The Tablet Show: Recent Episodes
Carl Franklin
Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell bring you the best minds in software development for tablets, covering WinRT/Metro, iOS, and Android development.
The Tablet Show interviews can now be heard every Wednesday on .NET Rocks! at http://dotnetrocks.com. Same great content, different website. This show is a five minute explanation by Richard and Carl.
Carl & Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about the latest incarnation of CSLA - version 4.5.5. The conversation starts out with a thorough refresher on CSLA, building business objects in portable, maintainable ways. Really portable - the objects even on run on phones! Rocky talks about making CSLA run on Android phones via Xamarin, but not on iOS - because of specific Apple rules. The conversation also dives into CSLA on tablets and tablets in the enterprise in general. It's a cool time to be a developer!
While at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Carl and Richard sat down with Todd Morrison to talk about his experiences building sophisticated media apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. The conversation starts out on HBO2Go, a Vertigo project to provide a 'second screen' experience around HBO on the XBox. From there, Todd digs into the continued evolution of web technologies, how responsive web design goes beyond dealing with different screen sizes and into different input options like touch and gesture, as well as screen distances - how does the ten-foot experience of the XBox change your interaction with the application? Lots of great thinking from someone at the leading edge of web apps!
Carl and Richard talk to Greg Shackles about his experiences building Olo - an online ordering platform for restaurants. Greg starts the conversation talking about the decision to move from a different mobile platform over to Xamarin so that they could provide support for the largest diversity of devices with the largest common code base. The conversation also digs into MvvmCross, a library for utilizing the MVVM pattern across multiple platforms - Greg takes advantage of MvvmCross to minimize the amount of unique code for each platform. Great case study of the potential of Xamarin!
Carl and Richard talk to Jacob Rossi from the Internet Explorer team about his experiences helping to develop HTML standards like Pointer Events. Jacob talks about how the HTML standards continue to evolve to deal with the changes in computing, including the diversification of input devices - how do you deal with mouse, pen, touch and gesture in a uniform way, while also taking advantage of the distinctive capabilities of each input method? The conversation digs into how the various browser makers, including Chrome and Mozilla (Firefox) work together to develop these standards, creating implementations in the browsers to test in the field, and then carry the learnings back to the group. We may only hear about how they compete in the market, but at the same time, they all work together to make the web a better place!
Carl and Richard talk to Justin Esgar about everything that goes into building a successful mobile app - not just development! Justin talks about his experiences building a variety of different mobile apps, mostly on the iOS platform. He digs into the challenges of getting a good idea together, outsourcing various services (including development), how to get your app accepted in the AppStore, how to actually market your app effectively, and what success looks like. Much of what Justin has done is in his book Appitalize on Your Idea, links in the show notes!
Carl and Richard talk to Domenic Denicola about his experiences taking HTML beyond HTML 5. The conversation starts out talking about Domenic's experiences getting WebKit working inside the Nook to implement the reader. Then it moves to WinJS - Domenic worked on a textbook reader for Windows 8 using WinJS. Domenic talks about the challenges of the 1.0 version of WinJS, working around testing limitations, and the open source libraries that Barnes and Noble built to solve the problems. And then the conversation digs deep into the next generation of HTML - Domenic talks about dynamic elements and how HTML continues to evolve. Great thinking about how to keep HTML technology moving forward!
At the Portland stop of the ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard talked to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences building mobile apps across multiple platform (iOS, Android, Windows). Shawn talks about the advantages and disadvantages of straight native development, native development with tools like Xamarin, and hybrid development with PhoneGap/Cordoba/Icenium. Having customers with every solution, Shawn digs into the nitty gritty details of each development approach. There's no one right way!
While at the San Francisco stop of the ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard talk to Beth Massi about building mobile apps with LightSwitch. The conversation starts out with an explanation of Microsoft LightSwitch, which is part of Visual Studio and focuses on making data-over-forms apps really easy to build. Beth digs into how LightSwitch creates HTML 5 clients and now has an option to create a responsive web design client using jQuery mobile, so that you can automatically make great mobile clients for your apps. The conversation digs into a variety of cool features of LightSwitch, including its ability to work with Azure, SharePoint, Office 365 and more!
While in Los Angeles for the ModernApps2013 tour, Carl and Richard talked to Lino Tadros about building tablet and phone applications across all the platforms. Lino talks about the different cross-platform choices, including Xamarin's technology, as well as the HTML-driven PhoneGap/Cordova technology. What's the right way to build your app? Lino discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches, as well as some deeper concepts on what it means to build a quality application.
At the San Diego stop of the Modern Apps 2013 road trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Tony Surma to talk about his experiences building mobile and tablet apps for disaster relief organizations. Tony talks about Humanitarian Toolbox and it's efforts to build open source software for disaster relief. The conversation digs into the right way to build mobile software across all the platforms, and the specific changes needed to make apps work effectively in disaster scenarios. And a big shout out to all developers, testers and designers to help save the world at Humanitarian Toolbox!
At the Austin stop of the #ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard chat with Phil Japikse about building Windows 8.1 applications. But first, a serious conversation about disaster relief and the Humanitarian Toolbox - Phil talks about leading one of the open source projects for helping disaster relief professionals get up to speed on a given disaster site. Then the conversation turns to how organizations are building Windows 8.1 apps. What are the differences between 8.0 and 8.1? What are the breaking changes, and how do you get up and running in the new model? Lots to think about here.
While at the Dallas stop of the #ModernApps2013 road trip, Carl and Richard chat with Chris Love about all things mobile... this is a wide ranging conversation about the things that Chris is most concerned about in today's modern app world. Chris digs into how enterprises are (or are not) dealing with mobile development, where tablets fit into the equation, and how big an impact the diversity of OSes is having on development. And what about mobile first web design, anyway? Lots of great thinking!
While at NDC in London, Carl and Richard talk to Brandon Satrom about building hybrid mobile applications and their advantages and disadvantages around native apps. Brandon digs into the different deployment models of mobile applications, as well as the challenge of keeping many mobile platforms up to date at once. Lots of comparisons of apps between all the platforms - iOS, Android, Windows Phone and more!
