Apple recently announced iPhone OS 4.0 enabling “multitasking” of a sorts. I want to dig slightly deeper into understanding what they actually mean by this “multitasking”, without talking too much about the nitty gritty details.

There are 7 kinds of “services” they expose for multitasking:

• Background Audio
• Voice over IP
• Background Location
• Push Notifications
• Local Notifications
• Task Completion
• Fast App Switching

Among all 7 “services” exposed, 6 of them are somewhat already available in the system itself, one way or another, with hidden APIs not exposed for public developer usage. Let’s take a look at each of them, and how they might “save battery” without “slowing down the system”.

Background Audio

The background audio is simply what the iTunes application already does, which is to play audio in the background without having the iTunes application open. This simply means they just expose what iPhone can already do to developers. This does not make any changes to slowing down the system in any way, since people have been using the iTunes application to play background music since the first iteration of the iPhone and iPod Touch. However, understand that the application does not remain open at all, only a small portion of the “application” remains streaming the music.

Voice over IP

Voice services has been around ever since the beginning of the iPhone (duh?!?) with the Phone application, running constantly in the background to “receive” calls. This, in fact, is also not a full fledged application at all, but a small part of code that “reacts” to an action by the OS (namely the voice service) to load up the application and “receive” the action to do something about it.

Background Location

Similarly with the voice service, it is simply a “reaction” or a “response” to an action that the OS has prompted, in this case, your GPS or Wifi location based services. This is probably one of the things that will drain your battery pretty quickly, since these services do take a lot of resources. However, since the control lies with the OS of how and when to serve up this reaction and NOT the application that decides to take over your entire GPS and Wifi location based services into their hands and drain your battery dry, the OS will probably have some battery consideration when location is required, hopefully not letting the application go rogue.

Push Notifications

What can I say? It’s been done, and been available since the last iPhone OS 3.0 release. I think it’s just put here for good measure. Once again, it is a “reaction” and not true multitasking.

Local Notifications

This is simply the same thing as your “scheduled task” or “timer” for those familiar with the terminologies. This, too, isn’t having your entire application open, but simply just a small part of it that you register to a scheduler to run it when required.

Task Completion

This is slightly interesting because it isn’t a “reaction” to something, but letting a “thread”, “process”, or keeping with this post’s terminology “a small part of the app” running in the background, and when that finishes it just automatically closes the application. This has potential for having a rogue application that simply just continuously have an infinite loop to keep the application open. I’m curious to find out how much is exposed, or only certain services like “downloading” and “uploading” are available.

Fast App Switching

This is ALSO not true multitasking, where the application once lost focus will save its state, close itself, and not “run” at all. Only after reopening, the state is restored, and the application is once resumed again. So in fact, anything running will have to be resumed, for example connection to the internet and so on. This means that it does not actually continue to run at all. However, with what was covered in the previous 6 ways of multitasking, you can very well achieve seamless “multitasking” with “Task Completion”, “Local Notifications” and so on.

Summary

What does this all mean? Steve Jobs has redefined what multitasking actually means and converted the meaning to a consumer terminology. Consumers do not want true multitasking, but a pseudo-version of it with all the benefits of multitasking, and also the benefits of a fast and responsive OS. But does this mean that developers will have more to worry about, trying to work around what’s available to them to create a seamless so-called “multitasking” application? Most of what Apple has announced isn’t anything new at all to the iPhone OS, it is simply just exposing it with a tight grip, disallowing developers to go rogue.

Do note that all this right now is speculation based on what makes sense to me until I actually see the SDK.

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We’re having an Open House viewing on 21st November at 6pm onwards together with the BarCamp After Party. I hope everyone can come and take a look at what we have achieved as a community.

Here are some photos of the raw-ness of Hackerspace.SG right now.

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HTC Hero Review Part 1: The hardware
HTC Hero Review Part 2: The Sense

We @ tech65.org also did a quick video overview about the hardware and we will do an in-depth review once Tech65 gets its hands on a review unit.

