tzlee.com/blog

Tag: iPad

  • Offline HTML Mobile Apps

    Picking up iOS is quite a bit of work plus you need to buy a Mac to get Xcode running.

    Yes I know you Hackintosh folks are going to start making some noise but let’s keep this legal.

    So I’ve decided to build quick apps using jQTouch.

    To get an App icon on your home screen, simply… add the page to your home screen! Duh. It’s like adding a bookmark. Try it – it works!

    But here’s the next problem – how do we get the apps to work without network connectivity?

    HTML5 introduced something called the offline cache manifest. Here’s how to use it…

    Step 1 – Create a file called yourfilename.manifest with the following content

    CACHE MAINFEST
    demos/main/ajax.html
    demos/main/ajax_post.php
    demos/main/index.html
    demos/main/jqt_startup.png
    demos/main/jqtouch.png
    jqtouch/jqtouch.min.css
    jqtouch/jqtouch.min.js
    jqtouch/jquery.1.3.2.min.js
    themes/jqt/img/back_button.png
    themes/jqt/img/back_button_clicked.png
    themes/jqt/img/button.png
    themes/jqt/img/button_clicked.png
    themes/jqt/img/chevron.png
    themes/jqt/img/chevron_circle.png
    themes/jqt/img/grayButton.png
    themes/jqt/img/loading.gif
    themes/jqt/img/on_off.png
    themes/jqt/img/rowhead.png
    themes/jqt/img/toggle.png
    themes/jqt/img/toggleOn.png
    themes/jqt/img/toolbar.png
    themes/jqt/img/whiteButton.png
    themes/jqt/theme.min.css
    some/other/file.name

    Step 2 – Make sure your web server reports the MIME type correctly by adding the following config to Apache. You might need to contact your hosting provider to get this done.

    AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest

    Step 3 – Add the following tag to your HTML page so the browser knows where to find the manifest.

    <html manifest="yourfilename.manifest">

    That’s it!

    Original reference material here.

  • Second Thoughts on the Apple iPad

    Before I slept last night, I thought, “Apple ain’t stupid.” They wouldn’t do something like not install OS X, so I went to bed, tossed and turned a bit, woke up this morning and saw some light.

    The iPad (urgh, I just feel wrong typing this name) is essentially a full screen touch device. Actually, they aren’t the first to build such devices. Tablets have been around for a while, and they weren’t very successful in selling. What was the problem?

    Windows. When Microsoft designed Vista, they had touch devices in mind, that’s why the sideways expanding Start Menu disappeared and was replaced with a scrolling design with larger icons. The user interface also had larger scrollbars and minimize/maximize/close buttons.

    But that was not the point. PC software was not built for touch devices in mind. Not that Microsoft designed Windows badly, but developers will naturally build apps for the larger majority – the regular PCs driven by a mouse and keyboard.

    So I think you get the idea now. Apple have had great success with the iPhone/iPod Touch’s software model and created the new multi-touch interface paradigm. They’re bringing this wisdom to the new iPad. If they had put OS X on this thing, people would go around installing regular OS X software and the user experience would be completely messed up – imagine hideous titlebars in the Aqua UI just so you can touch the minimize/maximize buttons.

    I’m going to bet my hard earned money on this one and buy an iPad when it’s launched.

    BTW if you read this post on Gizmodo, I’d agree no multitasking sucks, but the comment on the ugly bezel is irrelevant – you need a place to hold the iPad without interfering with the touch sensitive areas of the screen.

  • Apple’s new iPad

    While I really wished Apple didn’t name it iPad, it’s still too early to tell if this device would be any good. I was rather disappointed it didn’t run the regular MacOS X so I can have my favourite app – Terminal. Without Terminal, an Apple product is most likely useless to me.

    However the price point seems compelling starting at US$499, I’m estimating that to be SG$788 when it arrives.

    So what good is an oversized iPhone? It’s quite obvious Apple wanted the lock-in and screw developers around the App Store.

    I’m curious what Google has to offer as it seems I might be switching out of Apple to Android after the novelty of the iPhone wears off. I’d much prefer to develop in Java than having to pay for an ADC account just to write in a much more complicated Objective-C.

    On the books part, I’d gladly buy the Amazon Kindle. Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of time reading. I bought several books last year and about 80% of that is still sitting on my side table.