While at NDC-London, Carl and Richard talk to Jon Skeet about his experience using C# everywhere - including mobile development! The conversation starts out talking about Jon's top topic of the past couple of years, Async and Await. Jon then digs into developing noda-time, a .NET implementation of Joda Time. This leads to a great conversation about Xamarin's tools for building iOS and Android apps and how C# can live everywhere. Jon talks through the fun parts and the hard parts of building mobile apps and his plans for cool new cross platform development. It's a different side of Jon Skeet!
While at the Philly Code Camp at Penn State, Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about how he gets users to use his mobile apps and how he keeps them - and gets them to pay!
In between #ModernApps2013 Road Trip legs, Carl and Richard got a chance to chat with Glenn Howes about his experiences building children's applications for the iPhone. At the Apple World Wide Developer Conference in 2013, Apple announced a kid store for iPhone and iPad. Glenn talks about trying to get his app into the store when it launched - but discovers a number of poorly defined hurdles that Apple added to create a sense of safety for parents.
At the Philly Code Camp stop of the ModernApps2013 Road Trip, Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Fritz about building mobile web apps using ASP.NET web forms. No, really! Jeff talks about how with some simple changes, ASP.NET web forms works just fine on smartphones, so that you can keep the goodness of web controls in your app while getting rid of the evil of postbacks and the like. The conversation also digs into SignalR, jQuery and the latest round of devices... lots of mobile geekiness!
While on the ModernApps2013 Road Trip stop in Raleigh-Durham, Carl and Richard talk to Aaron Bockover about his experiences building multi-device, cloud centric applications - aka, modern apps. Aaron talks about being part of the rdio team, a music streaming app available for variety of platforms that allows you to move your music stream from device-to-device, controlling one device with another. Working with multiple devices is a hallmark of modern apps, and Aaron digs into what looks easy on the outside, but is deadly hard on the inside.
On the Hybrid US Tour, Carl and Richard talk to Chris Hardy about using Xamarin tools with Visual Studio 2013. The conversation starts out around the Xamarin announcements with Visual Studio 2013, including deeper integration within the Studio environment and a price break for MSDN subscribers. Chris also digs into some other important details related to the Studio 2013 launch, including the change of licensing for the Portable Class Libraries so that they can be used on iOS and Android devices. Lots of discussion around the kinds of mobile apps to build, comparing games to productivity, B2B and B2C. With Xamarin, it's a C# World!
While at Øredev in Malmö, Sweden, Carl and Richard talk to Jen Meyers about developers being able to design. The conversation starts out talking about different UI designs in tablets and phones, including iOS7. Jen digs into the idea that design is just not that difficult - developers need to learn some things to work with designers or to implement any designs at all. And there's plenty for designers to learn too! UX design is its own unique science, and everyone involved has to learn to be effective.
Carl and Richard talk to Josh Johnson about mobile development and testing. Initially the conversation digs into iOS7 - the biggest revision to iOS since its launch. Then it's time to talk testing. Josh starts at the beginning, talking about different styles of testing, from unit to integration to acceptance testing. Josh explains how Calaba.sh works, adding a framework to your app to deploy down to the phone to do testing. Right on the phone! The conversation continues along the lines of various testing processes, including a discussion on Xamarin Test Cloud and Less Painful. Your mobile apps need to be tested too!
Mark Miller flies to Dublin to tell the world exactly what's wrong with iOS7. A passion user experience designer, Mark dives into the nitty gritty of consistent UI design, where iOS7 gets it right, where its wrong, and how it compares to the Windows 8 design. No UI is perfect, but some are less perfect than others! Mark brings a very funny look into what great UI can look like.
Carl and Richard talk to John Breslin about his experiences building companies in Ireland. Starting in the 90s, John was involved with internet technologies from the beginning. The conversation digs into how the internet and people's relationship with it has evolved, as well as how the companies themselves have changed. Think startups are just in the Silicon Valley? Think again!
Carl and Richard moderate a panel discussion on the state of mobile development with Todd Anglin, Lino Tadros, Gill Cleeran and Laurent Bugnion. The conversation starts out comparing the latest incarnations of hybrid development and native development, includng how technologies like Xamarin fit into the equation. The panelists also dig into the enterprise development story for phones and tablets and where Bring Your Own Device is going.
Carl and Richard talk to Kirby Turner about his experiences building iPad applications. A former .NET developer, Kirby switched over to iOS development when he bought a Mac. The conversation starts out talking about the differences between building iPhone and iPad apps. Kirby talks about the user interaction differences - where you are and how you hold the device matters a lot! Beyond consumer apps, Kirby also digs into how to handle private apps for relatively few number of iPads (less than one hundred). Check out the links for information about Kirby's book on building iPad apps!
Carl and Richard chat with Michael Crump about his experiences migrating Windows Phone 7.1 apps to Windows Phone 8. The conversation starts out with a short recap on some of the recent craziness around Nokia and Microsoft and the calibre of phones and tablets coming out these days - it's time for the second wave of Win 8 devices! Michael digs into the benefits and challenges around switching to Windows Phone 8, including access to new resources, dealing with multiple screen resolutions and buildings apps where the code base can be largely shared between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. It's time to make the move! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!
Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about the differences between consumer and business apps in the mobile and tablet space. Rocky has been thinking a lot about how we build applications for different purposes and discusses it with the boys. The conversation digs into native vs HTML, common (or branded) UI design vs. device-specific UI and more! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!
Carl and Richard talk to Michael Perry about his efforts to design mobile application that are resilient when they disconnect, reconnect and deal with erratic connectivity. Michael takes the problem apart, working through all the key concepts needed to tolerate being occasionally disconnected, culminating in a discussion of his open source library called Correspondence. Check it out! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!
