HTML5 won the battle, will it win the war?

Adobe recently announced that Flash on mobile is dead (Check out Adobe's announcement here) and they would more aggressively contribute to HTML5.

Now, HTML5 has won the battle (against mobile Flash) - however, will HTML5 win the war (mobile development)? 

Let's look at some of the challenges HTML5 has to overcome, especially on the mobile devices.

HTML5 mobile support

• Different device browsers support different levels of HTML 5 standard. Check out HTML 5 features support on different browsers @ http://caniuse.com/ (and @ http://html5test.com/results-mobile.html)
• As you can imagine, its a nightmare for the developers - with number of different devices/browser versions on the market (especially with Android devices) - it would be a challenge to build/test HTML5 apps that run on different devices.
• I feel that it would take quite some time to build a HTML 5 app that runs on majority of the browsers (I mean, on your own). In the meantime, it would be wise to work with a HTML5 framework that takes care of cross browser issues and expect to do a lot of testing on your target devices/mobile browsers. 

HTML5 mobile app stores

• A few years back, mobile app stores were controlled by telecommunication service providers as they were supporting different devices. Since the introduction of iPhone, mobile app stores are largely controlled by device manufacturers (For example, Apple and Amazon) and OS providers (Android Market by Google).
• At present, there are no established HTML5 app stores. Establishing HTML5 app store (managing apps distribution, verifying/approving the app, providing rating/recommendation systems, billing for the app and payment to the developer etc) is a key challenge. 
• Since most of these device manufacturers would be interested to protect their existing native apps eco-system, it would be interesting to see how HTML5  app store plays out in the future.
• Until there is an effective distribution channel and app store for HTML5, Hybrid apps (HTML5 app in a native wrapper) are a potential alternative.

HTML5 mobile performance (Native apps vs. HTML 5 apps)

• One of the most successful and key category on mobile applications is Games. As of now, HTML 5 multimedia capabilities and performance on mobile is significantly inferior to native apps that most game developers wouldn't even consider building HTML 5 based games for mobile.
• I feel that there are many other categories like Enterprise apps that are data driven and doesn't require as much performance as a game - could be the early adopters of HTML5 on mobile devices.

And, there are many other challenges for HTML5 standard, especially on mobile browsers/devices. On the positive side, with Adobe's mobile Flash announcement, HTML5 becomes de-facto standard for future mobile development. We can expect a lot of improvements/innovations on HTML5 standard and products helping HTML5 based development (like Adobe planning to do).

It would be interesting to see how HTML5 overcome the above challenges to win the war (mobile development).

UPDATE : There is a good article about the state of HTML 5 on Gamasutra. Check it out - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6587/

iOS 5

iOS 5 finally arrived on Oct 12th as Apple announced on during "Let's talk iPhone" event on Oct 4th. I was prepared for the arrival of iOS 5 - upgraded iTunes, Sync'd up and Backed up my iPhone 4.

This time, I wasn't interested to upgrade to iPhone 4S. There are 2 main reasons ...

    •    One, I have 2 year contract with AT&T and AT&T approves my upgrade after Feb 2012 (18 months completion of the contract).
    •    Second, except for Siri, I didn't find the new capabilities of iPhone 4S compelling for me to upgrade. I'll wait, I am good with my iPhone 4 for now :-) 

iOS 5 Upgrade

Upgrade to iOS 5 took a long time, it was more than 2 hours - the upgrade failed for the first time and then, iTunes was trying to restore from the backup. I was beginning to get worried if I'll end up with no phone for a day or two. Thank god, once iTunes prompted that restore is complete, there was a sigh of relief. Interestingly, I was surprised that my iPhone 4 has been upgraded to iOS 5 regardless. So, I really don't know if my upgrade was a successful upgrade ;-). My iPhone 4 with iOS 5 is working fine since then …

In this blog, I am going cover some of the iOS 5 features based on my experience on my iPhone 4. I won't be writing about Siri or other features that are iPhone 4S specific or iPad specific. Let's jump right in ...

Notification Center

One of the very first and visible features of iOS 5 is its notifications center. Pretty good implementation for handling notifications and catching up with Android platform. Prior to iOS 5, the notifications were terrible on iOS platforms - notifications were handled like a system message/alert, interrupt your work or game play, can't handle multiple notifications and you can't get to notifications later. I am glad that iOS 5 notifications took care all of those issues.

