The end of the year brings awards season, and I’ve seen two whoppers come my way already. Earlier this month Apple named Pandora top free app for 2008. And just now Time magazine named Pandora the number one iPhone app for 2008.
Holy cow!
I’ve been silently here lately — building the Pandora iPhone app is a big reason why — but I’m hoping to write more in the coming year about developing Pandora for iPhone.
I was interviewed by the Mobile Orchard folks recently, discussing a range of interesting stuff about developing the Pandora iPhone app. There’s a few good tidbits about iPhone dev and a some other tidbits about UI design/development. Take a listen if you’d like to hear my cheery voice.
My good friend Dan Grigsby has a new blog: Mobile Orchard. It’s all about iPhone development. He’s started up a podcast series kicking things off with Hampton Catlin, creator of the iPedia app. Check it out, it’s good stuff. Dan has a keen eye for what developers like and need. I’m looking forward to seeing what Mobile Orchard holds in store.
When I was at The Ajax Experience this past week, a couple different people asked my opinion on ES-Harmony (and the demise of ES4). And then I remembered that my poor blog has been quite lonely lately.
So here’s my thoughts, pretty straightforward: I’m glad to see everyone moving in the same direction. I think ultimately it was the right decision, but I feel a bit disappointed too. My understanding of what happened is that some of the core foundation of the design — namespacing and program units — proved unworkable under extended scrutiny. And without them it was thought that a clean slate with lessons learned would be best. This was a “good” reason for ES4 to fail, and there’s a subtle point in this: the design process worked as intended! Unlike some have claimed, there was no intent to “rush” ES4 to standardization. Instead, there was steady, iterative work using a reference implementation and real-world implementations to gather experience. And in time it was discovered that certain features came at too great a cost. Better to find that out now than later — which is how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?
I look forward to what ES-Harmony will bring, and ES-3.1 can’t get here soon enough. (As in, the design for it *should* have already been completed. *cough*) I sense some “hardliner” stances may be unfolding with regard to ES-Harmony, which would certainly prove to be a bad thing. I hope I’m mistaken about this.
I’m going to be in Boston starting tomorrow for The Ajax Experience. (I’m speaking on Wednesday…first time…yikes!) If you happen to be there and want to meet up, drop me a line.