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Ford loads up Spotify as the first apps make it through its open dev program

Kevin Fitchard — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:56:06 +0000

Spotify has made its first connected car appearance. At Mobile World Congress, Ford and Spotify announced that the subscription music service will soon be available over the Sync AppLink platform and integrated with the Sync’s voice command system in Ford vehicles in the U.S., Europe and Australia.

According to Spotify Global Head of Hardware Partnerships Pascal de Mul, the updated iPhone (No word on Android support yet) will soon be able to pair with the dashboard AppLink system, streaming music through the car’s entertainment systems. Users will be able to play their songs, playlists and radio stations and even be able to create new radio stations on the fly with simple voice commands, he said.

Ford has been loading up on music streaming apps in AppLink, making it a key initial focus of its connected car strategy. Its library of supported services includes Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, MOG Music, Slacker, and Rhapsody as well as multiple radio station’s digital apps.

Ford CTO Paul Mascarenas said digital music streaming figures right into Sync’s sweet spot. Ford doesn’t have to explain the utility of the services to the driving public since music is already the most popular form of entertainment in the car. The integration of a streaming service into Sync is relatively simple. And since the content is audio only and can be manipulated through Sync commands, the apps all easily meet Ford’s requirements that no connected car app distract a driver from the road, he said.

At the show Ford also revealed it is adding AppLink connectivity to its EcoSport crossover SUV (pictured at top) just in time for its European debut. For also brought several apps Europe that were previously available in U.S. cars: Kaliki, Glympse and Aha Radio.

We got a chance to sit down with Mascarenas for a few minutes at MWC to get a quick update on Ford’s new open development platform, originally unveiled at CES. Though the program is barely more than a month old, 2500 developers have already signed up and downloaded the SDK. Many of those devs have already completed apps and have submitted them to Ford, and a few those apps actually received final approval, Mascarenas said. Mascarenas said Ford plans to announced those apps in the coming weeks.

Spotfiy doesn’t count since it began working with Ford before the development program was launched, Mascarenas said, but the program has opened up Sync to a lot of smaller developers who wouldn’t usually get Ford’s direct attention. Ford is now faced with a distribution and discovery issue. “If you go into an app store, there’s no easy way to find the apps that AppLink-enabled, Mascarenas said.

When the number of Sync apps was small, Ford could promote them individually. But there are now 63 AppLink-optimized apps, and that number will grow significantly as the apps start emerging from the developer program. Ford is working on ways to catalog them. Whether that means creating its own app store or portal Android or working with Apple and Google to spotlight connected car software, Mascarenas didn’t say. Ford could also go with the approach, GM appears to be adopting and create a catalog in the dashboard itself.

Correction: An early version of this post stated that Spotify’s Sync integration capabilities would be available on both Android and iOS devices. However the initial launch will support only the iPhone.

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Forget apps, Ford’s OpenXC project will produce open-source car hardware

Kevin Fitchard — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:48:50 +0000

Ford’s revelation this week that it would open up its Sync Applink connected car platform to third-party developers was apparently just the beginning of its plans to evolve its vehicles. On Thursday, Ford announced it is taking its OpenXC open-source hardware program out of beta, making the deepest inner workings of the car open to engineers who want to design apps and even modular hardware components for the future automobiles.

OpenXC is a joint project between Ford and open-source hardware developer Bug Labs to bridge the gap between the highly specialized and proprietary world of automotive computing and the world of open development. As part of that collaboration, Bug Labs demonstrated it could design new aftermarket hardware components like a solar-powered heads-up display that could be easily installed and yet integrate seamlessly into the car’s communications network.

But the primary goal of the project was to create is a vehicle interface module based on the open-source hardware platform Arduino It plugs into car’s internal communications network and gains real-time access to vehicle performance data like speed, acceleration and braking as well as vehicle sensor data. The module then translates that information into a format an Android smartphone or tablet can decipher. Developer are then free to build smartphone apps that can read the vehicle data or use the interface as the basis for a new hardware that integrates directly into the car.

“Ford is committed to innovating with the help of software and now hardware developers,” Ford VP and CTO Paul Mascarenas said in a statement. “By connecting cars and trucks to wireless networks, and giving unheard-of access to vehicle data, entirely new application categories and hardware modules can be explored – safety, energy efficiency, sharing, health; the list goes on. OpenXC gives developers and researchers the tools they need to get involved.”

