PyrusMalus | Blog

Or thank goodness it is Leopard-Friday...

Happy Leopard Day! I’m particular happy, not because the latest version of Mac OS X is finally shipping, but because hopefully now I’ll finally be able to talk about it.

Leopard was first shown to developers at WWDC06, just over fourteen months ago. Since that point developers have been prohibited from talking about it due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement we all signed up to as part of the Apple Developer Connection.

While the presence of an NDA is completely understandable, it does make it extremely hard for independent developers, especially those who are working on their own, to develop on a pre-release OS since Apple, in their infinite wisdom, don’t even have a mailing list for NDA'd developers to talk to each other. This means that the entire extent of me being able to talk with other developers about Leopard has been concentrated into a grand total of ten days (five days at each of WWDC06 and 07) over the last four-hundred and forty-six days, give or take a couple.

This ratio, in my opinion, isn’t good enough: problems and queries that could have been answered in days (or even less!) on a mailing list exclusive to NDA'd developers turned into lengthy and lonely explorations through sample code and pre-release documentation, slowing progress down often to a complete halt. Not even being able to ask, “Is anyone else having a problem with this?” means you’re never sure if the problem is in the latest build, or is in your code, or is merely a figment of your imagination.

The fact that developers didn’t get a build of the GM version of Leopard (but Journalists did) is already a sore point with developers, particularly those with applications ready to ship. While I’ll be happy when we do get the GM build, I’ll be even happier when the NDA is lifted and we can finally talk. Well, at least until the next big cat comes along.

Or speed-dating for web applications...

At last night‰€ªs GlasMug meeting we did ‰€÷Speed Dating for Mac Apps‰€ª, in which we had a (very) quick look at 30 applications in 60 minutes. I had the fun task of showing off some applications for web development: my personal ‰€÷Dream Team‰€ª when it comes to writing HTML and CSS.

HTML Editing

When it comes to editing HTML I want an editor that helps out as much as possible: eliminating common errors, speeding up repetitive tasks; and doing it all in a way that doesn‰€ªt make me scream. For me that editor is TextMate.

TextMate has an awesome set of features and I still feel as if I am just scratching the surface. Code-completion and color syntax highlighting are just the start, as TextMate provides an incredible list of shortcuts for entering and editing text, whether you‰€ªre editing HTML or any one of over 50 other languages. At just ‰âÂ39 it easily paid for itself in terms of increased productivity.

CSS Editing

While TextMate has good support for CSS I wanted something that made working with CSS even easier: support for navigating lengthy stylesheets; the ability to either enter rules textually or with visual editors; and, once again, do it in a way that doesn‰€ªt make me scream. That application was CSSEdit 2.5.

CSSEdit is an application that you can easily fall in love with. (Well, if you‰€ªre a web developer, and if you‰€ªre in the habit of falling in love with applications). It makes working with stylesheets really easy: code-completion and syntax coloring help enter and edit text, while visual editors help pick styles quickly and easily. There are a whole load of nice little features which show the depth of thought that has gone into the application, along with lots of high-level features that make web development a lot easier: milestones provide a useful safety-net, while the X-ray option is invaluable in debugging webpage layouts. At $29.95 it easily paid for itself on the very first stylesheet.

Local web hosting

Hosting a website on your own Mac during development is fairly easy, but it isn‰€ªt as convenient as it could be. One application that can make virtual hosting a lot easier is Headdress.

Headdress makes it easy to manage multiple virtual hosts on your own Maso you can easily preview multiple local websites during development. While I don‰€ªt currently use it (we have some weird hosting requirements and I don‰€ªt mind messing around on the command line) it is an application that we highly recommend for the ease with which it sets up virtual hosts. Headdress is $14.99.

Other applications

The great thing about web development on the Mac right now is the wide range of really great applications. These apps are my personal Dream Team, hopefully you can find your own Dream Team too.

Or living life in the technology lane...

So I have an iPhone. This means that I am, according to Steve, one in a million. Which is, I like to think, a very nice thing for him to say about me, and not just a statistical statement based on the number of iPhones sold to date.

