mobiForge Recent Content

Location in iPhone Web Apps

weimenglee — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:40:49 +0000

One of the key limitations of developing Web applications for iPhone is that you are not allowed to access the hardware on the device via the Web browser. For example, you cannot access the camera on the iPhone; neither can you access the accelerometer. This seriously limits the kinds of applications you can develop on the iPhone. One notable exception, however, is the support for tracking the location of devices, through a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular triangulation.

Programming Apple Push Notification Services

weimenglee — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:56:55 +0000

One of the key limitations of the iPhone is its constraint on running applications in the background. Because of this, applications cannot keep running in the background when the user switches to another application. So, applications that require a constant state of connectivity (such as social networking applications) will not be able to receive timely updates.

Nexus One: Where is Android at?

ruadhan — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:02:30 +0000

With the announcement of the new GooglePhone, which promises to be the best Android device yet and by all early reports at least comparable with the iPhone 3GS, it seems appropriate to stop to take a look around to see where Android is at.

We start with the breakdown of Android Platform distribution, based on access to the Android Market.

Android versions (Source: http://developer.android.com)

Sending SMS with SMPP, Kannel and Java

senthadev@gmail.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:30:28 +0000

There are many technologies and protocols that can be used to send and receive SMS from an application. This article focuses on sending SMS via a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), with the help of the Kannel SMS gateway.

In order for an application to send a SMS, it generally has to communicate with a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) over the Internet. To understand in more detail consider the following example.

A Media service provider wants to send a program timetable as an SMS to its end customers. The application is running on a Linux based java application server.

Newsletter October 2009

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:35:18 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter October 2009.

This time:

1. Announcing mobiForge Antenna
2. A Guide to Mobile Emulators
3. Understanding UI in Android
4. The Mobile Web is Dead...
5. mobiForge Shortlisted for Golden Spiders Awards

Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 4: Even More Views

weimenglee — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:13:12 +0000

In this final installation of the Android Views series of articles, we shall continue our exploration of another category of views - Menu views, and some additional cool views. The views discussed include:

Context Menu
Options Menu
AnalogClock
DigitalClock
WebView

DeviceAtlas - Now with C++ & Apache Module

daniel.hunt — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:22:17 +0000

Here at dotMobi we're paying attention to what you, our users, customers and loyal followers want.
And something we've noticed about your comments and emails, is that one of the most important things about device detection is performance.

Well, in answer to the floods of emails from our regulars, we're delighted to announce the release of an official C++ API implementation, and an Apache Module!

Free iPhone Programming PDF

ruadhan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:11:28 +0000

Hopefully you've been enjoying our series of iPhone articles over previous weeks.The topics recently covered in this series have looked at both developing native apps with Xcode, and developing webapps with Dashcode. Xcode and Dashcode are two IDEs supplied with the iPhone SDK.

Now you can get a PDF download that covers both of these approaches to programming for iPhone in one handy document. The content has been arranged (by Wei-Meng Lee) into two practical 'Labs', and is ideal if you are just starting out and want a chance to dip your toe into both approaches. And did I mention it's FREE...?

A Guide to Mobile Emulators

mokil — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:15:31 +0000

In a previous article, I put forward a three-point plan for testing mobile Web sites. One of the points involved the use of emulators for first-pass device testing. This article concentrates on configuring emulators for mobile site testing (it also highlights emulators that can be used to test mobile applications too). It outlines the different types of emulator available, the best ones to use, and the various ways in which they can be used.

For the uninitiated, an emulator is a software program that aims to replicate the functions of a specific piece of hardware or software.

Newsletter September 2009

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:34:17 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter September 2009.

