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The Rise and Rise of Mobile Phones

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Android Development, iPhone Development, Mobile Development 0 Comment

A while ago, a software developer friend told me about a PC fighter plane game he was working on. He was literally spending thousands of hours researching game engines, polishing scenarios, making the graphics as realistic as possible.

So I decided to help him with a demonstration.

Next time we were out with some other friends, I asked everyone “What was the last PC software package you bought?”.

Everyone looked at me blankly.

Then I asked “What is your favourite mobile phone app?”

Everyone pulled out their mobile phones and started talking at the same time.

My software developer friend leaned forward quietly and said “you b*stard” – but he took my point.

Last I heard he had converted all his software to run on a mobile game engine, and was busy making it all look good for a mobile environment.

PCs still have their uses – as Steve Jobs, the legendary ex-CEO of Apple once said, a PC is good for content creation. I usually use a Mac laptop to create new entries for this blog.

But mobile devices – phones, iPads, tablets – have come to utterly dominate content consumption.

Next time you think up a great idea for a PC application, take the thought a little further, and consider how your idea would work in a mobile phone environment. Because the chances are it would work well – and Mobile is where the action is.

For more information about mobile phone app development, iPhone development, or Android development, please contact Eric Worrall.

The New iPhone – What You Need to Know

Posted by Eric Worrall on in iPhone Development, Mobile Development 0 Comment

Time to review your apps – Apple has officially announced two new iPhones – the iPhone 5S, and the more budget oriented iPhone 5C.

Both phones will run iOS 7, and iOS 7 will shortly be offered to existing phones – which could potentially break existing apps.

A new mobile operating system is an exciting opportunity to offer new products and services – but for mobile app development, it also presents risks to the stability of existing mobile apps.

While Apple operating systems are highly compatible with each other, every new version of the operating system comes with new rules, new ways of doing things. Sometimes these new rules break existing apps, often in subtle ways.
The key areas to watch in iOS 7 apps appear to be further tightening of the rules regarding access to iPhone contacts, and changes to how apps access internal identifiers.

While most of the pain of changes to address book access occurred with the upgrade to iOS 6, there are still likely to be apps caught out by the iOS 7 rule changes.

Similarly, a number of games will potentially be affected by the internal identifier rule change. In iOS 7, Apple have removed access to an API which a lot of game developers use, to uniquely identify a device – especially with multiplayer games. So quite a few games will simply break when the phone or iPad is updated to iOS 7.

There are also changes to screen layout rules, which might catch a few apps.

My advice – make sure your developer is available, to help you if you hit problems. If you are especially worried, for example if you have a profitable app which you want to protect, your developer can assist you with testing your app using a pre-release version of iOS 7, to minimise the risk of embarrassing failures when people try to use your app on an upgraded phone.

If you have any questions about how the imminent shift to iOS 7 might affect your app(s), please leave a comment, or contact me for more information.

The Third Dimension

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 0 Comment

When will my phone produce true 3d images – images with depth, like a 3d Television?

The answer – phone size 3d devices are already appearing.

Wikipedia provides a list of 3d phones which are already, or soon will be on sale. My experience with such phones is current generation 3d phones are power hogs – if you want to play a 3d game, you need to plug the phone charger in, otherwise the 3d display will flatten your battery in minutes.

Normal phone displays are power hungry. If you stop touching the phone, normal 2d phones dim the backlight within a minute or two, and switch it off completely a few minutes later, to preserve battery life.

The reason 3d displays are so power hungry is that 3d displays produce two display images – one for each eye. So a 3d phone consumes battery reserves at least twice as fast as a normal 2d phone – even faster once you include the additional computation required to keep both displays coordinated.

What we are looking for then, is not a new type of display – 3d displays are already available. What we need, to make 3d displays practical, is a leap forward in mobile battery technology.

There is good news – we probably won’t have long to wait. And when true 3d displays become mainstream, most of the games and apps constructed by developers like me will be able to use the new technology, without modification.

Under the hood, games and other advanced apps are already 3d. When you see photo realistic space ships, monsters, or other 3d components of app games, what you are seeing is actually a computerised 3d shape created by app developers and artists, projected by software onto a 2d display. No tricks – phone apps and game consoles are already 3d under the hood.

Will the next iPhone, iPhone 6, be true 3d? Probably not. But my prediction is iPhone 7 might be.

If you would like more information about some of the exciting advances in 3d graphics which could be used in the development of your new app, please contact eworrall1@gmail.com.