Rapid Web News

Will Apple’s release of the iPad slow the surge past few years of mobile web development? Some people think so.

The release of Apple’s ever popular smartphone, the iPhone, back in mid 2007 caused a huge development spike in websites and dynamic web applications designed the mobile devices. Of course, the vast majority of these mobile website were developed specifically with the iPhone in mind, however the results were beneficial to pretty much all smartphones with the capability the browse the web and with some form of web browser application.

So, why do I think the iPad will slow this development in the mobile web market? The iPad is a mobile device itself is it not?

Well, perhaps not. Apple’s iPad does indeed use an operating system very similar to the iPhone, with backwards compatibility with almost all of the iPhone’s downloadable apps, and yes, it is mobile in the true sense of the word – it can be easily carried around unlike a full desktop computer and much more easily than a typically larger and much heavier laptop. However, the one aspect of the iPad which stands out is its native screen resolution of 1024×768. This means that, since most web developers design, template and style their websites for resolutions of either 800×600 or 1024×768, normal websites look fantastic on the iPad.

Why build an iPad specific ‘mobile’ version of a website when your existing site works perfectly, fills the screen and looks fantastic?

A lot of web developers will find no need to. However, sites that use heavy amounts of Flash content may be required to rethink their design and implementation strategy when it comes to Flash websites on Apple products. This is because the neither the iPhone or the iPad, at time of writing, support Flash in websites and so rely more so on the ever increasing use of interactive JavaScript elements via programming technologies such as AJAX.

If you’re interested in getting a design done for Apple products, be it the iPhone, iPad or just any Macintosh system, take a look at our website’s web design section. Hopefully it will spike your interest.

So with all the rumours flying around about Apples new offering what do we know for sure? Well we know it’s one of the most hyped devices since the combustion engine for a start. There’s no actual confirmation as to its real name, some are calling it the iSlate someone else referred to it as the iHype which is somewhat fitting. There are other claims that it will be very similar to a large screened iPod. How have Apple been able to keep this under wraps? Almost everything gets leaked onto the net weeks before release. With Ebook readers becoming ever more popular are Apple making a supremo version while the iron is hot? Imagine never having to queue for the morning papers, pre ordering best sellers and not waiting for midnight releases outside supermarkets, the still ever increasingly popular Twitter and Facebook linked directly to headlines “crikey, check this out’ you post on Twitter at five to eight on Monday morning. But is this all another step to becoming somewhat lazy or is it genuinely saving us time? I can see its merits from a paper saving view though.

Then we have the entertainment side of things, for one (I assume) you’ll have a portable TV, DVD player and jukebox (provided you’re willing to spend a small fortune with iTunes) which you can take anywhere. I can imagine a hot summers day, picnic in the local park, maybe a coolbox with a cheeky bottle of wine in there and suddenly your peace is shattered by Noel Edmonds “Are you ready for the question…” like the chavs on the bus with tinny sounding phones playing r n’ b – sometimes it’s just nice to leave all that at home…

Do we really need another all singing all dancing device that we can’t wait to show people? Don’t get me wrong, I love tech but I also like leaving it at home and going out and about. It’s quite liberating to leave your mobile phone on the kitchen table and go out for lunch, try it you might like it

I’m not kidding. IVF treatment took a backseat for a couple who were trying for a baby for 4 years until she found an iPhone app to help become pregnant! Lena Bryce and partner Dudley used the fertility application after almost giving up hope. It works by inputting your daily body temperature and then the app calculates when she would be most fertile. Lena fell pregnant after just 2 months of using the software!

‘I typed in “get pregnant” and downloaded five apps, The Free Menstrual Calendar was easiest to use so I stuck with it and in two months I was pregnant. Now we have our gorgeous daughter and couldn’t be happier.’ Lena told The Sun. Congratulations to the pair of them! So I guess there’s an app for just about everything! Wonder if there’s one that encourages hair growth…

I’ve been trying to get some clarity on what defines a ‘Smartphone’ and the true answer is…nobody knows! Its just a made up phrase by someone in the industry. Some believe that a Smartphone simply allows the use of Email and Internet. Ok looking into this further I see the first phone which allowed this functionality, using WAP, was the Nokia 7110 Dual Band GSM 900/1800 which was first seen in 1999! So if you’re still the proud owner of one of these antiques then you have yourself the very first, by some definitions, Smartphone…Congratulations.

