Have not had a chance to try this out yet, but Vagrant seems like a great solution to create small, portable development environment. With this, there will be less of “Well it works on my box!”. You can just receive the development environment where the problem exists and easily reproduce it. read more

As part of the Nokia keynote at MWC, it was announced that WP7 will have lower hardware requirements to allow for cheaper phones, but is that a good move? While Microsoft is promising the keep fragmentation down, developers now have to do more testing and will have less of a potential WP7 market if their apps do not work on the lower end devices. This very thing still plagues Android and was part of the poor user experience with the older Windows Mobile phones. Sure they will run WP7 but most likely very slowly with lots of response lag. With all the subsidies that are provided, I, personally, do not see a good reason for this beyond a quick and dirty way for Microsoft to get more market share. But if it comes at the expense of the user experience, then it will be a grave mistake. Nokia has already announced the Lumia 610 with this lowered specs, and by the time you have read this article, they will probably have announced its successor. read more

I came across an article on c|net talking about Free My Apps and how it lets you get free paid Apps in exchange for you time spent on sponsored Apps. The approach is certainly interesting and it helps some developers get the word out for their apps, or perhaps convince you enough to switch to the paid version or the app…..but at what cost? Obviously, your time which is most valuable, but what about your iTunes collection that will be littered with these other free apps? Not to mention that as soon as word gets out more, there will be some malicious free apps that somehow make it through and abuse your phone and your data in some way. It is not breaking any AppStore rules that I am aware of, so Apple has no reason to pull it until it makes bad news. Have you tried it? what are your thoughts? read more

Rovio has been very creative in keeping the Angry Birds franchise alive and they have just announced a new version that is sure to sell just as well as all the other versions. Question is: Is space the final frontier? and if not, where will these angry birds show up next? read more

Mountain Lion may be a few months out still, but you can try out the messages app right now. Only question that remains is: will iChat be rolled into Messages? It would make some sense, but I doubt Apple would like to dirty its iOS pool with messages from those other companies. Update: After the install and a reboot, my question was answered. iMessage is a new protocol in the new version of iChat, now called messages. So still no cross posting between iMessage and other protocols, but at least you have the one app to rule them all. Not that iChat is the best multi protocol messaging client…far from it….but it is the only one that does iMessage. read more

Apple’s next version of OSX is around the corner, and it continues to blur the lines between iOS and OSX. You can read more about that on Gizmodo. By why not just allow iOS apps to run on OSX? With all the talks about sandboxing apps and bringing more iOS features to OSX, it just seems like they are trying to take off the band-aid slowly, rather than doing it and getting it over with. OSX already runs the iOS simulator which has amazing performance on OSX….so just make it into a wrapper app that gets kicked off as soon as an iOS app is launched in OSX. It should be relatively easy to determine if the app is intended for iPhone of iPad and size the app accordingly. This would instantly increase the number of customers for any iOS app, not to mention bringing in a ton of new apps to OSX. I don’t see a downside. Do you? read more

Until Google decides to wake up and offer/extend Google Voice here, the next best alternative is Dell Voice. You get a free number and you can pretty much call the rest of Canada for free.  The best part for most folks is getting around the silliness that Cellular service providers have here about charging long distance fees as soon as you go a kilometer out of town.  Dell Voice lets you call land lines or other mobiles using your data plan. Hey Google!  Will you give Dell some competition already? read more

You have to love the hype around Apple’s products. Every year around February and June, the rumors start about cheaper iPhones and smaller iPad’s. Every year, they are wrong but it does not stop the same rumors from spreading. IN every case, there are insiders and suppliers close to Apple that have relayed this information, but yet it never comes to pass. This time is the WSJ that has an article on a smaller iPad coming out. The only thing believable is that it will have the similar screen resolution to the iPad2. But it doesn’t add up. Cheaper iPhones:

• The cheapest iPhone is currently $0.99 on contract.  How much cheaper should it get?
• You have to pay more than that for a decent Android phone and you know how crappy they are.

Smaller iPads:

• Apple is doing just fine dominating the tablet market with a one-size-fits-all iPad.
• The iPad was meant to have a different user experience than the iPhone, so why would Apple muddy the waters?
• Like the iPhone, every new iPad will make the older iPad the cheaper alternative, so a smaller iPad is not necessary for a cheaper version.
• One of iOS’s greatest strengths is that it has limited the screen resolutions to ensure that development for iOS is easy.  Look at the mess Android is in and you know Apple will never go there.
• Last but not least, The Apple lord himself (yes, Steve Jobs), commanded that there will not be a smaller iPad.

IMHO, these rumours are not true, but that will not stop them from recurring every year.  Eventually, as technology advances and its easier to fit more in smaller sizes they will be true and those spreading them will claim they said it first. read more

According to the internets, all of them, HTC is about to concentrate on making fewer, better phones. If so, other phone makers should follow suit to save themselves. Yes, its true that most people do not want to have a phone that everybody else has, and this is the exact reason why some have chosen iPhone alternatives (of which there are none….but I’m not biased at all). Because, lets be honest, as flexible and configurable as Android may be, it is no where as user friendly as the iphone, nor as responsive or usable. In fact, my own Nexus S is just collecting dust since it was an absolute pain to deal with… inaccurate clicks…inconsistent UI, slow, etc, etc. So the only reason anyone would get any other phone than an iPhone would be not to have the phone everyone else has. Case and point, a very close friend admitted to this very fact, but finally reason took over and he got an iPhone. Back to the point here…as I mentioned in an earlier post, one of Apple’s successes with the iPhone, IMHO, is that it concentrates on fewer hardware, and supports said hardware for at least 2 years. The other phone makers, just roll out newer versions of their phones instead with different screen sizes which has been another pitfall for Android….and don’t get me started on BlackBerry. As for Nokia’s refocus……..it is about to release the Lumia 900 Series only a few months after releasing the 810 and 710. In fact, all these phones have been released in less than a year. What do you think will happen with the older phones, when there is new hardware out? They’ll be forgotten and de-prioritized. Lets hope HTC is serious here and gets back to its roots. read more

Facebook just released their timeline internationally, and you have a chance to try it out for a few days before it automatically gets published. You can learn more about it here. It is definitely a nice way to look at someone’s profile, and you have to option to hide any event from your timeline, so it is not public. This will be the way our grandchildren will learn about us and what goofy things we did. So be careful what you post cuz the old ” When I was your age,..” thing can now be verified. Personally, I like Path’s version much more. It is an amazing iOS app and it is much more private than Facebook. I’ve been using it for the past couple of weeks and it is a solid app with a gorgeous interface. read more