It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that with as many people in the World as there are, a unique idea is very rare.  The likelihood that an idea I get is something that has not yet been done is very low.  This is the case with my latest small project – Spooky Sound Pad for the iPhone.

I had the idea months ago and only recently spent a few hours over one weekend putting it together.  Ok – so it wasn’t really just a few hours.  To be honest, the app took most of the weekend, but the bulk of the effort was spent on creating the icons and editing the sound files.  The dev portion was very simple.

Nearly done, the thought dawned on me that perhaps I’d search the App Store to see if anything similar already existed.  Of course, once again, I was thwarted by the saturated iPhone app market.  Several apps that do virtually the same thing already existed.  One of which is titled something almost identical. Of course, some of them cost money and Spooky Sound Pad was to be free.  Besides – there’s always room for competition, right?

In a nutshell, Spooky Sound Pad is a Halloween sound generator for the iPhone.  It’s dead simple.  It brings up a splash screen, loads the sound files, then brings up another window that has buttons on it.  When you click the buttons the associated sound plays.  That’s it.  Seriously – that’s it.

Even though I’m sure that coding this app in Objective-C would have been dead easy, I opted to use Appcelerator Titanium instead.  Recently Apple loosened the rules on how apps can be built for the iPhone.  This update to their terms of use put me at ease with using Titanium, fairly certain that my app would probably not get turned down by the App Store police simply for using a third party framework (something that may not have been the case a few months ago).

Appcelerator Titanium isn’t necessarily rock solid (I did encounter some problems that cause several reinstalls) but what it boils down to is if you can code in Javascript, you can create an iPhone app (or Android and soon Blackberry).  In total, I’d guess that I wrote about 200 lines of Javascript all said and done.  Maybe even less.

Getting the app built and ready for distribution ultimately did require me to use Xcode.  And more than once, things went bananas and I had to reinstall Titanium in order for things to properly load on the iPhone emulator.  But overall, I think that Appcelerator Titanium is the best and easiest way to get an app idea off the ground.  That said, if the app were to use OpenGL or some other API’s not supported by Titanium, I think good ol’ Objective-C and Xcode are where I’d want to head.

Another nice thing about the Titanium API is that it supports Apple’s iAd.  With one line (maybe two), I was up and running with the iAd network.  Very slick, but unfortunately all wasn’t gold with the iAds. I’m not one to actually read the manual much before jumping into something. I didn’t activate the iAd network before sending my binary to Apple and also made some assumptions with how iAd was supposed to display.  This caused me to have to rack my brain for a while with it – surfing all over forums for some answers and coming up mostly empty handed.  I’ll probably write another post on that subject.

Now that an updated binary is out, it’s really just a matter of people downloading the Free Spooky Sound Pad for the iPhone and me seeing a little advertising revenue to come in.

When RIM first announced that they were bringing a tablet to the market, I was excited. I felt like the odd man out thought. Scouring the web, it was apparent that many were skeptical. Beyond skeptical actually, suggesting it was not a market that RIM should be entering, or that RIM is a company on its way under or that there wasn’t any way it would be able to compete with Apple’s iPad. I found myself posting comments on blogs more often than usual, attempting to argue my point. It didn’t take long for me to ask myself what the heck I was doing – I sometimes get caught up in arguments that for the most part are moot… Human nature I suppose. Regardless, my point was:

RIM isn’t necessarily competing against Apple. Where Apple dominates the consumer market, RIM dominates the business market. Where Apple made the iPad 3G device, RIM is betting on ubiquitous Internet via the BlackBerry and Bluetooth tethering (which is brilliant, by the way – why Apple didn’t do this is beyond me). RIM is looking at high integration between devices and apps. Apple – well, they have a different model. RIM employs high security models and practices, heavily baked into their platforms from the ground up – something that I think is more of an after-thought, unfortunately, with other devices and platforms.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my iPad – I use it daily for reading ebooks and surfing the net and using an RDP client on it to access my desktop from the couch or using its brilliant Twitter client. Heck – I build apps for iOS in my spare time. The iPhone and iPad and iPod Touch are game changing tech and an awesome platform. Apple catalyzed the new mobile paradigm we’re in with these products and they continue to inspire with new models.

It’s just that I can’t see RIM failing here.

The BlackBerry PlayBook

And then yesterday I felt a little vindicated. Just a little anyway. Mike L made that epic announcement that floored most people – myself included. I doubt anyone saw that coming. The PlayBook’s specs are tight.

