Why Platform Independent Mobile App Development can jumpstartinnovation in mobile space

Usually the first question that one has to answer when you go into a market for a new tablet or smartphone is whether you want an IOS device or Android device or WP8 device.  As it stands today IOS and Android are neck to neck in terms of total apps on their app stores, with IOS holding the quality advantage atleast in Tablet space. And despite the most refreshing and innovative interface, Windows Phone 8 is not able to pick up market share due to a lagging app eco-system (in terms of quality as well as quantity) compared to the other two ecosystems. Once in a while we hear mumurs of Tizen OS or Firefox OS or Ubuntu for Phones and so on. But is the mobile OS the big deal ?

Two-thirds of the world today does not have access to the Internet. And studies are indicating that the younger generation as well as newcomers are coming to ithe internet not from the PC Desktop Browser route but from the smartphone side. The so called new-citizens are first exposed to the Internet not to the browser (anyways smartphone browsing is hardly a pleasing experience), but from Apps like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Viber, Gmail, Google Maps, Youtube, Tumblr and so on. This has profound implications. Any Internet based service is forced to have a mobile app. And these new netizens are first going to esnure that they have the apps, and the apps are full functioned, before they decide to buy any device with a particular OS. And therefore it is most important that the best App experience is created on an OS for it to stand any chance of gettting traction in the market. Having the most popular apps will not guarantee that people will buy your device (here other factors come into play), but its absence will surely ensure that they won't buy it. 

Apple has its nose firmly ahead in this game. The only thing they need to is be more open (give user the freedom but without comprimising security) by way of how apps can share data, increase RAM to handle the very increasing background apps, do away with 16 GB storage (since they do not provide SD Card expansion). I wish to see some of this in IOS 8 and the coming generation of devices (Air 2 and Iphone 6). For Android, the challenge is to somehow bring app quality Parity with IOS (especially for tablets) and control the background processing of apps in a unified way like IOS. Also the accessory support ecosystem must be improved. As for WP8, they first need to get the popular apps and with similar feature set on their App Store. 

Its a huge challenge (cost, effort, focus) for app developers to develop three versions of the applications simultaneously for three platforms with the same feature set and similar quality of experience. No developer would want a fourth OS to spring up and would rather have 1/2 of the existing ones to die out. This is a complete innovation anti-pattern.  And the big platform OS players may have a vested interested in letting thing stay this way as kit kills competition. If someone could level the playing field by ensuring that Web Technologies (HTML, Javascript, etc) or something similar could be used as common platform for developing   apps which are as powerful, functional, smooth and good looking as Native apps, then they the duopoly of Android and IOS could be broken. It would involve developing & opening up a lot of infrastructure technologies (both hardware and software) for everyone to adopt. even if developers could write the app in common language and tools could compile and generate native code for multiple OS (and load it into seperate app stores) it would be a welcome change. We don't want a fourth app developing system, we want a common one. 

This should also be a possible focus area for people who want to debut new OSs like Tizen, Firefox OS, etc. Otherwise they will end up like Microsoft with WP8 and we all know that Microsoft is well funded to run so long and others may not be as resourceful. If they can't solve the app puzzle from the beginning, they should give up right now.

Is the Consumer Market moving towards Mobile and Cloud also ?

The supremacy of the iPad (and of I may generaliize and put it as tablets) for content consumption is complete. The netbooks have being buried long time back and the chromebooks are slowly following them unless Google has some disruptive ideas. The big question is whether PCs and Laptops will follow them as their sales have also started to decline YoY. Sometimes I wonder how S.P. Road Computer Market in Bangalore will look like 10 years down the line !!!

As of now  there is a unique niche that PCs and Laptops still occupy. That is Content creation. Whether you are carrying out image processing, video editing, programming (that's also one type of content), word processing, excel sheets, Powerpoint slide creation, etc the desktop/workstation apps reign supreme. Part of this dominance is the precision mouse and the keyboard. But will it always stay this way in future. 

