Dec

29

Why Does Apple Stifle Mobile Safari’s True Potential?

Filed Under Software, apple, technology | 6 Comments

The iPhone is hot. Its a badass micro-computer-internet-having-app-installing-jizz-casting-awesome-machine that can also make phone calls, but I have to bitch about one major flaw in the entire thing, and that flaw is Mobile Safari. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of the mobile browser, it is leaps and bounds greater than anything else out on the market, but I ask you Apple, why not make it the greatest mobile browser on the market?

So what am I bitching about specifically? The iPhone has immense data harvesting capabilities, from geo-location, to the accelorometer, etc. But all of these fantastic API’s are available only to native, objective-c based applications, not Mobile Safari!? Explain this to my Apple, why is this not exposed through a JavaScript API? That is absolutely trivial to provide to the lowly web developer!

Apple and the iPhone are doing amazing things with the types of datasets it makes available to developers in the native context, all I am saying is, make it available to every context of applications! Libraries like PhoneGap are attempting to make this a reality, but again, the biggest limitation is the fact that PhoneGap still requires you to create a native application to act as a wrapper to your web application, this seems like a stop gap solution (heh) or an unfortunate hack.

Its also very apparent that Mozilla sees the future of location-based services being able to provide very personalized and exciting experiences to the web through their efforts in Mozilla Geode. Perhaps its true that at this point, that sort of data availability in a web browser could be seen as negative, but I am not sure I agree. I am willing to bet that within the next 6 years, Apple will be introducing GPS into their laptops, providing application developers with the same location-awareness capabilities on their computers that exist today on their phones.

Hopefully Apple will wise up in the future, but I highly doubt it. Something tells me this is a designed limitation, they are probably doing their best to keep control over what people are doing with that data through the app store vetting process. Oh well, one can dream!

Dec

24

Merb and Rails Come Together for Rails 3

Filed Under Software, ruby, technology | 2 Comments

I am absolutely excited about this news!! Yesterday, both the Merb and Rails camp have announced the news, so I won’t bother reiterating whats already been said. I’d rather talk about some of the major points that really get me excited about this announcement and how it is going to impact not only the history of Ruby on the web, but potentially web programming from this point on.

Fully Modular Core
I am happy that DHH and co have embraced the modularity concept that is one of the core ideals of the Merb project. Now, if you don’t want to Prototype as your JavaScript system, you can toss it and stick in jQuery, which will run 100% as well as the default. Although its 100% modular, the “Rails Way” is going to give you a smart set of defaults that you can completely customize to fit your needs!

I must admit, this is one of the sexiest things about Merb.

Speed is Quickly Becoming a Non-Issue
In the Ruby world, there is a ton of exciting innovation going on around building some amazing virtual machine technologies and really pushing the limits of what can be done with such an expressive and dynamic language. Also, we are seeing some fantastic developments on the deployment side of things that are making it not only extremely easy to deploy, but faster the serve requests as well.

So naturally, the next place to go for optimization is our framework. Merb has already made a ton of strides in making a thread-safe, and extremely fast framework. This development stack is going to scream in 2009!

Amazing  Base and Synergy
Between the Merb and Rails technologies and groups, there is going to be all kinds of new things to learn and all sorts of great people to work with and learn from. I am absolutely excited about what all of this means for the Ruby/Rails/Merb communities. We have got one of the fastest growing and fully-integrated technology stacks available for the internet today as an open source foundation.

With the emerging ecosystem of technology and thought that is occurring in this community, we are going to be seeing some amazing things in 2009.

Dec

11

Changing The World, In Trivial Ways.

Filed Under Software, life, recommendations, technology | 2 Comments

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, thinking about how technology and the internet have been applied in such fascinating and unbelievable ways, ways that have absolutely re-written the fabric of how we as citizens of earth interact with information, but also each other. When I think about all of this, the truly astounding thing is the passage of time that has elapsed. Companies like Apple, Google, and Wikipedia are doing their best to make sure that the way we interact today, is nothing like the way we will interact tomorrow.

These are visionary companies, ran by some of the best and brightest of our time, can you imagine a world without Google? (your children won’t be able to). The internet itself has been the biggest catalyst of our 21st century evolution, providing a platform and foundation for limitless connectivity, where our ideas and capabilities are the only limitation.

Its not often that I feel so inclined to be nostalgic about an industry that hasn’t even been around for 50 years, but lately, I’ve been evaluating my place in the scheme of things. I’ve been watching the innovations and “innovations” that have hit the market in 2008, and frankly, I think we can do better.

But this isn’t new, people have been inventing solutions to problems nobody has had forever. I guess you could say, this is my letter to myself to make sure I am actually doing things and working with people who want to make a difference in the world, rather than “minnovate”. People say that times like this (referring to our economy) are when people sit down and do the most amazing things, not because its the hip thing to do, but moreso out of necessity.

So here is to a world changing 2009.