Time for a bit of gossip? Carl and Richard bring Mary Jo on the show to talk about all the crazy changes around Microsoft. What does the merger between Nokia and Microsoft mean? Does Surface have a chance? Who will be the next CEO of Microsoft? MJ and the boys talk about these questions and more! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!
Wow - 100 shows! Carl and Richard think back over the past two years of Tablet Shows, from October 2011 to September 2013. What's changed and what's remained the same? Any breakthroughs? Any surprises? Any idea what's going to happen 100 shows from now? Thanks for listening - we couldn't do it without you! Make sure you activate your Windows Azure credits in your MSDN Subscription! You could win an Aston Martin!
Carl and Richard talk to Jason Ostrander about his experiences building Android tablet applications. The conversation starts out talking about the differences of building in Java on the desktop versus mobile and tablet devices - being far more resource constrained and performance sensitive. Jason also digs into his experiences with Android OS fragmentation, as well as building the software that ships with the Barnes and Noble Nook device. The Android ecosystem is alive and well, and there's lots of stuff to build!
Carl and Richard talk to Jeremy Freeley and Alan O'Connor about their experiences building Road Buddy for Windows Phone 8. Road Buddy uses the GPS and accelerometer data from the phone to determine if you are in a car accident and contact emergency services with your location, nature of the impact and medical information. Jeremy and Alan talk about how they built the application, the challenges in integrating via text message with emergency services, their involvement with Imagine Cup and a whole host of other issues around getting to market with a cool mobile application.
Carl and Richard talk to Bart Read and Kevin Boyle about building hybrid mobile apps using Cordova. Cordova is the Apache open source version of PhoneGap, which was purchased by Adobe a few years back. The conversation digs into a variety of products built to utilize Cordova, all with the goal of making it easier to build mobile and tablet applications across multiple platforms with one code base.
Carl and Richard talk to Ben Buttigieg about building Nokia Music. Ben talks about working with Nokia to bring a great music service to market for both Windows Phone and Windows 8. The conversation digs into the public APIs available to build your own applications on the platforms that utilize the metadata and music services of Nokia Music.
Carl and Richard talk to Chris Hardy from Xamarin about his experience building an application for Windows Phone and then migrating it to iPhone and Android. Chris talks about his Days Until Xmas app he first built for Windows Phone. The conversation digs into the differences in building UI between the different phones (it's harder than you think!) and what code can actually be shared between projects. Chris has put the iOS version of the app up on GitHub so you can take it out for a spin!
Carl and Richard talk to Jim McKeeth about programming in Delphi to build tablet applications for iOS. Yeah, that Delphi? What, you thought it went away? Delphi has changed hands a couple of times, but has continued to evolve and work with modern development practices, Internet technologies, etc. Jim describes the entire development environment, how you can build native iOS apps with the tools, and soon to build Android apps as well! Could Delphi be the enterprise tablet development solution?
Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Morgan about testing mobile applications. Jeff references his Lean Dog book Cucumber and Cheese - a Testers Workshop. The conversation starts out with the idea of Acceptance Test Driven Development, involving not just testers and developers, but all the stakeholders, including domain experts, operations people and more! Jeff talks about Gherkin, the near-natural language for describing requirements (and tests) not only in English, but 40 other languages! While the focus is on mobile testing, all testing is well served by the idea of acceptance focus.
Carl and Richard talk to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences building mobile applications - first! The conversation starts out with the challenges of making mobile web applications that work well. Web pages have gotten too large to load quickly or render effectively, HTTP Archive says in 2013 the average page size is 1.2MB! Shawn digs into how to architect a page so that it sends down the mobile version first, fast and light for a phone, but also usable on a regular browser, and then load additional resources if the browser is capable. Great discussions on dealing with retina displays and bandwidth restrictions as well. Time to evolve your web page design!
Carl and Richard talk to Rob Daigneau about building backend services for mobile applications. The conversation starts out talking about service design patterns, the different approaches to creating services so that they are reliable, scalable and performance. Rob digs into the differences between SOAP/WSDL and REST, TCP and UDP and more. Many of these technologies are years old now, but today in the mobile-first world they're hugely important. The tools are getting better!
At NDC, Carl and Richard talk to Gill Cleeren about his experiences building a Windows 8 tablet application for Belgian television. The conversation starts out talking about the specifics of the application, available for iOS and Android as well. Gill talks about the challenges of implementing DRM in Windows 8 (as compared to Silverlight) and mentions the Microsoft Media Player Framework as a good starting point. From there the discussion digs into the challenges of the cable companies in distributing content, how piracy factors into the business and the risk of disintermediation - how to stay relevant in a ever more connected, global world.
While at NDC, Carl and Richard talk to Laurent Bugnion about his experiences building tablet applications. Laurent and his company have been building tablet and mobile applications for a variety of companies over the past few years. The conversation starts out on tools, talking about C#/XAML vs. WinJS development (C# is winning) and the focus of Windows 8.1 support. Laurent also talks about the success of the Portable Class Libraries, Xamarin support for C# in iOS and Android and more.
While at DevTeach, Carl and Richard started out recording a panel discussion on the state of mobile development in a bar... but it was too noisy. So the actual panel part of the discussion moved to a quiet part of the hotel. The panelists talk about the differences between developing for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Everyone was pro-native, so the web development discussion part was short. Comparing and contrasting the different app stores was good fun also. The state of mobile development of strong!
Carl and Richard talk to Colin Bowern about his experiences developing web applications in the enterprise. Colin talks about how web got into the enterprise in the first place, and how far behind most enterprises are with their web applications. And yes, IE6 gets mentioned. The conversation digs into the strengths and weaknesses of building mobile and tablet applications using web vs. native, as well as other enterprise considerations like security and policy models. Is web really enterprise ready? Colin thinks so!
Carl and Richard circle back with the great Billy Hollis about UX design. The conversation starts out with a discussion on styling specific to the mobile OS vs. styling by brand. From there, Billy digs into different design concepts, discussing the value of metaphors that help users understand your software's behavior. There is design everywhere, you just have to learn to see it!
