Ok, So my last update came before the launch of the iPad, and that in part pushed me towards downgrading the likelyhood of a front facing camera, because I thought they would put one in the iPad. Well they didnt, and after seeing what they did do, im not suprised. My take on the iPad is that its getting alot of hate from silly nerds on the internet, and when it actually launches and people start using it and seeing its potential harnessed by 2nd tier apps, everyone will do an about face.
Front Facing Camera, Its for sure now:
With that being said I am going to post my updated list. The big change here is im moving the front facing camera upto "for sure". WHY ? you ask ? well there was a leaked image of a 'prototype' iphone next to a prototype iPad:
and if you look very closely you can see that there is an extra pin hole on the front of the iphone. Which is probably for a camera.
Also another rumor came out the other day from some developers who ripped open the SDK and found resources that would directly indicate the presence of Video Calls on the iPhone.
Both of these rumors combined plus my original reasoning that I had in my first post, make this almost 100% for sure. It can be hard to say something like this is 100% but I am convinced that they will launch the new iPhone with a front facing camera.
Like I said in my original post, it may be for phones on Wifi only, but it will probably be for phones on 3G as well. My bet is that ATT's towers will have a way to tell the iPhone it is safe to use video conferencing, so youll get some indicator on the phone, or it may just be if your in 3g it will work. All of this is speculative of course.
One thing to consider is, if verizon does get the iPhone, like alot of people have been hinting at, then there will be the inevitable exodus of ATT users to verizon, this will likely free up some of their network capacity.
But honestly I think ATT has the best network, yaa verizon has better 'coverage', but the majority of people live in the coverage area that ATT has, thats probably why they dont care about those stupid map comparisons, and frankly I dont either. I dont travel much and when I do travel I have never been to a place where I dont get service. I would rather have faster 3g than slower 3g, and more coverage.
Changes From my Last Post:
So Heres a quick summary of the other changes from the last post I made to list and why.
1. Bigger screen, and flash support are going into a new category 'NOT HAPPENING'
Weve seen what a iPhone with a bigger screen looks like, its an iPad. And honestly I hardly ever hear complaints about the iPhones form factor. So they arent gonna change the screen size. Maybe it will be a smidgen wider taller fatter skinnier, but the base resolution of the screen is going to remain the same, because if they were to make it 10% bigger, it would add marginal benefit and it would totally screw over developers.
2. Front facing camera - FOR SURE
3. File Management, doc generation.
Ok we will probably get file management, because now that the iPad can make docs in iWork, your gonna need to be able to store and view them on your iPhone, it just makes sense to integrate everything, as for doc generation, thats pprobably wont happen since all of that stuff is being pushed to the iPad. so that is going away.
4. Quick note about flash on the iphone:
Apple doubled down on their anti-flash stance with the launch of the iPad, if there were gonna do it on any device besides the iPhone it would be the iPad with its larger battery and better processing power. So frankly if its not there, they wont put it on the new iPhone. Plus, its just a software update, so if they do cave, its not gonna be on launch day. Plus the problem with flash is the experience sucks on mobile phones, just look at this video:
Besides, Apple makes a boatload of money on the app store, so allowing flash would see a huge migration of apps to flash, since you dont have to get them approved, and you dont have to go through itunes to make money. Plus alot of this comes back to the fact that Flash kinda just SUCKS, its slow, buggy, crash prone, and a CPU HOG. And honestly what do you really miss with flash that couldnt be done in an application ? Flash ads, thats fine with me they are incredibly annoying anyways. Hulu and video, ok hulu there is an SDK you can make an application, and its not like its a waste of time there are almost 60million iPhone OS devices on the market, and the users have shown to be some of the most active out of all the smartphone market. What else then, ohh sites that are only made in flash, well thats stupid because its not just the iphone that doesnt do flash its EVERY smartphone on the market, so whoever made that site without having a mobile version is totally missing out on the oppurtunity to have people access it from their mobile phones. Also flash sites arent searchable or indexable.
Ok so that was more of a anti-flash rant than a "quick note" but it gets my point accross. Now for my updated list:
Ok so here is the updated list:
For Sure:
64/32 gb of Memory
New case design, less rounded w/ sharper corners
Better Lock screen (home screen), like the jailbreak app
This post saved me so much time. Me and the other developers could not figure out what was going on, and the posted solutions is one of the last things I would've thought to do. So please go visit that link and readup on the solution
One thing to note is that if you need to specify more than one AAM in the registry entry, seperate them using a new line (carriage return)
Getting an SPWeb object can be done in a bunch of different ways, and it depends on whether or not your code is running in a sharepoint context. If you are in a sharepoint context, you dont need to use the 'using' statements, in my experience you only need to use those if you are not in a sharepoint context.
