Apple Wants You For Your Wallet, Google Wants You For Your Mind
I’ve read a lot — a lot — of Apple vs Google posts over the past few years, since Android was released. So many, really, that I’ve stopped caring who has the bigger market share and who makes more money. Both companies, both platforms (iOS and Android), seem to be doing pretty well.
But let’s not confuse the issue: Apple and Google want different things. Apple want to sell their stuff to you; Google want to sell you to their advertisers.
The whole “what’s more important, profit or market share” conversation is pretty much irrelevant: Apple are making a ton of money, Google are reaching more people. It’s a happy (if slightly uncomfortable) arrangement for both sides.
A Font For People With Dyslexia
Check out the demo video, which explains the theory behind the font’s design. My brother and some of my best friends are dyslexic, so this naturally caught my eye.
Hyper: A Framework For Ruby Websites
I could have called this gem Yawf: Yet Another Website Framework. Do we really need one? I think we — or at least I — do, so I built it.
Hyper is a micro-framework that supports small, static HTML sites with some Ruby magic thrown in. Its focus is on building and launching a site fast: there’s zero configuration, no route definitions, and definitely no databases.
Why Build Hyper?
I could have used Sinatra or Rails for my personal projects, but I wanted something lighter. I wanted a framework that could take me from a standing start to a functioning website without any configuration (I’m impatient: even Sinatra’s get '/url' route definitions felt like they were holding me back).
Most importantly, I wanted the experience that comes from building something for myself.
Quick Start
$ gem install hyper
$ hyper new cool_site
$ cd cool_site
$ bundle install
$ bundle exec rackupYour new site is now live at http://0.0.0.0:9292/.
Magic
I want Hyper to hit the sweet spot between plain HTML (no Ruby) and dynamic frameworks like Rails. Routes are automatic:
/ # maps to templates/views/index.html.erb
/about # maps to templates/views/about.html.erb
/contact # maps to templates/views/contact.html.erbBecause Hyper does this automagically, I can just drop my content into the correct file and move on. Every URL is handled in this way, and there are no exceptions: this behaviour covers 99% of my needs, and if I want something more dynamic I can use a different framework.
Helpers
Because this is a Ruby framework, you get a helper module:
# in lib/helper.rb
module Hyper::Helper
def say_hello
"Hello world"
end
end
# in templates/views/hello.html.erb
<p><%= say_hello -%></p>And because it makes sense to split HTML into layout and views, Hyper does just that: shared HTML lives in templates/layout.html.erb, and page-specific content lives in templates/views.
Fast Deployment With Heroku
Right now, Ruby developers have an amazing hosting service in Heroku: prices start at free and the platform supports any web app that’s based on Rack. Can you guess what Hyper is based on?
$ cd cool_website
$ heroku create
$ git push heroku master
-----> Heroku receiving push
-----> Rack app detectedBoom: your website is now on the web.
Share And Enjoy
Hyper is available on Github and via Rubygems: right now it’s is working great for me; I hope it works for you too.
Photo by phunk on Flickr
The Edge Of Space Map
Small site I build using the Google Maps API and Hyper, my own framework for small static websites on Ruby. It’s pretty self-explanatory: a map shows you which parts of the world are further away from you than space! (Hint: space is closer than you think).
Check out the site here.
Sculptural rails!
Namespacing Core Extensions In Ruby Gems
If you’ve spent any time developing your own Ruby gems or libraries, you’ve probably added some custom methods to Ruby’s core classes. This post is about the best place to keep these methods.
A Contrived Example With Parrots
Here’s an example of how I might extend a core class, and then use the extended class in my code. Imagine I’m building a gem called “parrot” which takes a string and repeats the string back to the user (it’s groundbreaking stuff):
This looks good: everything are well-organised, my core extensions are kept in their own files (named after the classes they’re extending), in their own “core_ext” folder. If I want to load my extensions to Array, I know exactly where to go: core_ext/array.rb. Also I have a talking ruby parrot, which is cool.
