Archive for category Techy Stuff
360iDev Conference – Day 2
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff, What the iPhone? on March 3rd, 2009
March 3rd – Day 2
Breakfast – Oatmeal, muffins, and fruits.
Session 1: Azeem Ansar – 30,000,000 Downloads – Data-Driven Insights into iPhone Application Distribution
Azeem Ansar is from Pinch Media. Pinch Media provides developers with an analytics library to monitor app usage – unique users, sessions, usage time, etc. Since the AppStore launch they have also been collecting every bit of detail possible from the AppStore, rankings, price changes, you name it. They then ty it back to their analysis.
Discussion Topics:
How do I get ranked? – Get in the App Store, getting ranked = more exposure = more downloads. There are multiple lists for top 100, 25, 20 by categroy. These list change every 24 hours, 3 days, and 5 days. Currently, to maximize change of ranking, assume within 24 hours. If you are in the top 100 list, you get an average of 2.3x the users that see your app.Greater gains result from appearing in the top 25 and top 10 lists. These top lists are not permanent. You don’t want to get over exposure, but you need exposure to be successful. Azeem went over three different case studies of how changing price can affects different application downloads. Holiday’s where good for Apple, downloads increased 200%. For free apps, to be in the Top 100 you need 1,000 a month and for the Top 25, you need about 10,000 a day. This is all dependent of the category.
Do I have a recurring user base? – You have an app and a million download, now what? You need to examine the use of your app by your users. For Free or Paid apps, usually 100% return users do not return to the app for reuse. For free apps, 20% users with reuse the app withing 20 days. For paid app, 30% will return to the app for reuse within 20 days. Long-term, 1% of total downloads use the average application on any given day. Entertainment app usually last better for long-term usage. Sports app are better for short term usage.
How long are they using my app? – For overall apps, day 0, users are using the apps for 7 minutes. By day 60, users use the app for about 4 minutes. Paid apps usually get about 1 minute more time used. Games by far get used more than other categories, about an average of 10 minutes. Entertainment are used the second most, average of 5 minutes. Lifestyle category apps are the most consistent at 4 minutes straight average.
So should I give it away or not? – For the top free applications, advertising is an option. The biggest advertiser for apps is AdMob. The ideal strategy is to release paid, install analytics, understand your audience, and then make an informed decision about advertising. Different parties make different claims on advertising CPMs, but in the current ad market, this is difficult to achieve. On average an app needs to achieve a $7.78 CPM for an app that would normally be sold for $0.99. Advertising isn’t always a bad idea through. Some applications, generally, ones catering to people with money, can command better advertising rates than normal.
Contact: azeem@pinchmedia.com (215-837-3447)
Web Site: http://www.pinchmedia.com/
Demo: http://demo.pinchmedia.com/
Developer: http://developer.pinchmedia.com/
Session 2: Tim Burke – Deep Geek Diving into the iPhone OS and Frameworks
Tim wrote the software called Nu (http://programming.nu/), which is another library used for calling into framework library. He used the libdl framework. He also wrote multiple other applications. One app is Obama! Tim also created a Facebook app called My iPhone, an app used to show other users what applications you have on your phone. It can also be used to promote your app.
Tim discussed the topics around Jail Breaking your iPhone. His main point was that if you want to truly understand the OS framework, you will want to jail break your iPhone. He discussed how the jail break process works and where to download the software. One concept is that there are two users for the iPhone OS, the root user and the mobile user. Each of these users have unique access. If we use the official iPhone SDK, your application will be running as the mobile user, aka the limited user of the two.
sqlite is, of course, the built in database used on the iPhone. All developers should learn the sqlite command line and how sqlite works, it’s strengths and weaknesses.
otool is another tool that developers should use to read header files and/or disassemble applications. classDump is a tool that creates header files.
Objective-C is now open source from Apple.
A good book to read: Programming in Objective-C 2.0
He also created Open Radar, which is a community of people that can submit their ticket with Apple’s Radar (bug ticketing tool), and the community can discuss and see the status of the ticket. If you do not use this service, only you (the first person that created the radar ticket) will be able to see the status of the ticket. Anyone else reporting the same issue will have their tickets marked as a duplicate and you will never get to see the status of the original ticket created. The community website was created to resolve this issue for Apple, or until Apple opens radar more.