Carl and Richard talk to Rob Bazinet about building iOS applications. One of the applications that Rob discusses is a pallative care application for the iPad that allows people who are in remote care homes routinely communicate with their doctor how they are feeling without the doctor having to go to see the patient directly.
Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about his latest apps - yes, he is still building apps! Atley digs into how developers can build applications that run on Windows 8 and Windows Phone at once. The core technology is the Portable Class Library project. The conversation digs into the range of Microsoft platforms supported by the Portable Class Library, including XBox 360 and Silverlight! Atley also talks about his experiences around the success of phone apps vs tablet, different user experience approaches and why Visual Studio 2012 rocks!
While at Code PaLOUsa in Louisville, Kentucky, Carl and Richard moderate a panel on the state of Windows 8 development. The conversation ranges over the hardware available for Windows 8, what is compelling and what is not. The panel also digs into consumer vs corporate applications, how difficult side loading is (hopefully Blue fixes it) and some of the programs Microsoft is supporting to increase Win 8 adoption.
Carl and Richard talk to Scott Allen about building Single Page Applications (SPA) for mobile devices.
Carl and Richard talk to Chris Sells about WinJS. But first, the boys have some fun talking about garbage collection, Windows 8 development options and TypeScript. Then the conversation goes deep into WinJS - does building 'native' HTML apps in Windows 8 make sense? Should the app look like a web app or a Metro app? Chris takes on all these questions and more!
Carl and Richard talk to Chris Love about his experience with the Surface Pro and mobile development in general. The conversation starts out talking about some of the APIs that Chris is building to simplify mobile development - check the show links for a look at them. Chris then talks about the decision to get a Surface Pro, comparing it to other laptops and ultrabooks and how it's changed the way he does computing. Lots of stories and ideas on tackling mobile and tablet development in your business! The opportunities are out there.
Carl and Richard talk to Todd Anglin about building mobile applications in HTML 5. Todd starts out the conversation with the state of mobile today - a diverse set of form factors, operating systems and development environments. HTML is the only thing that works across them all, but it's not a write-once-run-everywhere solution, you have to work at it! Todd talks about the advantages and disadvantages of responsive web design, as opposed to creating separate solutions for different form factors. The discussion also digs into KendoUI, an HTML product that Todd works on at Telerik.
Carl and Richard talk to Aaron Gustafson about web standards and progressive enhancement. Aaron is part of the Web Standards Project and so the conversation starts off about it's role in the maintenance of web standards - resisting the fragmentation of features in various browsers. From there, Aaron digs into adaptive web design through progressive enhancement. What does it take to retrofit a legacy web page into more current techniques? Aaron talks about a variety of strategies to help you get a great mobile web experience. Also listen for comparisons of native, hybrid and web-based mobile applications!
Carl and Richard talk to Ben Gracewood about his experiences working at MarkerMetro, building Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 applications only - no iOS or Android! Ben talks about getting seriously into the 'metro' design principles and how after some initial consternation, his customers come to love the UX experience in Windows 8 and Phone 8. Besides those designs, iOS and Android 'look like Window 3.11.' The conversation digs into the preferred toolstack for building apps and where the ugly bits lie. Awesome conversation if you're just getting up to speed in the metro world!
Carl and Richard talk to Josh Twist, one of the leaders of the Azure Mobile Services team. Josh discusses his experiences building mobile applications on iOS, Android and Windows Phone and how it's influenced the design of Azure Mobile Services. The conversation explores the various aspects of Mobile Services including data storage, user authentication, push notifications and other tools and services. Josh talks about how the team ships updates every week and that the products are entirely user driven - all the features are discussed on the User Voice site. So if there's something missing, just let them know to add it!
Carl and Richard talk to David Isbitski and Andrew Smith about appMobi. AppMobi comes from the same code base as PhoneGap, but with a different focus. The conversation starts out with a break down of the appMobi SDK which covers the cross-platform and plug-in capabilities and the cloud services SDK. Only a week before the recording, Intel acquired the cross-platform SDK, appMobi continues to run the cloud services. If you want to build cross-platform mobile applications with HTML 5, you need to take a look at appMobi!
Carl and Richard talk to Toni Kaufmann about the gamification of apps and the use of Cocos2D-x as a cross-platform development library for iPhone and Android. The conversation starts out with Toni talking about an app he built for the Swiss government to engage teenagers - using a game to educate them about bullying and sexual harassment. Toni talks about how much more effective a game model is over standard brochure-ware applications. From there he digs into the general psychology around gamification, what works and what doesn't.
Carl and Richard talk to Miguel de Icaza about the latest happenings at Xamarin. The first bit of big news - a free version of MonoTouch and Mono for Android! But wait, there's more - besides a full update of MonoDevelop, Xamarin has also completed integration of MonoTouch and Mono for Android into Visual Studio. Yeah, that's right, you can build iOS apps in Visual Studio!
Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his experiences building Windows 8 tablet applications for the enterprise. The conversation starts out with a broader discussion around all of the different tablets in the enterprise, the challenge of managing them as well as developing for them. Rocky then digs into the deployment story for Windows 8 Store applications - including putting your apps into the store as well as side loading. Side loading is where things get complicated, as Rocky describes it, it depends on what version of Windows 8 you're using, and what licensing agreements your organization has with Microsoft as to what the costs and configurations are for deploying apps. Rocky has done the hard research here!
Carl and Richard talk to Stuart Lodge about MVVMCross. Stuart digs into why MVVMCross exists and its ability to simplify building applications across iOS, Android and Windows. He also describes the key role of the Xamarin products of MonoTouch and Mono for Android play, as well as how MVVMCross works with XAML on the Windows side of the fence. Lots of discussion around phone vs. tablet implementation and the future capabilities of MVVMCross for other platforms. You need to check out this awesome open source library!
Carl and Richard talk to Robert Evans about his work helping get Windows 8 applications certified into the Windows Store. The conversation starts out talking about the Windows 8 App Labs, a roving group of Windows 8 professionals and tools that travel from city to city helping developers be successful building Windows 8 applications. Robert then digs into the most common reasons that applications submitted to the Store fail to get certified. This show is a checklist of things you need to take care of to be successful in the Windows Store!