New System Apps (Reminders, Newsstand)

Apart from enhancements to existing system apps on iOS devices, Apple has added a couple of new system apps in iOS 5.

    •    Reminders

          ⁃    Finally, there is a TODO app that comes with iOS - for free. It was long overdue. Location aware (Geo-fence) Reminders are pretty cool. Now, you can set up a reminder to buy milk when you are near a grocery store.

          ⁃    Didn't quite understand why there is an integration with Yahoo Reminders given that there is an iCloud Reminders.

    •    Newsstand
          ⁃    Newspapers and Magazines - Similar to Books, specifically designed for subscription based content delivery. As a user, I didn't find anything great or interesting enough content.

iCloud and PC-Free

Now, you can back up your iOS device on the cloud with iCloud - pretty neat. iOS upgrades are PC-free (no iTunes tethering required anymore and everything can be done Over The Air (OTA)). Apple hopes to end jail breaking with such features, it would be interesting to see what happens on that front. Apple is smart with 5GB free option - I had to clean up my iPhone 4 content to less than 5GB to use the free iCloud backup. I suspect most people will have to pay for iCloud services (Nothing really comes for free from Apple).

There are more than 200+ features/enhancements on iOS 5. Check out iOS 5 features @ http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html. 

Summary

iOS 5 adds significant number of improvements, enhancements and takes the OS capabilities of smart phones/tablets to the next level.

Steve Jobs, RIP!

You have made the world a simpler and better place. 

You are an inspiration, a visionary and a legend. 

We'll miss you. May god bless your soul rest in peace. 

My Favorite Quotes by Steve Jobs

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle for less.”

“Have the courage to follow your heart’s desires. They somehow already know strongly, what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary, of much lesser importance.” 

“You have to Trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, intuition, yourself, to go against what most people are saying. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

“Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your own intuition.” 

My Favorite Videos of Steve Jobs

Gamification - Lessons from the Swim Schools

I recently started swim classes for my 3-year old daughter in a swim school. We were given a welcome kit which had a swim passport.

Interestingly, each page of the swim passport is designed for specific goals of a certain skill level. Since my daughter is 3 years old, she started at the Pre-School level.

As you can see, each level is associated with certain high level goals. Once the student completes all the goals for a level, the student will be awarded with a level completion 'ribbon' and recognition infront of rest of the swim students & instructors at the end of the swim session.

After 4 swim classes, my daughter completed all the goals for the Pre-School level and earned her Pre-School ribbon last weekend.

My daughter is really proud of her achievement !! Ofcourse, it made myself proud as well.

So, each level has certain goals and the swim instructor tries to train them towards these goals. At the end of each swim lesson, there is an inspector, who goes around to each swim instructor and verifies if the student passes any of these goals. If the student pass the test, the student earns a 'star' (completion) towards the goal. For each 'star' that a student earn, they get to pick their favorite sticker and stick them against the completed goal(s).

At the end of completion of all the goals for the level, the student is awarded with the ribbon (level completion).

Now, my daughter moves on to "Intermediate Pre-School" level starting next class with next level of goals.

A lot to learn from theses swim classes - how they approach in making a new skill learning more engaging, keep them focused and motivated. These swim classes are designed not only to train the students on swimming skills, but also

• Focus one or two learning goals at a time 
• Award/Reward them frequently (sticker reward for goals completion) to make them feel that they are making progress 
• Motivate them to make incremental progress (goals completion) towards bigger achievements (level completion)
• Parents get to see the incremental progress, accomplishments and achievements

This approach is what are doing at ZippyMind (Lively Language Learning for Kids). Each of our game has different levels and each of the level has certain goals towards learning the language. At the completion of all the goals for the given level, the user gets to move on to the next level of challenges. 

Parents will be able to see the progress made by their kids, get more involved in their kid's learning, be able to share their kid's accomplishments/achievements with family and friends. 

Check us out at http://www.zippymind.com - we'll be launching soon !!

Google+ Games

Google+ Games went live with 16 games from select partners on Aug 11, 2011 with much anticipation and lot of expectations.

Let's look into what are these games, who are the publishers and what technologies used ...