While there are some similarities between OpenXC and the new Ford Developer Program, it’s easiest to think about the former as an R&D platform for future technology and the Sync program as a commercial platform over which apps can be designed and distributed to millions of cars today. While Sync is primarily an infotainment platform – apps can play music, access Sync’s voice command system and use the in-vehicle displays, but they can’t figure out how fast your going or whether a semi is bearing down on your bumper.

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Continuous delivery and the world of devops

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 06:55:53 +0000

Thanks to the rise of online business, companies must now get their products and services to market as fast as they can, and releases that occur in periods of months or years are no longer competitive. As a result, the pattern of how to release software is changing from large, infrequent releases of new software to small, frequent releases. This paper explains the world of continuous delivery and its underlying philosophy, devops. It is intended for executives who determine their organization’s business strategies. If you are looking for ways to reduce time to market and are considering a realignment of traditional assumptions about the roles of development and operations, you require knowledge of new tools and new approaches.

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Exceptional Software finds success in errors

Ryan Kim — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:00:56 +0000

Errors can kill a startup. But for Exceptional Software, it’s been a goldmine. The San Francisco startup, which offers two error tracking services for web and mobile apps — Exceptional.io and Airbrake.io — has zoomed to 100,000 customers in 102 countries including Airbnb, Square, Skype, Groupon, HotelTonight and others.

The company bought Airbrake in February, added 25,000 customers since the acquisition and is now tracking about 250,000 errors every day. Exceptional, which has not taken outside funding, has achieved profitability and has seen revenues grow by 400 percent in the last year. The service covers 15 languages and frameworks with the top five being Ruby, iOS, Android, PHP and Javascript.

Exceptional’s success speaks to a lot of the trends in development these days as developers code in very agile environments with frequent deployments and increasingly rely on cloud services. The move to dynamic languages like Python and Ruby, which are now used alongside other languages, also creates more potential for apps and services to break.

And now with mobile apps rising, developers are also keeping track of both web and mobile errors. Mobile apps that rely on freemium models are especially in need of error tracking because they rely on conversion funnels that can be disrupted through exceptions.

“Our differentiation is we are targeting a complete view of applications both on mobile and on server side activity,” said CEO and founder Jonathan Siegel, an associate at Accel Partners.

Siegel said the company’s growth is showing no signs of letting up. But he’s not looking to just take in more customers. He said Exceptional wants to make the process of error reporting delightful. In the future, he wants to allow people to follow error reporting like customer service relationship management software so they track an error with a URL to see how it’s triaged. And he believes he can make the process of encountering dead links better for consumers, by automatically diverting people to another link or providing a custom message for users.

“We’re going back to customers and providing more value,” said Siegel. “We think this is a product that every company needs.”

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iOS and Mac developer conferences to check out in 2012

Geoffrey Goetz — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:38:47 +0000

CES and Macworld are hogging the event spotlight right now, but what about events for developers? Last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference sold out quick, and this year’s probably will too, so you may want to plan on alternate conference and training opportunities in 2012.

Even this year’s CodeMash 2.0.1.2, a developer’s conference in Sandusky, Ohio sold out in an amazing twenty minutes to over 1,200 attendees. So rather than holding out to see if Apple expands its own event, you should check out these upcoming alternatives:

MacIT in San Francisco at the Moscone Center Jan. 26-28, 2012.
360|MacDev in Denver at the Embassy Suites Feb. 3-4, 2012.
CocoaConf in Chicago at the Elk Grove Village March 16-17, 2012.
360|iDev in Denver at the Crowne Plaza Sept. 2012.
MacTech in Los Angeles Oct. 17-19, 2012

You may even be able to score an event closer to home by checking Eventbrite, or by contacting a local CocoaHead. However, if you have your heart set on attending WWDC, there may be something you can do about it.

Cult of Mac points out that there is a service that will send you an SMS message the moment WWDC tickets go on sale. WWDC Alerts, the site extending this offer, also has a Twitter account that you can follow if you prefer. So sign up for the alerts, monitor your Apple information channels, and you just might get in.

