Split Reader - GOOGLE RSS Reader for iPad

Read your RSS feeds on your iPad.

Another iPad app by jTribe. This app is called Split Reader and it allows you to read RSS feeds from your GOOGLE Reader account on your iPad.

Split Reader allow you to navigate through your feeds faster than ever and it uses the stylish new user interface elements available on the iPad to make it a breeze.

Feature of Split Reader:

• Rotate to landscape and see a list of your unread feeds.
• Tap a feed in the list to display the unread items in the detail view.
• Rotate to portrait to only display the unread items
• Switch between feeds using the Subscriptions popup in portrait mode
• Mark items as read by tapping or scrolling past them
• Tap links to follow through to further web content without leaving the app

Google Latitude and Geo Social Mobile App getting Traction

This week was really interesting for jTribe. The biggest impact on us was:

Google has released Latitude 

which lets you see your friends on a map

Google's Latitude shows your friends an a map and allows you to share your current location with friends. 

Not a completely new idea. There are many similar tools out there which want to achieve exactly that. In the US there is Loopt using basic mobile phones to determine a user's location and to share it. With the iPhone and Android device these apps popped up like mushrooms. jTribe alpha-tested a program on Android that allowed you to invite friends and show them on a map (pretty similar to Google Latitude). The app was based on some ideas wrote earlier about (becoming micro-social). We abandoned the app 2 month ago. The feedback from our Android users was not encouraging so we removed the app again. Maybe we should give the app another go now that Google is creating awareness. 

Thanks Google!

The Google Latitude announcement created some good hype around mobile Geo apps. We did notice a huge surge in the sales of our iPhone based applications. We moved from rank 200 into the top 20 paid apps category. Thanks Google! 

Growing Market for Mobile Geo Social Apps

I am very excited about what is coming next. Now that Google has created awareness for mobile geo social apps and people start to get more interested in those apps the market will grow. Analyst have predicted huge growth in this segment since years but I thinks it needed a leader like Google to kick-off that growth. (again, thanks Google!)

Android is listening but still has a way to go

Thank you Google for listening when we told you what we hated about Android.

The whole platform wasn't initially looking very democratic. Firstly the Market place was loaded with applications from a private selection of developers. After a period of no information, suddenly the market was open to everyone. Well everyone who could get access to a physical device.

If you live in the US and you're prepared to sign up to a two year contract with T-Mobile, then you could test your application on a physical device (as you should) and you could view the Market Place. Everyone else could only develop with the emulator and hope for the best when releasing it to the Market Place. Even worse, most developers could not see what other applications were already out there. Maybe that application already existed, maybe with the same name!

Ignoring this potential for conflict, once the app is out in the Market Place, developers can see the rating and the number of comments. What they can't see is the content of the comments (although from what I'm told the content is mostly of a youtube level anyway).

On top of all this, developers have also had to contend with a very buggy interface that sometimes showed incorrect download counts and reset everything when uploading an update.

Thankfully, Google are listening. This past weekend Google started offering unlocked devices for $399 to developers worldwide. I've even noticed the Market Place statistics are a lot more stable. What is really missing now is being able to view the Market Place on the web outside of a T-Mobile device. Hopefully this, along with the ability to charge for apps will be their next move in early Jan 2009.

Our top five tips for iPhone and Android developers

Apple and Google have changed the way applications are distributed to mobile devices. 

We have released FirePin on AppStore and Android Marketplace and want to share our experience.

The Apple AppStore gave Mac developers a great opportunity to get their applications out there and some did really, really well. Now Google does the same thing with its Android Marketplace. Both storefronts give developers relatively easy access to a large user base. But there are differences in terms of ease of development and distribution.

Our top five:

1. Start early when dealing with Apple
   
2. Android development is faster than iPhone development
   
3. iPhone users are different to Android users
   
4. Don't expect sophisticated reports
5. Keep it simple

1. Start early when dealing with Apple

First you have to sign-up for the iPhone Developer Program for a joining fee. In our case it took actually weeks to get it all approved. This might have to do with Apple checking actually the details of our company and the fact that we are an Australian company. I could imagine that the process is faster for a US company. 

If you plan to let people pay for your application then there is some additional forms to be filled out. Especially if you are non-US developer (we are in Australia) there are some additional TAX -related forms you nee to fill out and some need to be send in as paper copies. So you better kick that process off early.

