Quickies:
Cool Mac Apps A list of apps using the motion or light sensor of the MacBook & MacBook Pro.
What's Inside Apple's iPhone? At least three ARM CPU's!
Lies, Damned Lies, and Bill Gates John Gruber's take on that Newsweek interview.
Programmers Don't Like to Code "They like problem solving" - Rentzsch
You could call iPhone perfect A Chicago Sun-Times editor talks about his hands-on experience with the iPhone.
Posted on Thursday 1 February 2007 - Popularity: 4%
Mac marketshare over the past six months:
AUG 2006: 4.33%
SEP 2006: 4.72%
OCT 2006: 5.21%
NOV 2006: 5.29%
DEC 2006: 5.67%
JAN 2007: 6.22%
Almost two percent more in six months! While 6.22% does’nt sound like a lot, if you do some math on the numbers, you will get something like:
JAN 2016: 50.1%
What do you say? It can’t just go up at the same rate the whole time? You have prove? No? See you again in 2016. 
Fredi
Posted on Wednesday 10 January 2007 - Popularity: 4%
If you ask me, the iPhone shown yesterday is easely the most exciting product of the past decade, if not longer. The iPhone really is something you would expect in a Sci-Fi movie and not in the present reality. There’s no doubt, this product will sell, even at the current price tag.
However, there’s one thing developers like us are missing, tools and API documentations. Nothing is as exiting to a developer as a new product with exciting new features to explore. I’m pretty sure most of us would love to think about applications and widgets made especially for the new multi-touch user interface, all those new sensors and the network capabilities, but we can’t.
Now what’s the reason for not inviting us? Well, if you ask me, there are two simple ones:
- It’s not finished
- There’s currently no FCC approval
Now if this would’nt be a cell phone, Apple would just give us the unfinished API, some documentation and an updated Xcode just to give us a first look, test a few things, think about possible apps … but this is not your usual electronic device, this one is a cell phone and without FCC approval Apple simple can’t open the platform. Now of course “not open” isn’t the same as no 3rd party support, after all Google and Yahoo are already working on applications for the device and as revealed by Macintouch: “… developers who want to do applications are welcome to contact Apple developer relations.” 3rd party apps will be developed, it’s just not for all of us right now.
So when can we expect the platform to be open? My guess? Short after the official release. However, I think they will first open the Widgets with a final release of Dashcode and all the 3rd party apps during the first months will be by invited developers only and all released through iTunes or the Apple website. Conclusion: If you want to develop for the iPhone, contact Apple developer relations and prey … oh and you better have a good idea, Apple loves good, fresh new ideas.
Update: Looks like it will stay a closed platform:
Roche reports, “Although the iPhone runs a version of Mac OS X “optimised for the handheld experience”, Joswiak explains it’s not an open platform and any updates to applications or software will come through Apple. This closed model, although secure, means you can’t install additional custom or third-party apps — does this mean it isn’t defined as a smartphone? It’s a model that Joswiak says will continue in the foreseeable future.”
In other words, only Apple made apps or applications developed together with Apple will be available for the iPhone. New apps will most likely be available as a download through iTunes, some may cost money. This isn’t good news for us small independent developers, but it’s not really a big issue for the general user … well, some will even have a better experience with the iPhone because of it. From a MacDailyNews comment:
I agree with locking the system down, for now. Maybe in the future, Apple can find a way to heavily control the deployment of third party apps, like only allowing widgets or something. It’s a consumer device, you don’t want to open it up to everyone. I bet Apple will allow widgets to be installed thru Apple’s widget website (or Cingular), which means Apple would review and test any third-party widgets first and then put them up for download on their site, like they have done with Google and Yahoo so far.
I currently have a WM5 Smartphone (HTC StrTrk) and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to do a full system restore due to third party apps messing up the phone or distorting the user experience. Thankfully, the Missing Sync for OS X is a wonderful application, so everytime I have to restore my WM5 phone, I have all my important information on my Mac. I am at the point where I just keep my phone stock, no third-party apps or anything just so that it stays somewhat reliable.
Everyone (well at least Windows users) expect computers to be buggy and unreliable, this mode of thinking was established by Microsoft ever since Windows became mainstream with Windows 95. But with consumer devices such as the iPod or cell phones, people expect them to work flawlessly. Most people just want a cell phone that has a good UI, works great as a phone and has some extras on the side (like a media player and internet). Only the hardcore geeks want a device that they can hack up and install a bunch off add-ons.
Can you imagine how much of the flop the iPod would have been if it was somehow unlocked to allow third-party crap installed?
As a developer, well, you still have Safari on the iPhone, so you can most likely design special JavaScript applications for the device, for the exact resolution and specs of the phone. Safari supports the canvas element, so even if Flash and Java isn’t supported, there’s still the Canvas element if you want to work on a per pixel level. Let’s just hope the JS performance is good enough.
