Google's Gift - Chrome OS Device

Santa came a bit earlier this year for me.

I was invited to a Google HTML5 tech talk. Learnt some of their plans and next steps regarding IndexedDB as part of the local storage strategy for HTML5.

But the real surprise came when they announced that they would give attendees a Chrome OS device as pilot devices. Google's goal is to have us test drive these devices and give them feedback. Thank you Google!

Well, first things first. Why do we need a Chrome OS Device?

According to Google, last 25 years of computer and laptop development have added a lot of not-any-more-needed cruft to our computers. For example, does BIOS still needs to check the existence of Floppy Drive when starting? Also, most people (yes my dear wife is a member of this club!) tend to spend all their time inside a Browser. Considering these, Google felt that the world needs a ground up device which is built completely for a browser and cloud based services.

Let me describe the key things which I have seen so far.

1. It is a pretty minimalistic laptop form factor, overall lighter, lesser keyboard with a very functional design. It comes with touchpad supporting single tap and double finger swipe. The keyboard has a set of browser friendly keys (has a search key).

2. Getting started was painless. After plugging in the battery, the device started up asked me to log in with my Google Account, took a picture and I was set.

Wonder how will it behave if i did not have a Google account?

3. Upon startup I see a Chrome Browser with access to Gmail , Docs, YouTube and a few other applications.

4. This is a completely internet connected device which immediately discovered Wi-Fi connections. It also has a 3G connectivity package from Verizon Wireless. It seems to be priced at $9.99 a month, but I am yet to check it out.

5. The device seems to be a cloud-enabled and the promise is to be worry free from all your documents, pictures and emails being lost from a crash or virus since they are supposedly stored and protected in the Google Cloud for us.

6. CloudPrint - It seems Google is working with a set of printer manufacturers to make them cloud ready and as consumers we should be able to connect and print to a remote printer without having to go through the pains of installing a driver.

7. App Store - Chrome App Store is already open for business and Google is encouraging developers to submit their HTML5 enabled webapps. This to me is quite fascinating.

8. Instant-On - It seems the startup time is around 1 sec.

9. Guest Mode - For non-registered users there is a guest mode to browse the web.

10. Confusion & Conclusion

With tens of Android devices coming after the iPad juggernaut, I am not sure how to use yet another device! But the idea of a cloud ready, browser only, cruft-free device seems like it may have a future. We will have to wait till the jury deliberates.

But I am feeling reasonably strong that HTML5 is a strong contender for next-gen development. And the idea of App-Store from iOS, MacOS, Android and now on to Chrome OS will democratize app development giving smaller talented developers a level playing field to compete. Nice!

iPad is here

After weeks of eager anticipation, we are proud owners of an iPAD – the truly “family device” meant for casual computing.
Unlike the iPhone 3G (4 hour waiting in line), the wait time was a brisk 20 minutes. Yes, I reserved online!


The party started around Saturday (April 5th) lunch time and is still on!

I do plan to publish a series of posts. This one is on general features. The next one would be on the entire development experience. Yes, I did stay up most of Friday night getting my sample apps to work in iPAD Emulator (iPhone SDK 3.2) and remained very eager to get those running on actual device. That I did. So let us start with general features in this post!

Summary
What rocks: An amazing web browser, awesome photo album, and great book reader! Apple has put together the Netbook, e-reader, gaming device, photo frame and iPod features. Add-ons like movie rentals, 10 hours of battery life and the most-celebrated App Store on the planet are combined in a magical cocktail! 175,000+ apps and ~1000 iPad only apps.
What doesn’t: The iPad's size is a bit cumbersome, specially to carry. The iPad's lack of video camera, USB, missing Flash support and HD video output keep me wondering whether I should have waited for next year.
My Worries: Will this device survive a fall? Did I make a right choice not to buy the 3G version? How will life be without GPS?

Overview
iPad is a 8x10-inch tablet computer which combines laptop, smartphone, gaming console, and iPod into a single experience. The absence of an integrated video camera and no Flash video support is a damper. "Why do I need an iPad?" Apple says: The iPad is a Web browser for your living room, an e-book reader for the den, a movie player for the kids, a photo album, a jukebox, a gamer's best friend, a word processor, an e-mail machine, and a YouTube junkie's dream come true. No excuse good enough for you? Wait a few minutes and a developer will inevitably make an app for it.

