to you. Are there also some important comparisons missing in the table above?

If you have any questions about Surface, including suggestions for future topics to explore in this series, questions about my experiences with the Surface vs. iPad, or any other tablet, feel free to ask them in the comments section below, or contact me on Twitter at @ActiveNick.

If you’re a developer interested in building apps for Surface, Windows 8 and Windows RT, Infragistics has the right tools for you with the new NetAdvantage for Windows UI. You should also follow @infragistics on Twitter.

Did you buy a Surface or other Windows RT tablet? Are you waiting for the Windows 8 Pro tablets? What are some of the key apps you want to see on Surface? Which of the comparisons outlined above matter more to you? Based on the various scores, which tablets seem better suited for your needs?

Let me know.

From iPad to Surface – Day 9: Favorite Fridays >> Windows Phone App

ActiveNick — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 22:55:46 GMT

The Microsoft Ecosystem

For a software company, Microsoft sure makes a lot of hardware. Setting aside most of the devices Microsoft ever created, we can look at the Microsoft ecosystem today in 2012 and we find a trifecta of devices:

Windows PCs, laptops & tablets
- Windows 8
- Windows RT
Windows Phone 8 devices
Xbox 360 Gaming Console

This ecosystem is glued together by your Microsoft Account and SkyDrive. The Microsoft Account is the new name for the melting pot that is your Windows Live ID, Xbox LIVE Gamertag, and Hotmail account. SkyDrive can be compared to Dropbox in that it serves as cloud storage for your files, but it goes further. It also syncs settings, photos, music, files, notes and such across your devices and computers.

Apple has a similar ecosystem:

Computers running iTunes (Mac or Windows)
iOS Devices (iPhone & iPad)
Apple TV

Apple also has the Apple ID and iCloud service to bind everything together. When it comes to computers, there is little benefit to actually using a Mac since you can pretty much get the same benefits from running iTunes on Windows. It can also be argued that the Apple TV certainly doesn’t have the clout of the Xbox 360. It’s a media consumption device for videos, music and photos on your TV, and not much else.

The main difference I want to explore is how you can sync data between devices. The following connections are allowed between devices:

Apple Devices Sync

Sync content between an iPhone and an iTunes computer
Sync content between an iPad and an iTunes computer
Sync content between an Apple TV and an iTunes computer

The iTunes computer is the central link. All these devices can interact and sync with the cloud, but not with each other. For example, you can’t connect an iPhone to an iPad and move files & media around.

Microsoft Devices Sync

Sync content between a Windows Phone and a Windows 8 computer
Transfer content between a Windows RT tablet (like Surface) and a Windows 8 computer (via network or USB key)
Sync content between an Xbox 360 and a Windows 8 computer
Sync content between a Windows Phone and a Windows RT tablet

Don’t panic, I use “Windows 8” here but Windows 7 is still supported to sync data with Windows Phone 7.x via the Zune client. To sync Windows Phone 8 with Windows 7, use the the beta app. There is also a Windows Phone app for Mac if you don’t use Windows.

Did you notice that 4th bullet in the Microsoft list above? Indeed, you can’t connect an iPhone to an iPad, but you CAN connect a Windows Phone to a Surface. You do it with the Windows Phone app from the Windows Store.

Windows Phone App on Surface

The Windows Phone app allows users to sync their Windows Phone 8 devices with any Windows 8 or Windows RT computer, including the Surface. Yes, you heard me right, I said Windows Phone 8. Don’t try to connect your Lumia 900 or Samsung Focus running Windows Phone 7.5 , it won’t work. This is why the app rated so low in the Windows Store. Not supporting the current generation of Windows Phones is a lame omission and I really hope this gets fixed in the Windows Phone 7.8 update.

When you launch the app, you see a list of Windows Phone apps available in the Windows Phone Store. You’re instructed to connect your phone via USB. Upon connecting for the first time, you get prompted to name your device. Don’t worry, this name is not permanent and you can change it in the app settings.

You can tell the app to automatically import all your photos from your phone to your Surface upon connecting. If you connect your phone and the app is not running, a popup shows up in the upper-right. Tapping it presents you with options, including launching the Windows Phone app (the recommended option).

Once connected, the app imports all your Windows Phone photos if you opted to do so. The app shows your device name, device type, phone number (I erased mine from the screenshot) and battery level of the device. You can indeed charge your phone with your Surface via USB. You can also see at the bottom of the screen how much space is used and remains on your Windows Phone.

The app scrolls horizontally and presents several sections. It doesn’t rotate and can’t be used in portrait mode.

On your phone

This section presents a preview of the photos, videos and music on your phone. Photos can be browsed by album, music by albums, and videos by type (e.g. all vs. personal). Three tiles are available to add photos, videos and music. Each option allows you to browse for individual items or entire folders.

In the Store

These are just browser links to the apps and tapping them opens the app link in the browser. It only shows you 12 apps. To see more, you have to tap the link which takes you to the Windows Phone Store online. Disappointing.