Fredi
Posted on Thursday 21 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
Not too long ago Think Secret was one of the Mac Rumor sites that actually had their secret sources, but after all the trouble they experienced with the legal department of Apple, it looks like that isn’t the case anymore. However, that’s not stopping them from posting Apple secrets, so where do they come from? Looks like their only source left is the good ol’ internet search and some guesswork.
Well this all would’nt be interesting at all if Think Secret was just one of those many internet blogs that use the same “sources” and guesswork, but Think Secret still has a very strong name in the rumor scene and so a “revelation” by them has still a big impact on the market, Apples stock and all the hype surrounding Apple. I really don’t say that Think Secret will be wrong all the time, but it’s not hard to predict that they probably won’t be able to hold their good ratio of predictions that actually make it to market.
Fredi
Posted on Monday 18 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
In preparation for the upcoming release of the open source version of jMe, I’ve created a new projects website where I share all the news regarding my projects, this way OS X Code (r,s) can again focus more on OS X related news. The new website is called Mind Share Projects. The site has three basic features:
The Weblog: All the announcements will be posted there.
The Forum: For all the questions, bug reports and other feedback.
The Links: Current, upcoming and old projects are linked at the bottom of the page.
Additionaly to the new projects website, I’ve re-launched Not A Blog as my new personal weblog. Again, this is all part of the reorganization so that OS X Code (r,s) can again focus on the originally intended purpose.
Fredi
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Posted on Sunday 17 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
As a reaction to the deactivated account after being dugg, I’ve moved to new servers, one that can actually scale to as much traffic and CPU load as I need. My new hosting provider is Media Temple and I’m using their new grid hosting service. With such new technology as grid hosting, I’m pretty sure we will experience some problems once in a while, but all in all I think the decision is a good one. Here’s some background information:
(mt) Media Temple’s Grid-Server services provide website hosting for others by means of clustering multiple networked servers. (mt) Media Temple’s Grid- Server services utilizes a completely new hosting platform that replaces yesterday’s obsolete shared server technology. We’ve eliminated roadblocks and single points of failure by using hundreds of servers working in tandem for your site, applications, and email. The Grid-Server program’s on-demand scalability means you’ll always be ready for intense bursts of traffic and the growing audience resulting from your online success. All of this power, controlled through our brand new AccountCenter, is available today for a price point unmatched by any competing service.
If you experience problems with one of the scripts, please let me know. I think I’ve changed all database and file permission settings correctly, but you never know.
Fredi
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Posted on Sunday 10 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
A shared hosting plan just isn’t enough if you launch something as cool as jMe. After being on the digg frontpage for half a day, other big sites like del.icio.us, reddit, stumbleupon have added the link to their frontpage as well and that was the moment my server gave up. Well, actually the server was still pretty stable, but the hosting provider just deactivated the site because of too much CPU load.
To not get into any more problems with my hosting provider, I’ve changed the timing of some jMe features. Especially the feed activity update and the spy feature will now update less frequently and there is now a one second delay on the live search feature (previously 0.75 seconds). Anyway, I’m currently looking for a VPS solution, most likely Spry to get around this issues. After all I don’t want to slow down my creativity just because I get too many hits.
Btw, the server registered nearly 1 million hits at the day my site got dugg and still nearly half a million at the following day where my account was already deactivated.
Fredi
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Posted on Friday 8 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
jMe made it to the digg, del.icio.us and Ajax Magazine homepage! Surprisingly my $5 web hosting account wasn’t dugg down for the most part. It’s stilll on the frontpage, so I better knock on wood now. Before I get to many emails, let’s answer some of the questions I’ve got:
Will I be able to add my own feeds in a future version?
This is still a beta version with some missing features. One of the upcoming features will be an user account where you can save item collections, but you will not be able to add your own private feeds. However, there will be an extended version hosted at feedbloggers.com where you can add your own feeds, so stay tuned for future announcements.
Is this going to be something like Netvibes?
No. This is a feed aggregator and not a startpage and I really have no plans to add anything to it that has nothing todo with RSS or Atom feeds.
Some love your design, but I have a different taste, will there be different styles to chose from?
Yes, different styles to chose from will come with the user accounts.
I would love to have this for my own website, will this be available as open source?
Yes, this will be opensourced someday, just don’t expect that to happen in the following weeks, the current version just isn’t ready for that (no admin panel or install script).
How did you do it?
Well, this was my “learn jQuery” project, so obviously I’m using jQuery for the whole frontend scripting. On the backend I’m using php and mySQL. jQuery is really cool and easy to learn. Thx to it this project only took me three weeks from the first sketches to the frontpage of digg without any previous knowledge of jQuery.
Fredi
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Posted on Wednesday 6 December 2006 - Popularity: unranked
Just a few jQuery code snippets I’m using on the jMe feed aggregator that may be useful to some:
$("#mydiv").children().each(function(i){
if (i > 10){
$(this).remove();
}
});
This one removes all childrens from #mydiv with a count greater than ten. Useful if you want to limit the number of childrens inside an element where you dynamicaly add new elements. jMe is using this one for the spy feature.
