Can anyone recommend a good task management application for PC? I used to use Palm Desktop and loved it but now I use a Black Berry and Outlook at work, however I find Outlook's task functionality fairly painful to use. Going back to Palm Desktop could work but I really just need something that does tasks management very well and is not too heavyweight.
On my Mac at home I've been looking at OmniFocus which seems fairly decent but it is a Mac only application and I really need something for the PC I use at work.
Google Calendar supports tasks (new feature, very bare bones), or you can use the RememberTheMilk site/gmail add-on. It's has all the basic features you could ever want and it's simple to use. If you use an iPhone or the gPhone you can access the website in a 1st class experience from both your desktop and your pocket.
Here is a very simple and intuitive tree based task list.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/todolist2.aspx Comes free with source code and many plug-ins
I quite like Life Balance from Llamagraphics. I used to use it on my palm and then treo.
But it also works on Mac and PC (and IPhone). I don't think there is a blackberry version.
It can be used as a basic todo list, but it also has some nice outlining features and a nice way of setting priorities. The IPhone version is still a bit clunky compared to the Palm version, but it's usable. All the versions can synch with each other and on the Mac it has some synch capability with iCal.
I've actually started using Evernote and a Moleskin Journal for tracking what I work on from day to day. Although Evernote is a note taking application it is general enough and has tags which seems enough for general task management.
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I am working on an app for Android, but would like to have it ported in the future to iPhone and (if it seems to gain significant market share in the future) WP7/8.
I know nothing about any mobile platform other than Android. Should I be using C++ (NDK), Java, or something else to get as much portability as possible? I assume I will have to rewrite (or have someone rewrite) at lest part of it, but I would like to make as much of the codebase as possible portable.
Edit: It is a simple app that "scans" a barcode (camera) or has the number typed in, sends some information to a server, gets back some more info (probably in XML, but could be whatever works best) and displays it in a few simple screens.
Edit 2: The 4 parts I have, and would like to ideally make them portable are:
Scan a barcode (probably the hardest to make portable)
Allow entering a barcode number manually
Send and receive some custom data
Display a few screens (This can be in HTML, if I have an option to make it look "native", not like the browser window displaying a webpage it is)
For a non-trivial app that isn't a game, there are currently no mature solutions to this problem.
Tools like Titanium Mobile and PhoneGap are meant to help you do exactly what you want, but impose limitations on what your app can do and are so far at the cutting edge of development that they often introduce bugs of their own that you won't be able to fix. Additionally, you're at their developer's mercy when it comes to support for alternative platforms like WP7 or Blackberry. In some cases, these might be worth the risk, or you may get lucky, but you need to be wary before rushing to use them.
Often, the best technique is still just to develop independent codesbases. You can model them after each other in architectural terms, and if you do so it isn't typically that hard to translate between different platforms.
Another technique to aid in portability for many apps is to use embedded web browsers where it makes sense. This allows you design some of your views in HTML/CSS/Javascript rather than with native UI tools, and then just load them into the aforementioned embedded web browsers on each platform.
Depends on how many platforms you are aiming for.
I have some experience doing iPhone + Android. Honestly, I wouldn't spend too much time trying to learn a portability tool on top. I have done couple of apps (simple communication stuff + a light weight game) and my experience is so far - assumed you are familiar with both - it is far faster + easier to just write your app and then port it.
Besides the normal coding work, the most difficult tasks are to develop the app structure including the main classes and data structures - this you can copy basically 1 to 1 in terms of structure of course - not code.
Also since you will keep getting updates on different platforms like iOS (Android + Eclipse are a little slower it seems to come up with updates/upgrades), which make life easier all the time, you would most probably have a big disadvantage when relying on someone elses portability development toolkit.
So far - certainly not to be taken as a general rule - while development on iPhone took 100%, porting it on Android took at most 30-40%
This question is way too broad, it depends on what kind of app you're doing.
Generally speaking, if you're just as good off doing a web app, do that. It'll work across different platforms.
MonoTouch / MonoDroid by Xamarin (previously owned by Novell) allow you to write C# (the language used by WP7) for iOS/Android, respectively. It is not free, however.
I don't believe the frameworks go so far as to include cross-platform UI, but I'd say that's probably a good thing. At least your application logic can remain the same across platforms.