As a user I care less about the OS but more about the apps and user experience. The desktop content creation apps have their nose ahead today, but their evolution has slowed down in my observation. And Tablet apps (particulatly on the iPad) are fast catching up. I see the following early signs of upheaval:

(1) Physical Keyboards are starting to appear fot tablets. They do almost as fine as the desktop variants. I am myself typing this post, using am iPad keyboard. Their are no precision mouse available but connecting one with some software support (pointer, click) does not look to be a big deal. You also have pen inputs (Galaxy Note series, Adonit Jotscript etc) and ofcourse the muti-touch based finger inputs and gestures. And you suddenly have more options than a PC for human-computer interaction. The key point is that availability of "precision" input device on tablets, will make them more useful in short-term for content creation.

(2) The user experience and readability of 10" screens is starting to approach that on a PC. You have massive resolution (Retina, 400+ PPI, etc) supporting this. In my opinion, the portability of a 10" tablet is less, but its user experience is better compared to 7" tablets. The iPads are held at closer distance to the eyes than a PC monitor. And therefore you really do not need a 14" or 20" or 27" tablet ;-))

(3) I recently played around with "Parallel access" on iPad which takes an app centric view Of Apps on your PC. No desktop back ground, no taskbar, no start button, no taskbar menu. Its lightweight & quite neat, but needs a strong broadband (I had responsiveness issues on my 2Gbps Mobile broadband, but it did quite fine on a WiFi fronted Fixed Broadband network). While this does not seem to decapitate the PC but consider if we could access VMs in the IaaS Cloud using this kind of software. These VMs can be fired on a pay-per-use basis as is the trend for Microsoft Azure and AWS, with your data stored on a Cloud storage. This is defintely a game changer for enterprise, but I feel one day it may start influnecing the consumer side of the market also. However given the choice between hosted VMs and Hosted App functionality, I would choose the latter anyday as it is more granular. OS and hardware is just an environment. What sells it are Apps because that's what I use the computer for. Hardly hurts me if I can get the app without needing to invest in the hardware and OS.

(4) The browser on tablets are getting better by the day. Whether its safari or Chrome and they are slowly becoming as functional as that on a desktop. Usually a native app for IOS or Android exposes a very small, frequently used and core set of features of Internet Services that are sufficient in most cases, but sometimes we need to use the full featured interface seen by the the desktop web browser. It really helps if the tablet browser can see and do what the desktop can.

(5) A lot of applications like Microsoft Office are being hosted on the web and their functionality is more complete than what a native tablet app can support. Perhaps shortly it will reach what a native desktop app can do and then all of that would be accessible using the Web or a smart cloud centric tablet app. It is good beacuse it will end the rampant software piracy in the consumer space. Hopefully the price should be democratic so that billions could use these on demand. 

(6) On the overall hardware front, RAM sizes are approaching 3/4 GB with a good bump in speed withevery iteration,  CPU speed exceeding 2 GHz, CPU Cores reaching 8, multi-core GPUs, and Device storage reaching 128 GB in some cases with scope of an expanison using SD card or even external portable Wifi Storage. They are reaching or even exeeding what a PC/Laptop sports and one wonders why can't such a device.

(7) The iterative continuous delivery model of Mobile Apps are a game changer as far as agility is concerned. You can bet that a mobile app 1 year down the line would be much much advanced than what it is today. Things are moving that fast.

(8) And lastly Fixed and Mobile broadband infrastructure is improving in most places which is the key enabler of cloud computing. Without a low latency high bandwidth network, cloud computing will remain "taking a computer is the cloud and working there" joke. Operators should be happy that even if their Voice and SMS revenues are getting canibalized by OTT applications, newe types of cloud applications are giving them more business on the data front.

I already stopped browsing and watching videos on the PC. its tablet all the way. I read and wrirte mails, blogs on the tablet or mobile almost 100%. I read books entirely on the iPad and on my kindle. I log in (ssh/telnet) to my linux PC from my IPAD and program. I could easily do that on AWS or something like that  if my PC conks out. And I could read code on a remote VM running source insight. This year my wife preferred to leave her PC and Digital Camera @ home on her hometown vacation and instead is just carrying her Galaxy Note 2. She is ussing the Note device for her social networking (that includes taking pictures, processing them and sharing them). She needs a PC only for some software which is not available on Android (like some astrology stuff).