Contact: (twitter timburks)
Web Site: http://www.tootsweet.com/ or http://blog.neontology.com/
Presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/timburks/deep-geek-diving
Lunch Session – Round Table pizza and sodas
360iDev Conference – Day 1
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff, What the iPhone? on March 2nd, 2009
About Conference
From the organizers of 360Flex comes 360iDev! Bringing together the best and brightest of the iPhone development community! This 3-day event took place March 2 to 4, 2009 @ eBay’s Headquarters in San Jose, CA.
eBay Conference Center
2161 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95131
360|iDev is looking to become the premiere iPhone, iPod Touch developer conference in the world. They’re looking to bring together the best speakers and sponsors in the industry under one roof. Their goal is to build the iPhone developer community and increasing the networking within it is our goal.
Website: http://www.360conferences.com/360iDev/
Attendee: Jeff Morris (Just me, it’s lonely)
Total Overall Attendees: 160 + 10-12 (Speakers) + 20 (eBay employees)
Sessions: 47 sessions in 4 tracks
March 2nd – Day 1
Breakfast – Muffins and fruits
Opening Keynotes
eBay – Discussion about eBay search engine. A discussion about the unique issues that can arrive from searching for items. eBay also introduced a group of college students that have created an iPhone game, which is similar to the old memory game, but it uses images from eBay auctions. The game will be released in a few months.
Mike Lee – Nice intro and welcome to the Cocoa world, objective-C community. He is one of the founders of Delicious Monster. We will be working as an Apple DTS in the following weeks. Mike gave a great talk about how the community is starting for the iPhone and how this is part of the overall Cocoa Dev community. He mentioned the following resources:
Code Resources:
TouchCode, SKPSMTPMessage, PLCrashReporter, Mobile Colloquy, Molecules (OpenGL), FMDB – Flying Meat Database, SQLitePersistentObjects, ObjectiveResource (Ruby on Rails), RegexKitLite, Mobile Twitterrific
Omni Frameworks:
OmniBase, OmniDataObjects, OmniAppKit, OmniInspector, OnmiNetworking.
Other Resources:
iPhoneSWPro (Consultants to write code), Cocoa Dev Central, Cocoa Dev, Mac Developer Network, Google Code
Tools (Use native SDK if possible):
Changes (App), Versions (Like Subversion), Otx (Otool – Disassembler), F-Script (Interactive run-time environment for Objective-C), Analytics
JavaOne 2008 – Travel Report
Posted by Jeff Morris in Java Stuff, Techy Stuff on May 27th, 2008
Tuesday May 6th (JavaOne opening Day)
Travel: Mark McBride and gang picked me up and rode AmTrak to the Bay, then checked into the Hotel Monaco.
TS-5206 – Fortress: A Next-Generation Programming Language Brought to You by Sun Labs
I was not registered for a session at this time, but was able to get in last minute. Fortress, which looked to be a continuation or knock off of Fortran, has some neat features, but mainly would only be useful for complex mathematical equations or linear algebra. One of the features was that you could use actual functional equations as Fortress code. Most of the audience was researchers and scientific professionals.
TS-6623 – More “Effective Java”
Joshua Bloch presented a fast run-down of how to use some effective patterns when using Generics and Enum Types. After the session, we all purchased Mr. Bloch’s new edition of Effective Java and had him sign it.
General Seesion – Sun General Session Java-Centricity: Leveraging Java Technology at the hub of your Digital Life
We got into this session halfway through and sat in the back row. Neil Young (68 years old) showed up and was pushing his new Blu-ray disc and discussed some of the high-level Java technologies to make some of the features possible. The main presenter was pushing GlassFish as their new and improved product. I was expecting something new and innovated, but I guess since Java is such a mature language, no new innovations.
