Nintendo 3DS

Most of posts before, I have been talking about mobile devices related to Tablets or Phones, however there are another important branch into this market, and this is Nintendo with its DS and Sony with its PSP, among the most important.

This post will talk about the released characteristics that will come bundled with the renew Nintendo 3DS.

Three Hot Tables To Come

Recently, I talked about the presentation of the Blackberry Playbook, now I will summarize the characteristics of those three tables that are going to lead the market and the must have for all others. Here we go:

BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM strikes back

Research In Motion (aka RIM) has shown the new BlackBerry playbook, the first tablet of RIM and that is quite the competition of the iPad but with the professional markets in mind.

The hardware device in question promises a lot, with a dual-core processor at 1GHz (Cortex A9), 1GB of RAM, and a 7-inch screen. The operating system is "completely new", called BlackBerry Tablet OS, developed by the people of QNX. Here is a demonstration video:

iAd as good expending platform.

iAd is a mobile advertising platform, linked to IOS 4, which belongs to Apple, and against other offers such as AdMob Google, rather than be a banner with a web link that takes us out of the application, is just a mini application coded in HTML5 + CSS + JavaScript that allows interactive advertising within the applications, and is a good source of income for free or cheap applications cost.

This platform is already running a few months and seen some success stories that have made it profitable to see it, concluding several means that, in principle, iAd is a success.

PayWave on iPhone

Visa has a system called PayWave that allows "contactless payments" using a special card that "wave" on a reader device that accepts payment, without touching or insert on it. Now the same technology is being tested using iPhones in New York, specifically, in the subways of New York.

Well, like other wireless systems, is based on RFID technology using an special microSD memory card, enabling the use of other phones, not just iPhones. People who receive these payments from Visa are also on the subway, on the bus, and thousands of taxis in New York.

As the video shows, it will be necessary unlock the iPhone, open the application, pepare the pay and then move close to the "reader", here is an example:

App Store Functionality Rules

Few weeks ago, Apple released a guide to what we must or must not to do in order to ensure that any application submitted for the App Store become approved. This guide, simple and very close in wording, sets those parameters to be taken into account, and also to be aware of the latest changes in policies and restrictions that have happened in the App Store since the beginning of September.

Open Feint

OpenFeint is Aurora Feint's project and effort to become a popular company that boost the development of games for Android mobile devices, thus wanting to take lead turning the game market on Android into quality games.

iPhone has established as a great platform for mobile entertainment. Meanwhile Android comes  far away with very little attempts to turn the video game market in the SO Google more formal. OpenFeint, the developer for mobile platforms promises to bring a lot of popular games to Android. According to Jason Citron, CEO of Aurora Feint (creators of the project OpenFeint):

Mittratter - Source Code

Ok, the Compilated App has been released here: Mittratter and its post related: http://mittrasw.blogspot.com/2010/09/mittratter-twitter-client-for-osx.html. What would help to other programmers trying to implement oAuth into their developments will be the source code used by Mittratter to sign into Twitter's Servers. Also I will give a brief explanation of how does this thing work.

As I explained here and here, now Twitter uses the oAuth Procedure, well the code behind is quite tricky and might confuse at first sight. Mittratter is an application developed in Objective-C, so the code is going to display here helps to implement those functions into iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad developments as well. Don't forget to do a quick review of the Twitter API where few libraries and implementations could be found. Well, let's get started.

Mittratter - Twitter Client for OSX

Yesterday, I was writing about the Twitter oAuth Authentication Method, well today I will release Mittratter, it is a simple Twitter Client developed with Objective-C and XCode. It took me few hours of development to understand the way oAuth works, Twitter and available documentation about it.

With the App running, I will give an example how exactly this works:

Twitter oAuth Procedure

After one week figuring out how to interact with the Twitter oAuth implementation, I could came up with a simple client that connects to their servers, obtains valid credentials and post as if you were at the web page.

Well, it took me quite a long time to understand how this oAuth authentication procedure works, so I will explain what I learned about:

Since August 31 , 2010, Twitter's servers doesn't allow anymore the "Basic Authentication Mode", in other words, any client or simply cURL statements were capable of send information and then update the status, get timeline or send private messages. Clients apps were those responsables for the user/password handling and their respective responsibility: if an app could be hacked or the credentials management weren't good enough, that information could be broadcasted to third parties and arrive to undesirable hands.

Android Users upgrade more often

Bring into order the irrational number of versions for mobile OS that exists within the two dominant platforms (IOS and Android) is such a complicated task. Moreover, even ignorance by the user about advantages and obstacles that fix many manufacturers (see HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson) for supporting new OS versions for old devices, does not help. Nevertheless, according to a recent study by Localytics Android users are more likely to stay updated in comparison of iOS users.

The firm has compared the data statistics for the two smartphones that have been more updates this summer, and Droid Motorola and iPhone 3GS. Some facts to keep in mind is that Android 2.2 for Motorola Droid was released on August 12 this year, while IOS 4.0 was released on June 21. The findings indicate a clear and significant advantage in the number of updates registered by Android. After two weeks, 96% of users had upgraded to the new Droid Froyo, as opposed to 56% who had done the same for iOS 4. Even more, just couple of months after launch only 80 percent of iPhone 3GS users had updated their handsets (shown in the graphic above).

HTCSense.com

HTC isn't anymore that chinese company that used to create Windows Mobile phones and quite strange addition to the business world where WB were widely used. Nowadays HTC is a global company that has bet on Android as a primary OS working with WB 7 as well, but there is one aspect that unites them all, that's HTC Sense.

Sense HTC began as a custom interface for Windows Mobile and Android terminals in order to differentiate the general look like from other phones that came with Android, is perhaps the problem facing these companies that use Android, having a different interface, it's like "cheat" the user with the believe of something completely different.