Web Worker Daily

In the past I’ve been known to speak rashly. I actually declared the BlackBerry the victor in matters of mobile device web working, but a recent development in the iPhone world has me wanting to recant. Those of you familiar with my Apple  leanings will no doubt utter, “Hmph. Figures,” and wash your hands of me, but I beg you to bear with me and learn the reason for my latest team change.

iPhone OS 3.0 brings a lot of new features to the table, but I could’ve easily gone on living without all of them, copy and paste included, except for push notifications. Push is the killer feature that elevates the iPhone platform to a whole new level of usability, both as a standalone device, and as a piece of companion hardware to your existing workstation setup.

The iPhone has taken the place of an entire screen in my current home office configuration, freeing up a whole display for more productive use. Here’s a breakdown of the apps that make this possible, and how I use them. Read the rest of this entry »

The iPhone OS 3.0 software update is now available for download. If you’re wondering about the benefits of updating, check out Darrell’s WWD post “Apple iPhone OS 3.0: A Web Working Perspective.” As Darrell’s an Apple Developer Program member, he had a chance to play the with the beta of this update before us regular mortals, and got hands-on with some of the nifty new web worker-friendly features in this update:

• Cut, Copy and Paste (at last!)
• Spotlight (system-wide search)
• Landscape keyboard in all default apps
• MMS

While these features are all great, and in the case of MMS and copy/paste have been a long time in coming, as Darrell rightly points out in this post over at TheAppleBlog, what’s really exciting is the possibilities for new apps. Thanks to the new APIs available for developers: device support, push notifications and in-app commerce will all bring exciting new apps and functionality to every web worker’s iPhone. Indeed, as Om notes, these new features and an upsurge in engrossing new apps could spur mobile data usage to greater heights.

What are you waiting for? Go download it and let us know your thoughts the update in the comments.

Tuesday marked the official day of reveal for the upcoming iPhone 3.0 firmware and SDK update. Those of you without iPhones probably aren’t quite as interested as those of us who do have them, but there are enough changes to make at least a few converts, I’m guessing. And while the changes are just generally cool, they provide some really solid web working benefits as well. As an Apple Developer Program member, I recently got my hands on the OS 3.0 beta (it won’t be released to the public until the summer); I can already tell it’ll significantly affect how I go about doing my work.

First, I want to look briefly at the possibilities the new APIs available to developers allow. I won’t go into too much detail, because at this point it’s mainly speculation, but the possibilities are exciting. I’m especially looking forward to what push notification will allow for GTD and task management apps, and the possibilities surrounding hardware-specific app communication, which might finally allow full-size keyboard interaction and give me a more portable mobile work solution than even my Asus Eee PC currently provides.

Setting aside fantasies that may never come to pass, let’s take a look at what the concrete feature additions built-in to the OS itself bring to the table. Read the rest of this entry »