TS-4986 – JavaScript™ Programming Language: The Language Everybody Loves to Hate
Presented by Roberto Chinnici, Senior Staff Engineer of Sun Microsystems, the presentation was a releasing and humorous discussion about how JavaScript is a functional programming language, has Object-oriented JavaScript technologies, and it’s a language that everyone loves to hate, meaning it’s misunderstood. Chinnici discussed how JS is a functional language, meaning that you can create functions within functions, assign variables as functions, and pass functions as parameters. He discussed some of the items why people love to hate JS, one being that there is no warning when there are multiple definitions of variables. Chinnici discussed creating objects and prototypes with JS, and the lack of original JS libraries. He did point out that in the future, JS will continue to but 3rd party libraries, such as Prototype, jMaki, Dojo, jQuery, Ext JS, Google Caja and so one. An interesting point was that he did not meaning anything about the YUI and emphasized that Java engineers only want to deal with JS when it is always integrated into the Java library, just as Dojo and Struts. Since we are starting to look at Web 2.0 technologies (buzz word), we should probably start looking at a way to have a JS library integrated into our Java libraries.
Code-Gear Party – ThirstyBear
We previously visited the Code-Gear booth early and tried to get them to sell us on JBuilder, and they invited us to their party. We accepted their free t-shirt and showed up at the party. The IPAs were flowing that night and I was a thirsty bear… I chatted with one of their sales reps, Andre, but I was still not sold on JBuilder.
Thanks Steve Jobs
Posted by Jeff Morris in My Thoughts Exactly, Techy Stuff on September 6th, 2007
The price of the iPhone has come down to $399, just after two months of being out. Many people are upset that they lost $200, but I’m not really concerned. This was just the price of being an early adoptor or as I tell the guys a work, the price of being kewl…
I just wanted to thanke all the people that complainted to Steve Jobs and for Mr. Jobs giving all the early adoptors a $100 rebate. Thanks.
“…we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.”
iPhone Golf
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff on August 30th, 2007
Well, it looks like a few other people had the same idea that I did. When I first bought the iPhone, I figured it would be kewl if there was a golf application that would keep track of your scorecard, so I purchased iphone-golf.com and started working on the alpha release. Shortly after, another site, iphone18.com, came out with a golf scorecard. There looks to be two other sites, iphonegolf.com and iphonegolfscorecard.com that are still under construction, but they probably have the same idea. Anyway, if you have an iPhone, check out iphone-golf.com, else check out the screen shots by clicking here.
Open your iPhone and see what’s inside?
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff on July 1st, 2007
Yep, well the gents over at ifixit.com have opened up an iphone and have started documenting all the chips and other items within, take a look:
I’m glad they opened one, I’m not about to open mine… There are a few other sites that have opened an iPhone: ThinkSecret.com and PowerBookMedic.com.
My first iPhone post
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff on June 30th, 2007
Yep, this is my very first post via my new iPhone. I’m kind of amazed at how fast Safari is on this phone. Since I’m using WiFi, I’m pulling in pages as if I was on my laptop computer. Well, I’m finished dropping the kids off at the pool. I’ll flush the toilet and was my hands before I start the BBQing.
iPhone, it’s pretty kewl…
Posted by Jeff Morris in My Thoughts Exactly, Techy Stuff on June 30th, 2007
Yep, the count down came to zero and I waited in line for an hour and a half to finally purchase a 8GB iPhone. After driving a 30 minute drive home, I spent the next 6 hours playing and configuring until I couldn’t stay awake anymore. This thing is pretty kewl. The phone quality is pretty good, all the functionality of a normal phone are easy to use. One down fall is that I have not found a way to set one of my songs as a ring tone. I can only use the default ringers, which I personally dislike. The WiFi is kewl and using Safari is great. I’ve noticed that when playing some QuickTime movies from Apple.com, the browser will crash and send me back to the main menu. That kind of sucks… The iPod portion of the gadget it the same, duh, it plays music.
Anyway, I’m going to go play some more. And to explain the picture. One of my colleagues wrote a nice little rant about the Apple employees getting a free iPod (life long the Cubelodyte). I kind of feel the same way, but oh well, I’m not an Apple employ anymore, but I still enjoy the toys they create.
Java Books – The Quest for Knowledge
Posted by Jeff Morris in Java Stuff, Techy Stuff on June 7th, 2007
Only 23 more days…
Posted by Jeff Morris in Techy Stuff on June 6th, 2007
Yep, that’s right 23 more days until June 29… What is so special about June 29… It’s the day that the iPhone will be available. I’m in the market for getting a new phone, plus I like gadgets, so I’m going to get one.