GAME	PUBLISHER	GAME TYPE	TECHNOLOGY	COMMENTS
1. Bejeweled Blitz	PopCap	Matching Puzzle Game	Flash	My favorite game, a very popular puzzle game
2. Angry Birds	Rovio	Puzzle Action Game	HTML5 Canvas	One of most popular games
3. Sudoku Puzzles	Google (labpixies)	Puzzle Game	HTML	For those Soduku lovers with 3 different levels
4. Bubble Island	Wooga	Puzzle Arcade Game	Flash	Arcade type puzzle game
5. Monster World	Wooga	Strategy RPG	Flash	Yet another farming game
6. Diamond Dash	Wooga	Matching Puzzle Game	Flash	Matching puzzle game similar to Bejeweled Blitz
7. Flood-It!	Google (labpixies)	Puzzle Game	HTML	An interesting puzzle game
8. Zynga Poker	Zynga	Casino Card Game	Flash	Poker game, addictive!
9. Collapse! Blast	GameHouse	Matching Puzzle Game	Flash	Tetris like puzzle game
10. Crime City	Funzio	Strategy RPG	Flash	Mafia wars like strategy game
11. Dragons of Atlantis	Kabam	Strategy RPG	Flash	Graphics rich strategy game
12. EdgeWorld	Kabam	Realtime Strategy Game	Flash	Realtime game
13. Zombie Lane	Digital Chocolate	Survival Game	Flash	Zombies game
14. Dragon Age Legends	EA (Bioware)	Strategy RPG	Flash	Graphics rich strategy game
15. WildOnes	Playdom	Strategy RPG	Flash	Petville like strategy game
16. City of Wonder	Playdom	Strategy RPG	Flash	Cityville like strategy game

As you can see, Flash based games are still the majority - especially, for graphics rich games. HTML based games are gaining momentum starting with simple puzzle games.

UPDATE:
Another 3 games - Global Warfare by Kabam, CityVille and Mafia Wars 2 by Zynga - have been added to Google+ Games.

Apple Mac OS X Lion - a review

Recently, I upgraded my Macbook Pro laptop to OS X Lion (from Snow Leopard). Let me share some of the real goodness (and a few issues as well) of OS X Lion …

• OS X Lion upgrade from Mac App Store for $30

• Pretty neat and a sweet deal. No hassle with purchase/shipment of CD/DVD.
• Finally, a Desktop OS is catchup with more modern OS (Phone/Tablet OS) features.
• Full-Screen Apps and Window Resize
• With OS X Lion, most Apple software support full screen view - From Safari to terminal window supports full screen mode (Text Edit is one exception that I have come across till now) . Slideshow of pictures in fullscreen view looks great now!
• Another nice feature is sliding between full screen views with 3-finger slide gesture. Pretty cool!
• Now, Window resize can be done from any of the corners - this was kind of annoying in earlier revisions as it was only available on right bottom corner.
• Resume Feature for Apps
• With OS X Lion, you can quit an application or reboot the device without being prompted to save your work. Resume feature brings back your unsaved work when you open the application again. Neat stuff.
• Auto save and versions make it easier to switch between your changes, a very useful feature.
• Gestures
• i.e, more gestures with Mac OS X Lion release.
• With 3 fingers slide horizontal, you can slide between different work spaces - full screen apps, dashboard and desktops.
• With 3 fingers slide vertical, you can zoom in/out all your open windows/workspaces (a.k.a Mission Control).
• With 2 fingers slide horizontal, you can do previous/next actions - For example, on the browser, it would mean taking back/forward actions.
• With 2 fingers slide vertical, you can scroll up/down on the page.
• While all of these gestures are great, I have to admit that it still causing me some trouble …
• Sometimes, when I try to scroll up/down - may be because of my finger positions/slide action - it sometimes recognizes as previous/next actions. While I expect to scroll down/up a page, it ends up showing me previous/next page from the browser history, really annoying.
• In Mac OS X Lion, 2 finger slide horizontal up is scroll down and 2 finger slide horizontal down is scroll up. Comparing with my other laptops (Windows or Chromebook), where up/down scrolls are implemented opposite for up/down gesture. Switching between laptops and getting adjusted is more difficult now.
• Others
• Mac App Store come built-in with OS X Lion as primary software distribution channel. Software updates will be similar to iOS Devices - for both Apple and non-apple software.
• Launchpad - provides iOS devices like Apps view - for all installed apps. This is going to make OS X eventually look like an iOS device.
• There are 250+ new features in OS X Lion and check them out @ http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

