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Facebook Developer Leaves iPhone Scene, Unhappy with Dev Process

Cory Bohon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:06:07 -0600

Joe Hewitt, developer of the popular Facebook iPhone app, has decided to stop iPhone development because of Apples policies.

In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Hewitt said is reason for leaving the iPhone development scene, "had everything to do with Apple’s policies.”

He went on to say, "I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

"The web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt is among the growing number of iPhone developers who are leaving the platform because of Apples application review process. Many are leaving not because of the great SDK Apple provides to all developers, or the programming language, but because of the long review process, the lack of communication between the reviewers and developers, and also the possibility of getting turned down after spending development time.

Apple's review process has definitely improved over the past year, but more improvements still need to happen. If Apple doesn't take hold of their App Store and review process, it could mean that another phone company could step in and take over the area that Apple pioneered.

The latest Google Android-based phones could prove to be a better development platform because developers have two options: Submit their app to an application store or sell it on their own site and allow the user install it themselves. This model could prove to be better for both the developer and consumer because it can give the developer a no-hassle app distribution place and give the consumer the applications they want.

After all, developers do development for a reason: It's their main job. They have to make a living just like everyone else and they will choose the platform that allows them to do this.

You can read the full interview with Joe Hewitt on TechCrunch.

via The Apple Blog

21 iPhone Apps -- Benchmarked for Their Data-Sucking Assaults on the 3G Network

Jason Whong — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:05:40 -0500

A recent article in the New York Times points the finger at iPhone users for slowing down AT&T’s cellular network.

The article charges that iPhone users use Internet connectivity more than other smart phone users, creating a wireless logjam of Tweets, Foursquare updates and Uno challenges.

That we use more bandwidth should seem obvious to most iPhone users; we chose this phone because it makes Internet connectivity so easy.

Maybe the accusers have a point. After all, it’s not as if the iPhone has a meter we can consult to see how much data we’re using at a given time. It’s not as if we have a natural, built-in sense for how much we are using, as we do for drinking water or eating food. Still the amount of data consumed by iPhone users is pretty substantial compared to a regular cell phone. In fact, compared to other smartphones, the iPhone is a downright data hog.

According to research by Chetan Sharma Consulting, the average "feature-filled" cell phone user consumes 40MB of data during a month. The average smartphone, 140MB over the same time period. T-Mobile's G1 with the Google Android OS sucks down around 300MB on average per month. The average iPhone data sucked down during that same month? A whooping 500MB.

That's just the average, there is a good chance that if you're the kind of person that partakes in all the social media out there and tries a few new apps a week, it's possible you're downloading more than that.

So which of the most used apps are straining the network? Not every app needs gobs of data from a network.

We looked at 20 popular apps to get an idea of how much data each sends and receives in its first 30 seconds, and the in its first three minutes, to get a sense of whether the criticisms were on the right track.

Methodology

We installed Wireshark, a network tool that lets us peek at network traffic, on a 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo iMac. This iMac connects via Ethernet to our Airport Extreme router, which connects by Ethernet to our cable modem. Then we turned on Internet sharing on the iMac (System Preferences>Sharing>Internet Sharing), and told the iPhone 3GS to connect, via Wi-Fi, to the iMac. We trained Wireshark on the built-in Ethernet card and told it to capture all traffic to and from the iPhone’s IP address.

Additionally, we turned Push notifications off (Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Fetch New Data>Off) to try to cut down on background chatter to other apps and the iPhone OS itself during the testing.

We tested each app twice: once for 30 seconds, and a second time for three minutes.

This method lets us look at the iPhone 3GS’s data usage on a Wi-Fi network. A drawback of this approach is that apps may behave differently on Wi-Fi than they do on a 3G network: maybe some apps throttle their data usage to suit the available network. Under good conditions, Wi-Fi is often faster than 3G, especially in places where the 3G network is congested, so these data transfer numbers may be higher than what is possible over your local 3G network.

There are other caveats as well: We’re not you. Each of us uses the iPhone differently. We’ve noted the things we did during the three minutes, to give you an idea of how we got these numbers.

