May 21 2012

What To Do When iPad Home Button Stops Working

I’m still using my first generation iPad. I’ve had no issues with my iPad except that a little over a month ago the home button would occasionally stop working. The home button would work intermittently and I would have to push it multiple times for it to register. After a while, the home button would work one time five or ten. The home button on the iPad or iPhone is important because it is what you use to exit out of an app. No matter how I pressed the home button on my iPad or how long I held it down it would not exit out of the app I would be using. I grew frustrated and even considered trading in my otherwise functioning iPad.

The way I worked around the home button not working is to use Multitasking Gestures. As soon as you detect any issue with your home button on you iPad go and open the Settings app. In the Settings app, click on General and then enable the Multitasking Gestures. Once you have the Multitasking Gestures enabled, you don’t need the home button to exit an app but can instead exit an app by pinching your five fingers together. Place the tips of your five fingers in the screen and bring your fingers together to the center of the screen in a pinch gesture and it will close the currently opened app.

If you find that the home button on you iPad stops functioning correctly then turn on the Multitasking Gestures from the Settings app. The five finger pinch will act as if you pressed the home button. You can also do a five finger swipe to move from different apps or you can swipe up with five fingers to reveal the multitasking bar and navigate between apps this way.

iPad Multitask Gesture

iPad Multitask Gestures setting


Feb 13 2012

iOS Missing Feature: Multiple Device App Management

I have over 100 iOS apps in three different devices, an iPod running running iOS 4.2, and an iPhone and iPad on iOS 5. As much as possible, I always sync all devices to my laptop so that they all have the latest updates. I know that since iOS 5, apps and songs purchased from iTunes on one device will automatically sync to other devices. That said I still find that I have sync for other reasons, to transfer photos to iPhoto and sync a large number of podcasts I listen to. And perhaps, most importantly, I’ve sync to charge my device. One issue, definitely first world problem, I have with having multiple iOS devices is managing all the apps in the different devices. If I delete on app from the iPad, it doesn’t delete it from the iPhone. If I delete it from the iTunes on my laptop and I sync with a device that contains that app, it will copy it back to iTunes.

Another big issue is that you have to configure your app pages and folders on each device. If you spend an hour organizing your apps into folders and pages in one device you have to re-do it all over again on the second device. What ends up happening is that you’ll have two devices with the same apps in different pages and folders.

What I am missing from my mobile experience is the ability to sync, not only the apps and content of apps, but the meta-data about how I organize apps between iOS devices. I want to have the choice to clone how one iOS device organizes and layouts the apps to other devices. I would also like the ability to have different app layout settings, such as have the iOS device automatically put applications into folders based on the app category or my usage of the app. And of course, I would like to have a way to delete an app from one device and have it disappear from all other devices.


Jan 23 2012

The Mobile App User Half Life

Recently at a iOS development meet up the presenters from Qubop showed a powerful slide from their presentation that quantified the mobile app user life cycle. It is estimated that on average after one day of usage, 38% of the users will stop using a mobile application. After a week, the percent of users that will still use the app drops to 50%. After 6 months, you are down to 10% of users still using your app in some capacity.

Because of the half life of mobile application users, app developers are constantly updating their mobile apps. It depends on the number of apps you have on your phone, but if I don’t get the latest apps in a weeks period I would have 15 app updates waiting for me. I update one day and the next day there is another app ready to update. Because apps are updated so often, and they require the users permission to do so, mobile app users have are developing app update fatigue.


Nov 14 2011

jQuery Mobile + PhoneGap = Awesome Mobile Development Platform

I’m currently prototyping an iPad application and I’ve just found working with jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap to be a breeze for mobile application development. I’ve used iOS SDK before and I’ve experimented on test applications with Android and I’ve always found issues with both the iOS and Android development frameworks. I’ve also looked into cross platform mobile development toolkits such as Appcelerator Titanium and Sencha Touch but I found these were not of me at the time. Any of the aforementioned platforms and frameworks can be used to create a great looking and functional mobile application but I found that they each ask the developer to make a trade off.