This setup is great 90% of the time, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about the other 10%: we could run into problems when the parrot gem is used alongside another gem which also extends Array. Put simply, the issue is:
- Both gems extend
Array - Both gems keep their extensions in gem_name/lib/core_ext/array.rb
- Both gems use
require "core_ext/array"to load their extensions - When both gems are used together, that require statement becomes ambiguous
In short, when both gems work together it may not be possible to say for sure which file require "core_ext/array" will load (I’m assuming that the load path is setup to allow each gem access to the other gem’s lib folder: this is normally the case).
I think it’s worth going the extra mile (or extra few lines of code) to preempt this problem. Here’s how I handle it:
I’ve moved core_ext/array.rb to parrot/core_ext/array.rb. By namespacing the file under “parrot”, I can avoid clashes with core extensions in other gems: require "parrot/core_ext/array" will always load my core extensions (and another gem, if they’re taking the same approach, can require "other_gem/core_ext/array" to load their own extensions).
It’s a small change but one that — I think — makes for better-structured code.
The Hitch
The BBC’s Tim Weber on Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype: The hitch: Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer will have to work hard to integrate Skype, to ensure the voice/video-over-the-internet company is not strangled by his firm’s notorious bureaucracy. I remember when Skype was bought by eBay: I thought “there goes a great service”, but I’m still using Skype today — so I’m willing to give Microsoft a chance. But I’ve just recently had to use Hotmail, and I’m really hoping none of those UI “innovations” get hammered onto my Mac Skype client. This is the way acquisitions work: Normally this is great but sometimes that something cool/useful/profitable is a product of some unique circumstances at business A, which circumstances promptly cease to exist when business A is taken over (strangled?) by business B. Then the takeover is like picking a beautiful flower and watching it die: once you’ve got what you want, you loose it. In all honesty, I can’t see Microsoft doing anything more with Skype than eBay did (i.e., nothing). But I’m willing to lower my standards: I’ll be happy as long as a Bing search bar doesn’t pop up every time I make a Skype call to one of my clients.
Twitter’s Tightrope
Twitter’s strength is that it’s cool. Twitter’s problem is that it’s cool. Although my tweets connect me to the whole world, when I use Twitter I’msocialising. This implies privacy: Twitter as a whole might be just a social network, but my Twitter is a network I choose, a network I build: my network. My Twitter is something personal. Socialising is cool. Everyone loves it. Any place, person, book, film, album, or website that gives people an excuse to get to know other people is cool. Services like Twitter are the alcohol of the web: they matter because they give people an excuse to communicate. Like a cool club or a chilled-out coffee shop, Twitter’s popularity depends on people wanting to be there. Advertising is not personal; advertising is maybe one of the most impersonal things in our culture: to advertisers, you are a number; a calculation; an entry on a spreadsheet. Friends care that I like music because it’s what makes me, me; advertisers care that I like music because it means they can sell me music: replace me with a robot who’ll buy CDs, and watch to see if the advertisers care. This is where we come to the Quick Bar. The Quick Bar is not cool. If you’re not already aware, the Quick Bar was introduced in the most recent update to Twitter’s iPhone app. It’s an over-obvious black bar that hovers over the top of the main interface and shouts out random trends and hashtags. Charlie Sheen has featured a lot recently — it’s about as bad as it sounds. The Quick Bar is pretty obviously a way to do two things: get you more involved in Twitter, and show you more ads. Both of these are ways for Twitter to make money: the ads for obvious reasons, and the involvement because the more you use Twitter, the more they know about you and the easier it is for them to target their advertising efforts efficiently. That might sound like a cynical, anti-capitalist assessment: it’s not. Twitter wants to make money, that’s fine: I’m happy for them to do that. I just don’t want their money-making efforts in my face; you can put adverts on the walls of your coffee shop, but don’t float them on top of my coffee. The Quick Bar fails because it’s a poorly thought out, impersonal intrusion on the social network of every single person who uses Twitter’s iPhone app. It’s as though the guy at Starbucks walked up and pushed ads in front of your face while you were drinking your coffee. It’s not just bad, it’s stupid: as a business decision, it’s probably the single worst thing Twitter has done for it’s iPhone users since the iPhone app was launched. Social networks tread a fine line. They offer a way for millions of people to create connections which are both personal and social, then they make money out of those connections in a way that’s inherently impersonal and antisocial. That’s not impossible, but it can be damn difficult, as Twitter is learning. Too little of the uncool advertising, and you make no money: your business fails. Too much of the uncool, and your users leave: your business fails. Tread carefully.