Though we’ve turned off Push notifications, it’s possible that the iPhone OS, or some other Apple apps still need to talk to the Internet now and then. So, the data from our usage sessions may be affected somewhat by this traffic, if it exists at all.

Finally, some of these apps may store information in caches, so they don’t have to be reloaded each time. Some items won’t need to be fetched from the network if they’re already cached, saving on bandwidth.

Use this information to get a sense of what actions chug the data like a beer funnel, and what actions gently sip it like a fine wine.

The Tests

Facebook

The iPhone is great for checking Facebook while at work, especially in work places that are hostile to social networks: by tapping into the 3G network, you can get around the company firewall.

30 Seconds after launch = 72kB
We had just enough time to look at notifications, and read a few comments on friends’ threads.

3 Minutes after launch = 1.546MB
After reading more comments, we looked at a friend’s profile, looked at photos of her daughter, left a comment, checked out a local band’s schedule, and followed some links to blogs.

The photos are probably what made us use so much bandwidth.

Tweetie

There are a lot of apps out there that check Twitter; Tweetie is a capable, functional Twitter app that includes the ability to search for nearby users.

30 Seconds after launch = 32kB
We looked at a few tweets, and tweeted once.

3 Minutes after launch = 807kB
We loaded more screens of tweets, looked at mentions, messages, favorites, trending topics, and loaded updates from nearby users. Also followed links.

The links to other sites are what made the second session use so much more bandwidth than the first. We have a feeling if we’d kept it all within twitter, we’d have used a lot less data.

Maps

As they said on Saturday Night Live, "Google Maps is the best. Tru dat. Double true." That’s why the Maps app that comes with the iPhone uses Google Maps as its underlying technology.

30 Seconds after launch =19kB
In map view, we told Maps to find our location, then mapped directions to a location across the river.

3 Minutes after launch = 5.65MB
In map view, we told Maps to give us directions from Elmira, N.Y. to Philadelphia. We checked each step in the turn, and pondered the weird shape of the highway north of Scranton. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, we switched to satellite view to get a sense of what landmarks we might look for.

This is no surprise. The 19kB session was so small because the map for our location was already cached. It didn’t need to fetch many graphics to get us to the destination, only a mile away. On the other hand, We’d never looked at Philadelphia from this phone, so all of the graphics needed to come from somewhere.

Weather

In days past, people used to dial on copper landlines to a number at the phone company in order to get the latest weather forecast. The Weather app that comes with the iPhone just contacts Yahoo! instead.

30 Seconds after launch = 6kB
Weather loaded the current conditions and six-day forecast for the six cities we’d already set up the phone for. Then it sent and received nothing for the remainder of the session.

3 Minutes after launch = 309kB
We added another city, then decided to tap on the Y! icon in the bottom left, which loads a Yahoo! Search page for that city in Safari. We spent some time looking at news and events in Seoul, South San Francisco, and Elmira.

Once again, a web link pushes data usage up. See how easy it was?

YouTube

Millions of people use YouTube daily. The iPhone app downloads compatible versions of videos to your screen, if they’re available.

30 Seconds after launch = 109kB
We found that :30 was not enough time to get a video to play; the video we picked from the most recent uploads was very slow-loading. But, some data did transfer anyway.

3 Minutes after launch = 11.62MB
We watched three videos of glorious soccer playing.

Video is one of the big bandwidth-eaters, as you can see from how much data we caused to go all over the network. Do you remember when files of that size would have been segmented onto floppy disks and tied to carrier pigeons?

iTunes

The confusingly named iTunes app doesn’t play your music library like iTunes on your Mac does. Rather, it’s the iTunes store, and it lets you grow your library, no computer required.

30 Seconds after launch = 1.20MB
It took a while to load, then we listened to one song sample.

3 Minutes after launch = 14.42MB
We downloaded the free single of the week, and listened to a bunch of samples (sometimes not listening to the entire sample, but skipping to another track).

Wow. We’re honestly surprised that iTunes somehow managed to use more data than YouTube. Maybe it was because we were skipping around a lot; perhaps much of the data transferred for our 30-second samples went to waste.