Carl and Richard chat with the ever-prolific Atley Hunter about his Christmas break, where he built 40 Windows 8 applications in less than two weeks! Atley talks about building almost 150 applications in 2012, and the differences between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 application design. Talk about an inspiration!
Carl and Richard talk to Rey Bango about the state of JavaScript, IE, tablets, Windows 8. Rey talks about the ubiquity of jQuery and how other libraries could have been as dominant, but for whatever reason are not. The conversation also digs into the movement against plug-ins, and whether or not plug-in free is really practical. Rey also discusses the challenges of anti-IE web sites, and how you can change your user agent to discover that many webKit only sites work just fine in IE10.
Carl and Richard talk to Wally McClure about building mobile applications for iPhone and Android using MonoTouch and Mono for Android (respectively). The conversation starts out with Wally's original interest in the Mono tools, being able to leverage his code and skills in C# for mobile development. From there Wally drills into the challenges of tooling across platforms (testing frameworks, etc) as well as dealing with fragmentation of operating systems and SDKs - a bigger issue in Android than iOS, but still an issue.
Carl and Richard talk to Luke Wroblewski about his experiences with mobile UI design. Luke talks about the fundamental changes going on with devices and UIs and how we need to stop thinking about keyboard and mouse interactions, and deal with large screen, small screen and short focus applications.
At the Sunnyvale stop of the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Mary Jo Foley to talk about the state of the tablet world. The conversation started out with a discussion about the sudden departure of Steven Sinofsky from Microsoft - good news or bad? Always controversial and outspoken, Mary Jo digs into the rumors and the facts around the changes at Microsoft, how things look for the future and how important the tablet is to Microsoft going forward.
While in Irvine, CA on the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Paul Sheriff about architecture in a heterogeneous world. The conversation starts out digging into Paul’s long history of building software that can stand the test of time – being able to tolerate changes and add new features without having to do the ‘big rewrite.’ Paul discusses the various patterns of architecture that can handle a diversity of clients as well as the realities of unreliable connectivity and distribution.
While at the San Diego stop of the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Beth Massi about the latest version of LightSwitch. With LightSwitch HTML Client Preview 2 you can use LightSwitch to build response web apps that scale automatically from smart phone mobile form factor up to full size large screen desktops. LightSwitch is getting more versatile with every update!
While at the Phoenix stop of the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Shawn Wildermuth about his experiences with PhoneGap. The conversation starts out with a recap of his experiences around developing mobile and tablet applications on iOS, Android as well as WP7, WP8 and Windows 8. Shawn digs into the particulars about building common-source-code projects with GitHub and Adobe's PhoneGap-As-A-Service. He also discusses start-up strategies using PhoneGap as well as native development.
While at the Dallas stop of the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Miguel Castro about what it takes to redesign applications to be Windows 8 Store style applications. Miguel talks about his experience redesigning UIs and looking at the way applications are going to function in the future. Combined with some great questions from the audience, this show gives you a look at what it takes to get your existing applications working in Windows 8 in the modern app style.
At the San Antonio stop of the .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talk to John Sonmez about Service Stack and MonoGame. John starts off the conversation talking about Service Stack, an open source .NET and Mono REST Web Services framework, eventually moving back to the subject of MonoGame and the huge potential for cross-platform development. John also mentions MvvmCross, a cross-platform MVVM project where you have common code across all platforms except for views. Cool stuff!
At the Nashville stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Kate Gregory to talk about C++ in Windows 8. Kate talks about how C++ has evolved to be a much more pleasant language to work in than the old days, as well as exploring how you can take advantage of amazing C++ technology like AMP to harness GPUs to do parallel processing. The conversation also turns to Hilo, a sample C++/XAML Windows 8 project on CodePlex. There's never been a better time to be a C++ programmer!
While at the Albany stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Mark Miller about modern UI design. Mark discusses the conceptual differences between mouse driven and touch driven interfaces, grouping using space rather than borders, and how to deal with your fingers getting in the way of what you're trying to touch.
At the Rochester stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Brian Noyes about building line of business applications in Windows 8. Brian talks through the architectural differences in Windows 8 and how developers need to overcome certain design patterns to be successful building apps in this new world, even for line of business. No data grids, please!
At the Pittsburgh stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard chat with Billy Hollis about the design concepts around tablet applications. Billy talks about the differences between graphical design and interactive design - including the idea that an experienced developer is the best candidate for becoming a great interaction designer! As always, Billy inspires everyone to build a better app a better way.
At the Detroit stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Road Trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Jeff Wilcox of 4th and Mayor fame to talk about the role of the cloud in phone applications. Jeff talks about how his application works with the Foursquare services on the back end, but how he also needed to build his own services to complete the 4th and Mayor experience - not everything his customers wanted came from Foursquare! The conversation also digs into why he built those services in node.js and the serendipity that he ended up moving from the phone team at Microsoft to Azure - working on node.js!
At the Indianapolis stop of the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard talked to Atley Hunter about his near compulsive habit of building Windows Phone 7 applications. Atley talks about how he maintains a list of hundreds of application ideas and since publishing more than a hundred applications, is straining the ability of the phone store to organize all of his apps under a single account! The conversation digs into what makes a great application, the revenue models that work, design choices and a look to the future of the app store model in Windows 8.
While at DevReach, Carl and Richard moderated a panel discussion between Chris Sells, Brian Rinaldi and Jon Flanders about the current state of mobile development. The conversation first focuses on the ascendancy of PhoneGap, comparing its flexibility in doing partial native, partial HTML implementations, versus native apps with web browsers embedded. Look for mentions of MonoTouch and Mono for Android, as well as a couple of great lines about Flash!
While in Denver on the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, Carl and Richard sat down with Tim Huckaby for a hilarious run through the various technologies that Tim's companies have been working with. Tim talks about how he's building tablet applications for businesses as well as all of the Kinect-based interactive systems.