Xoom, of course, will be able to play Flash relatively soon. The iPad 2 will never do it.
The iPad 2: Closed Loops & Cool Engineering
Yesterday the iPad 2 was announced. Maybe you’ve heard?
One of the many things that struck me as I watched the announcement of the iPad 2 was the fact that the iPad is now thinner than an iPhone 4. In fact, when I look at the iPad 2 side on it reminds me of an iPod Touch, which is just thick enough to avoid melting into thin air — and no thicker.
So: a faster processor, good battery life, cameras, and a thinner body. Apple are very good at engineering.
Apple’s strength, though, isn’t just that the company is good at engineering: it’s that they get to be good at engineering for a device that runs their own software. I think a lot of people overlook this when they praise Apple’s designs: iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs wouldn’t look anywhere near as nice if they had to accommodate a third-party OS. On Android, the iPad’s Smart Cover would be a third party accessory: can you imagine an third party cover which caused an Android tablet to go into standby, automatically, when the cover was closed?
Apple engineers operate in a closed loop: their hardware and software can work hand in hand because that hardware and software is developed hand in hand. The effortless, cool design of Apple devices isn’t an accident, and it’s not just down to the luck of having Jonathon Ive on board: it’s the result of a very intelligent business decision. That decision? Hardware and software which work together should be developed together.
Android — Apple’s most obvious competitor — operates in an open loop. Google develop the software: manufacturers develop the hardware. This isn’t to say that Android is in anyway a failure (although I don’t think it’s as good as iOS), but look at it this way: at Apple, the hardware and software guys work in the same building. Android hardware and software developers might work on different continents. How can you get the same level of feedback and cooperation when your software developer works for a different company, in a different office, in a different timezone?
Like I said up in paragraph four, the iPad 2 Smart Cover is a great example of this. There’s no way that any combination of separate hardware and software companies could come up with anything like the level of integration found in the cover’s design: it looks simple, but it’s not. You can imagine long hours of conversation between Apple’s designers and developers about exactly how the cover would work: what strength should the magnets be? How sensitive should the auto-sleep feature be? (Should the iPad go to sleep as soon as the cover is closed, or should it wait for a second or two, to make sure that the user “meant” to close the cover?). Those aren’t conversations that Samsung is having with Google.
All of which brings me on to the most important thing: culture.
There’s no doubt that Apple engineers and developers share a common culture, and that’s only possible in a closed loop. Open loop systems, like Android and Windows, don’t get to develop a shared culture because they don’t have enough to share. Windows has been dominant in the OS market for over twenty years, and in all that time we’ve never — not once — seen anything that even begins to quality for the description “Windows iPad”.
Not all closed-loop systems work. Nokia has proved this in the past few years: they make their own hardware and software, but they’ve been run out of the high-end smartphone market by Apple and now they’re reduced to using Windows Phone 7. Good luck with that.
Apple though, is lucky: they do it all. Hardware, software, a culture of excellence and attention to detail that turns out success after success. This is how great businesses are run.
I'm a startup consultant and software developer based in southern England. Hire me for Ruby on Rails or iOS development work and advice on building a smart business.