App Store

Arguably, the killer app of the iPhone is the app store itself. It’s the conduit to all the apps that make the iPhone do what you want it to.

30 Seconds after launch = 739kB
We spent some time searching and scrolling.

3 Minutes after launch = 28.47MB
We downloaded some free apps.

Wow. These free games we just downloaded better be good. Notice how all those pretty icons from scrolling around the app lists took up nearly a megabyte of data.

Yelp

Marrying social media and consumerism, Yelp lets you see what others are saying about local businesses.

30 Seconds after launch = 34kB
We let Yelp find our location, then read a review or two.

3 Minutes after launch = 145kB
We read more reviews, looked for other things nearby, and looked at a photo someone had posted.

We have a feeling these numbers were so low because we ran our test in Elmira, N.Y., which is not exactly a metropolis.

Pandora

Using algorithms kind of like Apple’s "Genius" playlists, Pandora streams audio based on the kind of music you tell it you like.

30 Seconds after launch = 3.03MB
A song was already playing when we launched, and we skipped it.

3 Minutes after launch = 8.51MB
We switched to our Frank Zappa station, so the songs were pretty long. We skipped one song.

Good-sounding audio requires a lot of bandwidth.

Uno

Sometimes, you can’t find nearby friends to play Uno. The Uno app lets you play against friends nearby or online, as well as against the phone.

30 Seconds after launch = 1kB
We launched the app, and poked around.

3 Minutes after launch = 555kB
We signed up for an account with GameLoft, then joined a game room.

Sorry, roller27, MJ4eva, and HanU0ldp1r8, for dropping out of the game after three minutes.

New York Times

The New York Times was one of the earlier newspapers to make the leap to the web. It also has its own iPhone app, which puts an iPhone-friendly flick and tap navigation control on top of the web site, as well as some general wizziness.

30 Seconds after launch = 1.95MB
We spent most of the time in the menu looking for a story to read.

3 Minutes after launch = 408kB
Since the menu was already loaded, we spent most of the time reading stories.

We have no idea why the menu used so much data. We remember it being pretty wizzy, though. Also, time spent reading often means time spent not asking for more data.

Now Playing

If you’re on the go, but not near a movie marquee, or don’t know where the closest movie theater is, Now Playing can help. It can even show you trailers for movies.

30 Seconds after launch = 455kB
We told Now Playing our ZIP code and looked at movie listings.

3 Minutes after launch = 10.46MB
We watched a trailer or two and read a review.

Once again, video makes a bandwidth hog out of the iPhone.

Safari

If there’s not an app for it, there’s probably a web page about it. Safari is a major part of what makes the iPhone so indispensable.

30 Seconds after launch = 879kB
We loaded a newspaper’s front page after they first directed us to their mobile site.

3 Minutes after launch = 2.64MB
We loaded another newspaper’s front page after visiting their mobile site, read two news stories, then visited a blog.

What is it with these sites that say "oh, you’re a phone. Let’s send you to the mobile site?" Then when you click to go to the real site, you’ve loaded the site twice, wasting bandwidth. If they had served the site you asked for in the first place, maybe the network wouldn’t be so congested.

Police Radio

“6-oh-2 is twenty-three.” If that makes any sense to you, you’ll want Police Radio. It lets you listen to audio streams of police, fire, and emergency medical frequencies all over the United States.

30 Seconds after launch = 89kB
We navigated the menu, tried to load a stream, but never got around to hearing anything.

3 Minutes after launch = 574kB
We loaded a stream from Albany, N.Y., and gave it a long listen.

This used less data than music, because people can tolerate spoken words at low quality. (Music, not so much.)

Top Gun

This game’s been getting a lot of attention lately, and it’s much more fun than the old, frustrating Nintendo Entertainment System game of the same name. It’s a single-player game.

30 Seconds after launch = 0kB
We loaded the game and began the first mission.

3 Minutes after launch = 0kB
We played a lot of the first mission, then three minutes were up. So we finished the entire first mission.

See? Not all iPhone apps are data hogs. This one used none of your precious bandwidth while it was playing.

