In My Country There Is Problem

Apparently there is a problem in my country too.

iPhone: Apple should support Google Gears

A major criticism of the iPhone is the lack of an SDK, which prevents developers from writing custom applications. The only way for your application to run is via the mobile Safari web browser as a standard web application (HTML + Javascript). So this really raises the question: what do you want to do with an SDK that you can't already? This isn't strictly an iPhone issue, as we could try to develop a framework for all applications regardless of their target platform, i.e. when should one write a web-based application or write a so-called "desktop" application.

Under most circumstances, a web application is probably preferred because:

• there is no overhead in installing or updating the application


• data is stored remotely, so it's accessible regardless of where you are or which computer you are using


• it will run on multiple operating systems with little extra work

So what's missing? Naturally, there are a few things:

1. Access to other applications, either currently running or otherwise installed on the system


2. Using the application when no Internet connection is present, although I tend to agree that also think that this has diminishing returns


3. Security; individuals often think twice about storing private data on third-party servers

I'm probably in the Apple camp with regards to the first point. We don't want applications to interact with each other (or with the Phone OS itself) because this may have security implications for the owner and the network. I don't want to have an anti-virus running on my phone or iPod, to be sure. And I don't want to risk the possibility of my phone being hijacked to run some scams using my voice minutes. The risk is just too great.

So how can Apple help mitigate the second and third point without introducing a complex SDK? Easy! Apple should support the Google Gears on mobile Safari (and regular Safari, for that matter). With Adobe's support for Google Gears in AIR and Apple's adoption, we may see the Gears API become the de facto standard API for occasionally connected web applications.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Great New Feature in Opera 9.5

People often tease me for using Opera as my preferred web browser. This hurts my feelings.

Recently, Opera released an Alpha version of their 9.5 release. One important feature that I don't see on any changelog is how Opera offers to remember passwords using its "wand". Now, when you submit a form on any site, Opera, like most browsers, offers to remember your username and password. However, this is now done asynchronously so that the page continues to load in the background.

Why is this so great?

If you're like me, you're never quite sure if you've entered the right username/password combination, and you might be hesitant to save the information until you're sure its correct. Now you can be sure you are saving the right info because you can wait for the form to submit and the new page to load.

It's the little things.