Here is some code we use to get SPWeb objects. At first we were doing it a different way, but after exhaustive testing and running into multiple bugs that stemmed from the way we got spwebs in the past, we think weve got a solution that should work for most configurations.
Inside a sharepoint context:
/// <summary>
/// Gets a SharePoint web site object from its Guid
/// </summary>
/// <param name="guid"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static SPWeb getSPWeb(Guid guid)
{
SPWeb web = GetSPWebCollectionFromCurrentSite()[guid]; // don't want to return this spweb since it has admin privileges
return getRootSPSite().OpenWeb(web.ID);
}
public static SPSite getRootSPSite()
{
return SPContext.Current.Site;
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the collection of all the sites in the site collection.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="site">A SharePoint site collection</param>
/// <returns>The collection of all the sites in the site collection</returns>
public static SPWebCollection GetSPWebCollectionFromSite(SPSite site)
{
SPUserToken token = site.SystemAccount.UserToken;
SPSite elevatedSiteCollection = new SPSite(site.ID, token);
return elevatedSiteCollection.AllWebs;
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the collection of all the sites in the current site collection (so this is context specific).
/// </summary>
/// <returns> Collection of all the sites in the current site collection</returns>
public static SPWebCollection GetSPWebCollectionFromCurrentSite()
Im now just noticing that we dont check against current user permissions, but so far from our testing this hasnt been a problem.
If you are outside of the SPContext then use this stuff instead. This assumes that you can get the URL for the site, or whatever resource you are trying to access. In our case we are trying to get at a file, so if you pass in the full url of the file, it will pick the correct spsite for you.
So here at work im blessed to have some AWESOME monitors to work with. Ive got two 24" Dell monitors that pump out an amazing 1920x1200 screen resolution. Basically top of the line. Up until recently I had them in standard landscape mode side by side, but these monitors are so huge that It didn't really make sense to have them stretching so far across my desk, i would have to turn my head to look at the other monitor.
So recently i decided to flip my monitors into portrait mode, since all i do is code all day the added height that im getting in my IDE is making work go alot faster. I would definitely recommend doing this if you have the right type of monitor (they prolly need to swivel).
So after i switched them up i was having trouble finding a desktop background to run at such a high resolution for dual monitors. I think that the hubble shots make great backgrounds so i got a high res photo and cropped it down into two separate 1200x1920 image files.
I use display fusion to set each wallpaper independently.
BTW: If you are in need of high res dual or triple monitor desktop backgrounds there is a great website mandolux that has an incredibly amount of desktop backgrounds. Usually each one is available in every resolution configuration so its a great one stop place to go for all your dual and triple monitor desktop background needs.
So here is the list I made about almost 2 months ago, and here is my updated list, with explanations below:
For Sure:
64/32 gb of Memory
New case design, less rounded w/ sharper corners
Better Lock screen (home screen), like the jailbreak app
Multi-tasking, maybe with some restrictions
File Management/Document Generation, its time.
Springboard Expose/Spaces
Camera 5mp
Likely:
Overhaul the Email App (Unified Inbox)
Maybe:
Application Sharing
Themes and Wallpapers for Springboard
Front facing Camera
Unlikely:
Bigger Screen
Flash Support
*If something isnt mentioned below, goto the original post for explanations.
Intro:
Given recent developments, and after digging up more research on alot of these subjects. I need to change some of my predictions.
Flash:
In my original post I felt that although flash support is terrible on Mac OS X (in general) and especially on the iphone, that somehow apple would find a way to get it included in the next release of the iPhone OS. Im gonna back track and say that this is not gonna happen. Here are a few reasons why:
Flash performance sucks on OS X, incl. iPhone OS.
Since the first iPhone, Steve Jobs and Apple have drawn a line in the sand saying that if you wanna develop a site that will work in Safari Mobile, DONT USE FLASH.
Flash support could hurt App Sales
HTML5 will bring video streaming to the iPhone without the need for flash
Flash is bloated, it is notoriously buggy, and given their monopoly, Adobe can just sit on their hands and tell everyone to F-off when they ask for improvements or compatibility fixes.