We did notice some bandwidth usage when we quit. It used a minuscule amount of bandwidth to "phone home" to an analytics company called Pinch Media.

Stickwars

For the sadist in you, there’s Stickwars. Use your finger to pick up the stick men attacking your wall. Kill them. Again and again. It’s a single-player game.

30 Seconds after launch = 21kB
We fired it up, and finished the first level.

3 Minutes after launch = 44kB
We played a few levels.

This app checked in with a server after every level, so it could register a high score.

AIM

Known as AOL Instant Messenger before it came to the iPhone, this chat program lets you send and receive messages to and from other AIM users.

30 Seconds after launch = 127kB
We looked at our buddy list for someone to chat with.

3 Minutes after launch = 147kB
We found someone to chat with.

We think the buddy list, with all of its icons, was why the :30 session was so close to the 3:00 session.

Wordbook English Dictionary

Hey! It’s a dictionary! It weighs less than a dictionary! And it’s all there; you don’t need to fetch a definition from the network.

30 Seconds after launch = 39kB
We launched the app, looked for a word, and tapped the "Web" tab to read more about it.

3 Minutes after launch = 33kB
We looked up a few works, looked up synonyms, and tapped the "Web" tab once.

It seems that the Web tab is what’s making this app use bandwidth.

Flickr

Sharing photos online is fun; sharing them on your iPhone lets you pass pictures around.

30 Seconds after launch = 801kB
We looked at some pictures.

3 Minutes after launch = 6.70MB
We looked at lots of pictures.

More pictures means more data transfer.

Wikipedia Mobile

Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is often a good starting point for basic information.

30 Seconds after launch = 40kB
We looked at the article of the day, and accidentally reloaded it twice trying to figure out the interface.

3 Minutes after launch = 380kB
We looked at an article about amoeba and about the Battle of Newtown. We tried to load a picture from the second article, but couldn’t get it to work.

Overall, Wikipedia is a lightweight.

Yahoo! Finance

Combining stock quotes, news articles, graphs, and a dynamic, customizable interface, Yahoo! Finance may be the app you need to make financial decisions.

30 Seconds after launch = 114kB
We poked around and wished we had money.

3 Minutes after launch = 294kB
We loaded all the financial information we could, read an article or two, and looked at some graphs.

There were no images in either of the sessions. The graphs must come from data instead.

Slide to power off

It’s not always about the apps you use; it’s what you do with those apps.

Video and audio use a huge amount of bandwidth. Images use less. Text and other non-audiovisual data use even less. Cached data don’t have to be repeatedly fetched.

Time you spend reading instead of tapping is usually time you spend not downloading more data.

While this information shouldn't matter to much financially thanks to AT&T's all-you-can-eat unlimited data plan, if you happen to travel and you need to keep an eye on how much data you use, this information can save you money.

The next time someone blame iPhone users for slowing down AT&T’s network, pull out your favorite app, and ask, "Well, can you blame them?"

Facebook Releases Menubar Notifications App

Arvind Srinivasan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:12:16 -0500

Warning: Any get-things-done lifestyle changes you have made up to this point may be nullified by this app.

A couple of Facebook developers, one working for Facebook, have developed a native Mac menubar app that shows you all of your Facebook notifications. Think of it as gmail notifier, except instead of getting, yknow, useful messages, you will get a Growl notification every time someone invites you to grow hydroponic wheatgrass in FarmVille.

This is along the lines of the Facebook for Adobe Air application, released a while back, that allows you to keep track of your newsfeed, but instead of being built in Adobe Air, which can be glitchy, this new app is developed in Cocoa. Furthermore, you can’t actually do anything with the dropdown menu; it merely provides links to the browser Facebook site.

The important part about this is that Facebook is opening up their APIs so that third-party applications can do more. Obviously, they realized that one of the major draws of Twitter is that you can quickly update your status from a number of desktop, mobile, and web apps, and it looks like they are hoping to win over some users with the same functionality.

If you fancy being even more distracted, give the Facebook Desktop Notifications App a whirl here.