Design
The screen is made of oleo phobic-coated glass which makes it easy to wipe away fingerprints. Behind the glass is a LED-backlit, 9.7-inch capacitive touch screen that uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology for different viewing angles. The home button is the same as on the iPhone and iPod Touch, switching between an open app and main menu. iPad is 7.47 inches wide by 9.56 inches tall by 0.5 inch thick, and weighs 1.5 pounds. It has a natural, magazine-like feel. Like the iPhone, it has a touch-friendly OS with an on-screen keyboard, and an accelerometer that detects device mode: portrait or landscape. The buttons, switches, and ports around the edges are same as iPhone. A 30-pin dock connector at the bottom, an integrated speaker, a volume rocker to the right and a switch that works to disable the iPad's automatic screen rotation in case you need to look at something sideways without the iPad assuming you want it rotated. The design feels very upscale. Compared to other tablets the iPad is a jaw-dropper!

Display
9.7-inch backlit LCD screen is comparable to net book screens. Images are sharp and vivid with technology called "in-plane switching" to ensure the display looks good when viewing at an angle. A built-in light sensor automatically adjust the screen's brightness based on its surroundings.

Web
With full-size pages which are true Web pages, not the scaled-down mobile versions, web browsing is nearly as good as a MacBook. Downside: No support for Adobe Flash! iPad users who visit a site that uses Flash will be greeted with error messages. Try sites like Hulu.com. CBS and Disney will format some shows online just for the iPad. Jury is out for the rest. Safari is the only Web browser for the iPad. That means no tabbed browsing support.

Books
iBooks store includes content from: HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. Titles are organized by popularity and by genre. Users can preview the first few pages before purchasing, and putting in virtual bookshelf. iPad allows you to read books in either portrait or a landscape mode that shows two pages at once. Onscreen settings also allow changing the size of the text, searching text within the book, looking up words in a built-in dictionary, and hopping around using a persistent table of content. Public domain books and any EPUB book format (Project Gutenberg and Google Books) can be transferred to iPad via iTunes. Amazon Kindle app is available on the iPad. As an e-reader does not use e-ink technology. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others don't use backlit LCDs because: they drain battery life; fatigue the eye; and become difficult to read in direct sunlight. You can read for four days on the Kindle without a recharge, compared with approximately 10 hours on the iPad. As on any LCD text isn't as easy on the eye as on printed paper. iPad works better in the shade than on sunlight. However, the presentation of books is absolutely gorgeous. Cover graphics and illustrations display in rich color, book pages have a deliberate paperlike tone, and turning pages by tapping or flipping is intuitive. Page turns
also render much faster than with e-ink technology, allowing you to quickly flip through pages. Unique features, such as in-book music and video playback
(when supported), and one-touch dictionary makes it a category winner. At least IMHO! Also, for magazines and photo essays, the iPad's color screen is a clear winner. iPad's ambient-light-sensing screen provides just enough light for an
in-bed read and automatically ramps up the brightness elsewhere.

Email
works with: Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL and most other standard e-mail systems. Comes with a multi-pane view that shows inbox and a message preview window. Document and image attachments can be seen in full screen, and the search function looks through e-mail on both iPad and the server for most accounts. The downside? The weak onscreen keyboard makes it tough to type out long messages.

Keyboard On-screen virtual keyboard is about the size of a notebook keyboard, which looks impressive. But the virtual keyboard is not for typing long emails or text documents. Anyone looking for an external keyboard would need to buy ONLY from Apple for $69 because the device lacks a USB port.

iPhone OS
iPAD uses the mobile version of OS X : the iPhone OS. Very touch friendly and integrated with App Store, user don't need to worry about traditional issues,
scattered files on desktop, installing drivers for third-party hardware, or trying to figure out where you put a downloaded image went? Instead, all apps are clearly laid out, organized to respond to a single touch. A downloaded image, appears in one place – the photo library. Looking for something--a song, e-mail, photo, or Web page--double-clicking the home button brings up a Spotlight search feature. On the iPad, just like iPhone things are simple and DECLUTTERED! The only way for users to purchase and download movies, apps and music on the iPad is to use Apple's iTunes store. Compared with the more free approach of a Windows Netbook or Android, the iPad user is giving away freedom of choice in exchange for convenience. However, this control over the iPhone OS and the commerce within it also serves to minimize the iPad's vulnerability to computer viruses.
With a 1GHz Apple A4 processor, capacitive multitouch display technology, and a 802.1n compatible Wi-Fi, Apps launch within seconds; waking from sleep
mode is nearly instantaneous; and even a cold boot-up takes just 10 seconds.
Music
You can play songs in the background while you work on the Web, email or an app. The iPad's built-in mono speaker is ok, but users can plug in headphones
for dual/stereo sound. The iPad will also connect to other devices like wireless headphones through Bluetooth, and it can connect to home stereo systems.
iTunes on the iPad is very similar to the one on your computer. Scroll through itunes with your finger, or view by album with cover art.