• Multi-touch 1080p 7 inch screen
• 1080p hdmi out to be used as a separate display
• Dual HD front and rear cameras
• Dual core 1GHz chipset with graphics acceleration (QNX can scale easily so look for frequent chipset updates)
• Developed in partnership with Adobe to provide tight Full Flash and AIR integration (AIR integration will be huge, btw)
• Using the QNX OS, which has a 30+ year history of providing serious stability and scalability (read some QNX systems haven’t rebooted in just as long)
• Optimized Java VM (from QNX eng) that will provide full support BlackBerry OS 6
• Full OpenGL acceleration
• 1Gb memory
• No announcement of storage, but I doubt if it won’t have high capacity micro (or full size) SD card support
• Ubiquitous Internet via WiFi (b/g/n) or Bluetooth tethering with BlackBerry (awesome, IMO, despite analysts – “why the f* would someone want a separate SIM card?” – Mike’s words exactly)
• Potential to act as companion device for BB’s. Thinking “Super Apps” on steroids
• Built from ground up to support WebKit and HTML5

So yeah, in a sense, tight indeed. These specs are far above anything I thought RIM was capable of pulling off. Definitely looking ahead, this setup will be sufficient for the short term and will hold itself well against the competition over the course of the next year. And I have a hunch that a Q1 consumer release in North America could be followed by a hardware upgrade or new model number later on in the year, if RIM’s pattern of delivering multiple versions of a platform hold for the tablet as well. Given the high scalability nature of the QNX OS, this isn’t out of the question. Mike hinted during the keynote of 6 core processors – perhaps this was in reference to Marvel’s recent announcement of their new chip which is exactly that (a six core mobile beast supporting multi screens at 2048p)? Maybe speculation is dangerous.

The DataViz Documents to Go acquisition makes more sense now too. The PlayBook will have full Office support. Paired with the enterprise grade security and mail server connectivity, it’s a corporate loving dream machine – exactly the direction where RIM needed to go with it.

But let’s be honest, there is no way in Hell that RIM will be able to go to market with this thing by year’s end. And to all of the analysts calling this a mistake, I say to you, “you are out of your mind”! It’s a necessity. QNX was only recently acquired and it takes more than a few months to pull together an OS with a custom Java VM and a base app set of any quality. That sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. A Q1 release to North America would also seem extremely difficult (IMO). I know that personally I’d have reservations about meeting that sort of timeline. Fingers crossed thought.

When they do get to that point of having production units getting boxed, another question comes up… How is RIM going to market and distribute this thing? This is going to be one of the make it or break it factors determining whether the PlayBook is an overwhelming success or a #fail. Again – my opinion.

Since the dawn of time, RIM has relied largely on carrier support for marketing and sales. And the carriers can practically give away BlackBerries on contracts (and they do). But the PlayBook doesn’t have a SIM card. Carriers won’t be able to make money via a data plan and therefore they likely won’t sell them either. RIM is going to have to rely on a retail channel for the PlayBook – something that I’m not sure RIM is very good at doing – at least we don’t have any real evidence otherwise.

But if the price is right and RIM’s marketing is epic and the BlackBerry branding efforts continue to balloon, the PlayBook could definitely be a win and maybe we’ll finally see the RIM stock price start an upward trend.

QNX was a superb buy for RIM. I can see how QNX will absolutely transform them. The 30+ year old OS that never needs a reboot gives RIM an unparalleled platform in the smartphone industry. And QNX is the embedded OS of choice for many things. From cars to clocks to aerospace, QNX is the underlying embedded OS. In fact, if the rumours are true, QNX will also be the base for future BlackBerry smartphones. Of course, a common OS would make the most sense (although OS6 apps are said to be portable with the PlayBook).

Suddenly RIM isn’t only about the smartphone or tablet. RIM has its foot in the door for other things as well… and potential for integration and pairing between those things. Suddenly my smartphone, my tablet, my fridge, car and stereo are all running RIM software. Visions of Mike L and Jim B in a dark room and maniacal laughter.

In short, the QNX OS and PlayBook will help RIM build a good long term strategy. Sure Apple and Android are bring their A game, but there’s no doubt in my mind that RIM is going to see huge numbers over the next couple of years and will retain its position as a leader in the mobile industry.

Mad props…

I bought an iPad. I don’t live in the US. Therefore, I’m stuck with a limited selection of iBooks content, and a selection that unfortunately doesn’t include any of the books that I’d otherwise be interested in. I’m not suggesting it’s a bad selection – Canadian content is great… just that it doesn’t necessarily interest me.

And I don’t have a Kindle or other ebook reader and the books that I want to read are new releases and as such don’t seem to be found as an ebook through less legitimate means. Not that I’d do that anyway, although GoodReader is easily the best app I have on my iPad.

So I decided to download the Kindle app.