With jQuery Mobile, you develop your mobile application with HTML5 and JavaScript/jQuery. With jQuery Mobile, all of your UI is written in pure HTML5 tags with the correct CSS classes and attributes. jQuery Mobile is built on top of jQuery so many web developers can immediately start being productive with jQuery Mobile.

Everybody has an idea for the next great iPhone application. The top reasons I’ve heard from people, including from developers, as an excuse for not getting started is that they don’t have a Apple computer, they don’t want to learn another programming language, they don’t have time, etc. jQuery Mobile invalidates all of these excuses. You can use Firefox or Chrome to test your jQuery Mobile application, you develop using plain HTML5 and JavaScript, and most it’s easy to pick up.

Because a jQuery Mobile application is just a HTML5-based web application, if your an run it on your iPhone or other mobile device using the native web browser. On the iPhone, when you run a jQuery Mobile application the browser will take up a small portion on the screen for the navigation buttons, bookmarks, and other controls of the browser. One way to claim all of the screen real-estate is to create a native application, that is where PhoneGap comes in. PhoneGap is a native shell around a web application, such as those developed in jQuery Mobile. With PhoneGap, you can turn your jQuery Mobile application into a full fledged native application.


Mar 10 2011

Retweet February 2011

From time to time I just blast tweets about software development, project planning, team dynamics, or whatever else comes to mind. Here is a synopsis of recent tweets and rants. If you want to follow the conversation follow me at techknow and/or juixe and I’ll be sure to follow back.

Software Development

  • If some feature looks funky to your development team it looks twice as funky to your users.
  • Is it FAB? Is it a feature, application, or business?
  • Spiderman had his spidey sense and I have my buggy sense and it is tingling.
  • The flow of time feels like it’s relative to the number of breakpoints you have turned on.
  • Every time the build is broken an angel does not get his wings.
  • Trust no code.

Team Leadership

  • Some people think shrimp an others think prawn.
  • There is no greater ambition that being the best possible you at every opportunity.
  • 1 paid customer is greater than 100 users.
  • 90% done is not done.
  • Don’t reinvent the wheel but put some blinged out rims with a flashing spinner.
  • There is no failure if everything is a learning opportunity.
  • Most people let others define their success, but the most successful define their success themselves.
  • People truly don’t know know what they have until it’s impounded.
  • Wanting to do things doesn’t give you the experience of actually doing those things.
  • If you are not a leader, and not a follower then what are you? A drifter?
  • Offload your mental tasks to your subconscious, it’s just like having a graphic chip in your brain.
  • Say it. Do it. Own it. Be it. True dat.
  • The more you worry about a thing the more probability you have of making it worse.

Product Placement

  • Instead of having IBM Watson go head to head with Ken and Brad, I would have liked to see Watson against Zuckerberg and Brin.
  • DeviantArt needs an iPad app.
  • Amazon should have a EC2 image for designers with a copy of Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc.
  • DropBox is a duplicate to my Box.net account, which is a copy of my Scribd acount, which is backup to my blog, which is also archived on …
  • What Google giveth, Google taketh away with one change in their algorithm.
  • This iPad is like a gadget version of vampire, it doesn’t work in direct sunlight.
  • It’s official, Tumblr is the new GeoCities.
  • If the phone company ran Twitter, they charge 10 cents per tweet, 20 cents when roaming, and try to sell you a plan of 500 tweets for $15.
  • One of my favorite iPad app is Collections, a photo album app. I just don’t understand why it requires access to my location!
  • I want my iPad to be an input device to all my others screens, desktops, laptops, etc.
  • Google sees you when you’re sleeping / knows when you’re awake / knows if you’ve been bad or good / So be good for goodness sake!
  • Honestly AT&T, remind me why I pay you every month?
  • Here’s a prediction: Apple is working on a VM so that they can run iOS apps on Windows. Apple App Store for Windows will be huge!