This month's goodies:

1. A Python Device-Aware Webapp
2. iPhone Webapps with Dashcode
3. Android UI - More Views
4. The Beauty of Device Data
5. Guide to Mobile Advertising Networks
6. Tip of the Day

Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 3: More Views

weimenglee — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:59:23 +0000

In the previous article, you saw the various basic views such as the TextView, EditText, Button, and how you can use them in your Android applications. In this article, we shall continue our exploration of another three categories of views - Picker views, List views, and Display views. The views discussed include:

TimePicker view
DatePicker view
ListView view
Spinner view
Gallery view
ImageView
ImageSwitcher view
GridView view

A minimal mobile-aware web app with Python & cloud-based device detection

ronan — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:44:05 +0000

In this article we'll look at a how to make a minimal device-aware web application. The point of this article is not to demonstrate a useful application but rather to show just how little code is required to make an app that is fully device aware, and that can change its presentation entirely depending on the nature of the device accessing it.

The Beauty of Mobile Device Data

ronan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:13:52 +0000

Recently at dotMobi we have been investigating how to make our DeviceAtlas device detection even better, while at the same time trying to keep the size of the distributable database as compact as possible. As some of you may know, DeviceAtlas uses a tree of data stored in a very compact JSON file to distribute our device data knowledge. The actual format of this JSON file is a Patricia tree organised around the user-agent strings of the devices that we have data about.

Build Web Apps for iPhone using Dashcode

weimenglee — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:44:00 +0000

So far, much mobile developer attention has been fixated on the iPhone SDK released by Apple to build native iPhone applications. This is understandable, since with the SDK you can write native iPhone apps that take full advantage of the capabilities provided by the device, such as accessing the accelerometer, the camera, as well as obtain geographical locations using Core Location.

Post Markup Directly to mobiReady.com

ruadhan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:33:37 +0000

If you missed our newsletter yesterday you are probably not aware of a small announcement we made in it. We've pushed out a few updates to mobiReady.com, our mobile-readiness page testing tool. The most significant change is that you can now post markup directly to the service, instead of posting a URL for the service to visit and test.

Newsletter August 2009

ruadhan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:09:17 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter August 2009.

This month:

1. Understanding UI in Android
2. Testing Mobile Web Sites in Firefox
3. Verizon Wireless Opens Up
4. Getting started with J2ME
5. Planning & Buying Mobile Media
6. Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing
7. DeviceAtlas & mobiReady Updates

Getting Started with Java ME

Soma Ghosh — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:30:36 +0000

As the world gets connected, we see the emergence of a wide variety of sophisticated and personalized mobile devices. Although the number-crunching power of the higher-end devices is very respectable, there is still a need to build applications that use minimal resources, and that are portable.

Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), formerly known as J2ME, with Java’s inherent ‘Build once, run everywhere’ concept has been adapted to build resource constraint applications for these myriad devices.

Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 2: Views

weimenglee — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:31:47 +0000

In the previous article on Android UI you saw the components that make up the UI of an Android application. The basic unit of the Android UI is the View. A View represents a widget that has an appearance on the screen. In this article (and the next two), you will learn about the various common views that you would likely use in your journey of Android development. In particular, I have categorized the views in this series into the following group:

Basic Views - commonly-used views such as TextView, EditText, and Button views

Verizon Wireless opens up to the mobile developer community (for real)!

Ronan_Mandel — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:58:47 +0000

Late last month, Verizon Wireless held an open developer conference down here in San Jose. The conference was notable, important, and relevant to you for a number of reasons.

Testing Mobile Web Sites Using Firefox

mokil — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:34:27 +0000

Before you ever begin testing your mobile site to determine how it looks on handsets, you should make sure the functionality of the site is working as you expect. This is not always straightforward, as you want to approximate the mobile environment as closely as possible. Fortunately, Mozilla Firefox supports some great extensions that can make testing your mobile sites a piece of cake. This article explains how to set Firefox up to act as a first pass test environment for your site.

Newsletter July 2009

ruadhan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:00:28 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter July 2009.