While at the .NET Rocks Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip stop in Salt Lake City, Carl and Richard chat with Scott Stanfield about core design concepts for building modern applications. Scott talks about typography, negative space and other designer topics in a way that blows the audience's mind!
Carl and Richard talk to Greg Levenhagen about Windows 8 development. Greg digs into the concept of contracts in Windows 8 and how they different from an API call, providing better control over how Win 8 applications work with services and resources of the OS. There's the obligatory debate over what Windows 8 Apps formally known as 'Metro' are now called... Windows 8 Store Apps? Modern Apps? Sigh. Greg also talks about how developers can get a handle on the user interaction side of Windows 8 Apps, life without a designer and his experiences interacting with the Windows 8 Store folks.
Carl and Richard talk to John Sonmez about MonoGame. MonoGame is an open source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 framework for building cross-platform games. How cross-platform? XBox 360, Windows, Mac as well as iPad, Windows 8 and the phones - iPhone, Android, Windows Phone. That's pretty cross-platform! The conversation digs into the skills you need to build games, whether these tools could be used to build non-game apps and more.
Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his experiences building Windows 8 applications. But first the conversation takes a digression with a reader email about the challenges of dealing with the inplace upgrade of .NET 4.0 to 4.5 alongside the migration of Windows XP to Windows 8. Rocky then digs into the projects he's been working on in Windows 8. He compares the jump from .NET 4.0 on Windows 7 to .NET 4.5 on Windows 8 to the jump from Visual Basic 3 on Windows 3.11 to Visual Basic 4 on Windows 95. If you're following modern development practices, migrating to Windows 8 applications is pretty easy. If you're bringing a lot of old apps along, you're in for some challenges.
Carl and Richard talk to Lino Tadros about his work building tablet applications. Lino compares and contrasts the experiences of building iOS, Android and WinRT applications.
Carl and Richard talk to Dan Wahlin about his current projects, including a web application running on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones.
While at PWOP Studios in New London, Carl and Richard sat down and chatted with each other about the leak of the Windows Phone 8 SDK. No one is certain if the SDK is final, but it must be close. The boys dig into the key points of what was found in the SDK - some new features not found in WinRT for Windows 8 (but perhaps coming in later versions), how the programming models shake out, and the requirements for the development platform. The conversation also digs into how 100,000 Windows Phone 7 apps are going to be moved to Windows Phone 8. Crazy times!
Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Fritz about doing unit testing of WinJS in Windows 8. Jeff talks about QUnit, the JavaScript testing framework built by the JQuery folks for testing JQuery. There are some interesting challenges for JavaScript testing, especially around automation. To deal with the complexities of working with WinJS in Windows 8 Jeff has forked QUnit to create QUnit-Metro. The conversation also digs into the challenges of working in WinJS, where tablets appear to be going and the what its like hopping between two flavors of JavaScript.
Carl and Richard talk to Jason Follas about building geospatial apps in Windows 8. Jason focuses on building using HTML and taking advantage of the advance Javascript libraries available today to manage geospatial data. He provides some awesome insight into how external libraries can be used inside Windows 8. The show may be about geospatial, but you're really going to learn about how the HTML/Javascript side of Windows 8 works!
Carl and Richard talk to David Bates about the state of Flash. But first, the boys geek out on David's hacking exploits with Arduino and Kinect. Then the conversation gets a bit more serious, talking about the destiny of Flash - which David points out is Adobe Air. Adobe Air is able to compile ActionScript from Flash into native code on iOS and Android. Flash isn't quite dead!
Carl and Richard chat with Aral Balkan about mobile application design. The conversation starts with a discussion of Aral's keynote at NDC and the design thinking that went into it - avoid cognitive dissidence, clutter, etc. Aral then dives into the dangers of hybrid apps: how combining HTML 5 and native wrappers does not make cross-platform development free. And finally the show wraps up with a great discussion on design as a whole. Just the show you need if you're debating how to build your mobile applications!
Carl and Richard talk to Billy Hollis about building touch-centric applications. Getting beyond making bigger buttons, Billy talks about multi-finger and motion-based based touch gestures and how they need to be discovered just like any other control paradigm. The conversation also digs into the challenges of touch-centric CRUD applications, the impact of different form factors on touch and the potential of rethinking applications as a whole.
Carl and Richard talk to Mary Jo Foley of All About Microsoft about the crazy week of June 11 announcements from Microsoft. On Monday Microsoft showed off the Microsoft Surface Tablet in Los Angeles. On Wednesday Microsoft announced details of Windows Phone 8 in San Francisco. What does it all mean? MJ and the boys share their thoughts and the potential opportunities coming up this fall. It's a great time to be in the Microsoft space!
While at NDC in Oslo, Norway, Carl and Richard talk to Laurent Bugnion about metro design principles. But first, a great email from a listener changes the conversation to redesigning work spaces, integrating concepts of Microsoft Surface, Kinect, phones and touch-centric interfaces. Laurent then digs into the concepts of Metro design, talking about how the metro templates in Visual Studio 2012 simplify metro design. This is a wide ranging conversation over all the new ideas in design, user interface and customer expectations of applications!
Carl and Richard talk to Uf Tukel about his iCruise line of mobile and tablet applications. Uf tells the story of how he started in the brick-and-mortar cruise business, and how the internet completely changed his business for the better. Uf says that the mobile revolution has done the same thing again - today 50% of his customers are coming through mobile applications on iPhone and Android. If you're not on mobile, you're not on the internet!
Carl and Richard talk to Miguel de Icaza about how Xamarin has ported Android to C#. As Miguel says, it was 'kind of a stunt' - but let's face it, porting operating systems, even mobile ones, is not for the faint of heart! Miguel talks about one of the key residuals of the project, which is called Sharpen. Available on GitHub, Sharpen helps automate the migration of Java to C#. The conversation then moves onto the idea of relationships with developers - how Apple, Google and Microsoft are all getting further from caring for developers as they defend their respective platforms. Miguel talks about how companies (like Xamarin) can really love developers. And apparently COM is a punch in the face! Finally, Miguel announces X#, a super-set of C# to give it some syntactic sugar - in other words, even easier to use.