On the Web

The last section on the far right contains more links to the web. These shortcuts take you to Microsoft pages to find a lost phone, see your Microsoft Account or visit the main windowsphone.com page.

Room for Improvement

It’s a good starting point, but the app is not perfect. It’d be nice if the Windows Phone app could do more, such as:

Sync with Windows Phone 7.x devices
Control where stuff gets sync’ed on my Windows 8 or Windows RT computer
Allow me to add music to my phone by albums without having to manage files or folders
Actually shop for apps and queue them for remote download on my phone without using a browser
Find, ring or erase my phone remotely without using a browser

The Zune client on Windows 7 was a great way to manage Windows Phone content, and I would really like to see this Windows Phone app be modeled more around the Zune approach. I’m certainly glad we have this app, but Microsoft seriously needs to keep working on it as this is a very basic version 1.

Day 9 Summary

A common debate these days is whether or not the Surface can replace a laptop. I still believe that you’ll need a laptop for more involved productivity work, but my Surface certainly takes me further in laptop-less territory than my iPad can. Being able to sync (and charge) my phone with my tablet certainly becomes a part of that equation, and a step in the right direction.

Did you buy a Surface or other Windows RT tablet? Are you waiting for the Windows 8 Pro tablets? What are some of the key apps you want to see on Surface? How many devices in the Windows RT, Windows Phone & Xbox 360 trifecta do you own? Let me know.

See you tomorrow! [Link to the next post: Landscape vs. Portrait]

Storage Wars: SkyDrive Doesn’t Work in the Sky

ActiveNick — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:46:00 GMT

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I recently switched my main Windows Phone device from a Samsung Focus to a gorgeous Nokia Lumia 800. Why did I switch? While I still think the Focus is the best non-Nokia Windows Phone out there, there are many reasons I can think of as to why I think the Lumia is better:

Quality & Design: The Lumia feels better in the hand, the construction feels solid and durable, the design of the device is sleek and sexy with its rounded edges and glass, and the weight “just feels good” and inspires confidence.
Screen Quality: Which is stunning, though a tad smaller in size compared to the Focus. Mind you, the Focus’ Super AMOLED screen is also superb.
It’s fast! Since this is a Windows Phone 7.5 device, it comes with a faster 1.4 GHz processor, compared to my first generation 1 GHz Focus which I had upgraded to Windows Phone 7.5.
Slick Camera: The combination of the 8 Megapixel camera and the Carl Zeiss lens result in beautiful photos, better than the 5MP camera on the Focus.
Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps and other Nokia-exclusive apps add a lot of value on top of the default Windows Phone OS. I love my *true* turn-by-turn directions now.

It all came at a cost though:

My Focus had 8GB of storage, extended with an extra 32GB in the form of an internal (officially unsupported) micro-SDHC card, for a total of nearly 40GB (the OS reported 37.something available after a reset)
My Lumia has 16GB of storage. Period.

16GB should be enough, right?

Let’s dive in… After initializing my Lumia with my favorite apps, games and media, here is the state of things:

I have 2 email accounts sync’d up, my Infragistics Exchange and my personal IMAP account, both with 1 month of back emails cached
I have about 83 apps installed. Some are essentials like Weather Channel, Netflix, 4th & Mayor, Facebook, USA Toda, My Stocks, Carbon and about 10 others pinned to my home screen. Some of the others are just as important (Amazon Mobile, Kindle, Flixter, IMDB, SkyDrive, OpenTable, etc.), some are casual apps (MS Campus Apps, WoW Armory, ArcGIS, etc.), and others are just fun apps I like to keep (Matrix Rain, Light Sword, RunPee, etc.)
I have 71 games installed, including 52 Xbox LIVE games, 18 indie games, and the game I’m working on. I own about 80% of those games (paid or free), and the others are trials. I’m a gamer, I love games, and I love the Xbox LIVE integration on my phone.
I subscribe to 19 audio podcasts and 6 video podcasts, keeping 1 episode of each sync’d-up, with a few that I like more where I keep 3. There are a few more video podcasts I wanted to add, but had to cut them due to space limitations.
I have 21 music albums stored. I had well over . I had well over 90 albums on my Samsung Focus, which is still a tiny fraction of my 1800 CDs music collection I have at home (all originals, I was raised by an IP lawyer).
I have the offline maps for NJ, NY, PA, WA and CA stored locally in Nokia Drive. This is based on the area where I live and frequently visited places. I’ll have to swap some around as I travel to other states/countries.
No of TV shows stored: 0.
No of movies stored: 0.
No of documents stored in Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) or cached from SharePoint: 0 (yet, my work will require that I carry more docs on the road).
No of photos taken with my Lumia since I got it a week ago: 6 (this is gonna rise FAST).

Available storage now: 1.19GB

Houston, err… Redmond, we have a problem!

For some reason, more than 16 months after the commercial launch of the first Windows Phone devices, not one device sports more than 16GB of storage. The same goes for the recent models announced at CES or Mobile World Congress. While I completely understand the need for cheaper devices with 8GB storage & 256 RAM (i.e. Windows Phone “Tango” devices) to capture the low-end market in need of an upgrade away from Symbian and feature phones, there is also a need for beefier devices.