Hurting app sales is something that i didnt think of when i wrote my last post, but it is something that makes alot of sense, and could really damage Apples app sales, especially since it means that there is no app approval process. Flash is also super buggy on macs, and for the most part adobe hasnt done much to make flash a robust plugin for mobile devices. Its just not gonna happen, and taking everything into account apple wont gain much by supporting someone else's plugin. Maybe in 2011.
Front Facing Camera:
I talked about this in my last post, saying it would be that really cool feature that would give the new iPhone some wow factor. Im gonna kinda backtrack on this one too, not because it wouldnt be really cool, more because no one really cares about video conferencing on a casual cellphone. Also it would be akward having to carry it so your face can be seen. Im not totally dumping this idea, Instead im moving it down a notch in priority list. The reason im not totally getting rid of it, is because although it might not be super useful, it would be really cheap to add an extra 1.2/2mp camera in the front, and beyond just video conferencing it could do alot more for apps, and taking pictures. So Ill say that this is now a 'Maybe'
Refinements:
So hindsight is always 20/20, and im gonna use this to beef up a couple of predictions. So my original list was pretty general when it came to technical specs just saying this will be better/bigger. Now im gonna make specific predictions about the technical specs for some of the items on the list:
Camera: 5 megapixel.
Just makes sense, 5mp is a logical progression from 3mp, and there have been alot of rumors to back up this claim.
Storage Space: 32-64gb
Another 'gimme' prediction (i think) since the producers of all the memory in current iPhones/iPods has updated the capacity, it would be on par with all the other upgrades from 2g->3g->3gs
Case Design: Less Rounded, with Sharper Corners
This prediction is probably the most reliable since a friend (who has a friend at apple, whose seen the new iPhone) told me that the new iPhone will look less rounded with sharper corners. He said it will look more like the droid and less like the current iPhones. Not sure where in between those two designs the new iPhone will fall, but if I had to guess it would look more like this render below, than anything weve seen sofar.
New Home Screen:
This is another prediction that my friend confirmed is true, so im gonna move this one upto 'for sure'. He says its like the jailbreak app where you can have alerts and calender stuff all show up on the lock screen.
Multi-Tasking:
This is another one that my friend was pretty sure about. Its not like this should come as a surprise, the hardware and the software already support it, apple just needs to flip a switch and throw in a UI to access all of it. Im gonna move this upto 'for sure'. One thing is that it might not work the same way as the jailbreak app, meaning there may be some restrictions as to how many and which apps are open.
File Management/Document Generation:
The file management part is GONNA happen, im moving it to 'for sure'. Were now at the 4th iPhone, and to move it forward it really needs some sort of document management. People have files and they need to save and send them to people, its that simple. The amount of work needed to add this into the iPhone seems pretty minimal since it can already save files, it just doesnt expose any UI to the user for accessing them (except for pictures and video). This will be just one more step to turn the iPhone into a miniature computer. Document generation, probably but it will most likely be limited to the notes app. Id expect to see a small overview of the notes app, or something completely new. I wouldnt expect anything more than a rich text editor type app.
Springboard/Dashboard expose:
Another one that im feeling pretty confident about. If they do multitasking, they will need to give the user a UI to access all the running apps. Also, when the iPhone was initially conceived, i dont think they expected to have 150k apps avaialable for download. They are gonnna need a better way to organize them. Im thinking that we will finally see some folders (stacks) that let the user navigate through the 100's of apps much faster. Another one of those things thats been on jailbreak for awhile, that I think apple will finally implement. So im moving this into 'for sure'
Themes and Wallpapers:
This is one that i kinda brushed off as not likely, mainly because its not that neccessary, and because it could detract from usability. I think that this could be implemented in a way that didnt detract from usability. For example you can select a wallpaper, but the iPhone will apply a mask to darken whatever picture you select so it doesnt take away from the springboard. Im gonna move this upto 'maybe'.