It would be safe to say that I fall into the category of ‘early adopter’, doubly so given the fact that the iPhone isn’t even released over here. Early adopters are well aware of the risks of buying first-generation products; and are also well aware of the likelihood of price cuts as the product meets the market, and vice versa. Even $200 price cuts on an iPhone after only a few months on sale?

If you want to read lots of well-thought-out opinions on the price cut, a good place to start is The Price Cut Heard Round the World on Daring Fireball.

Steve was kind enough to send me a personal email shortly after the announcement of the price cut, which you can read at “To all iPhone customers” in which he explained the thinking behind the price cut, and offered $100 store credit. I paid $699 (and a bit more to get it to this country) for my iPhone, and I felt it was definitely worth that. I also know that future iPhones will be faster, better, slimmer, smarter, and cheaper. (And some may even be sold in the UK). As Steve says, “This is life in the technology lane.” Whether the $100 store credit was a knee-jerk reaction or a carefully planned move we can only speculate, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Actually, my immediate reaction on hearing the price cut was not one of anger or annoyance, but a fear that this move would dissuade more people from buying first-generation products from Apple in future. By providing the $100 store credit Apple hopefully retains the trust of early-adopters, and avoids a potential relation to the Osborne effect in which people delay purchasing a new product in case the price drops significantly mere months after launch.

I’m really pleased to see the price cut on iPhone. The old 4GB iPhone at $499 looked to me to be purely a way of making the entry price seem low, as almost everyone would (and did) opt for the 8GB model instead. So dropping the 4GB model was an obvious decision, in my opinion. I would have expected the 8GB to drop to the price of the 4GB model, $499, so the extra $100 drop was a bit of a surprise. Was it desperation to hide flagging sales? I don’t think so. I think the logic behind the price cut is clear: as Steve says, “It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ‘tent’.” Just imagine what would have happened if this logic had been applied in 1984 after the launch of Macintosh.

The other great news is the introduction of the iPod touch, an iPod with the same Multi-touch interface as the iPhone, and a lot of the same applications. Starting at $299, this device is going to be a another great way of getting people in to the iPod ‘tent’: people who want the sophisticated interface of the iPhone, but don’t need the telephony capabilities, or who live in any country other than the US and therefore can’t make use of the telephony capabilities.

The combination of the greater affordability of iPhone, and the introduction of iPod touch, makes it easier for more people to literally get their hands on this new platform and interface. To me, this is the important thing: it isn’t just about getting new customers in to the iPhone ‘tent’ or the iPod ‘tent’, it is getting them in to the Apple ‘tent’. And that’s why it won’t be like ‘1984’ this time.

Or fun with iLife, iWork, iPhone and I...

GlasMug, the Glasgow Mac Users Group, are holding their September meeting on Tuesday 11 September from 19:00 to 21:00 at Scotsys on Great Western Road in Glasgow.

This month we’re doing four mini-workshops: iLife, iWork, iPhone, and I’ll-be-showing-some-web-development-tools. I would have called my workshop iWeb in order to keep the names consistent but given that I’m not going to be showing the application iWeb it would have been misleading. Instead I’ll be showing a handful of great editing tools that make creating standards-compliant websites on the Mac a dream. There should be time for everyone to move around each of the mini-workshops so you’re not limited to just one!

It’ll also be interesting to see how many new members we have for this meeting following our recruitment drive during the line for the opening of Apple Store Buchanan Street. The “Crazy Ones” — those GlasMug-ers who joined the line at midnight — were responsible for wildly cheering and applauding everyone who subsequently joined the line and then, when the newcomer was suitably dazed by this welcome, would quickly try to recruit them for GlasMug! (Some people even joined the line twice to get more cheers!)

If you’re looking to try out the new versions of iLife and iWork, or to get your hands on an iPhone (just don’t make any calls!), or find out how to develop websites on your Mac, then come along and join us. We may even cheer as you come through the door!

Or nine hours of fun...

When Apple did their ‘Think Different’ campaign they saluted ‘the crazy ones’. Now, their definition of ‘crazy’ might not have included queuing for nine hours overnight on Buchanan Street for the opening of Apple Store Glasgow, but I like to think that we were misfits, rebels, and troublemakers.