I've not used the framework myself, so I cannot vouch for it.
We do use MonoTouch/MonoDroid and it helps us to simultaneously support WM/WP7/Android/iOS. The common denominator of all these platforms (after employing Xamarin products) is .Net.
The policy of our company is to maintain toolkits for all platforms that provide similar UI. Then the apps can be written in a nearly platform-agnostic way. This isn't, however, a general statement as the independency refers to the specific types of applications.
I don't advise using our toolkits for your case as it looks like an overkill. However, investing into C#/.Net might not be a bad idea.
U should definitely go with the easiest route: Java.
You will still have to rework a lot while porting, but if you were using NDK, the overhead for Android itself might be similar.
(In an average app. As you havent provided too much information about the project, the answer couldnt be more specific. If you are developing a performance-critical app, like a 3D game, you should consider NDK for the high porfile program parts).
Edit: for this scanning solution, I would go with Java on android and wont bother with portability. For a project with such a clean application logic it wont worth the effort to make it portable (except if the aim of the project is to experiment with application portability, but as far as I got it, it isnt).
I've been developing for quite a while but while I consider myself competent (or better) with C++, Java, C# & AS3/Flex in areas from web-servers to desktop applications to 3D games, I'm aware all these languages are pretty similar; even on the libraries side I know what to look for based on using libraries that do similar things in another language.
But Objective C I understand to be a different kettle of fish, and developing for mobile devices has always struck me as likely to be hard work since you have to develop on your PC and test on the actual device itself - my experience developing for PS2 put me off such things due to poor debuggers and other tools.
What's the reality? Is it a paradigm shift to move from web-servers and desktop apps and rich web-clients to iPhone... or for an experienced developer is it just another language to learn and new libraries to play with? Is there anything to be scared about at all?
edit: My main question on Obj-C specifically was if it's a different way of programming, like it would be moving to Haskell from Java for instance. It sounds this is not the case.
For starters, ObjC is fairly easy to grasp so long as you focus on the fundamentals. Don't worry about the syntax, there's not much there above C which I will presume you already are familiar with. There are excellent books out there this book is the definitive guide I recommend to most new users, Erica Sadun also has a good book on iPhone development, I recommend both of these highly.
Secondly, the tools aren't hard to use, and you will be pleasantly surprised with the debugger and other tool integration. Instruments was a long time coming, but it's indispensable for catching things like memory leaks, cpu time usage, and now power consumption.
But really, nothing to be scared about, and as for another platform to learn; well, yes and no. There is always going to be another thing to learn, regardless of iPhone or something else. Don't resist. :)
There's definitely a "paradigm shift" (ugh, buzzwords):
You don't have all the memory in the world (and there's no swap either)
You don't have all the CPU time in the world
You probably don't want a binary bigger than about 20 MB (the size that can be downloaded over the cell network)
You can't just change the server backend to make things right.
Graphic design is important if you want to be successful (but you don't want to bloat your app)
Web requests take a while (a website with redirects feels really slow compared to the desktop beside it).
JavaScript animations are painfully slow (ever tried the Google Maps website on an iPhone?)
UI design is heavily constrained by the size of the user's finger (even though the iPhone 4 has a comparatively huge screen).
UI design is really tedious.
The user can do more things than clicking and typing.
I find that the biggest difference is in the UI, not in the language. Languages are easy. Libraries require a little reading/searching/asking around, but then they're easy. UI design and UI programming are very difficult to do well.
Objective C is different but not far removed from normal OO methods. The syntax was the larger barrier for me.
The problem I saw was/is you learn ObjC for iPhone, and you can't take the skill (ObjC knowledge) outside the Applesphere really. I haven't seen a use for it. I have a handful of books I went through to get my feet wet. Some of these, the Apress books, contained errors in the code walkthroughs causing me to Google the book errata countless times.. so be careful of that, if you learn that way.
Also, unless this has changed, you can only develop under OSX with the SDK tools because no Windows version exists to my knowledge.
With that, you also have to play by Apples development rules to get published into the AppStore, which has had its share of dev horror stories.
That said, a working app is fun and beautiful in the end.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it's about a 6.
