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  • MobileViews Podcast 58: A discussion with Aditya Bansod about Sencha Touch 2

    In MobileViews podcast 58 Todd Ogasawara speaks with Senior Director of Product Management at Sencha, Aditya Bansod, about Sencha Touch 2 which launched this week. Sencha is a JavaScript framework optimized for developing mobile HTML5 web apps with rich user interfaces. It supports the native web browsers for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Chromebook, and more. Bansod said that Windows Phone will be supported in a future release.

    The big news about Sencha Touch 2 is that it lets web developers create native apps for Android and iOS that can be distributed through their respective app markets. This also means that developers who use Windows as their development platform can now create iOS apps for iPhone and iPad without buying a Mac, learning Objective C, and using Xcode.

    And, what does Sencha Touch 2 cost? It is free with dual licenses available: GPL or Commercial License. Listen to the podcast to learn more details.
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  • Apple’s March 7 announcement: The iWatch HD

    Apple is not beyond a bit of misdirection. And, based on this photo, it looks like Apple’s March 7 announcement will not be the iPad 3 or iPad HD. It looks like an iWatch HD to me.

    What is it really? It is the $19.95 The Wallee Hand Strap.

  • Smartr for iPhone service shutting down. Can’t say I’m surprised

    I received email from Smartr that the server powering their iPhone app will shut down on the Ides of March.

    Unfortunately, the Smartr team is moving on to new things and is unable to support its continued development. With a heavy heart, we will be pulling the plug on the service on the 15th of March @ 1pm EST.

    If you’d like to retrieve your data, such as stacked articles, simply drop me an email at temo(AT)smartr.mobi with your request.

    Honestly, I can’t say I’m surprised. Here’s what I wrote about the app on May 23, 2011.

    Split Vote on Smartr for iPhone Social News Reader

    …I found the app confusing. After giving it access to my Twitter account feed, you can see the display it gave me when I tried to look at the “Smartr feed”. I could see links tweeted by people I follow in the Twitter tab of the app. So, what is this Smartr feed? It appears to be a feed created by following people I’ve never heard of and have no reason to trust their curation of links. Commentary about the current 2.0 release in the iTunes App Store notes that the app sends out tweets from users’ accounts. However, you can opt-out of this behavior during the initial setup process. I revoked the app’s access to my Twitter account and deleted the app off of my device.

  • MIT App Inventor for Android (formerly by Google) is back

    Good news for people who never got a chance to play with Google’s App Inventor for Android. It is back as an MIT maintained project.

    Announcing: MIT App Inventor Open Beta Preview

    You can find the project itself at: appinventor.mit.edu

    App Inventor is a visual programming language to create Android apps.

  • Windows Phone software written on the phone itself can be published in Microsoft’s Marketplace

    Microsoft Research’s TouchDevelop is a remarkable tool that lets you write software for Windows Phone right on the phone itself. The news today is that it is now possible to distribute software developed using TouchDevelop (again, this task is done right on the phone) through Microsoft’s own Windows Phone Marketplace.

    turn TouchDevelop scripts into apps on the Windows Phone Marketplace

    You can learn more about the preparation and submission process here.

    create app for Marketplace

    You can listen to the podcast discussion I had with Nikolai Tillman (Principal Researcher Software Design Engineer of Microsoft Research) in June 2011 when the tool was named TouchStudio




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  • [CORRECTION] Skype for Windows Phone beta available. But, there’s a trick to get it

    [CORRECTION]
    My old friend Don Sorcinelli (@DPSJ) pointed out a trick to get the Skype for Windows Phone beta to download and install. First, here’s what does not work.

    1. Going to the Zune Marketplace on a desktop PC running Windows using the link provided by the Skype blog announcement
    2. Searching for Skype in the Windows Phone Marketplace app on the phone

    What does work is following the link provided by Skype for the beta from the Windows Phone’s browser itself. This takes you to the app product page (that cannot be found using search within the Marketplace app) where you can install the Skype beta app. Here’s the link:

    Skype for Windows Phone beta < - View this blog item in a Windows Phone browser and click on this link. Thanks to Don for pointing out my error. (more…)