I think we are already in the middle of a transition towards mobile centric computing. The age of the PC and with it the Windows/Mac/Linux desktops is coming to an end. And fortunately no single( or small-group of) company holds a monopoly on this environment like Microsoft/Intel did on the PC. The enterprise is already moving to the cloud and mobile. The consumer market will also. And in the very near term. It may not be time as yet to get rid of your PC, but you must retrospect if you are thinking of buying a new one. I am not even going  to upgrading my desktop PC unless its hardware becomes faultly.

Tablets might become as commoditized as PCs are today. Maybe 5-10 years down the line, you could go to an S.P. Road shop, and specify what Screen size you want, which mobile CPU, which motherboard, etc and have a custom assembled tablet done by them running an open-source Mobile OS. Perhaps the last berlin wall of proprietary Mobile/Tablet hardware will also be pulled down some day. Apple, Google and Amazon have turned the mobile and computing industry upside down !!!

What is RIGHT and what is WRONG with the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem

Apple and Microsoft are one of the most innovative companies on this planet. Especially on the software side. While Microsoft has more or less realized its vision of putting a computer (and its Windows OS) on every desk, it has failed quite miserably in the smartphone space, considering that it has a much longer history of developing smartphones than Apple or Samsung. It is strange that in the near future there will be more smartphones and tablets than PCs or Workstations or Servers. The PC is relegated to the domain of content creator & publisher, not consumer in the new world order.

Microsoft has been late to the new-gen Smartphone OS category (created by IOS and Apple). While Google's Android is similar to IOS, Microsoft's valiant attempt at Windows 7 is quite refreshing & different (even if its late). One just looks to play around with an android & IOS device to notice the similarities (rows of icons of apps whether they have rounded or sharp corners, home buttons, notifications, etc), though I like to admit that Android as an OS is pore powerful and feature rich than IOS which is restrictive. Android's widgets, home screens etc have precedents in Mac OS X)  But then if you get you hands on Windows Phone 8 device, you will immediately notice the differences in home screen (only one and with tiles displaying key information), alphabetic organization & indexing of apps, button for search and how app/home windows are stacked and so on). In-fact I find Windows Phone easier to use and having the best interface among the lot. On the OS side also, the footprint is less and the response is breezy w\even with 513\2 MB or 1 GB of RAM ( I own a Lumia 920 as my work phone). 

Yet both the the OS and the app system needs more maturity. We need better update mechanism (my Lumia does not show which applications need update if I want to pull those. It only pushes at its convenience, unlike IOS and Android). The number of concurrent apps in backgrounds needs to increases (or at-least an option needs to be given to increase it beyond what is possible). But IOS has similar model and its successful. But the real pain point is the app ecosystem. IMO, these are the issues:

1. A new application is introduced usually for IOS or Android (or both) first with unclear road-map for WP8
2. A new feature in existing applications (popular or not) is released for IOS/Android (or both) but much later for WP8, provided its available for WP8
3. Many of the existing popular applications have versions for Android & IOS, but not for WP8
4. Google and Yahoo run the most popular Internet services after Facebook, Whatsapp & Twitter, not Apple or Microsoft. Yet Apple 's IOS because of its first mover advantage & Google's Android because of its market share (80%) have managed to get most native apps from Google & Apple for their Internet services, while WP8 hardly has any (Google search may be an exception but its without the NOW feature) from Google and Apple.
5. Are their any other reasons apart from small market-share which are holding developers from monetizing their apps on WP8 or priortizing them on par with other OS?

One can say that these are issues caused by the fact that the WP8 user base is minuscule compared to IOS/Android. But one can also argue that till the above situation (1-5) changes to a level playing field for WP8, the user adoption cannot be expected to pick up. Its a deadlock and resolving this is Microsoft's biggest challenge, even though its WP8 products has footprints & fingerprints of a superior race. Theyt are already bleeding by licensing WP8 free to OEMS, writing many apps themselves or paying 3rd party developers to write them. How long can they bleed ? Possibly the money earned from patent royalties (it own Nokia too now which itself can be a patent troll) may help it to run for a longer time in this race.

And this not the end of Microsoft's troubles. Its server market is dented big time by the ever improving opens-source linux and linux applications. Its on-premise enterprise market is under threat from cloud based solutions from SMEs to large enterprises. Its consumer market is declining as people are buying more Tablets and smartphones not running a windows OS version instead of Windows based PCs, Laptops and the dead Netbooks. Its internet services market have never reached the same level as Google. Can Microsoft win all these battles simultaneously ?