Apple does use Objective C and it is different then normal C. So Iphone and IPad development can be hard if you've never used Objective-C before. If you are familiar at all with a language called SmallTalk, then Objective-C will be very easy for you to pick up.
Now other mobile devices, such as Android, uses Java. If you are competent in Java then Android development may be easier for you.
Some devices use Windows Mobile. If you are a .NET programmer, you can use .NET compact framework to develop Windows Mobile Apps.
Just so you know too, most mobile SDKs come with an emulator to test your app on. So if you don't have an iPhone, for example, you can still test your app with the emulator. I understand that the emulator is supposed to be 99% as accurate as an actual device
I don't think there's anything to be scared of.
The simulator's pretty alright, even if it can't handle some things - it's hard to simulate the accelerometer, for instance!
Once you're over the hurdle of figuring out what certs you need and setting up the iPhone development account and such, it's fine.
It's a bit of a pain writing something, loading it on the device, trying it out, etc., but the fact that you can actually debug the code running on the device makes it rather a lot nicer than it could be. (I had to maintain an application for the Nokia 9110, and there I had to edit, compile, load, run, crash blindly, stare at code, guess, edit, compile, etc.)
As a long time Windows C++ / .NET developer, I didn't find it very difficult to begin developing in Objective C.
There are some syntax differences that take some getting used to, but in general it similar enough to C/C++ to not feel like a completely new language.
Learning the library code and what you can and can't do easily seems like the larger challenge to me, which is going to be a challenge with any new platform.
I am writing a beginner book called Hello! iPhone, and I've made a mailing list of beginner tips to help people get started. After a week or so of tips, you'll be much more equipped to check out other books and understand the basics a bit better to judge.
http://loufranco.com/beginner-iphone-programming-tips/
It will take you through Hello, World and some other simple stuff (Outlets and Actions, basic memory management, etc).
What kind of practices do you do when developing iPhone apps? For instance, do you write up a technical design document of any sort. Do you write down the design of your app at all? Do you implement a certain methodology agile/scrum/waterfall etc...? I'm just curious when working on projects like an iPhone app, what kind of best practices do people use or do people just go at it?
I've worked on a few iPhone apps, and I've found this workflow works pretty well:
Figure out what the app is going to do. Create a one sentence description of the app that embodies what you're trying to do. If you can't explain the core functionality in one sentence, people won't get it!
Create interface mockups for each screen of the app on paper, and then in Adobe Fireworks. Fireworks' native file format is PNG, so it's easy to create images for use in the actual app later.
Figure out how you're going to architect your app using Model-View-Controller and the other iPhone app design patterns (delegates, dataSources, etc...). Don't try to do something other than MVC. The whole SDK is built around MVC!
Start coding! I usually start with the bare functionality first. For a drawing app, I implement the drawing controller and the important drawing views (color picker, etc..) first. I back things up to an offsite SVN repository as I go using Versions (I haven't had much luck with the repository support in Xcode)
Distribute a beta version of the app to a group of AdHoc testers. This helps a lot. Getting the app in the hands of a few extra people really helps isolate usability issues and bugs that are hard for a single developer to find.
Repeat until satisfied and Apple approves :-)
I haven't done much with iPhone development, but its irrelevant. I wouldn't consider it any different from any other developmental process.
The process is different for each case, some have at it and others follow their development methodologies.
As one who is about to dabble in his first iPhone app, I don't think there is any one methodology that rules over any other. You can apply any of the techniques you mention to an iPhone app, just like any other development effort.
A key thing about iPhone apps, or any Apple related development effort, is that Apple sort of forces you to follow certain design guidelines. That is good in some ways (less to concern yourself with) and bad in others (restrictive).
Also, Objective-C and Cocoa Touch can also lend itself to certain ways of programming.
Now, specifically for me, as a sole developer, I will probably:
Jot down high level features of what I want to be included in the first version
Do an interface mockup (either on paper or with a software tool)
Jot down some key objects and functions (psuedo-code)
Set up a source control mechanism (I think this is key)
Start going at it
Possible repeat of any or all of 1-3 :-)
I prefer to start with small proof-of-principle projects to test out different capabilities of the device that I need for my final product. This is especially important on a mobile device like the iPhone, because hardware limits on memory, processing power, graphics, or display size can render some ideas impractical. It's best to know that your application won't work as you imagined after only a couple of days of playing around, rather than after a month of development.