• A few other $30glitches …
• After upgrade to OS X Lion, my dashcode and Xcode tools stopped working. I had to uninstall development tools and reinstall Xcode, then everything is back on track (For more details on the issue/solution, check out here)
• Another issue after OS X Lion upgrade - an annoying popup kept coming up. I had to turn off Time Machine to disable that popup. Check out the issue here.
• A few personal settings & PATH settings were overwritten by OS X Lion upgrade, I had to update PATH settings (for example, git)
• Considering a major OS upgrade and first time upgrade over App Store - I would say, OS X Lion upgrade was pretty smooth and the features worth the upgrade.
• Kudos to Apple and OS X Lion team for another great product release!

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook - a review

Recently, I got a gadget gift from Google - a Samsung 5 Series Chromebook with their new Chrome OS.

Based on my 2 weeks of what I would call it, a moderate use of the Chromebook, I'll share my review about Chromebook. (Disclaimer: Note that I have taken into consideration that this is a version 1.0 product - So, my expectation was, that I'll run into some glitches as with most 1.0 products).

Check out the product specs of Samsung Series 5 Chromebook

Thumbs Up

• Packaging
• The package was pretty decent, I wouldn't call it as good as Apple products packaging though.
• Setting Up
• Initial setup was a breeze - just few steps (wifi-setup, google account) and you are ready to go.
• When I setup with my google account, I was bit worried that how to share the laptop with other users since Android tablets have the issue of sharing your google account with other users. It was nice to see that you can setup multiple users for accessing Chromebook and even there is a guest user account access (no google account is required).
• Starting Up/Shutting Down
• Within a few secs you can startup or shutdown the computer, impressive! I am sure that Windows users will appreciate this feature very much.
• Battery Life
• Since there aren't many background programs or apps running - Chromebook battery life is pretty good.
• Once I started playing flash games (my favorite Bejeweled Blitz), then the battery consumption was similar to other laptops.
• SD Card & VGA Adapter
• One issue with my Macbook Pro - I don't have a built-in card slot for SD Card for uploading photos. It was nice to see the multi-card slot.
• Also, there is a VGA adapter for projector displays. Unlike my Macbook Pro, Samsung Chromebook shipped with VGA adapter, which saves you from buying accessories.

Thumbs Down

• He's dead, Jim!
• It was hard to believe the Chrome browser from Chromebook crashing more frequently than I anticipated from a version 1.0 product.
• Chrome browser is the only app accessible for the user in Chromebook - it needs to be rock solid, period - otherwise, it feels like completely useless.
• Touchpad and Gestures
• Samsung Chromebook supports buttonless Touchpad with Gestures support similar to Apple Macbook Pro.
• However, this is really bad - don't know if this is a hardware or software issue - especially compared to Apple Macbook Pro. Try playing a game (again, my favorite Bejeweled Blitz) - its almost impossible use the Touchpad with Gestures. It doesn't respond smoothly and often displays right click menu for swipes or vice versa. This is something that they need to fix right away.
• Transfer of Files
• Since they had SD Card slot and USB slot - I wanted to transfer some photos from SD Card to an USB stick for viewing in other machine. It should have been a dead simple feature - select/copy from SD Card file list to USB folder, right? It was shocking to accept that this is not straight forward and I am yet to find a way to accomplish this.
• I can't believe products get shipped not supporting such basic use cases. Whom are these products getting built for? Sorry, Google. Apple wouldn't be shipping such a product.
• Photos Viewing
• Another bad user experience for simple use case - viewing photos. Once SD Card is inserted, a chrome browser window displays a list of directories. Selecting of the directory to see the content - you need to click exactly on the icon, it took a while to figure that out why my selection, double click/right click on the row doesn't work.
• And, there was a preview of photos - Selecting a few photos to preview - displays with out title information, you won't know which photo you are viewing - duh?!
• Cloud or Cloud Apps
• Even for simple and basic operations, like capturing screen shots or printing documents over WiFi, there are no easy/simple steps like laptops or even tablets.
• Offline Access
• Unlike laptops or even tablets running local apps - working offline is almost impossible with the current release of Chromebook - disappointing!

Verdict

• Disappointing. Is it really worth it or even usable day-to-day? I would say NO as it stands today.
• I don't know if Chromebook has any unique value proposition compared with a Laptop or a Tablet. Leave me a comment, if you think otherwise.