Why I do not like Phablets and order to have two seperate devices: Smartphones & Tablet

What's a Phablet? Is it a (phone + tablet) rolled into one device or is it nether phone nor tablet, but something really  different ? Before I begin, let me confess that I own both phones & tablets,  and my wife own s a phablet (Samsung Galaxy Note 2). So I have fiddled around with all the three categories of devices.

I think a smartphone today is a Phone first followed by an ability to access data services (browsing, video, social, messaging, videoconferencing, VoIP etc) in a package that is *pocket-able*. You are always connected on the move with such a device.

A tablet on the other hands is a large screen device that is quite good at laid back content consumption and lightweight content creation. You could do these with a smartphone phone also, but what differentiates is user experience is much better. The main contribution is due to the much bigger screen size (7"-11") compared to 4"-5" for a smartphone. But is not pocket-able (for guys with small pockets). Its only bag-gable. Possibly a reason why ladies love phablets as they mostly carry a big handbag ...

People say phablets are smartphones with a screen size in the range 5.5"-6.9" (Tablets start at 7"). They are meant to the job of both and so why the hell we spend money & inconvenience for lugging two different devices. But can a Phablet do both functions as well ? I do not think no. The phablet is less pocket-able and a little inconvenient to hold to the ear with one hand or operate with one hand (like you do with a phone). But a phablet or larger sized smartphone is better at accessing data based services than a smaller sized phone. But is it equivalent or better than a tablet ? No. If you don't believe me spend some time with tablet for these data services and then make your opinion. Its difficult to do content creation on phablet but acceptable on tablet. Content viewing is anyways superior on a larger sized screen ( A TV is much better for watching videos than a tablet and Teleconferencing systems do have large TVs). 

I personally believe that 4:3 screen with around 10" is the right size of Tablet and a 4.3"-5"  is the appropriate size for a smartphone. Kudos to Sony for taking out a Quad core 4.3" android phone (Xperia Z1 compact) in these times of SUV sized screens. I do not like 5.5"/6" phablets or 7"-9" tablets as they comprise user experience on way or the other. We have to accept the role of screen size and resolution in user experience ...

Having said that, phablets are temporarily solving the problem of miserable battery life of smart phones by providing space to accommodate a battery with 50-70% more watt hours. Its helps to chew through your day better. Do you need a big 10" inch tablet only then ?

IPAD Air Short Review

I recently bought myself an iPad Air (5th Gen) with the primary purpose of reading books and other things of professional interest. As a Android tab user I could easily pinpoint some pleasant experiences with the iPad compared to my old Galaxy Tab and the newer android tablets:

1. Firstly the screen orientation of 4:3 is better for reading books, webpages, PDFs, papers and so on. It just looks and feels better than a 16:9 screen on android tablets (even teh latest galaxy Note 10.1 2014).  I had a kindle before and I was tired of formatting books and free papers for it or endlessly trying to zoom and pan to read (what a productivity nightmare !!!). Wish Amazon could bring out a 4:3 E-ink reader of around 10"+ screen size in India at reasonable prices which does not depend on only their content and with the touch features.

2. If the superiority of the browser beacuse of the 10" Inch screen was not enough, the Apps that are customized for iPad screen are much better than the somewhat resized Android applications. Infact at times I feel that the browser itself is enough beacuse teh web interface gives you so much functionality that a native app is not able too. I am nots sure why Apple got into the iPad Mini business. The big iPad is the real deal ...

3. Third Party accessory eco-system (I have logitech folio case, Jotscript pen & ultrathin keyboard) is way superior compared to Android or Windows tablets. Infact using that keyboard I am writing blogs, comments, big emails and other lightweight content creation on the iPad. If that was not enough, i also ssh on to my linux workstation and program using my iPad beacuse the screen is so pleasant to read.