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Migrating media applications to the private cloud: best practices for businesses

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:01:23 +0000

If your company has a cloud application with a predictable audience size or one that is costing you more than $25,000 a month to host, you may want to consider maintaining a private cloud. This paper provides an overview of the factors that decision makers who are developing a public-to-private cloud-migration strategy should consider, recognizing that public versus private cloud strategy is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It also details pitfalls that must be avoided along the way and provides a case study of Zynga, a company that has found a way to use both the private and public clouds to create a hybrid solution. Companies mentioned in this report include Akamai, Foursquare, Nimbula and ARM. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

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The new litmus test for apps: How well does it AirPlay?

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:49:33 +0000

The first thing I do when people ask me to show them how to use their new Apple TV is to mirror the screen of my iPhone 4S to their device. It’s guaranteed to impress, especially if your audience is unaware the tiny black box could do that. You can see gears turning as people think about the implications of that capability combined with the apps they already use and love. And that’s why AirPlay should be a focal point for developers from here on out.

Hedging bets in case of an Apple television

That’s something Revolution Studios co-founder Tony Warriner suggested could be a good idea for game devs in an interview on Wednesday with PocketGamer.biz. Warriner said that AirPlay is “worth doing now, because as we all know, a big TV play from Apple is just around the corner,” even though for now it’s “like the big forgotten iOS feature” in many game developers’ minds.

Warriner’s suggestion for game developers to bake in AirPlay features now is mostly about future-proofing products. But even if an Apple TV set takes a long time to come to market, there is plenty of cause to use AirPlay now, for game developers and makers of any and all iOS apps, regardless of their niche or focus.

Apple TV’s shifting role

The current Apple TV is basically a great Netflix box for most users, which now also has the added advantage of being a full-featured audio and video streaming device for your mobile phone or tablet for just $99 (or $89 now, at Best Buy and Amazon). But in the near future, the Apple TV could see a role switch, with the expanded content of the entire App Store displacing the Netflix appeal as a No. 1 reason for owning and using the Apple set-top device.

The increased flexibility allowed by AirPlay Mirroring on Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad means that developers should start thinking about AirPlay not as an afterthought or preventative measure against future obsolescence but as a value-add competitive advantage that can help their product stand out from the growing crowd that is the App Store.

Go beyond the bare minimum

AirPlay compatibility isn’t just about allowing your content to be displayed on a TV when thrown from one device to another. It’s about making sure there’s a unique experience that only AirPlay users can access. Note that this also doesn’t mean taking anything away from the app itself as a standalone mobile product, just that users who can take advantage of the benefits of owning the Apple TV do have something more to make use of.

For some developers, providing a value-add AirPlay experience could be as simple as deciding to include a video or slide show alongside an article that can be thrown to the screen instead of providing text-based content alone or making sure it works in landscape orientation so it looks better on a TV. But more-ambitious (and therefore more-standout) examples could provide supplemental information or additional screens with hands-on demonstrations displayed back on the originating device while AirPlay video or slide shows appear on the TV screen. It’s definitely possible, as Real Racing 2 HD’s dual-screen gameplay mechanism demonstrates.

One more reason to buy

The bottom line is that if I’m looking at a video-focused app right now, I’ll try to find out how well it handles AirPlay. If it doesn’t, or if the experience is less than ideal, I’ll pass and try to find another. Soon, if any two apps are relatively close in terms of features and function but one offers a tailored AirPlay experience while the other doesn’t, it could become a crucial factor in a buying decision. The Apple TV isn’t yet a barn burner in terms of sales, but lower prices should help. It is still ranked No. 1 in Amazon’s Digital Media Devices sales charts and No. 2 in Television and Video.

Plus, AirPlay will only come to more devices as Apple goes about its regular update cycle, and it could even come to the Mac. In an ecosystem where discoverability can be a problem and marketing advantages are few and far between, real AirPlay innovation and dual-screen interfaces are the next frontier, and I can’t wait to see some pioneering developers stake their claim.

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App beta testing gets better with new TestFlight SDK

Darrell Etherington — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:44:13 +0000

Developers looking to beta test their apps before getting them into the App Store have a number of options for finding and communicating with beta testers, but few are as slick and easy to use as TestFlight. Now the provisioning tool gets even better, thanks to a number of updates in version two, which made its official debut on Monday.

