PavingWays

We build JavaScript applications

Mobile Apps Building and Deployments at jsugfra[1]

This Monday we held the second iteration of our JavaScript User Group here in Frankfurt: #jsugfra (thanks Björn!)

There were only around 12 attendees there, although signups ranged around 20 - so shame on you if you didn’t show up! ;)

But it’s your loss, because aside from Evgenij’s talk you missed my “little” (1hr) hands-on session showing how you can deploy the same JS-based app - build upon Unify - to several platforms, namely those:
  • the browser,
  • homescreen (appcache on iOS) - this is different from the browser,
  • iOS (iPhone and iPad with PhoneGap),
  • Android (PhoneGap too),
  • BlackBerry PlayBook (WebWorks on TabletOS),
  • Samsung Bada (JS-App-Package),
  • WAC (sort of),
  • and Samsung Internet@TV

Unify makes this easy in many regards (JS-build process, appcache context detection etc.). My goal was to show the difficulties and differences in SDKs and build/deployment tools - this became pretty clear I think, especially talking about the difficulties. The main message I wanted to bring across this evening was:
If you want people to write apps for your platform, then given them some decent development tools!

This means preferably CLI build/deploy tools (helps with automating builds) and a well working Simulator/Emulator plus simple device deployments. If you consider these points and look at the app numbers in different stores you see what I mean:
  • Apple got this one right (Xcode and iOS Simulator just work, simple device deployments),
  • Android is behind in this (Eclipse and especially the Emulator is unusably slow, device deployment easy),
  • Blackberry is not bad (CLI tools, fast Emulator, simple deployment to devices),
  • Samsung does a separate thing for different platforms and both are Eclipse-based (only Windows! WTF?, Emulators work well tho)
  • WAC uses the Android Emulator (cf. above) with a Widget Runtime on it and an Eclipse-based SDK (translation: slow)

Bottom line is: Many Edit->Build->Deployment chains are just so unbearably slow and/or unusable that it takes all the fun out of coding for these platforms. If you add the Appstore(tm)-submission overhead to the calculation, pure development work becomes a much smaller part in the total effort.
Sebastian also wrote in detail about the JSUG meeting itself - thanks for that!
Looking forward to jsugfra[2]

JavaScript User Group Frankfurt #1

March 28th will see the 2nd JavaScript User Group meeting in Frankfurt (JSUGFRA). I will do a little talk about different SDKs that enable you to bring your JavaScript application to many different platforms and devices, not in the browser but as an (almost) native app.

iOS, Android, Nokia, BlackBerry, HP/Palm and even Samsung TVs will be covered. I’ll try to do this as a hands-on demo actually putting a simple JS-powered app onto some devices/emulators.

Here’s the flyer:


It’s #1 because it started with #0 I suppose…

Follow @jsugfra and #jsugfra and find all details on Xing.

Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) goes live

Back at 2010’s MWC a number of leading telco companies announced the formation of an international alliances called ”Wholesale Applications Community” (WAC). Not a lot was heard since then until this year’s MWC (2011):

WAC launches its first products

WAC has announced its commercial launch with over 69 member companies already. The goal is to build a standardized platform for mobile widgets and apps based on W3C standards. Developers can deploy an app across multiple devices and operators. That means they can publish their apps to a “warehouse” and then an operator chooses the apps it needs. The developer doesn’t have to care about delivering his apps to each operator separately, this makes WAC effectively the man in the middle.

“With the commercial launch of operator storefronts, handsets and applications, all based on WAC, we can say that WAC is now officially open for business,” Peters Suh, chief executive of WAC, said in a statement.

Eight major operators, such as Vodafone, China Mobile, Orange or Verizon, have announced they are now connected to the WAC platform and started to connect their app stores to the WAC marketplace, so that developers can reach a huge number of potential customers by uploading their apps to the WAC store. Vodafone already made many of their apps WAC compatible. There are currently more than 12,000 apps available via WAC in total.

Our New Website is Online

Our new website is now up and running. The new site contains more detailed information and gives you a better view of what we have to offer here at PavingWays.

We hope you like the new page. Feedback and criticism welcome - Enjoy reading!

Great Mobile Events Coming Up …

There are some great mobile related events coming up in the next months that might interest you. Have a look:

Recap of a Successful Mobile Unconference

Almost two weeks ago the Mobile Unconference took place at Grey in Düsseldorf. It was a great day, everything worked out well and as co-organizers we are happy about the positive feedback from our attendees - here is a short selection:
  • “Congrats to all the #mobunc organization, very nice day, great location, good food, very interesting topics. All in all i’m happy I came :)” (@pedrocustodio)
  • “Finally home, had an awesome time at #mobunc met lots of old mobile friends. Thanks for organising this guys!” (@mahoekst)
  • “#mobunc was cool :-)” (@ilgor)
  • “I have been at the Mobile Unconference Düsseldorf Edition today, a kind of BarCamp just a little bit more structured but as fun as any other I guess” (@0m4r, Blog)
  • “yeah, Mobile UNconference Düsseldorf was the best ever BarCamp I’ve attended. Very well organized by an international team!” (Friedhelm, Comment)
The event started around 10 am. The breakfast took a bit longer since we had to wait for the ”Geek Bus” from The Netherlands. They had internet connection, really good coffee, movies and a bar in this Microsoft-sponsored bus.

