Maintaining Kids' Finances is Difficult

Rebecca, over at Zenerdgy:

In the past, we had lots of money mishaps. Sometimes, they handed the money to a "responsible" parent. I usually placed the money in an envelope, which we never had handy when the child found the perfect toy at the store. Since Ben and I never remembered the amounts in the envelope, we relied on the child's memory. They always swore that they had enough money, but that often was not the case (funny, how they forget money spent but not money owed).

The rest of the post is a good, quick read on the trials and tribulations of tracking children's allowances. By the way, their app Family Bank is available on the App Store. Check it out.

iOS Easily Won the Black Friday Wars

Jay Yarow, over at Business Insider, regarding IBM's analysis of Black Friday sales:

It broke out an analysis of iOS and Android: On average, iOS users spent $127.92 per order on Black Friday compared to $105.20 per order for Android users. iOS traffic reached 28.2 percent of all online traffic, compared to 11.4 percent for Android. iOS sales reached 18.1 percent of all online sales, compared to 3.5 percent for Android.

On a market share basis and an installed user base basis, Android is the number one operating system in the world. However, if the user base doesn't make use of their devices in ways that make it worth developers' and retailers' time, then Android will continue to be an afterthought. iOS users spend more time on their devices and spend a disproportionate amount of money when compared to Android users. I would wager that Windows Phone users would be treated better than they currently are if they spent money and time disproportionate to their installed user base too.

Folks, if you want to be treated as first-class netizens, then you must spend like first-class netizens. Developers and retailers aren't running charities.

More Hullabaloo About Nike's Lack of an Android App for the FuelBand

From a recent article by Roger Cheng over at CNet:

Nike is only shooting itself in the foot with its stubborn reluctance to work with Android. The athletic apparel company on Tuesday introduced its second-generation fitness tracker, the FuelBand SE, which worked beautifully on Apple's iOS devices and computers. Missing from the presentation, however, was any mention of Android.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the possible reasons why Nike's FuelBand won't have an Android app. Funny enough, those reasons that I analyzed are still as true today as they were eight months ago.

By the way, John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) wrote a short but excellent post on why Cheng's premise is flawed.

The Chromecast is Great and Terrible

The Google Chromecast is an interesting beast. It isn't quite a Roku and it isn't quite an Apple TV. Instead, it is something more. And something less.

The Chromecast is a nifty little device. It is roughly the size of a key fob for a rental car and fits snugly into an HDMI port (and if your TV supports USB power then you don't have to worry about using the power adapter). The unboxing experience is elegant. The setup experience, however, was not.

Hypothetically, you should just be able to plug in the Chromecast, switch the TV input, and configure the device using your laptop/tablet/phone. Unfortunately, that didn't work quite so well for me. I was ready to start configuring my Chromecast, but the Chromecast was unable to see my Wi-Fi network.

Silly me, I thought to myself, I forgot to add the Chromecast to the router's access list. No problem, I'll just add the MAC address to the list and retry the setup.

Nope, that didn't work.

Okay, I thought, maybe I'll look up some common problems with my router and the Chromecast. Nothing unusual listed. Might as well reboot the router in case it was stuck in some finicky state.

Okay, I'll try the setup again. Maybe I just got unlucky and there was some sort of interference.

Nope, that didn't work.

This time, the Chromecast gave me an error message that suggested that perhaps I had Access Point Isolation turned on for my router. A quick check of the router's settings verified that this was not the case.

At this point, I was red with fury. Why wouldn't this stupid thing work?!?!

Then, I had a moment of clarity: what if the Chromecast wasn't able to handle connecting to a Wi-Fi network that did not broadcast its name? With my last ounce of patience, I configured my router to broadcast its SSID.

Bingo. Major Tom to Ground Control; I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

Well then. Let's get started streaming. The Chromecast doesn't really do screen sharing the way that Apple's AirPlay lets users share content from their iPhone or iPad. It also doesn't have the 'plop down on the couch with a remote' simplicity that the Roku offers. No, the Chromecast offers less in order to offer more.

The Chromecast has a companion app available for the Chrome browser. With it, users can display any content on their TV that they can display in a Chrome browser tab. For my trials, I used YouTube and Hulu to see how the Chromecast would perform. Those sites are the main reason I decided to get the Chromecast, in order to fill the TV viewing gap that I was missing with having just the Roku.

In general, the streaming worked okay. There was a noticeable lag between the time I tapped on the video controls in my browser tab and when those controls made the same changes on the TV. The video quality was just about what I would expect with this kind of solution...okay, not great.

What do I think of the Chromecast? It fits my needs just fine. It is not as seamless an experience as the Roku or Apple TV, but it is far more flexible than those devices. It only costs $35. Can't beat that price.

I should also mention that I encountered some problems with interference when using a microwave oven at the same time I was streaming video. Get your popcorn ready, indeed. Just do it before you sit down to watch something, apparently.

The Nexus 7 Has Problems Displaying Videos from Vimeo

My friend Jigar, Android developer extraordinaire, has recently been showing me various features of the Google Nexus 7 (2013 version). This time, however, he showed me something...odd to say the least. His Nexus 7, it seemed, was having trouble displaying videos from the web.

More specifically, the Nexus 7 was having trouble displaying TED Talks and videos on The Verge. As shown in the embedded video, the Nexus 7 displayed a blank green screen instead of the actual content when the device was in landscape mode. Videos displayed just fine in portrait mode. One extra quirk was that the video would briefly return to normal in landscape mode when the device was about to transition to portrait mode.