This month's goodies:

1. iPhone Programming Fundamentals
2. Understanding UI in Android
3. (Not very) Dramatic Developments from AT&T
4. Device Detection in the Cloud
5. Lastminute.com Labs Introduces DA Rails Plugin
6. MMA President Mike Wehrs Talks Tough
7. A Word from Our PR Guy

iPhone Programming Fundamentals - Outlets and Actions

weimenglee — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:06:28 +0000

An understanding of outlets and actions is one of the first things you will need for iPhone programming. For someone coming from the .NET background, this is a concept that requires some time to get used to - the concepts are similar, but it is a different way of doing things.

And so, in this article, I am going to show you what outlets and actions are. At the end of this article, you will have a solid understanding of how to create outlets and actions, and be on your way to creating great iPhone apps.

Lastminute.com Labs presents the DeviceAtlas Rails Plugin

mathias.dahlstrom — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:51:35 +0000

Last year at lastminute.com labs we started developing mobile web services in Rails. The first service we launched is called fonefood. It is a restaurant booking site you can use from your phone. We've got restaurants across lots of countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. You can read more about it at: http://labs.lastminute.com/fonefood/

Mobile Web 2.0 "Dramatic Developments" from AT&T Really not all that dramatic....

Ronan_Mandel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:50:20 +0000

Well, I'm sad to report that the folks over/up/down at AT&T wireless appear to not quite have their act together when it comes to what is the 'next big thing' in wireless. I had really been hoping/anticipating that the webinar they hosted on June 30 entitled "Dramatic Developments in Mobile Web Technology" was going to provide something concrete and actionable for you (and I), alas, that was not to be the case.

Device Detection in the Cloud: DeviceAtlas Personal

ruadhan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:26:50 +0000

After a brief mention of DeviceAtlas Personal in our June newsletter, we're now following up with a full tutorial on how to use the preview release of the service. So what is DA Personal?

Convergence still 'coming soon' for mobile web platforms

Ronan_Mandel — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:37:40 +0000

So honestly, when I went into writing the last couple of postings about widget platforms I did not know about the webinars that had been scheduled by the folks at FierceWireless or AT&T about browsing platforms, but it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one trying to get my head around exactly what is and what isn't possible (and where things are headed) in the browser container and beyond.

Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 1: Layouts

weimenglee — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:13:47 +0000

So far in my previous few articles on Android I have focused on showing you how to get things done in Android without really spending too much time discussing the visual aspect of Android application development - User Interface design. In this article, and the next, I will walk you through the various elements that make up the UI of an Android application. In this first part of the article, I will discuss the various layouts available in Android to position the various widgets on your screen.

Newsletter June 2009

ruadhan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:25:54 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter June 2009. This time:

1. Battle of the Superphones
2. Location, location, location
3. Widgets
4. Mobile Web development with ASP.NET
5. Augmented Reality
6. DeviceAtlas Personal coming soon

User-Agent Switcher for Safari 4

atrasatti — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:57:26 +0000

The User Agent Switcher plug-in for Firefox has been a GREAT add-on and we all love it. 1 year and 27 weeks ago Ronan wrote a really simple, but useful configuration file for it that is available here on mobiForge (if you use Firefox it's a MUST: User Agent Switcher config file).

Mobile Web App Development with ASP.NET and HAWHAW

H2f — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:24:01 +0000

Development of mobile applications is often highly dependent on the target platform. If plain old XHTML markup is written from scratch then it is rather easy to switch between platform and technologies. But if the development process has been accelerated and made comfortable by the use of tools and middleware, it soon becomes difficult or impossible to switch environments e.g. from a LAMP environment to ASP.NET or vice versa.

Are Widgets ready for me?

Ronan_Mandel — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:51:39 +0000

OK, so getting back to the widget reality here. I'd like to take a look at what the platforms are, what your options are and if it's really even worth it to go there. I know that last time I got a bit distracted with the whole 'sprite' thing, but I promise to stay on track here.