After the Dutch attendees arrived the kick-off session with a funny introduction round started. The talks/workshops were determined and the unconference could get started. The topics were pretty diverse, but there were a lot about about cross-platform development (“My result: It’s all about cross-plattform solutions!” @danielrieber). Here is a short overview:Here’s the whole schedule:



All talks were pretty interesting and no one longer than 30 minutes. We had lively discussions as well. The Mobile Unconference can really be seen as a big success. We had over 100 (international) attendees and an overall nice atmosphere, which was carried over to Tannenbaum after the conference.

Many thanks to all the other organizers and sponsors (Enterprise Europe Network, Microsoft, Sevenval, O’Reilly, Syntens, Mobile Games Blog, Rotterdam Media Commission, Codeglue, Zenit), all of our speakers and of course all the attendees for such a great day!

Here are some pictures:Grey thankfully also created some videos during the event. Check them out on their blog:We are definitely looking forward to the next Mobile Unconference which most likely will be held in Rotterdam again. See you there!

Attend 3 Exciting Mobile Events on 1 Day!

Mark the date: 15. November 2010! This Monday will be packed with 3 exciting mobile events all taking place at the same location at Grey’s in Düsseldorf:
  1. Mobile Unconference
  2. Vodafone Developer Day
  3. MobileMonday

This is a great opportunity to learn more about many mobile development topics and get in touch with mobile enthusiasts from all over the world. So join us for an exciting and informative day!
1. Mobile Unconference


The day starts with the Mobile Unconference. Meet other developers, entrepreneurs, startups and technology companies to discuss the latest trends in mobile software. No frills, no strings attached, no
marketing-speak, only regular folks who make the mobile world more interesting every day. This is an UNconference and it’s all about its participants - anybody can grab the microphone and talk about something interesting there!

Sign up here: http://www.mobileunconference.com
2. Vodafone Developer Day

Parallel to the Mobile Unconference and at the same location our developer friends over at Vodafone and Appseleration organize a developer day covering the following topics:
  • Introduction to Vodafone developer
  • Developing with JIL/WAC
  • Cross Platform development and live demo
  • Debugging tips and tricks with Ripple Emulator
  • Testing on real devices with the Perfecto Mobile Cloud
  • Bringing your apps to market
3. MobileMonday

The day ends with the Düsseldorf edition of MobileMonday. This time the topic will be Mobile Health. Learn more about the global mobile healthcare market and meet interesting people - networking till the ambulance arrives ;)

Find more details at the MobileMonday Website and please make sure you sign up there separately!
Get ready for the mobilest day this year!
We hope to see you on Monday in Düsseldorf!

PS: Please repost and retweet this!

Recap MobileMonday Tokyo: All About Location

We attended MobileMonday in Tokyo, Japan. The event started around 7pm at BierVana, a very new bar, opened only a few days ago. There were four talks - all about location based services.

The first presentation on the “Asia Pacific Mobile & LBS Outlook” was held by Marc Einstein from the market research company Frost & Sullivan. His presentation (PDF) gave a lot of statistical insights in different regions in Asia. Asia in general is a very competitive market especially for mobile operators. In India alone there are around 15 operators and Indonesia, also a very interesting market for mobile services, has 11 mobile operators. Indonesia is also the third largest region worldwide (after US and UK) for Facebook usage on mobile devices. Contrary to Indonesia, in Japan the biggest mobile social network is Mixi with over 21 million users and in South Korea it is Cyworld (18 million users).

Smartphones are getting more popular in the Asian Pacific region. In 2009 there were nearly 22 million smartphone devices, representing 4.5% of all devices sold in this region. Frost & Sullivan expect a robust growth in smartphone sales in the coming years.

HTML5 Meetup October Recap

Mostly out of completeness reasons here is a little recap of our October 7th HTML5 Meetup:

This time 3 out of the 7 total attendees were there for the first time, so we might actually grow this meetup one day. But it was good as it was and we had some quite interesting topics. I just want to mention them here quickly (as far as I can remember):It was a fun evening at Cafe Brücke (their food is much better than their website). It was surprisingly full between 20:00 to 22:00, but quieter than our previous locations.

Thank you all for coming and see you next time!