Modern Ui » iPhone App http://modernui.com Social Usability for Web 2.0 and Beyond Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:50:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Mobile Apps: In the Store or the Browser? http://modernui.com/posts/mobile-apps-in-the-store-or-the-browser http://modernui.com/posts/mobile-apps-in-the-store-or-the-browser#comments Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:38:49 +0000 Syndicated http://modernui.com/blog/mobile-apps-in-the-store-or-the-browser With recent announcements that Verizon and Symbian are both jumping into the app store fray, the number of mobile application development options for software providers begins to looks unmanageable. Consider the list so far:

So it’s not surprise that software makers are looking toward applications that run in mobile Web browsers. Web applications are classic solution to reach. Write once and run anywhere there is a browser. Which today, is the majority of networked phones. Yet the classic tension of rich vs. reach that exists in Web browsers on the desktop also holds on mobile devices.

As pointed out in Web Application Solutions: A Designer’s Guide (PDF):

The primary benefits of a thin client are reach (anyone with a Web browser can use it) and deployment (can be updated and distributed through a Web server). The primary disadvantages are limited interaction options and typically slower response times. state management, and script execution (run-time). Rich Clients leverage local processing to enable rich interactions and can utilize Web Services to connect to distributed data sources and auto-update. Unlike Thin Client applications, Rich Clients can be used offline and more easily integrate with local hardware and software.

On most mobile devices, key operating system capabilities are not available to the Web browser. Yet. But a gradual shift is underway:

  • Nokia recently released a beta of Nokia Platform Services 2.0, which provides a JavaScript API that enables widgets to access device data and information, such as contact records, the device’s camera, and location information.
  • Apple’s Mobile Safari browser now includes a Javascript API to the iPhone’s location functions. This means a web app can have access to a user’s coordinates which were previously only available to native iPhone apps.
  • Apple also provides JavaScript multi-touch event support in the Safari browser on the iPhone so now you can create web applications that utilize gestures like pinch, flick, etc.

Of course, Web companies like Google believe all mobile apps will run in the browser.

“We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing” said Vic Gundotra, Google Engineering vice president. Michael Abbott, head of application software for Palm, said advances in the browser being introduced through HTML5 standards meant that web applications could tap features of particular phones such as their accelerometers. Mr Gundotra said even Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, had said “Build for the web,” when the iPhone was launched, but the idea had met with resistance from developers at the time. The timing was not right, he suggested, but “the rate of innovation in the browser [over the past 12 months] is surprising.”

Hopefully the transition happens faster in mobile browsers than it has in browsers on the desktop.

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            ]]> http://modernui.com/posts/mobile-apps-in-the-store-or-the-browser/feed 0 Follow-ups: 07-10-2009 http://modernui.com/posts/follow-ups-07-10-2009 http://modernui.com/posts/follow-ups-07-10-2009#comments Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:38:46 +0000 Syndicated http://modernui.com/blog/follow-ups-07-10-2009 Follow-ups for Hardware Becomes Software
“Apple fanboys might still be drooling from the iPhone 3Gs announcement, but I bet they never saw this coming: an electric superbike with an iPhone for all its instrumentation.” – Electric Superbike Uses iPhone For Its Dashboard, Gas 2.0 (thanks Vincent)
“Now the smartphone is beginning to displace yet another stand-alone device — the GPS receiver — as a convenient way for drivers to get directions to unknown destinations.” – Sending GPS Devices the Way of the Tape Deck?, New York Times
“A set of more obvious examples of hardware becoming software. These have changed the entire music industry.” (thanks Chris)

hardware is software music

Follow-ups for More Sensors Coming to the iPhone…

“This is a prototype of an iPhone media player that uses physical objects to control media playback. It is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that triggers various iPhone interactions when in the range of a wireless tag embedded inside a physical object.” – iPhone RFID: object-based media, Touch (thanks Andres)
“On April 15th Nokia announced the 6212 ‘classic’ phone that incorporates Near Field Communication technology. This phone is the fourth NFC-capable phone from Nokia in as many years and it is the first NFC device that supports 3G data connections.” – Thoughts on Nokia’s NFC developments, Touch (thanks Arran)

Follow-up for First Person UI: Nearest Tube

“iPhone application developer Acrossair is bringing its augmented reality app to New York today and San Francisco. It superimposes directions to the nearest subway stops over the iPhone 3GS’ live video feed.”