It isn’t spectacular at first glance. Certainly doesn’t have the fancy-pants page turning animations that iBooks has (although on a positive note, the Kindle app is free of that dreadful faux bookshelf graphic that iBooks has). Despite the lack of fancy-pants-ness, however, I must say that I truly like the Kindle app.

I busted through a few sample chapters from various books that were magically sent to my iPad through the Amazon “whispernet” after I clicked the “send to kindle” button on the Amazon website. Then I decided to purchase Rework from 37Signals’ Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson and this is where the awesomeness of the Kindle app really hit me.

First, I can create notes and highlight parts of the book with ease. Going back to those highlights and page notes is super easy too.

But I can also see other people’s highlighted text. This really blew me away. If enough people highlight the same text, it shows up unobtrusively underlined in everyone else’s copy (can be turned off). Wow! It’s like social networking meets reading! Absolutely brilliant. I’m sure this is also a feature on the physical Kindle and hardly news to many, but seeing it with my own Kindle rookie eyes made me all giddy inside.

Bookmarking is easy; navigating around the book is easy; pics show up nicely on the iPad screen; book downloads are quick and small.

And then I decided to load Kindle on my iPod Touch. As soon as that completed, I was able to read my collection on that as well!
Then I decided to download Kindle for my BlackBerry. Shwing! Yep, I can read my book on there too.

Suddenly I can read my book wherever I am. In bed, on the couch: iPad. On a bus or on the can: iPod version. In line at Timmy’s: BlackBerry is great too. And best of all, Kindle picks up in the book right where I left off on the other device.

Yes, this makes me very happy.

Oh, and Rework is an absolutely fantastic book.

Zinio – I used to buy magazines like crack. Not only was this an expensive habit, the issues of Harpers, Men’s Health, High Times and Thrasher piled up in the office was a little out of hand. I eventually went cold turkey and stopped buying them. But now I can finally get back into the habit. Only this time without the clutter and at a reduced cost with Zinio and the iPad. Zinio isn’t strictly for the iPad, but their iPad app is slick and the quality of the magazines is phenomenal on the iPad’s screen. Although magazine subscriptions do cost money (less than a physical copy subscription) the app is fortunately free and every month a smattering of articles are available from popular publishers free for your perusal. The Zinio magazines also offer similar features as that single five dollar issue of Wired that everyone seemed to buy at launch (except at a fraction of the file size – what was with that 500 mb file size anyway?).

Good Reader – I have a whack of pdf’s (all legit, of course) and word docs and other files that the iPad doesn’t really support outside of maybe email. Good Reader lets users load their device with these files and read them later through a pretty swanky interface. The process for uploading files to the iPad with Good Reader is incredibly simple too. Start Good Reader then navigate from your computer to the URL provided by the app. the Good Reader app hosts a website that lets you browse to your files and upload them with a click of a button. I also found the uploading to be fairly snappy, compared to the uploading process that some other pdf reading apps offer.

Skype – sure they don’t have an official iPad client yet, but the iPhone version actually works incredibly well on the iPad. Maybe it’s the peppy processor or something. I found that the sound was very good and the mic picks up my voice no problem at all. Besides, you certainly don’t need crisp graphics with the Skype app. Blow it up with the 2X iPhone to iPad conversion button and your fat fingers won’t have a problem dialing any numbers on the big iPad screen (and if your fingers are still too fat, you can fortunately smash the keypad with the palm of your hand to get voice assistance… just kidding… but I do love that episode of the Simpsons).

Tweet Deck – you Twitter? This is my favorite Twitter client for the iPad. It’s free and has no advertising. Bonus. And the slick portrait mode takes advantage of nearly every iPad UI element available. Clicking on links in tweets simply opens them in an integrated browser control in the upper half of the screen, allowing you to continue to scan your twitter feeds at the bottom. Of course, all the other great Tweet Deck features are there as well including multiple accounts, list integration and classic style retweets.

RDP is a Remote Desktop client for the iPad, supporting the Remote Desktop Protocol.  This app is fantastic.  Sitting on my couch, I can quickly log into my Windows box and check the status of a long running download or 3D rendering.  There’s both a regular version and a lite version.  The lite version makes it difficult to scroll and move windows around and stuff, but it’s decent for a quick login.

As soon as the word, “iPad” was shown on the projection screen and transmitted through the magical Internet to my laptop (via the Engadget live blog that I was watching), I began firing off domain registration requests at lightspeed.

Perhaps it was the slow connection from India, but I was only successful at getting about half of the domains I tried to register. Many of the good ones were available one second and then disappeared (presumably being snatched up by someone else) between the time I hit the checkout button and when my payment went through. It was like a virtual jostling of sorts. I suddenly had fond memories of teenage years, attempting to purchase tickets to the Smashing Pumpkins Melancholy tour, working my phone’s re-dial button fanatically until I got through.