Better Screen - no OLED:
Ive read a little more into the OLED situation, and as it stands right now, they just arent ready for primetime. Yes OLED's have much more vibrant color, use less battery etc.. EXCEPT for the fact that they dont display whites well. For an OLED to display a white background it uses 3 times the energy. Also alot of CE's that use oled's right now have trouble displaying information in bright light situations like during the day outside. OLED is a great tech, but for it to get into an apple product, which are always super polished, its gonna take some more time. So since were arent gonna see OLED, im not sure where apple could improve, atleast not any type of technology i could pin down. My guess is that they will find a way to optimize the existing tech, whether or not they mention this at the release, im not sure it might just be one of the things you see way at the bottom of the specs/improvements list. So this will get moved down a notch.
New Stuff:
Hardware CPU/GPU:
Ive read here that the producers of the current iPhone CPU have demo'd a new dual core version of the chip that runs a little faster. The geek in me wants to assume that all this new stuff will be in the 4g iphone, but its not really that sensible to bump up the hardware if the software wont be using it. If we assume that the software will be using it, then that means that all the older iPhones wont have the hardware to run the new software. And im not sure that apple would want to alienate that much of its user base. I think that there is some middle ground here. If i had to guess i would say that there WILL BE hardware improvements over the 3gs. This is one of the easiest ways to differentiate new models from older ones, and its been an entire year since the last release. So my guess is dual-core, with a new GPU. At first I would imagine this will only affect the ability to run more apps at once, but as time goes on, games will be released that only support 3gs and 4g iphones. This one is a tough call, and i may have to update it later on.
Conclusion:
The next iPhone is going to change the game once again, it will turn the iPhone into a portable computer more than ever. Im really looking forward to its release, and if i get even half of whats on my list ill be happy. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
The iPhone is easily the best phone you can buy, even with the introduction of new spiffed up Android phones (like the droid) for me the iPhone is still hands down the best. The UI is clean, fast and intuitive. The web browsing is still best in class. And the app store just puts the icing on the cake. Every other smartphone on the market is still playing catchup, and its been 2.5 years since its introduction. For example the droid just got a multitouch browser a couple of days ago.
With that said, what is gonna be in next years iPhone - for 2010 ? With the 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0 alot of gaps were filled, including copy paste, mms, video, voice recognition, and the compass. Well where does the iPhone go next ? Im gonna try to answer that question. As the event gets closer (probably sometime in june) i hope to have a fairly accurate list.
Since there is no official name for the new iPhone, im gonna refer to it as the 4G iPhone.
Flash Support:
This is gimme, the iPhone NEEDS flash. Right now, there arent alot of phones with flash support, so its not like apple is behind the curve. But if it wants to keep its 'Best in class web browsing' title they are gonna need to implement it.
Heres an excerpt from the iPhone OS wikipedia page concerning flash:
The iPhone OS does not supportAdobe Flash, and Flash movies on web pages cannot be viewed in Mobile Safari. Although Adobe has two versions of its software, Flash and Flash Lite, Apple views neither as suitable for the iPhone.[50]Apple's argument to the public thus far has been that full Flash would be too cumbersome for the iPhone, while Flash Lite would not provide a worthy experience for users. This has been critiqued as theGoldilocksargument.[51]
A problem with Flash for Apple is that it is a virtual machine with ajust-in-time compiler. Apple's SDK prevents any software on the iPhone from downloading or running external code. What Adobe has done in their CS5 release for the iPhone is to create a static compiler that allows developers to compile their flash programs into apps that can run on the iPhone.[52]This would allow many games to become apps, however prevents web interfaces such asHulufrom working on the iPhone.
Unofficially, some Flash video sites can be viewed by using a jailbroken iPhone with certain third-party applications.[53]However, it results on extremely low frame rate due to the lack of memory bandwidth and CPU speed for Flash JIT execution. Another reason is the general lack of optimization of Flash for the iPhone OS, which can be seen in several benchmarks of Flash in OS X.[54]
Recently, Adobe has posted a notice on the Flash download page when viewed from an iPhone, claiming that it's not possible to have Flash on the iPhone because:
“Flash Player not available for your device. Apple restricts use of technologies required by products like Flash Player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod.”
Running flash is very cpu intensive, and the iPhone is already not well known for its battery life, so either from the inclusion of a better battery or improved hardware, the new 4G iPhone should get flash.
I speculate that this would only be supported on the 4g iPhone. and that earlier models would not get this enhancement.
To play devil’s advocate: Although I feel like this feature is a neccessity the iPhone is still the best smartphone on the market, so although it would be a great feature, apple doesn’t need to do too much to get people to buy iPhones.