$(".mydesc a").each(function(){
this.target = "_blank";
});
The description of feed items can contain links, not all of them use ‘_blank’, so it can happen that they open in the same window. To solve this problem, the above code changes all links inside elements with a class ‘mydesc’ to open in a new blank window. Normaly to do that you would have to use regular expressions, not so with the help of jQuery.
$(‘a’).click(function() {
this.blur();
});
I really don’t like those dotted rectangles that get put around links you click, especially if those links just trigger some JavaScript and not a new page. The above snippet takes those ugly attention grabbers away. Don’t forget to run this code everytime you dynamicaly add new links.
$("#myitem").insertBefore($("#myitem").prev());
This little snippet here moves an element one step up in a set of elements. This is more or less what I use in jMe on the 
button of previously selected elements.
$("#myitem").insertAfter($("#myitem").next());
Basicaly the same as above, just in the other direction (one step down).
Fredi
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Posted on Monday 4 December 2006 - Popularity: 7%
Without John Resig, the creator of jQuery, jMe wouldn’t exist. So I was really happy to see him give such a nice comment about my first jQuery project on the jQuery mailing list:
I really dig this. I think the UI is very well designed and the
animations are very tactful and well-placed.
My only suggestion is make the ‘Post’ feature more prominent -
that feature, alone, makes this very worth while (reminds me a lot of
reBlog).
So, when are you releasing the source?
Now how cool is that? 
About the source. Well, there’s currently no admin and install feature. To add new feeds, you have to directly add them to mySQL with phpMyAdmin or something similar. I’m definitely planning to release the source, but not before those two features are finshed together with some code optimizations and as I know myself, not before some additional features I want for my own installation are implemented.
Fredi
This product was rated 3.2 (5 votes) - Vote now!
Posted on Sunday 3 December 2006 - Popularity: 4%
After a week of tests and bug fixes, it’s finaly time for the open beta of jMe, a feed aggregator with some new and unique features you’ll (hopefuly) like . jMe is currently aggregating a hand selected collection of OS X, Web 2.0 and programming related sources. In case the beta testers have missed a bug or if you miss an important source I should add, please let me know.
Before I post some comments from the beta testers, here’s the link you have been waiting for: jMe 1.0 Beta
Gerald from gWHIZ: Fredi Bach over as OSXCode has just opened the doors wide on testing the beta of his feed searching tool called jMe. I’ve tinkered with it a bit and he’s just done a killer job.
I’m learning Fredi’s one of those curious tinkerers I like so much (Dana Swift comes to mind) who will take a self-assigned app and turn it into something really cool. He started out wanting to learn more about jQuery and has done a really nice job in a short amount of time with his self assigned lesson.
Mark: I have been using jMe over the last couple of days and have found it quite instinctive, well done!
Ciro: I just want to drop these lines to say that i really love jMe. It’s a wonderful tool. A big congrat for you!
Ian: I like your UI. it’s a new idea on an old problem.
Fredi
This product was rated 4.9 (7 votes) - Vote now!
Posted on Thursday 30 November 2006 - Popularity: unranked
The beta phase for jMe just started today. First a nice ‘thank you’ to the beta testers: Gerald, Leif, Ciro, Parham, Mark, AJe, Ian, Danny and Frank. A special ‘thank you’ to Gerald for the post on his blog. Than of course another ‘thank you’ to the nice and very helpful guys from the jQuery mailing list, especially Klaus and Aaron that came up with a solution to a Safari bug that was bugging me for a while.
As I currently don’t change anything on the running installation to not accidently surprice the beta testers with unneaded error messages, I finaly had some time to create a nice logo and a slogan for jMe as you can see above, hope you like it.
Ok, one last thing for now. jMe is a feed aggregator with one unique feature that should separate it well from other feed aggregators out there and that’s the ‘post’ button. Basicaly the feature allows you to first select different feed items into an item collection and than post those items to your blog or a message board. This are the currently supported output formats: BB Code, Textile, Markdown, reStructureText, basic HTML, CSS HTML and a text only format.
Open beta will start Monday next week, but if you really can’t wait, just send me an email with the contact form linked above.
Fredi
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Posted on Thursday 23 November 2006 - Popularity: unranked
Finaly, news from OS X Code (r,s)! First the bad news, it’s not the announced weblog system, that one will come later, but here comes the good news, it’s something extremely useful for everyone in the Mac and Web 2.0 community that has a weblog or does a lot of message board posting or anyone that’s just interested in finding the latest news. Basically the tool is a feed aggregator, but with some very special and unique features. The tool is using the latest JavaScript technology for the GUI (I recently switched from prototype/moo.fx/xajax to jQuery). So what are those ’special features’? Well, you’ll know soon enough, if everything goes along as expected in not more than two weeks, and even earlier if you’re one of the lucky beta testers. So here’s your chance, send me an email with this contact-form till Sunday and you’ll be one of the first to test my new creation early next week!
Btw, jMe has already aggregated over 30000 items from 65 feeds, so even the current version is already very useful with a great selection from the best blog and news posts from some of the best websites out there.
Fredi
(c) 2005 by Fredi Bach