About half an hour after the announcement I found myself out a bit of cash (credit) and the owner of a handful of decent iPad domain names.

My intentions for owning the domain names are purely for possible business or project opportunities. I do not intent to sell them, but will try to use them for some sort of website to generate some revenue primarily through either affiliate programs or advertising.

Over the last few months, these domain names have stayed mostly untouched. This was bothering me so on Friday I decided that by the end of the weekend I would get one of them (ipadbackgrounds.net) up and running. If I wanted any of these sites to pay for themselves (at the very least), I figure that I have to get them out there early – less competition and more likely to ride the coat-tails of any buzz during the iPad’s imminent release.

I started thinking of how to best approach the site. ipadbackgrounds.net was to be primarily a free backgrounds website. I realize that there are a million wallpaper sites on the Internet, but there aren’t many at all specifically for the iPad. The site would operate like any other wallpapers site though – lots of pictures, users can register, upload their own backgrounds, categories, comments, etc…

I began with a virtual LAMP server in VMWare Player and installed the CakePHP framework. CakePHP and other MVC frameworks are great and speed up development, but even with a framework like that, I found it hard to believe that I’d have a working site by the end of the weekend. A couple hours of coding had barely given me working authentication. I ditched that idea and turned to Google to try and find what frameworks were being used by other wallpaper sites.

The way I saw it – there are so many backgrounds websites out there, therefore they must be using some common code. Right clicking and viewing source from all of sorts of wallpaper websites didn’t turn up much. I saw traces of Dreamweaver and MS Frontpage (yikes) on some of them and also found a lot of the JavaScript from these sites elsewhere through Google, but nothing really stood out as a common wallpapers website framework. And just when I thought that maybe I should make some half assed static HTML site instead, I came across the Open Source Wallpaper PHP Script at www.wallpaperscript.org – a complete wallpaper website including ACP admin panel for site management.

Are you kidding me??

Less than half an hour later, I had a functioning site on my local machine. Sure it needed some cleanup (the CSS isn’t that great) but it was usable and I certainly couldn’t complain for the simplicity of setting this thing up. Awesome… took no time and able to grab some pints at the pub.

Saturday morning I began scouring my personal photos for possible iPad backgrounds. Being a self proclaimed photography geek, I tend to gather a fair number of photos. I also found some public domain pictures that didn’t have any usage terms (important to note that even on sites declaring pictures to be public domain, read the fine print. Some of usage terms out there even specifically call out wallpaper sites as being ineligible usage for the pictures).

Using the Gimp to re-size or crop the pictures to the 1024×768 dimensions of the iPad and adding some small amounts editing, it didn’t take long at all to put together about 50 wallpapers. I also had a lot of fun finally finding a use for some of the many landscape pictures I’ve taken over the years and working on my photo editing skills. Turns out that some Gaussian blur plus a black to transparent gradient can really help turn a picture into a nice background.

Once I had a bunch of categories and pictures uploaded to the website (and changed the administrator password, which although wasn’t difficult, wasn’t possible without additional coding), the next step was to make it pretty.

Lately I’ve been using Artisteer to create blog themes. This program is freakin fantastic! Artisteer lets me create exactly what I want without having to write a single line of CSS! I’ll rave more about this program later in another post. Suffice it to say, I exported my site design, automatically created (practically) with Artisteer, as a HTML layout and modified the header and footer php scripts in Wallpaper Script to use the new layout. This took some minimal coding – php, javascript, css and html, but nothing substantial.

Adding advertising with Wallpaper Script is incredibly easy. The script has placements for ads in leaderboard, square and skyscraper formats to match Google adsense sizes. Simply signing into the site as the administrator and pasting adsense javascript into the correct spots is all it takes to get functioning advertising on the site.

I still can’t believe how quickly the site came together.

By some time on Sunday evening I figured that things were in a good enough shape that I’d just upload everything to my hosting provider and send out a quick note on twitter to tell the world. I had spent maybe 10 hours over the course of the weekend working on it and most of that time was creating wallpapers. Relatively, I spent no time on getting the site running. I’ve spent more time in the past trying to get a single WordPress plugin working.

ipadbackgrounds.net doesn’t support IE7 that well yet, but I’m not overly concerned. Safari works fine. So does Chrome and Firefox and I suspect that most people browsing for wallpapers will be using one of those browsers.