Improved iPhone OS:
The current iPhone OS is AMAZING, i mean think about how the iPhone has been on the market for almost 3 years, and IMHO it still has the best UI . Of course it helps having your own Operating System, that is well known for its snappy UI, Quartz or Core Graphics deserves a lot of credit for this.
UI Refresh:
I besides the specific UI changes that apply to features mentioned below I dont see a full UI overhaul happening for the next iPhone. the current UI works well, it does leave a little bit of customization to be desired, which is why the only big UI change i see happening is the ability to apply a background image for the springboard. These would come from a preloaded set of images, or ones that are in the Photos library. The OS would most likely apply a transparency affect to the image and then overlay it to a black background, this would be done to improve readability of the springboards pages.
Themes/Personalization: this is another thing that is in the unlikely category but would be a welcome addition. Id imagine a few default themes, the rest would be purchased from the app store. When this topic is brought up some people mention changing icon images, this would only work for first party apps, if changing third party app icons was allowed it would screw over developers big time.
Honestly if i was asked to bet on any of these changes i wouldnt, but they would be nice to have.
Multitasking:
So where can they improve ? I think multitasking is one area, although i still dont think that they will have full blown multitasking since its a huge power drain.
A conservative implementation would be to have multiple apps running, but when you move away from an app, it goes into is 'sleep' state (the state you get when you lock, and then unlock your phone with an open app). And then when you go back to it, the app wakes up.
A more liberal implementation (in terms of battery life, cpu cycles), would be to allow certain threads or portions of the app to run in the background. Im not sure how this would be implemented, but i could see it being broken down into a few different categories. For example an app could continue to communicate using 3g/wifi, it could play music, it could access GPS/compass, or it could just be running cycles on the cpu. If this is the case i would speculate that during the app approval process the 'background' portion of the app would be extensively tested, and profiled. And it must meet strict criteria before approval.
The liberal approach is different than just having the app do 'whatever' in the background, it would need to register threads with the OS that do specific things.
If apple does do any type of multitasking a limit on the number of apps running will certainly be implement, sort of like in Safari it only allows a certain number of pages to be open at once. I see the same type of interface for multitasking.
There is currently a great looking multitasking app for Jailbreakers called multifl0w that isnt too far off of what I imagine the multitasking looking like.
Better lock screen:
Right now the lockscreen is pretty useless, it gives you date time, and battery life. I think they should at a minimum allow stuff like calender events, email inbox, missed calls, and texts to show up on the lockscreen. These are all first party apps so apple should have no problem optimizing them, and making them work 100%. Eventually they could expand the functionality to allow other 3rd party apps to display info on the lockscreen, sort of like how they included push notifications for OS 3.0 apps.
I know that texts and phone calls already show up as Modal dialogs, but having them in a list as well that showed more than just what has happened since the last unlock could be useful. It should also have list items go directly to its corresponding app.
Here are some renders of a jailbreak app that implements the type of lockscreen im talking about:
Application Sharing:
This is an idea ive had for awhile, and it came to me after for the bajillionth time I was told by one of my friends ‘you have to get this app’. Start with a bluetooth handshake to your friends phone, and he can drag the ‘sweet’ apps to your phone. Im not suggesting you get the app for free, instead when you open up the app it takes you to the app store page to buy/download the app. This way next time you see your friend he can just pile on all these sweet apps ‘you just have to check out’ and then when you get the time, you can read their descriptions at the app store, no searching involved.Similar to how Safari lets you put bookmarks on the homescreen.
File Management/Document Generation:
The iphone can already display pdf’s and Office Files (docx, xlsx, pptx), why not allow editing ? Obviously it wont be as rich as a desktop application, but simple edits would greatly increase productivity for business users. I know that blackberry has Docs2Go, and im sure this is one reason why they still have attract large percentage of business users.
Apple has an office suite, albeit not as good as MSOffice, but they still have the core technology to roll out a simple app for editing documents.
Along with this type of editing would have to come some file management. It sucks that you have to email everything to yourself to view it on the iphone. Just let me drag and drop files through the itunes interface, or setup a folder on my Mac to automatically sync with the ‘Documents’ folder.
Overhaul the Email App:
From the email app I should be able to pick multiple photos, and files to attach when sending an email. If they implement the file management stuff this would integrate nicely.
There are ton of other tweaks that people have mentioned in other blog posts, personally the mail app is fine for what I do, but im sure that a lot of other issues people have mentioned will get fixed.
