Just wanted to let everyone know the app was finally approved today. We spent the last few days sorting out some legal issues and after that hurdle we were approved and released.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=331570554&mt=8

Thanks!

A color touchscreen, Star Trek TNG-style tablet, seems inevitable to me. And the multitouch support is there. And, yes, this means the possibility to get devices that Boldly Go Where Apple Has No Real Interest Going.

Again, the iPhone really does some things much, much better than Android – no argument there. So I hope we see more growth and development on both sides.

The recently announced Barnes & Noble Nook eBook reader is Android.
http://www.androidcentral.com/barnes-noble-introduces-nook-android-powered-e-book-reader

It’s a perfect example of the flexibility of the Android model. It’s also a good example illustrating the paradox of talking about Android as if it was a single target. That device is a special purpose device and is constrained to a single application — eBook reading, and I don’t think it will run “apps”.

By the way, a similar sized device with a color touchscreen targeted at hand-held music production would be really intriguing though. Anyone want to build it, please?

The first two iPhone models have a relatively small heap compared to the iPod touches and the 3GS. So that means you need to run a much tighter ship to create a sophisticated app that supports the first two iPhones. (The iPhone 3G is still on the market!)

Obviously CPU capabilities are drastically different between a 412MHz armv6 CPU (iPhone, 3G, iPod 1st gen), 512MHz armv6 (2nd gen iPod touch) and a 600 MHz armv7/NEON CPU (3GS and 3rd gen iPod). Dog fooding (developing on the target device) is essential to the development process if you expect to support the whole range.

As mentioned hardware capabilities vary and are limited too — mic, speakers, camera, video, GPS, compass, EDGE vs 3G cellular network vs Wifi, hardware audio decoding and encoding capabilities.

I am fascinated by your mentioning Ogg Vorbis as I tried to use that codec early on in my development process. It sounds good on paper, it’s not difficult to get working, quality is great and it’s pain-free from a legal perspective, but then when you look at the CPU usage of realtime decoding a couple streams of Ogg Vorbis audio in software you’ll quickly learn things are not so simple. You still have DSP processing and a user interface to run and you can’t glitch the audio. Efficient audio decoding and encoding is critical if you expect to manage CPU and battery power.

The point, I guess, is none of this is simple. Fragmentation is a particularly challenging issue for indi developers. I suspect we may start to see more services popping up offering multi-device app testing and validation particularly for Android if the device landscape for that platform gets as complex as is currently predicted.