Perry Hoekstra

Both Samsung and Microsoft have either announced or unveiled a line of phones that have been dubbed “superphones”.  In the case of Samsung, the Galaxy Note, considered a cross between a tablet and a smartphone due to its size, contains a massive 5.3-inch display with a 1280 x 800-pixel resolution. Microsoft’s roadmap indicates that they […]

It has been no secret that Apple’s iPad has pretty much eaten Google Android’s lunch both in terms of sales and the accolades of the technical press.  However, in one area, Android has outshone Apple and that is flexibility. This is by design on both Apple and Google’s part.  In the case of Apple, Steve […]

Gartner just published their top predictions for 2012 and beyond and the one that caught my eye was the mobile one: By 2015, mobile application development (AD) projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4-to-1. Now, obviously mobile has been one of the largest IT stories for 2011 […]

One of the areas where the iPhone/iPad has trumped the Android platform is in the area of good UI design standards.  Apple has an entire website devoted to human interface guidelines for the iOS platform.  I would not be the only Android developer who has relied on the Apple guidelines in the development of a […]

The impact of tablets on the consumer market and to a lesser extent, the business market is highlighted in a new report from Canalys: “Canalys today announced that it expects Apple to overtake HP to become the leading global PC vendor before the second half of 2012. Pads, and particularly the iPad, have radically changed […]

It is interesting to note that in the final chapter in the webOS saga is HP has decided to open-source the operating system HP received in the purchase of Palm back in 2010.  George Santayana once wrote in his Reason in Common Sense that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  […]

How often have you seen two teenagers, sharing music through an iPod and each having a single ear bud? Google has taken that idea a step further. Buried in the rollout of Android 4.0 and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was the announcement of Android Beam, which uses near field communication (NFC) to instantly share web […]

After being pelted with all of the news of the Apple iPhone 4s, Androidians™ finally have a reason to smile. Google debuted Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) last week at the rollout of the Samsung  Galaxy Nexus in Hong Kong. Android 4 is the first unified version for tablets and smart phones. Android smartphone developers […]

I had some down time which allowed me to explore an alternative mobile development strategy which is to use a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (or MEAP, a technical term coined by Gartner) to build cross-mobile device applications.  Back in 2009, Gartner made one of their famous quotes that seem to get a lot of airplay […]

The much heralded Amazon Android-based tablet, the Kindle Fire, has now been released and much was made in its pre-release state on how it was going to be the next iPad killer, titles previously held by the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.  Now that the device has seen the light of day, is […]

Your iPhone native application has been extremely successful and of course, customers have been asking when a similar Android native application will be available.  So, you assign the design of the Android application to your user interface design person who in turn dusts off the iPhone wireframe documents.  But wait, where does your user interface […]

IDC just published their latest PC sales forecast and what caught my eye is that netbooks had dropped as a percentage of PC sales (desktops, laptops, netbooks) from 22% down to 12% last year and slowed even more the first part of this year.  This year, netbook unit sales are expected to be in the […]