Carl and Richard talk to Diederik Krols about his awesome blog (check out the links in the show notes) on building Metro apps in Windows 8. Diederik talks about his favorite resources for learning about building Metro apps (also in the links) and the frustrations moving from the developer preview to consumer preview. The conversation then moves to a more challenging area - enterprise applications on the tablet. Does it make sense? Are people really going to want to do data entry on a tablet? How will touch work on a desktop PC? Do we really want a Star Trek style desk?
Carl and Richard talk to Greg Shackles about cross-platform mobile development using C#. Greg talks about using MonoTouch and Mono for Android to build iOS and Android (respectively) applications using C# as well as Windows Phone 7. The conversation digs into the differences in development for each platform (such as UI) as well as what can be identical, like back end services. Greg's advice - don't give up the language you love!
Carl and Richard talk to Jeff Wilcox about his work on 4th and Mayor. 4th and Mayor is a third-party Foursquare app currently only available for Windows Phone 7. Jeff discusses how he got into building the app initially and how it has become one of his favorite 'hobbies'. The conversation explores some of the challenges of building the application, dealing with shifting APIs and publication delays in the marketplace and how node.js helps on the backend for providing notifications and updates.
Carl and Richard talk to Josh Clark about next generation interfaces. Josh has spent a lot of time focused on multi-touch and the conversation explores how applications have evolved to take advantage of the interface. Josh also digs into how the tablet is fundamentally different for computing in terms of interface and use. From there the conversation digs further into the future with products like Kinect and other motion-based approaches to UI. We're at the beginning of this!
Carl and Richard talk to Thomas Gravgaard about building Unity 3D games for Windows Phone 7 using FFWD. Unity 3D is a set of tools for building games that run on Windows, Mac OS, web, iOS and Android - but not Windows Phone 7. Thomas created an open source project on GitHub to convert Unity 3D applications to XNA for running on Windows Phone 7 and XBox XNA games.
Carl and Richard talk to Billy Hollis about his views on where UI design is going. Billy talks about Metro, Microsoft's UI for Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 (irrespective of the games being played with names). As Billy says, design is here to stay, and we need to think more about it. It's not just about controls, its about how your applications organizing your business. Businesses have adapted to software, and now software is changing - time to exercise the other side of your brain!
Carl and Richard talk to Peter Kuhn about what Silverlight developers need to know about building applications in XNA on Windows Phone 7. Peter digs into the differences between XNA and Silverlight - they both use C# and some common low level libraries in Windows Phone 7, but that's where it ends. The conversation also digs into how to build hybrid apps, using the best of Silverlight and the best of XNA together.
Carl and Richard talk to Steve Souders about making mobile web apps run faster. Steve talks a bit about the general issues around web page performance, including how some of the new features of HTML 5 are improving performance. The conversation then turns to tools for testing mobile web performance. Steve gives us a huge list of web sites to test your mobile web performance - check 'em out in the show links!
Carl Franklin steps up to the plate to be the guest on this episode of The Tablet Show, talking about what's new in the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 for developers. WinRT has made a big jump from the Developer Preview to the Consumer Preview, and it takes a rethink to your application design. Carl goes through the changes the .NET folks will care about, like how reflection and system.io has changed. Check out the links for tons of resources to get going with WinRT on the Consumer Preview!
While at DevConnections, Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka about his experiences with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The conversation digs into how tablets are already penetrating the enterprise and the advantages that Windows 8 will have in that space. Rocky discusses how metro mode is not just for touch and does a fine job with Line-of-Business apps, just like Silverlight has done for years.
Carl and Richard talk to James Williams about building games in HTML 5. The conversation starts at the beginning - what does it mean to build a game? What are vertexes and shaders? How do you draw a 3D object and then put it into a web page? James leads the boys through the whole idea of building games in HTML 5, where old game design meets the new technologies in browsers.
Carl and Richard talk to Kate Gregory about C++ in Windows 8. Kate talks about how the combination of C++11 and WinRT brings C++ developers to the forefront of development in Windows 8. The latest version of C++ brings lambdas, async and auto var behavior to the language, making complex development far more manageable. The playing field is really levelled in WinRT between HTML 5, C++ and C#!
Carl and Richard talk to Chris Love about building enterprise applications for mobile devices. Chris digs into his projects for mobile devices, talking about the challenges of single-sign on, native apps vs. HTML 5, and so on. The conversation also explores the potential of cross-platform tools like MonoTouch and Mono for Android as well as PhoneGap. Chris then talks about his current favorite solution to the problem - a hybrid application with a native peice that utilizes a browser to embed functionality that can be updated without rolling out a new client every time.
Carl and Richard talk to Nick Landry about using location data in mobile development. Nick talks about a few of his projects using location data in the enterprise for analysis, with mobile devices, to support salespeople and so on. The discussion digs into the differences between the different map source data as well as the potential for future services.
Carl and Richard talk to Paul Thorsteinson about the business of selling mobile apps. Paul talks about how he jumped on board the iPhone App Store opportunity at the beginning. Paul and his partners created Own This World for the iPhone, a 'Risk-like' game to take over the world. The game opened the door to working with Robots and Pencils, building mobile applications for enterprise and large organizations. The conversation continues into the integration of traditional media with mobile devices and how to deal with getting visibility in the marketplace.
Todd Anglin from Telerik talks about Kendo UI Mobile, their new platform (currently free and in beta) for developing HTML5 apps specific to Android and iOS devices. Todd also talks about the regular web edition of Kendo UI for building web applications that take advantage of different browser features.
Carl and Richard bring Atley Hunter back to discuss the hoopla that happened last Friday when Windows Phone 8 leaked to the press.