Unified Inbox:
I know that a lot of people have been wanting this feature, personally I don’t mind going back and forth, but I could see myself using a unified inbox if it became available.
Springboard Expose/Spaces:
First check out this video:
I wouldn’t call this an Expose feature, in my opinion that would be the coverflow multitasking. This reminds me more of spaces, which I am a huuge fan of. Id really like to see this feature.
Hardware Changes:
Bigger Screen ? (not likely):
At first I thought this was a good candidate for being included in the next iPhone, mainly because it would allow apple to sell more HD video from their itunes store. But then it occurred to me that they probably want people to enjoy HD video on their rumored Apple Tablet which will be better suited for that experience anyways.
Plus it would bring in a whole new host of problems with backwards compatibility for applications and whatnot, so overall I see this as very unlikely.
Brighter/Better Screen:
This on the other hand is a gimme. The screen already looks great, but its getting outdated. Im sure that by now the screen they are using in the 3Gs is getting inexpensive, so why not upgrade to something newer. Apple likes to highlight things like this in their product releases; imagine “The new iPhone has a 50% brighter screen, with 30% better color vibrance” whatever that means. But really it just makes sense. With oled screens getting cheaper, I think a screen upgrade is due. Ive been reading that OLED isnt quite ready for mainstream so that might be out of the picture, but if they could make it work it would look amazing.
Front Facing Camera (?):
So this has been one of those features that has been in the rumor mill for awhile. Theres no doubt it would be an awesome feature. For the most part it would make them first to market with a true video conferncing cellphone. I can just imagine the curtains are drawn and what you have on the big screen is steve job’s face staring at you from the screen of an iphone. This could be the ‘Big’ feature for the new iphone. The one must have features that makes you go from yea this is sweet to ‘I will sell my first born’ to get this phone. Since the first iphone I don’t think they have really shown a must-have feature that could be as groundbreaking as a front facing camera.
Apple likes to be ‘The First’ for stuff so why not ? Well lets get into the technical details.
So I asked myself ‘Why would they NOT include this in the new iPhone?’ The obvious answer is ‘The Network Stupid’. We all know that ATT is struggling to keep their network afloat. And were just talking regular iphones let alone video streaming ! Well what if they just allowed video conferencing while connnected to wifi ? That sounds fair, it would make it more of a business tool because at the office your gonna have fast wifi, and video conferencing would be useful. Welll whatif ‘another’ carrier got the iphone that had a better network *cough* Verizon *cough* Ahh now that front facing camera makes a lot more sense. ATT’s exclusivity contract is due to run out sometime in 2010, so even if we don’t see a Verizon iphone until september, the hardware is already in place, Verizon would just have to flip a switch.
The more I think about it, the more I see this feature coming in 2010. With the introduction of the new Macbook pros a few years ago, iSight cameras came standard. With the exception of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro, all new Mac models come with an iSight camera, so they definitely take personal video seriously. It would increase the cool factor on the iPhone significantly.
Heres an article over at gizmodo that supports the idea of the iPhone getting a front facing camera. The author clearly supports the idea, but comes to the conlcusion that apple wont put in the camera because they wont need that feature to sell more phones. I agree that apple doesn’t need the feature, but I believe that we will get the camera for the reasons I mentioned above as well as the similar arguments mentioned in the article.
New Case Design:
This seems like a gimme. The 3GS did essentially nothing to the exterior appearance of the phone. They cant go another year without a aesthetic change. They WILL change the case design. Personally id like to see some Unibody construction. Lots of aluminum. That’s one thing I missed in the 3g/3gs that the 2g original had. The new macbook pros with unibody construction look amazing, absolutely stunning. I love how all of the led indicators for ‘sleep mode’ and battery life are totally invisible unless they are lit up. This is accomplished with tiny holes in the aluminum. Imagine having a hidden LED indicator for the front facing camera when it is on/off, like they do on the current MBP’s. Of course with aluminum, we could see different anodized colors.
Just looking at these renders for this phone, i think these could be similar to what we see in june. This first one is missing the front facing camera, but besides that looks pretty realistic.
More Memory:
Duhh, every year they introduce a model with new memory, so why not this year? Most likely 32gb and 64gb. Maybe a 16gb budget model, basically what the 3g iphone is now.
**Summary**
Heres a short list of the features i mentioned and my predicted likelihood.