The new version of TestFlight comes with an SDK that allows developers to make their beta testing process a lot more involved, and it provides improved tools for gathering feedback. Feedback and communication are key to a successful beta test (which is why I’m not a great tester myself), and the new features available to developers through TestFlight’s API are all about improving information flow between devs and testers.

Highlights of what developers can look forward to include:

In-App Questions. Trigger questions at specific checkpoints to get feedback from users as they’re using the software exactly at points where you think there might be an issue.
In-App Updates. Make sure your test group is on the same page with in-app update prompts, which also allow you to update to the latest version instantly over the air.
Feedback. In-app forms and tester email responses all feed into the developer dashboard and allow for instant replies between tester and coder.

There’s more, too, so be sure to head over to the official TestFlight website and check it out if you’re interested. Developers and testers alike can still sign up for free, too, and all of these new features arrive as free updates for existing and new users alike. Inevitably, TestFlight will have to bring some tiered paid options or advertising to the table to keep things going, but judging by developer response and its adoption by big brands so far, it won’t have too much trouble getting people to pay for the product when it does.

As for general consumers, even if you never actually use or see TestFlight in action, you’ll probably feel its effects: A better beta process with more communication options built in should lead to better shipping products popping up in the App Store.

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Screentaker creates iOS app action shots in seconds

Darrell Etherington — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:06:00 +0000

If you’re creating an app or promoting one for a friend or client, nothing quite makes the software pop like showing off screenshots on iOS devices. If you’re decently skilled with Photoshop, it isn’t too hard to do, but a new Mac App Store title lets you create pro-level mockups in a matter of seconds.

Screentaker ($4.99) from developer Fabian Kreiser lets you drag and drop screenshots taken on an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch onto a simple window, choose from device and display options using drop down menus, and output a finalized screenshot ready for your website or display ad in no time at all. The app detects what device the screenshot came from automatically, but you can also override this and choose yourself.

Aside from device frames, you can also choose to remove the status bar (useful if you don’t want carrier or time info distracting from the app itself), and add a thin border and shadow to iPhone screens, among other options. Enterprising users can also create their own plugins for Screentaker to add their own custom effects to the options already available.

If you’re a developer, you can also grab screen captures from the iOS device simulator that comes with Apple’s suite of development tools, so that you can mock up how an app will look on a device before it’s ready to be deployed. This is especially handy for selling your early-stage projects to investors or clients.

Resulting files are in .PNG format, with background transparency preserved, so you can plug them into whatever graphic presentation you need to easily. As someone who regularly uses iOS screenshots, I’m happy to have found such a neat little tool that will add a little more visual appeal to app reviews and profiles, and I’m sure devs will welcome this time saver even more.

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Dorsey dangles the Apple carrot for Twitter devs

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:45:43 +0000

How do you make amends with a development community after taking away some of their tools and rendering at least a few of their products unusable? Try offering them the keys to a much bigger kingdom, for starters. That seems to be just what Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is doing in new blog posted Thursday (via TechCrunch), in which he asks for developer feedback and talks about the near future, where “anywhere there’s an iPhone or an iPad, you’ll always find Twitter.”

Dorsey’s post, in which he points to a new discussion thread opened by Twitter in order to gather feedback about what tools and materials developers are looking for from the company, seems like a bit of a peace offering aimed at smoothing relations with a community that might be understandably skittish. In April last year, Twitter raised developer suspicion by acquiring Tweetie, a client for the service that had been independently operated by developer Atebits. Then earlier this year Twitter implemented new limits on third-party applications plugging into the system that prevented developers from accessing any of the real value of the Twitter ecosystem, as Mathew Ingram noted at the time. The company also bought another client, TweetDeck, in May, seeming to indicate that it wanted control over all major app and web-based access.

Twitter has been trying to turn the relationship around, introducing a dedicated site for platform developers in June, but it has a lot to make up for to win back developer trust. Persistent, system-level iOS integration could go a long way toward winning them back, but for that to happen Dorsey and Twitter need developers on their side as much or more than developers need Twitter.

For Twitter to capitalize on iOS 5 integration, it needs to make sure iOS app developers take advantage of that integration by building sharing options into their apps. System-level login will help put Twitter in front of many more users, but the service still depends on active sharing to exist, and third-party apps are the key to providing users with something they want to talk about.

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