Photos
Snapshots look great on the iPad's sharp display. Users can browse and sort photos with some cool tools. Preview the photos inside a folder by pinching
out to reveal the contents in a little scattered bunch of squares. You can also set up slideshows with music and use the iPad as a digital picture frame. The bad news: You'll have to import all of your snaps from elsewhere, because the iPad does not have a built-in camera.

Movies
Film buffs will love this sharp, crisp display. It is great for a personal video viewer on the road. But the iPad doesn't support the widescreen 16:9 format of most movies, so viewers will have to look at thick black edges on two sides -- or cut off some of the picture. The iPad also lacks a DVD drive, so movies will need to be imported into it also.

Battery
The iPad has 10-hour lifespan when playing video. The battery will last a full month on standby. But like the iPhone and iPod, the battery is built in. That means, if it dies you cannot simply pop in a new one; if the battery is broken, so is the iPad. Apple will replace the entire iPad device for a $99 service fee if you qualify for a battery replacement. That means the battery's charge capacity has simply worn down naturally. It doesn't cover water damage, or a device that's been dropped or modified in any way.

Accessories
There is a physical keyboard with an integrated dock ($69), a charging dock without the keyboard ($29) that engages the iPad's photo frame mode, a camera connection kit ($30) that includes both a USB and an SD card adapter for importing images from a digital camera, and a wrap-around leather case ($40) that doubles as a kickstand. Need the iPad for presentations, there is a $30 VGA adapter that can connect to a projector or computer monitor. Video output is only compatible with specific apps, such as Apple's Keynote. The maximum output resolution is only 1,024x768 pixels.

iWork software suite for iPad includes three apps: Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheets), and Keynote (presentations). It's the first version of the software to run on one of Apple's portable devices and makes full use of the iPad's touch screen. Each app is offered separately at $9.99 apiece. There are some practical problems for iPad being a productivity tool. The first hurdle is the keyboard. When it comes to writing long text (essays and report) our fingers crave a real keyboard. Apple's $69 keyboard can be start but may not completely bridge the gap. Users will complain about a missing mouse! Second is, getting files off the iPad isn't as simple as plugging in a thumb drive or burning a CD. You either need to e-mail them or upload them somewhere . Printing a document you've composed on the iPad—is an issue. We may see an elegant solution for this in time, but your best bet at the moment is e-mailing or transferring the document to a printer-equipped computer--not a good solution for printing out airline boarding passes, for instance. Time will tell whether a student can get away with using an iPad as a primary computer? It is here that a Netbook will win!

Conclusions:
Although it won't replace my laptop, at least not yet it remains an awesome family device for “casual computing”. Browsing, photo albums, videos, maps
have never been better!

Android Developer Lab, California

I attended Android Developer lab yesterday. Wanted to share the experience with all of you.

First the background

I try to attend a local coding group where a gang of around 20 or so developers meet on a weekly basis huddling with their laptops to review code, applications and discuss overall Android state of art. It is from this group that I got the wind of Android Developer Labs: http://sites.google.com/site/androiddevlabs/faq

I applied few weeks back. However, very few from my group were getting the acceptance invitation. Mine did not come until yesterday morning. I guess, they ran out of all the good candidates by then J

Anyway, I was finally in!

The Place

The event was happening in a VERY large conference room at Google complex. I want to say there were upwards of 300 attendees. Everyone is supposed to show up with their Laptops + Android SDK + Eclipse + Sample code. I being myself, arrived 5 minutes late. The conference room was WALL to WALL full with attendees and I could find a sitting place only at the last row. Well, I would not take that for this kind of event. Walked right past all 30 rows and took up a position at the very FRONT row right in front of the speaker. I was in a good neighborhood! The guy sitting next to me has Remote Desktop Application for Android market which he is selling for $20. Nice!

Key Things covered

The session started around 2 p.m. The person presenting was from the Google Developer relationship team and his job is to evangelize to developers like us. They are holding similar sessions across the country. He first focused on letting us know what were the features in the latest SDK (Android 2.0). I will send you the presentation later on or you can get it on your own from the Web. But here are my key takeaways:

• As of end of 2009, Android was in 48 countries with 59 carriers and 20 devices
• They are truly trying to make it an OPEN source, OPEN platform which can target MANY devices as opposed to ONE (I guess you all know which the CHOSEN ONE is!)
• They want to differentiate by making Apps super–simple to publish. You can submit and upload your app in 5 minutes or less and that’s it. No Hurdles, No Reviews!
• If that is scary, they say it has always been the Google Way. Let the Community review process shake out the undesirable elements and not Google central committee.
• Finally, they want devices and applications which will cater to four key aspects: EYES, EARS, TOUCH and LOCATION.