Facebook Lite Launches, Speeds Up Site

Cory Bohon — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:08:19 -0500

If you ever experienced a slower than usual loading time on your Facebook page when all you wanted to do was post an update status, you're not alone. We've all experienced this problem, and now there's a fix.

Today Facebook launched their much requested "Lite" version of the social netowrking site, that strips away unnecessary items and only shows your new stories up front.

From the main page you can post a photo, video, or status update, see a short list of notifications. Through the lite interface you also have access to your profile, events, and your inbox. There's no chat, but that definitely cuts down on the page load times.

You can check out Facebook lite by going to lite.facebook.com.

Facebook 3.0

Cory Bohon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:53:00 -0500

Without any notice or fanfare, Facebook for iPhone [iTunes link] was updated to version 3.0. With a great new interface, Facebook has given their application a new look and feel.

When you launch the new version of the social networking client, you’ll see a new screen that mimics the home screen of the iPhone and displays the most important tasks up front. The recent notification section has been moved to the bottom of this main screen. Tap on notifications to have this pane slide up in a very Android OS-like way. Icons in this central portion of the app can be rearranged by tapping and holding on an icon, then dragging the icons around. When you are done, tap the done button in the top-left. You can add friend or page shortcuts to this main screen as well.

From the news feed or your profile section, you can easily take and upload photos and movies and update your status. One of the best upgrades to Facebook 3.0 is the ability to use the entire application in landscape mode. In the pictures section, you can now easily tag a photo, make a photo into a profile picture, or delete that a photo of you picking your nose. Creating a new album on-the-go is also a nifty thing to be able to do.

Another cool feature in this new version is the ability to call or SMS someone in your friends list. As you scroll up/down your list, you’ll see a new phone icon for friends who have inputted their numbers. When you tap this icon, you’ll get options for landline, mobile, or SMS.

Facebook did an excellent job updating their application, and while it has some nice new features, it still doesn’t have the push notification support that we would like to see. Facebook for iPhone does remain free, and that's a good deal when you think about the new features.

Facebook 3.0 is Here

Roberto Baldwin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:32:51 -0500

If you're addicted to Facebook, the latest iPhone app is finally live. This brings the Facebook app [iTunes Link] to version 3.0

We're downloading now, will have our take on the latest upgrade soon.

ZOMG! Can You Wait Any Longer?

J Keirn-Swanson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:55:55 -0500

For the last few days, ever since it was announced by Joe Hewitt, the technorati, the blogosphere and Twitter have been all abuzz about the upcoming version 3.0 of the Facebook app for the iPhone.

With an almost clock-like regularity, various pictures of the screens have been "leaked" to the usual suspects. Meanwhile, Hewitt's Twitter feed has been chock full of videos of how to use the new app.

To be sure, Facebook 3.0 does offer a significant advance from the current app with the ability to write notes, to "like" something, to upload video from the 3G S, a host of photo options and the ability to see Pages now (such as MacLife's) among other things. But it seems we can't scroll through our favorite tech and social media blogs without daily mashnotes to the new app, to the same list of new features and to Facebook in general.

Yes, it's coming. It'll be here soon. Keep your pants on, readers and bloggers.

At any rate, today's hype includes more new photos of the home page and can be seen here.

(Of course, while we snark, it's clear that we'll be readying our App Store account to begin downloading the moment we hear about it too.)

Facebook Purchases FriendFeed

Cory Bohon — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:47:49 -0500

Today Facebook acquired the social network meshing service FriendFeed. FriendFeed hasn't been around long, but the popularity surrounding it is amazing. The service allows users to manage all of their social networks from one place, and it does a good job at it.

There hasn't been much speculation about why Facebook acquired them, but TechCrunch believes that it might be because of the ex-Google employees that FriendFeed hired. Namely Paul Buchheit, who was instrumental in creating Gmail.

You can read an interview with Brett Taylor (creator of FriendFeed) and Chris Cox (VP of Product at Facebook) at TechCrunch. If you're a user of the online service, don't fret, for the time being everything is still online and fully functional.

"FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team. As usual, we will communicate openly about our plans as they develop — keep an eye on the FriendFeed News group for updates," the FF blog notes.