Introducing BlackBerry 6

Smartphone Market Share - Q1 2010

Smartphone Market Share for Q1 2010 (Source: The Nielsen Company):

RIA frameworks used for deployed applications

Via Software Developers (SD) Times:

Robots: they re-arrange themselves and officiate a marriage ceremony

Yukiko Sawada and Takashi Tsubouchi at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, have built a self-configuring conference room, where the tables are robots that re-arrange themselves based on an initial configuration inputed through a User Interface:



And, if we are on the subject of robots, also in Japan, a robot named i-Fairy officiated a marriage ceremony:

Mobile Monday Miami - May 2010

Yesterday evening I attended my first Mobile Monday Miami meeting. It was a breath of fresh air to meet and connect with people that share the same interest as I do, and are enthusiastic about anything and everything mobile. The topic was "Will The Mobile Web Kill Off The App Store?" The overall conclusion was that whether you develop your app on the mobile browser or natively, it really depends on the uses case you have at hand. Let's look at some pros and cons of both approaches:

• Mobile Web
  
• PROS: One app for all platforms (almost). With the adoption of WebKit (iPhone, Android, WebOS, Nokia, and soon RIM) and HTML 5, this could become the cross-platform solution that everyone is searching for.
• CONS: Getting access to some low level functionality of the phone is very difficult. Could you query the phone's proximity sensor for example? Not really. 
• Native
  
• PROS: Full access to the phone's APIs that provide you a way to query its hardware.
• CONS: Having to develop one app for each platform. There are cross-platform tools that try to mitigate this issue. I haven't used any of those tools, although I wrote about them, but the comment made by Steve Jobs that the platforms will support the lowest common denominator in terms of features. However, I imagine that you could tweak the tools to take advantage of the features provided by every platform that you target.

Another view of the topic discussed Monday was the benefit of having an App Store in terms of discoverability and distribution, a one stop place. This can never be achieved with a web version.

Overall, fantastic discussions, great turnout, I'll definitely become a regular. 

BlackBerry in Top 5 of Worldwide Mobile Phone Bestsellers

As per wired.com, RIM has replaced Motorola in the top five mobile phone companies worldwide based on Q1 2010 sales, and it's tied with Sony Ericsson for the number 4 spot:

This is not unexpected since when it comes to enterprise and messaging, there is nothing like the BlackBerry. On a side note, Motorola has actually had profit for the first quarter of 2010, earning $69 millions. Go Moto!

Ten Best Chapters of Software Development Books

I have file on my laptop that contains a huge list of books (mostly software related) that I just don't have the time to read completely, or to read at all (but I do have time to write this blog :)). Beside the list of books, the file has links to other lists of books of the type "every programmer should read", "must read", you got the idea. Dustin Marx came up with his own list, but what is different is that it gives you a list of best chapters of software development books, chapters that he "found to be most influential or most impressive" in his career as a software developer. If you're just like me, you will appreciate the list.