Although this still isn’t good enough for me, if I go into a mobile phone shop and ask to see a range of Smartphones what would I be shown? Well searching for ‘Smartphones’ on the net turns up some varied and interesting results. The top 3 sponsored links display the Motorola Dext, BlackBerry Smartphones and the all new Palm Pre so I think we need to look at the common factors (I’m only using these as examples as they are the first to display, personally I’m waiting for my HTC HD2 to drop through the post any day now, ye-haw).

Firstly I was hoping that all of them are touch screen, but a lot of Blackberrys are not – yet they are still referred to as Smartphones. The plot thickens. The next thing I approached is the ability to use the myriad of different social networks at the touch of a button, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, My Space etc. Motorola listed this as one of its key features as did the Blackberry but I noticed a lot of Palm Pre users frustrated at the lack of an app for Facebook – so still pulling up short on what defines a ‘Smartphone’. It has to be unification in operating systems for phones but I know this isn’t true without even skimming the net.

Other definitions you may enjoy:

• ‘A ‘Smartphone’ is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality.’
• ‘Electronic handheld device that integrates the functionality of a mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) or other information appliance.’ – This pretty much describes a laptop using Skype.
• ‘A generic name for voice centric mobile phones with information capability’ – this seems more realistic but we’re back to almost any mobile phone ever made!

Well I guess if ‘Smartphone’ is just made up corperate language to sell more PDA’s which you can also make phone calls on I guess I’ll go and run some ideas up a flagpole using some sky blue thinking to make sure all my ducks are in line…

So everyone in the computer industry seems to always be on about the next big ‘Holy Cow’ idea, what’s going to be the next processor development? How much RAM can you stack up in a 128bit OS? When will the 15gig graphics card hit the market? – Yeah, ok I’d love to know those things deep down but let’s just look directly under our nose for a second. So who likes music? Surely everyone? Surely…

So the whole office here at Rapid Web have been using Spotify now for quite some time and I’m probably shooting myself in the foot here like I did when I pumped Grooveshark, last time I used it the servers could no way handle all the traffic, ahh heck to it, spread the wealth I say. So what is Spotify? Well in a nutshell its AWESOME, ok you actually wanna know, well it’s a peer to peer music streaming service allowing anyone who can get to a PC with internet the biggest music collection EVER! I’m not exaggerating; according to reports if you listened to the current catalogue of music offered by Spotify it would take you 35 years to listen too, that’s right 35 YEARS!

So what’s the catch? Well that’s the point there isn’t one! Standard DRM rights apply so you can’t save the music to your PC but why would you want to, it’s always accessible. If you do have favourite tunes you can build playlists so you could have a “…I just got in from work, feeling beat, just want to kick back with a beer…” type playlist, right up to a “…let’s call the troops, throe on a shirt and paint the town a bluish green colour…” There are also adverts that appear roughly every 10 tunes but come on its free! There’s a great spread of different music on their site “…do you have Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff by Deadmau5, ya know, the one featuring Rob Swire…” a 5 second search tells me!

You can also pay £9.99 for a premium service which allows some very groovy extras; these guys don’t just wanna sting you for a tenner a moth to get rid of adverts. Offline mode, for one, is a great feature:

“…Offline mode allows you to listen to your favourite tracks even when you’re not connected to the internet. Create a playlist or use an existing one and switch “Available offline” to the ON position. Spotify will sync the tracks to your computer so when you’re on the go or at the summer house with your laptop and no internet connection you can still listen to your tunes. Offline mode allows you to sync tracks on up to three computers or mobiles phones at the same time. Each device can sync a maximum of 3,333 tracks…”

– take that iTunes! And you are reading correctly: sync tracks on up to three computers or mobiles phones, so provided you have a decent phone you also have a huge collection of music that’s instantly accessible – take that iPhone! Ok, just to clarify I’m not an apple hater, far from it, if they supported more hardware and software I probably get one but I just feel there not the most user friendly of devices or software plus they feel a little like devices for the super rich, whoa, almost off on a rant! I hear ya, reign it in Clay…

Back to Spotify then, so say you find a cool new tune and want your friends to hear it, like the Deadmau5 tune I mentioned earlier which, indecently, I can’t stop listening to at the minute. All you have to do is right click on the tune and hit ‘Copy Spotify URI’, paste it into a mail and then hit send! Those said friends then take that link and put it into the search engine on Spotify and Voila! spotify:track:4ua0IepBEISCWwF8dTJvcU – here’s the link for the Deadmau5 tune to get you all started, its super funky and a good tune to put you in the mood for a night out – get in. It’s free to join the basic service which still gives you access to all the tunes, go on, treat yourself…