Here are some notes I made while watching this session
Alot of the introductory part of the talk explained how it took forever to get reports from conception/request to final implementation.
The speaker mentioned how in the old SSRS doing just 10 reports would take weeks, doing the 50 that a customer might want would take a year
Windward's turnaround is a lot shorter
With our product there is no need to make sacrifices
Why they think they are better:
Familiar environment, Ribbon
Still in a programming/dev environment, average user would be confused
Tables matrices can have colors specified in the table wizard
This can all be done in word
"Before it would have taken weeks"
I agree, the old SSRS was terrible, the new one is a lot better, but still has many limitations and is hard to use.
Can open reports from sharepoint directly into Report Builder
Windward Also does this, it just opens up into office
Demoed the table wizard,
This was a great tool, something we could take some cues from.
Easy drag and drop to make a table
This is also a great starting point for applying macros to a column, or for making a chart since the dataset for a chart is defined by a table
Chart Wizard was very intuitive, like excel
"Subscribe" function notifies anyone when a report changes in sharepoint
This is a good feature, should be easy for us to add.
Can embed reports into a web part and use them as dashboards
Windward does this
They have maps
In this speech he just had them pre-made, and they looked great, although he promised to demo them in his next talk, which didn't go too well for him
Can open dashboard reports in report builder
They showed Databars and sparklines in tables, these looked really good and were easy to incorporate into the report
Something they had that was useful was a default image for charts, even though when rendered they looked different,
Was good for visually laying stuff out, and knowing where charts were in the report
Keep making references to how easy Powerpoint is to use, and how they are similar to powerpoint, while still admitting that they are not at all like powerpoint, but close.
Report Parts
Like Windward's User Defined Tags (UDTs)
IT can set up charts tables, stored on sharepoint, then they can be dragged/dropped into the report
Need SQL Server R2
But overall a great feature that is well implemented
PowerPivot can be used as a datasource for a report
Windward can do this too.
SPLists as datasources
Big talk about how SSRS respects Pagination rules of PDF and Word
PDF output looked terrible, the hard page breaks made the ssrs report look bad
In word they just expanded the page size, try printing that ..
OHH btw, SSRS still wont tell you what line your error is on. That wont be coming the the final release either.
The big thing I took from this speech is that web developers
on sharepoint should be putting a lot more work into the client object model.
Basically doing as much work on the client side as possible to minimize post
backs. He talked about how a lot of time has gone into making the client object
model better. He also recommends using javascript, jquery, and ajax among other
things. Bottom line is that Microsoft has invested a lot of time to make
sharepoint as client friendly as possible and developers should follow their
lead.
Here at windward we do Reporting with all of the Open XML
Office formats. I personally implemented a parser and output engine for the
PPTX file format. Since we work both in java and .NET we cant use the Open XML
SDK, since that only works with .NET. Therefore I have a good understanding of
all of the elements that make up an OOXML document. With this said, the new
stuff that the Office team has added into 2010 seems sort of like a cop out,
but given the situation I think they have done it in the best way possible. In
2007 there have always been <extLst> extension lists but they were never
used, until now in 2010. The other way 2010 is adding content is an
<alternateContent> block. The bottom line is that in either of those
elements there will be a 2010 version of the OOXML and a 2007< version. The
way it is expressed in the OOXML will vary but the basic idea is that if you
make a document in 2010 and open it in 2007, it will do its best to make it
look like the 2010 version, but any 2010 only formatting will likely not show
up 2007. Also if you open a 2010 (xlsx, docx) in 2007 if you make any change
anywhere and save it, all of the 2010 formatting will disappear. If you do that
same transition but in powerpoint, all the 2010 formatting will remain even if
you make changes to the file in 2007. The only way too loose 2010 formatting in
powerpoint is if you edit the actual element that contains the hidden 2010
formatting and then save it.One thing
the speaker demoed is the application of image effects to a static image. In
2010 it will render this effect on the fly, but it will also render a jpeg of
that image so if you go down to 2007 it will still look the same, but you wont
be able to change the effects on the fly. It seems like most of the new stuff
coming in 2010 has to do with drawingML, which is something that word and excel
hardly had in 2007, but powerpoint had a lot of. Chris said at the end of the
speech that he would try to find out when the 2010 documentation will be
available. Here is Chris Auld's Blog
Here are the documentation links for the 2010 office extensions