I think this could be enough for many to give Android tablets a wide berth as of 2014. But there are some shortcomings on both the Hardware and Software front on iPad Air (which I hope will be addressed in subsequent versions of iPad Air and IOS). I am sold on the IOS and iPad ecosystem, but not on the upgrades. Reasons below:

(1) Apple has being stingy with RAM. It looks to be around 1 GB. If too many background processes are running the free RAM reduces to under 5% and you get lot of app crashes (low memory diagnostic logs). The same can also happen if too many apps are open. Its possible the switch to 64 bit has worsened this problem. While apple does some paging to overcome the second problem, the first is not properly handled  by this. I had continuous crashes of Adobe reader (my tool for reading books) because of this. Their is also a limit on how many tabs safari is able to open. In low memory situation safari unloads the 1st tab (pages to disk or throws away the content), if the 2nd or 3rd tab is opened. when you switch back, you will find to your surprise the page is loading again. It sucks bandwidth and time. The workaround as of now is to not open many applications in background (double tab home  button and swipe up the apps not needed) and ensure that many applications do not run in background (from the background app refresh options in Settings -> General ). It has defintely pushed the problem a little further, but this is not the right way to solve the problem. it has made the device dumber.  It will take a long time that OS and Apps will improve their footprint to offset the transition to 64 bit (maybe 30%). Had it not being better to increase the RAM to 2 GB rather than make $150 profit per device at the expense of customer satisfaction ?

(2). On the software side, the apps need to improve data sharing. On android you could practically share data from one app to any other, but the same is not true for IOS. it is limited to Apple apps and some others. I am not sure if their is a way to fix this already. The reason I hate this is that it is a productivity nightmare. Wat I could do with one operation, i have to indirectly do in multiple steps taking time, bandwidth etc. 

Apart from this the use dual core instead of quad core CPU, No SD card, lack of 802.11ac is not so much of an issue.

I would however suggest the buyers to not buy the 16 GB version, but go for atleast the 32 GB version. I made a big mistake for settling for the former. Sometimes you need to take some big content along and right now I cannot do it at all as their is no way to connect it to iPad and its app specific data  principle. I few extra 100$ will save you the inconvenience. I am now looking for a Portable Wireless Disk with Media server and ability to share *ANY* file type with iPad ;-((

Extending the life of Galaxy Tab GT-P1000

When it comes to new devices I am a reasonably early adopter. And I do prefer one ecosystem for all my devices just to keep the management and costs down. I bought one of the first Android tablet on the market (Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000) with Android 2.2 (Froyo). What attracted me to the tablet form factor is simply the large screen and that it could also work as a phone (sometimes I dial a number on my search) which an iPAD won't do at all (even now maybe). That's so unMAC apple !!!

Anyways barring the first few days with this tablet device, the overall experience was negative.The main crib was stability. Gingerbread update came but didn't help. The tablet will crash 2~3 times in a day with regular usage when that usage is just browsing pages and watching Youtube videos. Besides Android has moved on (we are running 4.3 these days on my Nexus 4 with 4.4 kitkat round the corner) and this galaxy tab has become obsolete. I had also tried to give the tablet to my 2.5 year daughter to play games, but once in a while she would come with a hung phone back to me ;-(

And so with no new upgrades from Samsung, I took the Cyanogenmod ROM route to try out the latest ROM (Android 4.3). I had heard resource hogging stories of android versions and feared that 512 MB RAM and 1 Ghz processor would be insufficient to run Android 4.3. I selected the latest MR2 ROM for Cyanogenmod 10.2. Slow it is but only slightly. But it seems to have solved the instability problem. I have gone a few days without hand and hard reset. Plus i get latest applications. The steps were three

(1) Rooting the phone
(2) Installing ClockworkMod recovery manager
(3) Installing the ROM and Google apps package.

Their are tons of sites which describe the procedure. So I won't repeat that here. But I want to warn you that  "Clockworkmod Recovery manager cannot be installed using ROM manager application as described in many guides". It simply lists GT-P1000 as unsupported device. The other method which I used and worked is to install using ODIN. I do n;t know why people have not edited those articles or issued a correction note.

Anyways, I am through with the above hiccup. And even though the Samsung skin looked better for tablet, it seems it is heavy. Because I could use a 4.3 version on a device that is not upgraded post Gingerbread. Just is a little slow but stable. That's expected because it is dated hardware. I also do have high expectations from Android 4.4 kitkat as google is promising low resource demands. And I am looking out for a kitkat ROM for this device. Cyanogenmod definitely bought my tablet back from the dead and I am hoping that Kitkat ROM might just extend its life ...