mLearnCon News and Updates

The Financial Times has snubbed Apple and the App Store by launching a new mobile app that runs entirely out of a Web browser.

The timely launch comes just weeks before Apple begins retaining 30 percent of all revenue made by publishers who sell an app through Apple's App Store.

Built with HTML5 technology, the FT's new mobile Web site has been optimized for iPhone and iPad form factors, although other operating systems will get a similar experience through their own browsers.

"There isn't a single feature in the native app we haven't been able to replicate in the Web app," said Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com. "The developers [UK-based Assanka] did a fantastic job without the help of a manual."

Read more from the full article here.

There's a lot to like about Honeycomb-and a lot that's annoying. Here are five things Google needs to address to make its tablet operating system a star.

Make no mistake: Google's tablet-optimized Android 3.0 represents a huge improvement overall over previous versions of Google's mobile operating system. But that's not to say it gets everything right. After extensive use across multiple tablets, I've identified five things that Google needs to address in Honeycomb.

1. Improve Image Rendering

Photos viewed in Android 3.0's Gallery app appear fuzzy and washed out when compared to when you view them on other devices As I photographer, I noticed this problem immediately upon loading my own pictures on the Motorola Xoom. Ultimately, the problem comes down to Honeycomb's apparent inability to correctly render images in the image Gallery-and elsewhere. After weeks of back and forth, a Google spokesperson acknowledged the problem, but couldn't give a timeline on a fix. Thus far, there hasn't been one.

Read the other four and the rest of the article here from PCWorld.com

The iPad 2 is the best tablet available, but it brings its own share of frustrations

I really like the iPad 2. I use mine every day for work and personal purposes, and I've even co-written a book about how to work it. But as good as it is, the iPad 2 is not perfect. Because I use it every day, I encounter its flaws and omissions every day as well.

Most of the issues are merely annoyances, but some have real consequences. Here are the 12 that bug me the most, in no particular order.

1. Apps that go "pfft." Blame it on memory management or just poor coding -- I'm not sure of the cause. But some iPad (and iPhone) apps tend to quit unexpectedly. They're onscreen one second and gone the next, with a home screen acting as if nothing had happened. Some apps, such as the New York Times app, have had this issue forever. It happens with Quickoffice when you try to open a file that's too big or too complex to handle. The Economist's app recently started going "pfft" after an update.

2. Apps that downgrade themselves. A related complaint involves apps that downgrade themselves, reducing their capabilities after an update. Netflix's app did that a while back, making it fairly useless; more recently, Bank of America dropped multiple-account support from its banking app, and the New York Times dropped text-size preferences and its configurable sections icons -- why?

These downgraded apps also tend to require more steps than their predecessors, another bizarre decision in a mobile environment. I suspect the reason is that these are really native-wrapped Web apps (BofA and Netflix, for sure) that got turned over to a Web-only or perhaps Android developer unaware of UI and user experience (UX) concerns. Mobile apps require even more UX attention than desktop apps, a concept that few beyond the Apple crowd seem to understand.

Read more here from InfoWorld.

A new study from Nielsen Norman Group has some good advice for those building apps for Apple’s iPad: make sure people know when a button is a button, and keeping it simple never hurts.

The new study builds on one conducted last year, just after Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) launched the iPad. It focuses on how iPad users interact with applications: what they like, what they find cumbersome, and where developers need to concentrate when building tablet apps. It’s not exactly an exhaustive study, with just 16 iPad users surveyed, but the research group managed to draw 116 pages worth of conclusions on the best ways to build iPad apps. The full report can be found here, but here’s a highlight of the results.

Size matters: Too many iPad apps suffer from small buttons that are difficult to click or are too close to a neighboring button as to induce false clicks, according to the study. Also, some app developers need to clearly mark active locations on their application as buttons, because a fair percentage of those studied had trouble realizing the full extent of the application. Nielsen cited USA Today’s original design, which didn’t clearly mark the “sections” button that was behind the USA Today logo on its original iPad application.

Too Much Navigation: Don’t ask your users to jump through too many hoops to get to the essential parts of your application, and make sure to include a back button that lets users retrace their steps, Nielsen recommended. Also, beware “swipe ambiguity,” or the presence of sections within your application that require gestures in a small portion of the screen real estate to function properly, like a carousel of stories on a news application.

Sharing is caring: iPads are not as personal as mobile phones, and not as utilitarian as PCs. “You should assume that you’re designing for a multi-user device. For example, users might be reluctant to stay permanently signed in on an app, and they’ll still forget their passwords,” Nielsen wrote in the study.

Again, a PDF of the full report can be downloaded from Nielsen Norman Group’s Web site here.

The full article appears here from MocoNews.net

On your next visit to the Hammer Museum, don't be surprised to find more people fiddling with their iPhones than actually looking at the art hanging on the walls. That's because the Hammer has joined the growing list of art institutions to launch their own mobile applications.

The Hammer's app, which is available for free download for iPhones and Android devices, provides audio guides, videos, interviews, images of artwork and more for visitors to the museum.

The Hammer said that the content provided on the app will be expanded in future versions. The present version features content about the current exhibition on artist Richard Hawkins, as well as upcoming shows devoted to Ed Ruscha and Paul Thek.

In addition, the app provides background information on the Armand Hammer collection.

Other museums that have already launched mobile apps include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and New York's Museum of Modern Art.

The original article appears here from LATimes.com