I now have my video workflow set up, so here’s the first video: a short introduction to Story Complete for the About page.
Update: I am now showing the YouTube versions of the videos to ensure the widest coverage. I have therefore removed the links to the downloadable self-hosted versions of the videos for the time being.
By default the embedded video player starts with the SD video. To view the HD version click on the HD link in the top right corner of the player. Swapping from SD to HD restarts the video from the beginning.
Apple’s walled garden is becoming a hermetically sealed world with a (secret) licence agreement to sterilise every input.
The clash of worldviews between Apple and developers took a turn for the worse this week. For the first time, Apple will be banning meta programming tools for the iPhone and iPad. Section 3.3.1 of the latest iPhone Developer Program License Agreement states:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Software protection schemes annoy customers and don’t stop real pirates. Better to have a remarkable product and a story to spread.
So, it only took 2 days to hack the Apple iPad. Trusting DRM to work was unrealistic on Apple’s part. Even so, we in the B2B software business have our own blind spot when it comes to software protection.
Each of the software products I’ve worked on has included a protection system. Sometimes a hardware dongle, but more commonly software-based schemes linking the software licence to the customer’s hardware configuration.
We were scared customers wouldn’t pay if they didn’t have to. With licence fees starting at $10K for each developer seat, hundreds of thousands were at stake.
Tablets are increasingly around when customers spread your story, so it’s time to start thinking about tablet-compatible content.
The Apple iPad and other tablets open attractive new channels for storytelling. Increasingly be a tablet will be around when your customer spreads your story.
Unlike notebooks, tablets are easily and naturally shared by passing them back and forth. Ideal for ad-hoc demos in the pub!
Check your website looks good in both portrait and landscape at tablet resolutions (1024×768 for the iPad). Check you’re using supported file formats. The Apple iPad doesn’t support Adobe’s Flash, so you’ll need to re-encode videos in H.264 format.
Apple launches the iPad today, so time to share my Steve Jobs story. It’s about the nearest I’ll ever come to working with him!
The story’s set 20 years ago when I was building cross-platform application development tools. Our customer’s worldview was that their applications would be running for decades. They expected to move from one platform to another as technology changed. They wanted to build platform-independent apps.
Customers liked hearing what others were doing. One story was about a customer in Switzerland using a Unisys mainframe as a server. Nothing unusual there. What made them remarkable, however, was that their clients were NeXT workstations from Steve Jobs’ Next Computer, Inc. Back then this sounded (and was) an exotic combination.