Follow-up for First Person UIs on Android

“Layar, the mobile augmented reality browser for Android, is opening up its platform for third-party layers.” -Layar Wants More Layers, Opens Augmented Reality Platform To Developers, TechCrunch

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            ]]> http://modernui.com/posts/follow-ups-07-10-2009/feed 0 The Best of Business Intelligence: Innovation at the Fringe http://modernui.com/posts/the-best-of-business-intelligence-innovation-at-the-fringe http://modernui.com/posts/the-best-of-business-intelligence-innovation-at-the-fringe#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:49:04 +0000 Syndicated http://modernui.com/blog/the-best-of-business-intelligence-innovation-at-the-fringe Enough complaining about the broken bits of Business Intelligence; it’s time to highlight the things that are good and right in the industry. Like most industries, the renewal and innovation occurs at the fringe, beyond the comfort zone of established vendors.

I’ve created five categories and a catch-all to capture the solutions and companies (not so much technologies) that are leading the next generation of Business Intelligence. The categories are:

  • Analyst tools
  • Dashboards
  • Targeted solutions
  • Open-source and free
  • Advanced visualizations
  • Other stuff

Naturally I’ve focused on areas of Juice expertise and focus — not coincidentally, the places where we feel BI has neglected end-users. According to a study by the Business Application Research Center, BI end-user adoption sits at a lowly 8%.

I’m happy to take your suggestions (and update the post) for things I’ve missed in these categories or for entirely new categories.

Analyst tools

Tools that make it easy for analysts to pull data from multiple sources, analyze, visualize and share it.

Winner: Tableau, the reigning king of visual analytics tools, has added more web-based functionality to allow for online sharing and collaboration.
Tableau dashboard

Runner-up: Good Data has arrived on the market with a web-first platform designed to democratize analytics. I had a chance to get a demo from the management team and was impressed with the ease of use and high-quality data presentation.
Good Data dashboard

Dashboards

“A frequently updated analytical display that is clear and concise” (via a recent post)…and not likely to draw the rage of Stephen Few.

Winner: BonaVista Systems wants to make Excel a “first choice dashboard tool.” From the humble position of sparkline plug-in vendor, BonaVista has taken a leadership role in encouraging more effective dashboard design.
BonaVista Systems dashboard

Runner-up (tie): Two BI companies, Qlikview and Microstrategy, seem to be following BonaVista’s lead. Unfortunately, they may only be dipping in a toe as I found just a couple examples that break from the traditional over-glossy, gauge-riddled dashboard interface.

Targeted solutions

Companies that serve a narrow slice of the BI world extremely well. The desire to be all things to all people has been an Achilles Heel of the BI industry. The general purpose BI platforms often prove too broad and too generic to serve the unique problems of specific industries or functional areas.

Winner: Wall Street on Demand is a brilliant, below-the-radar provider of information solutions to the financial sector. Their sparse, articulate marketing text and few screenshots hint at a company that knows exactly what they do and deliver high-quality BI solutions. I wish I knew more.
WSOD

Runner-up (multiple): The following are just a few companies that have focused on an industry or functional segment to deliver targeted BI solutions:

Open-source and free

(I know there is a difference.)

Winner: Pentaho offers an open-source end-to-end BI suite that is a competitive alternative to the big-guys. Of course, the implementation it isn’t necessarily cheap or easy.
Pentaho

Runner-up: If anything should scare the BI industry, it is the possibility of a Google Analytics model extended into more general data analysis and visualization tools. Google Fusion Tables may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Google Fusion Tables

Advanced visualizations

Bringing leading-edge visualization techniques out of academia and into the business world.

Winner: Many Eyes continues to impress with high-quality visualizations. They are easy to create and clean in design and Usability. Impress your boss with a slick visualization in your next presentation.
Many Eyes PhraseNet

Runner-up (tie): Openviz / Advanced Visual Systems and Panopticon appear to be the two BI vendors battling it out for leadership in advanced visualization solutions. Unlike Many Eyes, these guys lack Tufte-esque sophistication in infoviz design. That said, there is a big difference between creating a one-off New York Times-quality visualization and delivering a toolset that is re-usable in many different situations.

Other stuff to be admired

Free charts with good default design. InetSoft’s Style Chart and Google Charts offer free, embeddable charts.

Jargon-free BI marketing. With few exceptions, BI web sites are densely populated with those awful stock-photography people sitting around conference tables (or worse, the ethnically-diverse V-formation marching at you) and meaningless business jargon and techno-babble. I really appreciate Blink Logic’s web site with its straight talk and clean, readable design.

Beyond the desktop. RoamBI has a great-looking iPhone application that is designed to “transform your data into insightful, interactive visualizations delivered to the iPhone.” It makes the Oracle and Qlikview iPhone apps look old-school.
Roam BI


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