Posts Tagged 'SDK'

iPhone Getting GPS & SDK Getting Maps API…?

Published May 4, 2008 Uncategorized 3 Comments
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Since I dissed the iPhone SDK earlier this month (iPhone SDK lacks mapping function), I wanted to pass on this update. Looks like a GPS-enabled iPhone is in the works for Apple’s upcoming World Wide Dev Conference. Even if the announcement doesn’t come then, looks like it will come soon according to EnGadget:

Second-gen iPhone: 3G, GPS, only slightly thicker

Click to see new GPS-iPhone at EndGadget

This is great news for mobile map-based application developers but don’t count on the API being as slick and open as Android’s. Given Apple’s approach so far, they’ll still withhold the vital functionality to get your app really humming.

Why do I say that?

Well for example, Apple’s SDK doesn’t allow applications to run in the background. That means death to any Pocket Journey app that would run on an iPhone as the audio/video would be killed along with your application as soon as someone called. Apple says this is for security reasons, but we know it’s due to Apple’s “control freakish” corporate nature. Happily for us, Android solved this challenge through their Service API.

Seems like Apple wants to step back to the dark ages of the Palm OS which can only handle single-threaded tasks as well

iPhone SDK lacks mapping function (Android doesn’t of course)

Published April 22, 2008 Android , iPhone 4 Comments
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Here’s a quick insight from research into the iPhone SDK in comparison to the Android OS.

Yes…you read this post’s title correctly. The iPhone SDK lacks the basic mapping API required by applications developers hoping to tie the mobile experience to a geo-specific location (GPS). The only GPS mapping function provided by the iPhone SDK is to send a URL to the iPhone’s built-in Google map application and to let Google handle the rest.

Curiously the iPhone SDK does provide a basic location service API providing the user’s location using cell signal triangulation, but without a map, this information is all-but-useless.

At first glance you might say, “that makes sense as the iPhone doesn’t have GPS built-in because it would have raised the price of an already expensive phone.”

Point taken but all this leaves me to believe that Apple’s take on the iPhone is too media focused and lacks clear understanding of the power provided by location-awareness. That’s great news for the upcoming GPS-enabled Android phones. They’ll have time to widely proliferate before the soon-to-be almost 10M iPhones out there will be replaced with GPS-enabled iPhones.

Imagine if Android had lacked the MapActivity API…?!? From my count, 90% of the most interesting Android Challenge entries would never exist. Without Android’s MapActivity API, we would be left with a few accelerometer-based games and non-SMS messaging apps.

This is great news for Google and perhaps that’s the point. Google wrote the iPhone’s map application and was either not given incentive to make expose its iPhone map through an API or perhaps decided it was smart to keep the iPhone limited in this crucial manner. OK…maybe Apple has a bigger plan as it always does. Maybe Apple is preparing to launch its own mapping application or perhaps AT&T didn’t want Apple to expose such location-based apps because AT&T has its own GPS agenda.

Thoughts anyone?

Welcome to Pocket Journey

Published March 14, 2008 General 3 Comments
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We’ve been working towards this release for over a year now and the pieces are finally coming together. Our ‘official’ website has gone into public stealth mode…yes that’s a little cryptic but we guarantee your wait will be worthwhile.

In the meantime, please read on and explore this site. There will be enough leaked knowledge to wet your appetite for the final launch which we hope will arrive by year’s end. We’re participating in Google’s Android Challenge and will be releasing screenshots and more insights into Audible Journey over the next few months. If you haven’t heard about Android but like the vision of Pocket Journey, then you’re going to be in for a shock. We were. None of us expected so much progress on the mobile front in such a short time. Judging from the just announced release of Apple iPhone SDK, we’re about to experience a MAJOR shift in what we will expect from our cell phones over the next few years.

Please feel free to post your own thoughts about Pocket Journey or to contact us. Without community participation both on the business development & the member usage side, this vision will never become a reality.

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