Original Video Post: HTC Hero First Look (HD Video)

Link: Official Homepage

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I finally bought the 13” MacBook Pro, 2.53GHz with an 8gig RAM upgrade. I’ve used it for more than 2 months and here are my thoughts on it. I’m splitting this post into 2 parts, where I’ll talk about what I like in this post, and what I dislike in the next post.

I love you, MacBook Pro

One of the things I really love is the hardware itself. The unibody case is very well crafted together with the screen. The aluminium gives it a very nice touch and feel to it, although be very careful if there are power leaks. My MacBook Pro had a power leak once and got pretty feisty because of the aluminium casing. For those who know me personally, I have the tendency to caress this marvellous piece of craftsmanship very lovingly.

The screen is brightly lit with LED backlit, displaying great graphics and clear images. Even though the screen is glossy and reflective, I don’t really have any problems with the reflection as I initially thought I might have. I like the glass panel protecting the screen although it adds a little weight to the overall laptop.

The multi-touch trackpad is a pleasure to use, with various multi-touch gestures that are inbuilt into the operating system. For example, I love the 2 finger scroll up/down gesture; the 3 finger back/forth gesture; the 4 finger swipe up/down for expose and swipe left/right to switch applications. It is well integrated into the operating system and works on most applications which really makes the experience all the more complete.

The keyboard feel is not too stiff and not to deep to type. It isn’t stiff and clickity like some keyboards out there. It has a different feeling from my usual Thinkpad keyboards, but I like this new MacBook Pro style of keyboard. The backlight on the keyboard is a refreshing change from the slowly deteriorating ThinkLight technology.

The new non-removable battery is exactly as what Apple proclaims, of much better quality. Although I can only get less than 3-4 hours with my virtual machine turned on, and a little more than 5-6 hours with my normal applications running, it is more than satisfactory as opposed to my previous Thinkpad. It’s been 2 months, yet I’ve been able to get consistently 96-98% full battery charge, which is pretty good. The battery usually gets reduced to 93-95% or less after 2 months of my normal usage on previous laptops. Just a refresh of the battery usually brings the maximum battery charge back a little higher. I’m very impressed with the quality of the battery, and what Apple has done to make it robust and last for quite some time. To get almost all the information you need regarding your battery, download coconutBattery. The maximum capacity for this battery is 5450 mAh and my current maximum charge is 5300 mAH with about 60 charges.

One of the greatest features I love on the Mac OS X is Spaces. Now I can’t live without Spaces. I assign different Space for different uses. Space 1 contains my web browser, which is mainly what I use, and various other activities like QuickTime for watching movies, and listening to music. It is my main workspace. Space 2 contains my various communication avenues, like twitter, IRC chat, instant messengers, etc. Space 3 contains my news reader and various news related applications. This is the workspace where I just sit back and relax, reading my news for a few minutes before I get back to work. Space 4 contains my Windows 7 virtual machine, which I use for coding, and other Windows related activities. I love this ability to compartmentalise my life into different spaces to manage my tech lifestyle. There are many applications out there that allows virtual desktops on Windows 7, but I haven’t really found anything that’s nice. If you do, leave a comment.

Spotlight is another really great tool that I find really useful to load up applications and search for various information related to your search criteria. Windows 7 has the feature too, but it isn’t as powerful as Spotlight. One things that Spotlight wins over Windows 7’s search implementation is it has it’s own dictionary application which is able to search for the definition of a certain word. That, my friend, is the most useful feature I’ve ever come across, especially when writing articles, emails, documents, or just chatting with friends. You are also able to use it as a calculator just to do quick calculations. There are applications that offer this feature too, like Skylight and Launchy, but it’s either too resource intensive or just isn’t as clean and good as Spotlight.

But I think the best feature, which I’m sure everyone would agree, is the speed it takes to sleep and resume from sleep. To me, it is an amazing experience to be able to open your MacBook Pro and just able to use it within 2-5 seconds, as opposed to Windows 7 which takes a fair amount of time to wake up for its sleep. Putting it to sleep is really a pleasure, especially when you’re in a hurry to go somewhere. Although it is great, but it didn’t fully sleep for just once, which made the MacBook Pro extremely hot. I had to turn it shut it down manually in order not to let it overheat any longer.