John Geleynse and others at Apple advocate starting your design with a single sentence that describes your product and its intended audience, and building everything around that mission statement. I've found that this works extremely well for determining what features to incorporate or leave out of a product, particularly on the iPhone. Having a simple core product description at the center of your design is also extremely helpful when you need to explain this product to others in your later marketing efforts.
Aside from that, I've found that iterative development incorporating lots of testing and user feedback has worked for me on every platform I've developed for.
I need to build an application which will run on OS X, polling for data, and displaying that data full-screen in a purty, graphical way - generally "identifier: value" text in some sort of tabular format, but possibly with spark-lines to display historical changes, and "animations" (nothing fancy, just fading text and similar) to show updates.
However, I've no idea where to get started. I've no experience with desktop application development or development on a mac.
Where/at what should I be looking for OS X development information which will get me quickly up-to-speed (coming from a web-dev background)?
For OS X development, and a really nice overview that will get you writing actual applications quickly, I'm not sure anything can match Aaron Hillegass' book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.
It's considered by many to be the Bible of Cocoa programming, and it is example driven. You are writing applications that you can actually run throughout.
It is useful, although not as much so, for iPhone development, which you don't mention in your question, but you do in your tags.
If you really want to go native with OS X that will mostly mean learning Objective-C and Cocoa. You get started by becoming an Apple Developer Connection (ADC) member and downloading XCode. Inside the ADC site there is a lot of information that will help you get started, Objective C reference, sample code, etc. .
Depending on your background you might want to consider using Adobe Air for your application, if you know Flex or Flash that might be easier for you to learn.
There are also a couple of question already up on stackoverflow on this subject https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=learn+cocoa
Take a look at http://www.realsoftware.com. It's a cross platform development environment. Easy to learn, established user community, lot's of sample, shared code to get you started.
I'm an undergraduate university student who also writes iPhone applications. Next year I'm expected to do a final project, something that lasts the full year and involves a fair bit of software engineering.
My original plan was to write an object-relational wrapper around SQLite for the iPhone (or rather, to massively clean up and extend one I already have) and ultimately release it as open source. Unfortunately, with Core Data being added to iPhone OS 3.0, that's no longer really necessary. (At least, that's how it seems to me; any opinions on this?)
However, I'd still like to do a useful, technically interesting iPhone-related project next year. So here's my question: what do developers need? What sort of problems do you encounter in your apps which seem like they could be handled by some sort of library or framework? My focus is generally more on utility, productivity, and communication apps than games. And since I'm proposing this to a university, something that's either theoretically interesting or attractive to potential students would be preferred. And of course, it'll need to be something that they haven't added to the new version of iPhone OS.
It's in the early stages, but a bunch of scientifically-minded Cocoa developers (headed by Drew McCormack) have joined together to start a BSD-licensed data charting / plotting / visualization framework called Core Plot (mailing list here). This framework is cross-platform between Mac and iPhone, relying on Core Animation for rendering.
While you wouldn't be starting your own project fresh, contributing to this open source framework would be technically challenging and I believe that the framework will have far-reaching applications. I'm sure that the university would be impressed by the potential scientific and educational uses of such a framework.
A library that provides a very simple API that would enable any app to act as an OAuth consumer would be incredible! It could be used to enable data access against hundreds of OAuth-enabled data APIs all over the web, including those of Google, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo, Flickr, etc. Imagine how many thousands of additional applications you could enable other developers to build with ease.
Your code could be included in pretty much every worthwhile iPhone app that any future developer writes!
I'd like to see a framework that abstracts the interface to various social networking sites. Having a standard API to send updates and post pictures to MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Picassa, Blogger, Twitter, and other services would be very useful.
A general purpose framework to communicate with a particular iphone from any application with internet connectivity. iphone apps are great, but so much more can be delivered with serivces from the web - so some sort of communications would be nice.
Make some sort of API that can be used to talk to iphone from other connected applications - either web services or desktop, etc.
I ended up having to go in a different direction due to the rules of the project, but I'll keep these in mind as possibilities for future, non-university work. Thanks, everyone!