Steve Jobs dies, it’s taken a few days for what this means to me to sink in. I guess I’m more empathetic to say Steve Wozniak or maybe Bill Gates than Steve jobs, as they are more technical, I can still admire Steve Jobs communication skills and vision.

Years ago in the late 80s I was a Mac developer (not working for Apple directly) up until 1993/4 when I bought my self a PC and learned VB. You had to be in that scene in order to realise how bad Apple had become over the 10 years of Steve Jobs absence. It was slow and we held on as long as we could but Apple sucked big time when Steve returned in 1996.

Having said that I queued up for the first iMac. But stayed with PC development long enough to see it become web development. Now I use a PC and Mac and develop on all sorts of platforms. It really is a great time to be a developer.

But what was Steve? Unlike some rubbish I’ve heard he wasn’t an engineer or even a designer, he did have a great sense of what people wanted and seems to push technical people to create very highly engineered products and systems. So well thought out and almost magical to use. Visionary is the best word I can think of.

My Dad is 89 and uses an iPad, he was struggling with his laptop (the screen, the keyboard and the lack of speed) and so he got the iPad on my advice. he loves it and is rarely without it. It empowers he’s communication, facebook, email, web is so accessible and quick.

I really hope that Apple can learn what Steve was about and keep doing it in his absence. I believe they can but then again I kept believing that last time too.

One more thing… Here is a great advert voiced by Steve himself.

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I must admit having a Japanese girl friend and going to Japan many times I did have a laugh at the new iPad’s cover and it’s amazing similarity to a domestic Japanese bath.

So much so I wanted to blog this so that people that didn’t realize it could join in.

I googled Japanese bath and got numerous images of the iPad. It looks like I joined the iPad/Japanese bath debate too late

Anyway all is not lost I found a great site:

http://nihongoup.com/blog/totally-looks-like/

Which have a classic example of the comparison.

iPad2 / japanese bath comparison

Rie and I joked about the idea of having a picture of an indignant sumo in a bath looking up as the welcome screen… hilarious!

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Google have released a beta version of App Inventor, this allows anyone to build Apps for the Android OS without knowledge of how to program.

Apps are created with drag and drop of visual tools onto a window, like a beginners version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio, however the code logic and maths functions that drive the app are also built with simple drag and drop actions.

Some people might say that this will result in some very inefficient code, but it really doesn’t matter at the level of APPs this is aimed at.

The fact is this seriously gives app development to the people; and it’s going to be interesting if they respond to it.

I have signed up to it. So hope to get more info soon.

Google have been working behind the scenes on this for a year now so the product looks really good (from the videos anyway) for a beta.

You can sign up at APP Inventor

Cheers
Dave

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Ok, so I finally did it. I’ve commited to building some iPhone apps. The mac has been ordered, a mac mini with 4gb memory and 360hd.

The developer community has been joined and now we wait.

No idea where this is going to go. it’s exciting but nervous at the same time.

I’ve got some ideas for some free apps that I want to introduce and will put some of the tech details here. But beyond that I do not know, hoping for some inspiration.

Any suggestions or ideas for new iPhone apps to develop will be gladly received.

I guess I will start with a simple text based app, it’s hard to think of something useful and (hopefully) interesting.

At this point it’s more about learning the basic app structure and the development language objective c. Later I will research the competition of which there are many and they have very talented teams.

A bit daunting for a newcomer believe me.

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Ok, look at the banner above, this is the story of how it came about:

Don’t think I’ve been planning this,there was no months of preparation.

I was up late doing a coding session and fancied a lamb and rosemary sandwich. but while cutting the lamb I noticed how easy it was to use the lamb as a method of communication.

Your name in meat? Is this the new way?

What next? Lamb-verts? Sponsored meat? Ad-beef? Pork-words? The possibilities are endless…

If you want to sponsor my next sandwich, then please leave a comment.

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