Although there are many features on both the MacBook Pro, hardware-wise, and the Mac OS X, software-wise, that I like, I have many complaints about it. There is a love-hate relationship between my MacBook Pro and myself.

Stay tuned for Part 2 when I discuss the bad and the ugly of both the MacBook Pro and Mac OS X.

Disclaimer: These are my own opinions, and do not represent anyone, any organization or any company’s opinions.

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Special thanks to Jaryl Sim for editing my post. Anyway here it is.

CodeAndroid early look at Zii Egg – waiting to bite

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Analysing how a successful product/solution become successful is basically what I’ve been thinking about the last few days.

To have a successful product/solution, you’ll need to have a solid Vision for it. Vision to bring the product/solution far and wide. That means you’ll have to promote, advertise, and get people to listen to you.

Next. You need to have Passion to drive the product/solution. With passion, you can bring the product to higher reaches. With Passion, you can imagine the possibilities out there.

Next. Cooperation VS Competition. For me, I’d rather choose Cooperation. Cooperation yields almost the same result as Competition. You further your product/solution to become better, you strive to be better than your competitor. But Cooperation really brings about a whole new meaning to everything. Let me explain. Cooperating will give your users/clients a better and smoother ride along your product/solution.

Next. Don’t think of possibilities. Try out unknown possibilities and see how it can start something new. What I mean is, instead of pondering how we can work together, why don’t you think, we CAN work together, let’s discuss further how we can work together even more. During this discussion or whatever, you’ll start seeing MORE possibilities coming out than you thinking of it by yourself without the other party.

Next. Possibilities are the Key to Innovation. Don’t turn away any idea or possibility that might come into your mind. Keep it. Archive it. Store it for later use. Don’t let your mind be restricted by what you can do. Possibilities are limitless, it is you who set the limit.

Next. And I think it’s the most important point. User Experience. It’s really how your user/client enjoy using your product/solution and how easy it is to use it. Don’t restraint yourself to within the box. Think and innovate outside, and new possibilities on new ways you can create your user experience. I’m not talking about fanciful graphics and such. I’m talking about a totally new concept that’s natural, easy to pick up, and it’s just simply fun to do.

That’s about all I want to say. Summed up from my previous attempt to post. I’m going to copy this post just in case. I hope someone reads this and actually finds this useful.

Disclaimer. These are my own thoughts. And some discussion points I might like to bring up. I might be wrong.

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There are alot of very wonderful and fantastic products, solutions, applications out there that alot of people do not know of. Why is that so? Because they lack the vision to promote, advertise and gain the public’s interest. Vision is very important and you have to get that straight down way before you get anything done. What do I want this product or solution to achieve? How am I going to achieve it? Not only that, which I’m going to go on to my next point here.

The next question you should ask yourself. Who and How can I cooperate with other people, companies, organisations, government? This will expand your horizons and discover new ways to improve your product/solution, and to find new ways to collaborate with your partners.

Yet another question you must ask yourself, do you have the drive to carry this out? You must foremost have the passion and the belief to carry all these out. You also need to have to come up with more plans, more ideas constantly to improve your product/solution. You will also need to think outside your box. For example, how would a totally unrelated subject/thing can help with my product/solution, or how can my product/solution help it/them/her/his?

It’s quite vague right now as it’s an idea that’s been swarming around my head. Because what I realise with Asians is that they are quite closed-minded, living in the box, and very competitive.

Another point I want to bring up also. Cooperation VS Competition. I see more sense in finding ways to cooperate than to compete. With cooperation, you co-exist and work together, helping each other in some ways or another, to improve each other’s solution/product. One must start the initiative to give first, and the other must also have the initiative to return in favour. In this aspect, each can grow in its own ways. Why compete, when you can cooperate to make something even better together? Or make the customer’s lives better by having our products/solution work together?

I’d like to bring up is to try out new ideas. Always try it. Don’t be afraid to carry it out. Don’t keep thinking of how you’re going to do it. You’ll have to solve it some day. JUST DO IT (NIKE Trademark).

Lastly, it’s to engage in new possibilities even when THERE AREN’T ANY POSSIBILITIES YET. It’s always good to sit down and discuss informally, and somewhere somehow something might come up, and we go back to the Cooperation point. Cooperate.