After some additional testing, we determined that it wasn't all web videos that were problematic (Youtube, for example, worked fine) but just videos hosted by Vimeo. This Nexus 7 runs Android 4.3, so we asked another friend to try the same videos on his Google Nexus 4 that also runs Android 4.3. The videos worked perfectly on the Nexus 4, regardless of the source or the orientation of the device. The Nexus 7, it seems, has some sort of problem that isn't specific to Android 4.3.

Folks, this is a strange bug. I'm surprised that I haven't heard of this one before.

Thanks to my friend Jigar for bringing this to my attention. You can find his posts on Twitter as @jigarhb.

Japan Increases Its Lead in Virtual Girlfriend Technology with Hatsune Miku App for iOS

From the folks at Japanator:

Miku will dance with your music, communicate with you, play dress up, and give you presents to collect.

It won't be long before someone marries this virtual girlfriend, folks.

Usain Bolt Has Gone Temple Running

Tom Phillips, over at Eurogamer:

12 months have passed since the glory of London 2012. Jessica Ennis is now appearing in skin care ads. Olympic Park is being dismantled, and gold medallist Usain Bolt is now available to purchase as a playable character in endless runner Temple Run 2.

If you've ever had the desire to play as an Olympic gold medalist in Temple Run 2, then now's your chance. As for me, I remember having a lot of fun playing World Class Track Meet for the NES with my cousins.

'Home' is a Good Horror Game for iOS

'Home' is one of those games that sneaks up on you, no pun intended. At first glance, it doesn't seem like much but as you progress through the game you find that there is so much more to be found. Without going too far into spoiler territory, the story revolves around a character who wakes up with a damaged leg and then has to unravel a mystery surrounding his amnesia.

This is a game that follows the traditional 'point-and-click' adventure style. The graphics have a retro feel to them, and the use of the flashlight provides an appropriately creepy feeling. Likewise, the audio effects are excellent in the way they emphasize the tension being felt by the character (and by extension, the player).

Tension and anticipation are the main draw of this game. Transitions between different rooms use a door animation that is reminiscent of the transitions between rooms in Resident Evil. You never know what to expect next around every corner or every item you pick up (or don't pick up), and the choices you make throughout the game impact the ending of the game.

Folks, give this one a try. I recommend playing late at night in a dark, quiet room. The experience is so much better that way.

'Zombiegal Kawaii' is an Odd Yet Fun Game for iOS

Zombiegal Kawaii is a side-scrolling game for iOS (iPhone/iPad) that pits players against hordes of zombies that have taken over your hometown. There are other games that follow this same basic plot, but where Zombiegal Kawaii separates itself from the pack is through its unique character design and character audio.

The main character is a gun-toting schoolgirl that is drawn chibi style. As the player plays the game, the girl will make some sort of context sensitive utterance (in a stereotypically syrupy sweet voice). If you pick up ammo, she will say 'yokatta wa (good)' . Picking up a health kit will elicit a 'daijoubu (I'm ok/not hurt)' . If you go on a bit of a rampage and get multiple kills in a row, she will exclaim 'shinde! shinde! (die! die!)'. These character quips, coupled with the fact that you are fighting chibi-zombie girls, make for fun and fast-paced gameplay.

Zombiegal Kawaii is $0.99 in the App Store, but plays like a freemium game. I've previously written about how certain games have really missed the mark and others have done really well with integrating freemium aspects into the gameplay, and this game leans towards the latter. There is a 'energy meter' that limits how many levels you can play in any one sitting. This energy meter, of course, is intended to encourage you to pay for an in-app purchase that gives you more energy (and thus more play time). This game is best played in relatively short bursts, so this energy meter never really bothered me much (though I can see how it might bother folks who want to play more).

As you progress through the game, your character gains experience and picks up money from fallen zombies. These can be spent in the 'store' screen where you can buy new guns or other kinds of weapons such as a baseball bat or katana. You can also purchase 'attribute enhancements' that impact character stats such as speed, accuracy, or counter-moves.

Additionally, you can purchase outfits for your character. This brings up what is perhaps the biggest downside to the game--the somewhat sleazy way that the character is presented in some of the loading screens and the in-app store. Tapping an item that you don't have enough in-app currency to afford brings up a prompt to go to the shop to buy coins, which is punctuated with a picture of the main character in her underwear and in a suggestive pose (drawn in a much more realistic style than normally seen through gameplay). The juxtaposition of the cute, chibi-style and the sexualized versions of the character is odd, to say the least.

Folks, Zombiegal Kawaii is a game that is worth a look. The touch controls work well, and the visual design and audio work is appealing. The art style may not appeal to everyone, but fans of anime and manga will find the style familiar and inviting.

Not Going to Violate Apple's NDA

Some folks have asked me to write about my impressions on iOS 7. Unfortunately, as an iOS developer I am bound by the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) regarding software and features that are not yet released. In essence, if Apple did not show the information at their WWDC Keynote, it can't be discussed with the general public. While Apple did show a lot of good stuff in the keynote, the things that I found most interesting were not shown/described in the keynote and therefore under NDA.

I currently have the iOS 7 beta installed on an old phone and I have been trying out its various features and getting a better idea of how its new design language works. Folks, rest assured that I will write about iOS 7 when it becomes publicly available sometime this autumn with the release of this year's new iPhone.