Quotes

  • Computers in the future may…perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons. – Popular Mechanics, 1949.
  • There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. – Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of DEC, 1977.
  • Good front-end engineers list JavaScript on their resume, not jQuery. – Chris Zacharias
  • People should better think of their computing devices as facilities lended by the DHS. – wipe man page
  • What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Life is too short to be in a hurry. – Thoreau
  • If you throw gasoline on a log, all you get is a wet log. But if you throw gasoline on a small flame, you get an inferno. – Gil Penchina

Questions

  • if Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people,then what is Silicon Valley?
  • Is there foods that give off positive energy?
  • How many chickens go into making a one McChicken nugget?
  • Are you a mercenary or missionary?
  • Why is it that hardware makers make the worst software?
  • How can a woman carry a huge ass bag and not gave her phone or her keys?
  • Do you want cheese with that?
  • Forget Scientology, what Hollywood religion is Charlie Sheen practicing where he is a warlock and lives with goddesses?
  • If William of Occam worked at Gillette how many blades would Occam’s razor have?
  • Did Papa Murphy’s patent the heart shape pizza?
  • Why is big such a small word?
  • How LOL can you go?
  • What happens if Neo forgets to take the red pill for one day?
  • Why is Howie Long using baseball analogies to describe a football game?

Random

  • It’s siesta time somewhere in the world.
  • I am a robot but I can’t be shut down!
  • There is no free in money.
  • Money spends itself.
  • If age is nothing but a number, then love is nothing but a feeling.
  • (two cents)^2
  • Someone should build a museum of brilliant ideas.
  • Dating is a contact sport.
  • The end is eh.
  • Absence makes the heart grow wonder.
  • Four is a four letter word.
  • I om nom nom therefore I am.
  • I meme therefore I am.
  • Champagne in the membrane.
  • Rationality is relative.
  • For some adults, credit cards are like pokemon, got to charge them all.
  • At Hometown Buffet, were all of the world’s foods are made equally bad.
  • Here is my new book in its entirety The Complete Guide of Doing Nothing.
  • The internet feels slow, it’s like we live in the dark fiber ages.
  • I hear voices in my head… Oh, forgot I had my headphones on.
  • Pundit is another word for idiot.
  • General Chow outranks Colonel Sanders
  • Road work and morning commute don’t mix.
  • The fog is so thick you can cut it with a machete.
  • If time flies it must be flying coach.
  • Alas, dishes don’t do themselves.
  • Hate it when people call up in the middle of the night, I pick up, and they ask “you awake?”
  • History is a rewriting of history.

Jan 24 2011

Missing Feature: The Mobile Device Self Destruct Button

I use Apple’s Mobile Me service. I got the first year subscription as a gift a little over a year ago and I recently renewed the service for another year. I don’t use the email or calendar service in Mobile Me much but one feature that is worth its price is the Find My iPhone locator feature. This feature lets you track the location of your iOS device, it lets you put an alert message on your iPhone or iPad, and it lets you ring the iPhone (even if it’s on vibrate or silence mode). I’ve used it once when I lost my phone under the couch and I couldn’t find it. It also lets you lock down or even wipe your missing iOS device of all personal and identifying data.

Apple's Mobile Me

Apple's Mobile Me

All mobile devices, from phones, tablets, and to laptops should have a built it self destruct feature that when activated would destroy all data on a compromised device. It is my belief that a phone is a very intimate and personal device, there is so much personal data in my phone from private contact lists, to confidential business emails, to other dubious activities that I may or may not be involved in.

In addition to having the ability to destroy incriminating data from a mobile device, such as an iPhone or iPad, I want the ability to program rules into the phone. Such as if the phone has not been unlocked in over 24 hours, or if the attempted to unlocked more than three times, if it activated with a given specific code, if it is located in a known police or government building, etc.

Find My iPhone

Find My iPhone