The Surprise

After giving us an overview of the SDK, the presenter wanted us to open our laptops and do a lab solution. He suggested that we use some test devices that they will provide. Then he looked at us and said: “Tell you what! We will give you all a Droid Phone each!” The room burst into thundering applause. Within 5 minutes, I had my own Droid phone. It took me minutes to set the battery, hook up to my laptop via USB and the phone turned on. I had to press 1 to activate my phone. Here came another surprise. The phone was activated with 1 month free Voice and Data from Verizon and a $120 discount from a yearly service if I sign a contract within 30 days. Santa Claus has truly come to town!

Getting my own apps loaded

I have been developing Android applications, but had to remain satisfied with the emulator running on my laptop. I was ready to deploy the apps on the actual device and see it going. It took some hurdle to get the USB driver configured and my laptop to recognize the phone. Within next 30 minutes I got my starter Apps running on the phone! Developing on Eclipse, downloading via USB, running on actual device! I was in heaven. Almost!

I forgot to mention, during this wait time, I was able to connect with Gmail, suck all my contacts and mail down, take a picture of my worthy neighbor, email him and also check out Facebook.

The Assignment

Beyond the euphoria, the serious business of application development continued. Google wanted us to work on a Bluetooth based chat application. We had to write a simple piece of code to control bluetooth, locate other bluetooth devices that are within communication range, request communication with a remote device, and listening for incoming requests

The App Show

Next developers were asked to walk up to the podium and show everyone any apps they can share. Four or five walked up to the podium and presented. Since there was no phone projection, people had to be happy with the desktop screen dumps and webpages. Most apps shown were in the consumer category. One developer from our meetup group camp showed her coin collection app. One guy showed a 3D gaming engine. One gentleman showed an Android tablet.

Thoughts and Conclusions

2010 will be an interesting year to watch for mobile application development!

DrupalCamp Stanford, Jan 2010

Hello everyone,
This weekend (last Saturday and Sunday) I attended the DrupalCamp at Stanford.
Overview
The sessions were from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Most sessions were very technical and hands on in nature. There were 100 or so attendees. Acquia and ChapterThree were the strong corporate presence. Stanford also had a strong representation and we learnt that there are 70+ Drupal sites at Stanford.

Instead of drowning with all the details, I will focus on my FIVE key takeaways.

Here they are:

1. Getting Started
Drupal can be daunting to get started. Even for me, it took months to get the hang of it. Still working on it…
I made a specific point to attend the most basic, getting started Drupal Session. IMHO it was one of the BEST sessions. I will propose that we use these materials to bring new-bees (and old hacks) up to speed. Take a long look at Matt Cheney's presentation: http://rychosis.org/slides/Mastering-Drupal-Stanford-1-23-10.pdf

2. Admin and Drush
Unfortunately, I could not attend this sessions, but I have been hearing lot of good things about DRUSH. For the layman, it is a command line interface to Drupal and lets you do lot of powerstuff. In my experience, mastering a good set of command line tools can be incredibly productive.
Here is a tutorial from Stanford on Drush: https://techcommons.stanford.edu/topics/drupal/drush

I will await your thoughts!

3. Focus on Design and Themes
The entire camp had a huge design focus. There were a whole set of sessions on designs, themes and what is coming next. I think the Drupal creators believe that UI is a huge gap and they are trying to fill that. Two things attracted my attention: What is possible with the XEN theme and also a new theme called FUSION from Top Notch Themes
It will very interesting to watch the next generation of Drupal UI.

4. Services Module is key to connect Drupal to other systems
We chose Services module to develop our own Flex and AIR Components. I was delighted to cover the iPhone APP on Drupal track and discover that they are all using Services. This is a great validation of our strategy. We have been using Services to build Flex/AIR apps on Drupal using AMF for Services. However, other interfaces like XMLRPC, JSON and REST are important and being actively used.

5. In Summary, Drupal is Hot, Very HOT!
We are seeing this from all quarters. But the key evidence was the number of totally dedicated attendees who came from ALL quarters. There were designers, developers, web masters, entrepreneurs and corporate site builders. The excitement and participation could be felt everywhere. Keep in mind this is a completely FREE, all volunteer supported show. The keynote speaker was Earl Miles, the creator of the VIEWS module. He received a hero’s welcome!
I sense something very strong is brewing in the Drupal area.

In summary, I had a great weekend. Thanks to my wife and children for letting me attend an all weekend event.

Thank you for reading this long. Here is the link to all the sessions: http://stanford.design4drupal.org/

Best Regards and Warm wishes, Somnath