What I can say now is.

Possibilities are Limitless, It is Only YOU Setting The Limit.

Possibilities are the key to Innovation.

Always concentrate on the Solution, and not think about the problem.

Cheers. I hope to read this blog one day and realise what I think now is true and can apply everywhere.

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Basically just drawing back on my previous blog, the idea of a User-Role-Centric Solution and Approach to the problem. Apparently it came to very good use as I subtlely veered her into that thinking, or maybe she already is thinking using that approach. Anyway, that’s really besides the point. But that approach actually made her able to come up with fantastic ideas for what she actually wants in her business or logic-wise. Note that we were actually talking quite non-technical here and more of what she wants to do, or what service she wants to provide the user. By thinking along that terms, she could come up with quite alot of business processes that she wants implemented, like her Invoice process, her Customer process, and so on.

From my point of view, this is actually quite a good way to draw out what your client actually wants for the solution, and how she wants it done. In my case, I would have never thought about enabling the invoice to be output into an excel file then making it available for printing, nor would I have known about how she wants herself to view the payment reports, nor would I have thought about how she wants to keep her customers by adding some added-value/services to her business, and so on. And she also has a better understanding and quite a clear understanding of how the solution works by us listing down the functionalities of what each type of person can do, without alot of the techy details. The most techy thing would be to describe the process of how the system works. As in, the user enters something, and the information is submitted into the system, and thus the system will inform the admin staff and send back a confirmation email to the user. Something along that lines. Very basic techy stuff. Nothing on like how it actually works.

Of course, the document must have these things available, in a bit more details, but that’s for another section. I actually have a Project Guidelines document which I’ll put up some time this week for you guys to look at. It’s quite interesting. But some things I might want to emphasize. Know your clients, and write your document accordingly. Safest way to do it, think in a business sense.

Till next time,

Cheerios.

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Simply fantastic, lamenting on this crappy project. I’m going to charge her for the consultation! Furthermore, I wasn’t there during the meeting with the client to dig out information from her, and pick out everything out of her brains.

So anyway, here’s what I’ve been researching and doing for the past few days.

I finally realised when creating a solution, one MUST think about the person using the solution itself. Trying to explain this method to my friend(s), who are in on the same project as me, made me realise the importance of a User-Role-Centric Solution. While coming up with the User-Role profiles, I realised a lot of unseen features appear that’s not realised during the so-called “feature-creation” phase, which was done BEFORE creating this User-Role profile. Which was not supposed to be the case. *DEVELOPERS*

Anyway, creating a user-role profile is basically as simple as this. Determine who’s going to use the solution. For example, in my case, we came up with 4 user-roles. The “General Person”, the “Student”, the “Teacher”, the “Admin Staff”. From this, I think you’ll have a rough idea what the type of business this company I’m doing this project for are doing.

The question to ask when figuring out what user-roles there are is simply,

Who will use this solution?

So then, here are a few questions you’ll ask yourself about each user-role.

1) Who are the people who falls into this category?

2) What does the person expect to accomplish with this solution?

3) What does the person need to have to use this solution?

4) Is there any problems with the current solution that can be solved with our solution?

5) Is there any forms of information communication between another user-role? What are they?

6) What are the tasks that the person can do with this solution?

Basically these are the few questions that one would ask the client, but apparently there wasn’t a chance to do that for my case. Therefore I had to ask myself, and my other friends this question, and see what we can come up with.

In actual fact, we realised that when comparing with our original feature-list module-seperated format, which isn’t entirely non-valid and still useable in the proposal under the section “Scope of the Project” and “Solutions Concepts”, that we actually came up with more features that we didn’t think of in the feature-list, and removed quite a fair bit of features that weren’t needed and quite redundant. Which was good, in a sense that now the entire solution was based on “what the person is able to do with the solution”, instead of “what this solution can do for the person”. There are subtle differences, but when you actually think about it, your entire specification list simply changes and morphs into an almost totally different style. WHICH IS A GOOD THING(tm). So there and then, things start to change.

And I hope you guys also follow this way of thinking, instead of plunging down into feature-list.

Cheerios. Till next time.

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