The iPhone was introduced in June 2007 as a 4GB & 8GB device (the 4GB option was discontinued only 3 months later), quickly followed in February 2008 with 16GB models. 32GB models were introduced with the iPhone 3GS (June 2009, 2 years after the original iPhone was released) and the iPhone 4S which recently came out in October 2011 now even has a whopping 64GB option. And all those Android users that love the platform because it is supposedly “more powerful and more customizable”? Well, these guys & gals are power users, not casual soccer moms, and they want 2012 specs, not 2008 specs. Windows Phone may not need dual-cores to smoke the competition, but storage is storage, and my MP3’s are the same size on Windows Phone as they are on iOS or Android.

Why are the Windows Phone OEMs still stuck on the 16GB option? Sure, having a 16GB model is important to guarantee the phone is accessible on a budget, especially when subsidized by the carriers, but why not offer a 32GB option for those that are willing to pay extra? Here are the consequences of this lack of storage on my phone:

Inability to “experiment with apps”. The Windows Phone Marketplace is now 70,000+ strong and rising at a rate of 1,500+ apps a week. Users need to have storage to try apps. Users need to try apps and experiment with them for the ecosystem to be successful. If they need to play the uninstall/install whack-an-app game all the time, they will stop experimenting and the download numbers will drop, reducing the developer interest in the platform.
Every single 8MP photo I capture takes storage space and will take me one step closer to the dreaded “out of storage space” message (or however it’s worded). I like to carry a lot of photos with me to show around, and I do not want to wipe them clean every time I sync with Zune on my desktop. And what’s the point of increasing the resolution of camera phones if the storage stays the same?
I would love to watch movies and TV shows on my phone, but I can’t, each would require anywhere from 100M to 1GB+, and I have no storage to spare.
My games will have to play musical chair as games require more storage than common apps. This sucks because I like playing them and getting those achievements. This means I’ll probably mostly keep official Xbox LIVE games on my phone, and rotate the indie games. This will hurt the indie games market, and it certainly won’t encourage developers to push the envelope in their games.

Nick, come on, you’re a power users…

Yes, you’re absolutely right, but I certainly am not the only one.

You don’t get it, you’re supposed to use SkyDrive and Zune Pass

Right, and I can watch movies, Star Trek and Family Guy on Netflix, stream YouTube videos of paper-ripping giggling babies, listen to music on Spotify, etc. There is one major problem though: All these apps require a live Internet connection! It doesn’t end there:

I travel a lot and SkyDrive does not work in the sky! Most airplanes still have no Wi-Fi, and those that do still charge more the equivalent of 1 month of high speed home internet for a 2-6 hour flight. Case in point: I wrote this entire post on a EWR-SEA flight, but I’ve had to wait until I reached my hotel to submit this blog post online.
SkyDrive does not allow me to store my own personal music in my free 25GB cloud space and then stream it on demand, properly organized by albums or playlists.
Zune Music also requires Internet access, and AFAIK, it does not allow me to “favorite” albums for streaming purposes, and the fact that some albums have random tracks flagged as “download only” pisses me off to no end, especially in movie soundtracks and classical music works.
I can download music for offline access with a temporary DRM license thanks to Zune Pass, but I’m back to square one with my storage problem and I really do not want to play music chair with my music albums. the reason why I have so many CDs at home is because I like variety and choice, and I do not know ahead of time what mood I’ll be in at any given point in time in the future. If I feel like listening to the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King soundtrack (yes, I’m a nerd), the star Wars soundtrack or maroon 5 won’t cut it. And if I feel like listening to Wagner’s Die Walküre opera, then Lang Lang’s Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.3 won’t do either.
I do not have what you would all “popular music” tastes… those 1,800 CDs I mentioned? Over 80% of them are classical music and opera… and I can assure you a LOT of them are not even available on Zune, or iTunes for that matter. I already bought them, and I want to listen to them. Period.
Oh, and while I’m a subscriber, let’s not forget Zune Pass costs $10 a month, and many Windows Phone will not have it, you cannot take it for granted.
One last thing: Playing media content is already battery consuming, but STREAMING + PLAYING MEDIA CONTENT ALL THE TIME IS EVEN WORSE AND YOUR BATTERY WILL DIE IN NO TIME.

I may be naïve and assume that simply offering a 32GB option on top of the standard 16GB version is easy. Everything has a cost, I know. But Apple makes it work, and since everyone is hell-bent on copying Apple’s strategies, why not copy this one too? Providing more choice is never wrong!

Recent leaks show that storage cards may be coming back in Windows Phone 8 (aka “Apollo”), and that’s a good thing, but I just hope the file access performance will still be good. As fast as flash storage can be, accessing a separate card is always slower than native storage, and I observed as much on my SDHC-boosted Samsung Focus.

What about you readers? Is 16GB enough? Am I the exception for wanting more? If not, how much storage would you want on your Windows Phone? what do you do with your storage?

Let me know your answers in the comments here or on Twitter at @ActiveNick.