Or now get in line...

Must have been the post I made about the post-it note that did it: the Apple Store Glasgow now has a proper logo, and an opening date! Yes, Saturday 25 August at 9.00am is the grand opening of Scotland’s first Apple Store, and if you don't believe me it is confirmed on ifoAppleStore and now also on Apple UK.

Yes, that’s me in line already. I’m the bigger one — can’t believe I got in line four and a half days ahead of the grand opening and still didn’t get first place…

Or the future and the past...

So I have an iPhone. So I feel I should write not only about it, but also the Apple Newton, my pre-WWDC07 predicted four-step plan for iPhone development, the elusive iPhone SDK, and why both this and the previous sentence begin with the word ‘so’…

Or almost time to get in line...

Will the Apple Store Glasgow be opening soon? Will it be open before Leopard ships? Will it be open before the iPhone comes to the UK? Read on for exclusive rumors (exclusive in the sense that I’m making them up) based on post-it notes, fat-pipes, and flat-packs…

Or informal geek get-together...

GlasMug, the Glasgow Mac Users Group, are holding their August meeting on Tuesday 14 August from 19:00 to whenever we finish at Uisge Beatha on Woodlands Road in Glasgow, and highlight of the evening is that I won’t be demystifying anything for a change.

Note the change of venue: in recognition of the fact that a lot of members are away on holiday during the summer months we thought we’d have a more informal meeting, and those of us who weren’t subliminally brain-washed by Steve into only drinking water may even have a drink. Apparently, Uisge Beatha is Klingon for water of life, which in Scotland means whisky.

So if you’re a Mac user in Glasgow, why not come along and join us: we’ll be the ones all hanging around with our iPhones… No, wait, we’ll be the ones moaning that Apple still haven’t set a date for launching iPhones in the UK (but when they do you’ll be able to read all about it on iphoneuklaunch.com); or eagerly discussing this week’s crop of new announcements from Apple; or trying to predict the opening date of the Apple Store Glasgow (I know for a fact that it will be after 10 August 2007). Oh, and I’ll be the one with the purple pompom…

Or what happens when B-players hire C-players...

There is a nice story on Folklore about how Steve was lecturing on how to hire: “A-players hire A-players,” he said, “B-players hire C-players.” Apart from wondering how B-players ever get hired (they don’t: they start off as either A-players and deteriorate, or as C-players and improve), this quote jumped back into my head this week on learning that one of the websites that we had designed and delivered, in conjunction with a marketing company, was now going to be managed by ‘some guy doing a homer’.

Now, this website was for a professional — well, I'm not going to reveal what they did, nor am I going to reveal the web address, because I’m not out to name-and-shame, but they are a professional organization, providing a professional service, aimed at professional clients. So why not use professional marketing agencies, and a professional web designer?

I wouldn’t feel so bad if the site had been improved upon since they went away, but the site that we spent ages designing and developing is quickly falling apart. Margins are all over the place, headers move up and down depending on which page you’re on, the content has spilled out to become at least 1600-pixel wide, pictures are distorted and stretched, colors are chosen almost at random, links are broken, the site map page spews xml, cross-platform support is a joke, and — worst of all from a design perspective — Comic Sans has been given pride of place.

On one hand it was amusing watching the site deteriorate last week in front of our eyes: it was obvious that the new designer was working live on the CSS stylesheets, not quite understanding what the stylesheets were doing, and introducing table tags and other HTML 1.0 throwbacks as they went along. On the other hand, it was depressing to see our hard work being ripped apart, the visual design being broken, and the coding-standards ignored.

I don’t mind as much if clients find someone cheaper to do the job if the quality is as good as, or better, than what we can deliver: that way we know we have to stay competitive on pricing, and constantly work to improve our skills, and work efficiently. But when you pay less and your website breaks completely as a result, who’s actually benefitting?

So, back to the A-players hiring A-players. At least now I know that if anyone asks me to recommend a professional <insert-what-this-company-does> I’ll know what to say, “You don’t need a professional <insert-what-this-company-does>, apparently you just get some guy doing a homer to do it.”