So, after looking at the Android Market when my girlfriend got her Droid, I decided it needs help. There are a lot of apps. There aren’t a lot of quality apps. There aren’t enough choices in apps in the categories you really expect to have choice in.

So I’m going to start making some Android apps. The first step was to get a dev device to test apps on.  Luckily, the new Android Dev Phone 2 came out this week. I bought one immediately.  Here it is.

Long story short: This place will start looking normal again soon.

Thanks for your time.

My kitten was playing with some yarn, and I loled. Here is the video.  Make sure to watch at least until the little comment dot halfway through, as that’s when it gets funny.

http://v.snic.us

If you want to expand the range outside the default 10 mile radius, just do something like this:

http://v.snic.us/?radius=50

Tested with Compatibility:
iPhone 3.0
Android 1.5 Cupcake (but 1.0 should also work)

If you are on a desktop and just want to play, any browser with Google Gears installed will work.  Also, Firefox 3.1/3.5 betas will work without Gears, because it natively supports HTML5 geolocation.

Windows Mobile’s Pocket IE will not likely work – even if you have Google Gears – because PIE hates jQuery, and I’m much too lazy to write XHR requests and DOM animations myself. Sorry.

The point of it isn’t to necessarily be useful, which it actually kinda is for me in some situations, but to serve as a starting point for exploring how far I can push a browser to feel like a native app.

It was originally designed to strictly work with iPhone 3.0, but it would also have worked with any browser that supports HTML 5 geolocation (I’m looking at you, Firefox Beta users).  I felt bad for the rest of you, so I patched in Google Gears support for those of you who want to try it out and have that plugin installed. This also opens it up for you Android users.

http://v.snic.us

If you want to expand your search from the default 10 mile radius, do something like this:

http://v.snic.us/?radius=50

The point of it isn’t to necessarily be useful, which it actually kinda is for me in some situations, but to serve as a starting point for exploring how far I can push a browser to feel like a native app.

It was originally designed to strictly work with iPhone 3.0, but it would also have worked with any browser that supports HTML 5 geolocation (I’m looking at you, Firefox Beta users).  I felt bad for the rest of you, so I patched in Google Gears support for those of you who want to try it out and have that plugin installed. This also opens it up for you Android users.

Longer Version (a little rant/story):

which is all *opinion*. You likely won’t agree with it.  This is me blurting thoughts out.  My goal isn’t to convince you here. My goal is to bring to the table can happen. As my various little web app projects move on, we’ll see if I’m still singing the same tune.

If you read/watched/heard anything from Google I/O this year, you’d know that Google is starting a huge push for web development and embracing some of the neat stuff coming in HTML 5. Specifically, their Day 1 Keynote at the conference talk about, among other things, the ways geolocation, local storage, and media enclosures will make it easy to create even better applications that run right in the browser.

This piqued my interest, specifically when it comes to iPhone development.  We clamored for a native SDK and finally got it, but truth-be-told it isn’t always necessary.  Watching the demos, it was easy to see that there are some areas developers are missing with regards to web application creation that could drastically improve the web app experience.

Notice: Yes, I have done native SDK development. Yes, I gave Apple my $99. This isn’t an anti-App Store rant, nor am I shunning all use of native apps. Not by a long shot. I’m just saying we should open our eyes a bit. Let’s proceed.

First, I started thinking about why I hadn’t focused more on iPhone web app development.  A common thing with lots of developers is to feel that their web app must actually do something.  As in, the UI that is displayed either on the phone or the desktop must hook in to some backend webserver and perform some sort of unique-ish tasks.  That isn’t always the case.  Don’t be afraid to flex your javascript muscle. Think about all the Twitter clients you’ve seen. Other than uploading photos (which is hugely important, I agree), every feature of most all of them can now be done in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.  Yes, uploading photos is important, but that is one feature.  You could build everything else but that. That’s pretty good, if you ask me.  It’s also the case with many, many apps on the App Store.  If I had to break it down, I’d say the issue is that Mobile and Desktop App developers are very different critters than Web App developers. Sometimes, it might not hurt us web app developers to switch hats and pretend that Javascript is Objective-C and we’re not really working in a browser.

Another issue that I’m sure pops up is that of monetization and marketing. Using a native app on the App Store makes this infinitely easier. Users aren’t usually going to sign in to your web app and use Paypal to pay you. They’ll just not use you.  You also won’t end up on the App Store front page for writing a web app. I understand these can both be a problem. However, if you are writing a free or ad supported app, don’t be afraid write a web app.  Why? Because you are automatically getting at least 3 platforms in one. You’ll not only get iPhone, but you can also cater to  Android and WebOS, which leaves you with a lot more ad impressions if that is what you are going for.  Sure, you might have to do a bit of marketing yourself, but that’s a cost that you should be willing to take.

Okay, I’m rambling a bit, so let me bring it back to my point. If you are building applications that just do something with data, maps, or information like that, don’t be afraid of writing a web app. Your market is larger and your upgrade time turnaround is much faster.  With iPhone 3.0 (and Android), you get access to two HUGE features in the browser that allows you to write some amazing apps: location and local storage.

Sometimes you need the SDK. If you are doing lots of things with media or you truly need access to the actual file system (like to upload images), you need the SDK.  If you need 3D rendering, for now, you need the SDK.  But for the vast majority of the applications I’ve seen on the App Store, you don’t need the extra bloat. You don’t need to pay $99 dollars. You don’t need to worry about rejection. Don’t think of a web app as you traditionally have, and you’ll be able to create some really amazing things.

Again, this is all just me running my mouth.  I’m going to tinker with little projects for the next few weeks to see what limitation I find with strictly browser based implementations and see how far the rabbit hole goes.

Your must-know info for today?

The auto-twitter-everyday post should be turned off now. That’s kind of a waste of posts, and looks sort of spammy.  Feel free to add me back to your RSS reader again after today, because only actual posts will appear from here on out (and product/project announcements, but yeah).  Yay, right?

So, what have you been up to? Comment me up or, better yet, leave a video comment (Viddler powered).