Battle of the Superphones: Palm Pre vs. Apple iPhone - which is a better Web browsing device?

ronan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:40:28 +0000

There are already countless reviews of the newly announced Palm Pre available online. Rather than write another one, we instead are going to focus on what we, and we hope, our readers, are most interested in: how does the Pre fare as a web browsing device. In particular, we're going to test how well it does against its arch-rival, the iPhone. Can the Pre out-iPhone the iPhone? We're going to ignore the app store, the widgets, the battery life, the media player and instead focus on web browsing.

DeviceAtlas 2.4.1 Released

daniel.hunt — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:01:39 +0000

Late yesterday evening, some of you may have noticed that DeviceAtlas went offline for a couple of hours - now that it's back on its feet again I can tell you that DeviceAtlas 2.4.1 has now been released!

2.4.1 is mainly a maintainence release, but we've managed to squeeze in a few exciting little nuggets that we're sure you're going to love.

New Properties
- markup.wml1: This will let you know the capability of devices to display content in WML

Location, Location, Location

jonarne — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:19:27 +0000

Location based services (LBS) has been a buzz word and a hype since birth of mobile services. I'm not saying that it is a failure!

Newsletter May 2009

ruadhan — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:34:17 +0000

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter, May 2009. This month we've been busy releasing software and winning awards. And we've still managed to squeeze in some new content for you too!

This time...

1. dotMobi Wordpress Mobile Pack
2. iPhone App Deployment
3. Autotrader.mobi is 1Mth mobiReady page
4. Mobile Web benchmarks, what can you do?
5. To Sprite or not to Sprite
6. PHP & Apache: tools of the mobile Web
7. What makes teens tick?
8. Upcoming: Palm Pre capabilities uncovered
9. dotMobi, onwards & upwards

Deploying iPhone Apps to Real Devices

weimenglee — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:24:10 +0000

In our previous article on getting started with iPhone development, you learnt how to use the iPhone SDK provided by Apple to develop your first iPhone application. For testing purposes, you used the iPhone Simulator, provided as part of the iPhone SDK. While the iPhone Simulator is a very handy tool that allows you to test your iPhone applications without needing a real device, nothing beats testing on a real device.

Fennec Delivers!

ruadhan — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:49:20 +0000

We've all been eagerly anticipating the entry of the Fennec (Firefox Mobile to the uninitiated) into the mobile browser space. A couple of days ago we were given our first taste of the future with Fennec when a new alpha version was released for Windows Mobile devices. So how does it stand up?

Well, initial testing seems to indicate that Fennec will certainly be a contender. The Fennec team have packed in support for a wide array of technologies.

AutoTrader.mobi is 1Mth page tested by mobiReady

ruadhan — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:19:29 +0000

We're happy to announce a great milestone today: autotrader.mobi was the 1 millionth page that was tested by our mobiReady testing tool!

We're super happy about this, and we're delighted to see some well known brands such as AutoTrader making use of our free testing tool. Check out their results here.

Widget Investigation leads to a 'Worst Practice' Discovery

Ronan_Mandel — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:38:45 +0000

Nokia just wrapped up their Developer Conference in Monaco last week. Sadly, I didn't have the budget to go. Maybe you were lucky and did (or maybe you live there, lucky you!). Anyhow, one of the technologies that they're pushing these days is their WRT (Web Run Time) or Widgets for the lay person out there. This whole mobile widget thing is nothing new, but what does appear to be new is that they're gathering a steam this time.

Mobile Web Benchmarks: What can you do?

ruadhan — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:05:28 +0000

Yesterday, Gomez and dotMobi published a second set of mobile Web benchmarks. The metrics are taken across three key industries: banking, airlines, and search, each of which represents an exciting and important slice of the mobile Web.

I don't want to analyse the results here (the mobile Web is getting slower apparently!) - instead, I'll take a brief look at what these benchmarks might mean for you as a developer.