Carl and Richard talk to Andrew Glover about PhoneGap. PhoneGap lets you build HTML 5 applications and deploy them to all the major mobile phone platforms: iOS, Android, WP7, Blackberry, Symbian, WebOS and Bada. Andrew digs into the actual process of building cross-platform apps, the impact of Adobe's acquisition of PhoneGap and what applications make sense in a cross-platform world, and what apps are better done native.
Carl and Richard talk to Russell Ivanovic about Android development. Russell comes from the Java world but moved into iOS development, building some very popular apps in Australia. Then he moved into Android development and has had even more success. Russell talks about the experience of building Android applications, how it differs from iOS, the pluses and minuses and more. What about fragmentation? How do you test adequately? All these questions are answered and more!
Carl and Richard talk to John Sonmez about building iOS and Android applications. On the iOS side, John compares Xcode to MonoDevelop. You can build iOS apps with MonoTouch in Visual Studio, but you're always going to need a Mac in your life. On the Android side, John discusses the similarity of Eclipse and IntelliJ development environments and how he prefers to use MonoDevelop and Mono for Android for its cross-platform advantage.
Carl and Richard talk to Kevin McNeish about building applications for iPhone and iPad using Objective-C. Kevin talks about the advantages of using the native tools and language for building iOS apps - mostly in the sense of resources like sample code. In addition, Apple's latest round of development tools has significantly improved, according to Kevin, in some ways better than Visual Studio!
Carl and Richard talk to Ronan Cremin about .mobi and Device Atlas. dotMobi was set up my major influential internet companies including Google and Microsoft to make mobile internet become real. Device Atlas is a subscription service for getting up-to-date lists of exactly what features work on what browser versions on each device. Ultimately the conversation comes around to the idea of whether building native apps for mobile devices versus building customized HTML for each of the devices is easier.
Carl and Richard talk to Richard Griffin about building applications with HTML 5 and WinJS on Windows 8. Who's going to like it more, the folks coming from Javascript or the folks coming from .NET? Richard talks about how his combination of XAML and HTML skills helped him grasp what WinJS is all about. You're going to love Promises and XHR! The conversation also explores why you'd want to migrate your app into the WinJS space and whether or not HTML 5 apps are going to replace native apps.
Carl and Richard talk to Shawn Wildermuth about Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7. Shawn announces the release of his book Essential Windows Phone 7.5, and then the conversation dives into Windows 8. Shawn talks about how the discipline of Silverlight development has made him a better HTML 5 developer. But what toolset will he use for Windows 8? Have a listen!
Carl and Richard talk to the Magenic crew of Rocky Lhotka, Sergey Barskiy and Stuart Williams about developing for Windows 8. The guys put together a white paper on assessing what tools you should be using to build Windows 8 applications. The conversation digs into the difference between traditional Windows development and the Metro style of Windows 8. From there, the focus is on development methodology, comparing developing Windows 8 apps built with HTML, C++ and .NET.
Carl and Richard talk to Atley Hunter about his experiences building Android applications. Atley starts out talking about jumping head first from Windows Phone 7 development into Android. He talks about jumping to Java/Eclipse and the challenges there - apparently Studio developers have it easy! Atley also mentions the Azure Toolkit for Android, making it easy for Android applications to work with Azure. Finally, Atley digs into the truth that tablet applications are not big phone apps, and they also are not small PC apps!
While at DevConnections in Las Vegas, Carl and Richard participated in a panel discussion with Tim Huckaby, Billy Hollis, Dr. Neil Roodyn and Paul Sheriff about the future of tablet development using WinRT. Also listen for a brief appearance of the one-and-only Mark Minasi.
Carl and Richard collected short interviews in the main hall at Oredev in Sweden around development in mobile and tablet technologies. First up is a conversation with William van Hecke about iOS Design for iPhone and iPad. Next, Hadi Hariri digs into how .NET developers can have a more familiar experience building iOS and Android applications using JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA. IntelliJ is originally a development tool for Java but has been expanded to include XCode for iOS development. Finally, Phil Haack talks about MVC 4 to build mobile HTML 5 applications. Phil specifically digs into supporting disconnected scenarios with HTML 5 on your smartphone.
While at Oredev in Sweden, Carl and Richard had a conversation with Tim Huckaby in front of an audience about the future of developing with the Windows Runtime in Windows 8. The conversation digs into the potential of the three different development approaches for Metro presented at Build - .NET, C++ and HTML 5. Tim also takes questions from the audience at Oredev.
A cross-posting with .NET Rocks, Carl and Richard talk to Dan Hanan and Danny Warren of Interknowlogy about how they made Kinect work with WinRT. The Kinect SDK only works with regular .NET, which means it can't work in WinRT... or can it?
Miguel de Icaza from Xamarin (formerly the Mono project at Novell) talks about WinRT, iOS, Android and how MonoTouch and Mono for Android fits into the big picture. Miguel talks about the differences in development styles between the platforms as well as how much code can realistically be shared between the platforms. As usual, Miguel provides a deep level of insight across all the platforms.
A converstaion with Lino Tadros from Falafel Software. Lino builds software for iOS and Android both with the Xamarin products and their native compilers. He also builds Windows Phone 7 apps and has been working with Metro since the BUILD conference.
Dan Wahlin talks about the new realities of being a Silverlight developer in a Metro World. Dan talks Silverlight and how deeply connected it is in the Microsoft stack, including SQL Server, Sharepoint, etc. But even more importantly, Dan points out that Silverlight developers have the closest skillset to a WinRT developer with a combination of XAML and C#. The conversation wraps up with a discussion of the new features in Silverlight 5. Silverlight is far from dead!
Introducing episode one of The Tablet Show, a new weekly .NET Rocks! spinoff primarily for .NET developers but focused on Tablet development (WinRT/Metro, iOS and Android). For the inaugural show, Carl and Richard talk to Rocky Lhotka and Billy Hollis about their assessments of Windows 8, WinRT and the Metro UI. After discussing what WinRT is, the discussion dives into the real challenges of migrating applications to Metro. Rocky talks about migrating the CSLA Silverlight edition to Metro. The conversation then moves into some of the new services of WinRT, including sharing and search.