Developing the Oxford Dictionaries Quick Search app

    Well here we are after what seems like an age of tweaking, the Oxford Dictionaries Quick Search app is finally available for installation. It can be found on the iTunes website here, and on Google Play here. The Windows Phone 8 version should with luck be out in a few days.
    As the developer of course I'm going to say it's a brilliant app, but that would verge on shameless astroturfing. What I can say is that it's a simple and lightweight free English dictionary look-up app that I hope users will find useful.
    Under the hood, it's a client for the Oxford Dictionaries API. This of course means that it requires a data connection to run, but does give the advantage of the app taking very little space and providing the most comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary entries. Though it's hardly a novel use for the API it does demonstrate the functionality and speed of the service, as well as the ease with which the API can be developed against.
    The app uses the PhoneGap cross-platform HTML5 app framework with jQuery and jQuery Mobile providing the Javascript heavy lifting and user interface respectively. These packages have allowed us to deploy the app on three platforms in quick succession with minimal investment, something we could not have done had we been required to write all three versions natively. The quirks of the different HTML5 implementations have caused us a few headaches along the way, but not significantly more than web developers are used to when dealing with different browsers.
    It's been interesting to compare side-by-side the ease of development on the different mobile platforms. Android is the easiest as you'd expect, but with a Wild West of devices and OS versions out there it needs to be. We've been scouring our colleagues for odd Android versions and form factors to try our app on, yet I'm sure we've not tried them all. In particular we decided that with 25% or thereabouts of the Android market we couldn't abandon support for version 2.3, so we've had to contend with its incomplete font support and sometimes shaky HTML5 implementation.
    iOS by comparison with a set number of devices should be easy to develop for but starts to become more effort due to the stringent demands of Apple. Attaching different iOS devices to our development environment can at times be a challenge, and the ballooning demand for supporting resources such as splash screens, icons and screenshots for different resolutions and OS versions sometimes feels as though it is getting out of hand. However the App Store approval process was much quicker than we expected it to be.
    The Windows Phone 8 development environment shows Microsoft's typical attention to detail. The supporting resource requirements are well-thought-out, getting the app on a device is straightforward, and the free version of Visual Studio is a delight to use. However the fact it would only run on 64 bit Windows 8 seems rather strange, and Microsoft have not quite shed their reputation for quirky HTML environments. I didn't expect the problem we had with an animated GIF loading spinner, for instance.
    So it's been an interesting experience. I'd recommend PhoneGap to anyone wanting quick development of multi-platform mobile apps, though it's provided a few learning experiences of its own.

There will be no iPad killer

    This week brought the news that Nokia have launched their long-rumoured tablet running Windows RT. Despite their woes of the last few years when it came to understanding what their consumers wanted, when Nokia get their act together they are still capable of making some of the best hardware there is. It's by all accounts  a decent effort, and the word is if you want an RT tablet it's the one to get.
    The trouble is, it wasn't long while reading about the new Nokia that I read the dreaded phrase "iPad killer". And it looks as if Nokia and Microsoft themselves believe that description because they've priced it in iPad territory, at just under 500 quid with a keyboard.
    I can't remember when I first heard a device described as an iPad killer. Probably not long after the iPad came out. Just for fun I tried to remember a few of the devices once described as iPad killers. Here they are, just a few of many.

• HP WebPad
• Motorola Xoom
• BlackBerry PlayBook
• Toshiba Thrive
• Sony S1
• Microsoft Surface RT
• Samsung Galaxy Tab (the original one)

    All of these were launched with a fanfare and priced against the Apple product, yet with the possible exception of the Samsung flopped and sank without trace. The BlackBerry and the HP were both particularly nice devices, yet they both ended up being sold at fire-sale prices. The HP famously flopped so badly that HP dumped WebOS overnight and pulled out of the tablet business. Evidently being an iPad killer is a tough business.

    Here's the thing. Despite what the fanbois will tell you, the iPad isn't anything special. All it's got is the Apple logo and all those apps, otherwise its hardware is not too different to its competitors. But the consumers don't care about the niceties of different processors or display technologies (beyond Apple's rather meaningless "retina" marketing fluff), they just know they don't want the tablet equivalent of a Betamax video. So if they're asked to pay iPad money for something that isn't an iPad they'll know a risky deal when they see one and walk away. Meanwhile each successive marketing team makes the mistake of believing their own hype and yet another device heads towards the dustbin.

    So sadly the Nokia tablet will fail. It will do so on price alone, without that consideration the Microsoft Metro interface is a joy to use and Nokia hardware is beautiful. If they forgot the iPad and sold it for half the price it would be an unexpected success, as it is it'll be yet another tombstone in the iPad killer Boot Hill. You'd think a company and an OS vendor desperate for market share at all costs would think about that.

    The title of this piece is "There will be on iPad killer". That's not to say that the iPad will never lose its place as the tablet to own, more that as Apple lose the ability to give it meaningful differentiation its position will inevitably be eroded by ever cheaper and more numerous competition. If I were marketing a tablet I'd rather my device beat that competition than took a pop at the iPad. Let the fanbois have it.