If you asked me 4 years ago if a multi-touch 3.5 inch screen mobile phone with great software support would be an amazing seller, I would have said yes, regardless of which company produced it. It was exactly what the general consumer didn’t know they needed. The iPad though? It can’t be carried in one’s pocket. Face it folks, it has limitations:

• can’t take pictures.
• wouldn’t be a very good portable music player.
• certainly wouldn’t be useful as a phone.
• no FLASH support
• no multi-tasking

At least that’s the kind of criticism I hear about the iPad – even from the zanny Apple lovers. And when most people speak positively about it, I don’t hear much that would convince my mother that the iPad was something she needed. When I asked my nephew what he thought about the iPad, he almost started foaming at the mouth. But when I ask what it is about it that he likes, his vague descriptions made it sound like the iPad is simply a large-screen iPod that is less effective than my $250 netbook. To some extent, perhaps it is.

But I believe that most people’s expectations of what the iPad should have been was grounded on, more or less, in what the iPhone and netbook or laptop are. The iPad will be neither of those. And it wasn’t meant to be.

• the smart phone or mobile device – fits in the palm of your hand
• the netbook or laptop or desktop – to do things that would otherwise require a keyboard and large(er) screen (not necessarily just email – documents, programming, photo manipulation, etc)

So where does the iPad fit in? It’s a tablet and as such fits squarely (with rounded edges of course) between the mobile device and netbook/laptop. It may be able to do some of the things that both of those devices can do, but will definitely not surpass them in their ability to do various specific things well (phone, writing, programming, music player, photoshop, etc).

The challenge that will face most consumers is getting over their expectations. I forsee lots of unsatisfied iPad buyers on launch day.

There is also a challenge facing software developers targeting the iPad. You can simply take your iPhone apps and blow them up for the larger iPad format. Doing so, however, don’t expect much. Those iFart apps lose their luster on the larger format. Or not… fart noises are still hilarious. But you get the idea. The iPad requires remodeling, rethinking, a different approach.

The question remains – what are some of the practical applications for the Apple iPad? Let’s not really discuss specific apps, but more target markets… I’ve been thinking about this and have some ideas.

Clipboarders - Anyone who would carry a clipboard or visit clients. This includes real estate agents, insurance agents, door to door solicitors, FedEx carriers, physicians, auditors, fitness professionals… the list goes on and on. Each of those markets could likely benefit from niche applications catering to what they would otherwise do with a clipboard or perhaps on a laptop.

Couch surfers – This market includes people who semi-casually want to look something up or show someone something while at home, probably sitting on the couch (or other place, unfortunately probably also including the toilet for some). Could be movie listings, the weather, photo albums, the family tree, security cameras feeds, youtube videos, TED Talks, vodcasts, Discovery Channel tv shows that you can’t watch because the rest of your family is hogging the tv… This list is endless. Sure these applications could possibly work just as well on a different device, but the iPad definitely has a market for these kinds of things and this is the kind of market that most developers will likely target.

Readers – People do still read books. Sure the iPad may not be as good as an e-ink device for reading, but I’m sure the market for ebooks on the iPad will be huge. I’m also sure that many iPad owners will additionally own a Kindle or other ebook reader that is specifically made for such a task. We aren’t heading to a single device World any time soon.

Makers – The makers market is probably one of the smaller markets that could be targetted by the iPad. Programmers would obviously have a hard time writing anything of any significance on the iPad. Writers would likely be somewhat unproductive at writing their next novel without a true keyboard. But for cooking, baking, music making, finger painting, proofing and other things that don’t necessarily require external input devices, there is room for some innovative applications. Of course, Steve Jobs is anti-stylus for some reason. He was quoted as saying “yuck” regarding a stylus. The lack of which means less impact to the maker market. The inability of the iPad to use a regular stylus may not be a huge constraint though as there are indications that third party companies have created a compatible stylus. Having this would no doubt increase the market penetration of the iPad on the maker category.

Gamers – This is obvious. At the iPad press conference, some low key uninspiring game demos were shown. I’m not convinced that driving games will rock on the iPad as much as they do on the iPhone, but there is no doubt an incredible oportunity for game developers to port or create for the iPad. With the larger screen dimensions, even two player board games are possible. Checkers or Go anyone??

Expectations that the iPad would be a device all encompasing in its ability to adequately handle all activities from A to Z is unrealistic. Also unrealistic is the idea that the iPad should have features that simply work better on other devices. It is not a camera nor is it a mobile phone. The iPad is what it is and will be successful in its own right. When I want to talk on the phone I will use my Blackberry. When I want to listen to music, I’ll use my iPod. To take a picture I’ll continue to use my SLR and to read an ebook from the comfort of my couch, well when the iPad comes out, I’ll probably use that.