You should allow about 5 days for Apple to review your application. Every update takes another 3-5 days to review.  Apple really reviews an app before it goes into the AppStore. They do not just let the app sit there for a week and then press a button to release it, no, they actually test the app. So you got your application through what I would almost call "user acceptance test" which is performed free of charge by Apple staff. Which is nice. If you have been involved in larger projects you might know that "user acceptance testing" takes time. Which sucks.

Here is a good description Oliver Breidenbach on how to get a EIN from the IRS that is required for non-US developers who want to sell their app. 

Publishing on the Android Marketplace is sooo easy. The developer is trusted to publish "good" applications and therefore there is no review process. The app just goes live and the users can start downloading. Google obviously relies on the "wisdom of the crowd" to promote good quality applications based on user feedback. It looks like Android users are more willing to leave a feedback than iPhone users.

2. Android development is faster than iPhone development

Even though I use a Mac for all my software development I haven't actually developed with the Apple SDK or the Cocoa framework. Apple's SDK is actually not as bad as I thought. After a while I got really in touch with XCode and find it actually simpler than Eclipse. One thing that decreased my productivity was Objective-C which was completely offset by the good quality sample code provided by Apple. The iPhone Simulator works well but not for location-based applications (see previous blog entry). Unfortunately, the community of Objective -C programmers is much smaller than, lets say, Java or Ruby. Finding information on the web was harder than it needs to be.

On Android we had the same application up and running in a fraction of time. The reason is "openness" of the Android platform and the large community of developers. The emulator comes with a number of development tools that make automated testing pretty easy for location-based apps. You can replay a KML file. Very nice.

3. iPhone users are different to Android users

Our app is only since 1 day on the Android Marketplace, but we can already see that the review and feedback from Android users is completely different to what we got in the AppStore. Even for the same application. (More info will be blogged soon)

4. Don't expect sophisticated reports

Analytics suck for both, AppStore and Android Marketplace.

5. Keep it simple

So you are a mobile application developer now. There is a lot of new stuff you have to deal with.  Best you keep your application as simple as possible. We found that users like simplicity in mobile phone applications. Our app is very simple and we actually spend much time to make it so simple. Other apps in the same category are overloaded with features and users give up early. We see that users come back and use an application when it is simple.

The top iPhone thing we don't like

The best relationships are the love-hate relationships. They keep things interesting and spicy. No, I am not talking about my personal relationships - I am talking about my relationship with my iPhone 3G.

One day I love the iPhone for its stylish and innovative appearance and user friendliness. Next day I hate the iPhone 3G for it's restrictiveness and for treating me like a child.

When I am in the "hate my iPhone" stage I usually go to http://pleasefixtheiphone.com/ and click on features I miss most. That has some therapeutic effect.

What is missing for location-based developers?

As an iPhone developer you experience a whole new dimension of iPhone love-hate. The device is actually really great but what about the tools to develop iPhone applications? The iPhone SDK and the Simulator?
When we started developing our first iPhone application we thought it would be easier - I mean it's Apple - right. Surely, the Apple SDK developers must figured out a way of simulating the GPS function in the Simulator. Wrong! In fact Apple did not think that one through.

The Simulator simply does a bad job in location-based app development support. The only thing the Simulator does is that CoreLocation returns always the same Location (the infinite loop in Cupertino). That functionality is enough for simple applications that want to determine your "current location". However, that is of limited use for a tracking application where locations "change".

How to test the "real" GPS behaviour?

So, you really cannot test the "real" GPS function in the Simulator. The way we tested it was to install the app on my iPhone. Then I would leave the building with the iPhone in my hand and run around the block to capture some locations. Does not sound too bad? It was bad! To produce a thoroughly tested application we had to spend the majority of the development time testing with the real iPhone device.

How could GPS testing be simpler?

There should be a way to play back a set of Geo-locations in the Simulator. This is actually not too hard but was probably not one of Apples top priorities at the time. Hopefully Apple will release such a playback tool with the next version of the Simulator or iPhone SDK.

Android is ahead

In the Android SDK there is a way to play back a KML files. That is nice. This function saves the location-based application developer days of testing. If only this would be available for the iPhone.

Hey, at least I am staying fit with all that running around outdoors with my iPhone. ;-)