iWork and ePub, Assorted App Updates

Apple has released iWork 09 version 9.0.4. This is of interest to mobile genealogy fans as Pages version 4.0.4 can now export to the standard ePub file format. That means that iBooks users on iPhones, iPod touch, and iPad, as well as owners of Barnes & Noble’s nook, Sony’s Reader series, and Google Android users can now easily read documents created with Pages. Quite a few people use Pages/iWork for creating family newsletters and similar documents, and this increases the distribution choices.

Read the full story at Mac Genealogy

Amazon.com has updated their Kindle App to version 2.2.1. The Kindle App allows you to view electronic books (ebooks) purchased or downloaded through Amazon’s Kindle Store on your iPhone OS/iOS devices. We’ve highlighted some of the genealogy eBooks available through Kindle in the past.

Changes:
* Improved highlight sensitivity to reduce inadvertent highlights when turning pages
* Fixed a crash some customers experience when highlighting a word
* Corrected a problem where the most recent page is not saved when returning to the app
* Other bug fixes based on customer feedback

You can download the Kindle App for free (iTunes)

Google has updated the Google Mobile App. Google Mobile App acts as a front-end for various Google services (Google Search, etc.), and it also interacts with other Google apps.

Changes:
* Push notifications for Gmail and Calendar.

You can download Google Mobile App for free as well (iTunes).

Last, but not least, another major update to a free app. NASA has updated the NASA app. The NASA app features information revolving around NASA missions, information for astronomers looking to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station, NASA’s Image of the Day and the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

This has absolutely nothing to do with genealogy, but they’ve done something that I think is really cool, and being a fan, I had to mention it. Besides some fixes for iOS 4 users, they have added live streaming of the NASA TV public channel. Not everybody has access to their public channel, but if you have an iOS devices, now you do. They show quite a few interesting shows on there, as well as live streaming from orbit during various activities.

Download here: NASA App (iTunes)

Adobe Flash and the iPhone/iPad

Somebody who knows my fondness for gadgets asked me the other day about the whole Adobe Flash thing on the iPhone (or rather the lack of). They wanted to know if it would be a problem, since they were considering purchasing an iPhone.

In my view, it hasn’t been a problem and I’ve been an iPhone owner for quite a while now. There are 50 million iPhones and half a million iPads floating around that don’t run Flash, and none of the iPhone’s current competitors support Flash either. I’ve had an iPhone for quite a while now, and it’s been a long time since I ran into a site that wouldn’t work on an iPhone. As a Windows Mobile and a Palm user in the past, I hated visiting certain sites on those devices simply because there was no thought given to mobile users and a lot of sites wouldn’t work on those devices. With the popularity of the iPhone, that’s all changed, and it benefits everybody on a mobile platform, because website designers and maintainers now take mobile devices into account. It helps that the mobile data networks have gotten better as well.

The majority of genealogy-related sites I visit on my iPhone are blogs anyways and usually have little to no Flash. I tied to shy away from some genealogy sites that are heavy on the bandwidth as my connection is usually not the best for dealing with such sites. Here in 2009-2010, we have it incredibly good though – we are getting browsers and screen resolutions that allow us to actually be able to browse the web in a productive manner.

As to why it’s not allowed, I think it boils down to Apple doesn’t want another company to build a development layer on top of the iPhone, because at that point it stops being an Apple mobile platform and it becomes an Adobe mobile platform. I think there are plenty of other solid reasons – HTML5 (Wikipedia) would be better in the long run since it’s an open standard, and most of us have probably suffered through problems involving Adobe’s Flash plug-in. I’m well aware that Adobe has been working to fix those problems on Windows and Mac OS X with the latest major releases, but I really like the idea of HTML5 getting rid of the need for third party plug-ins. I don’t play Flash-based games though, so my experiences are definitely not going to be the same as others.

I’ve read both sides of the argument, and both make valid points, but I would rather a lot of sites move to HTML5, because I like the idea of not worrying about what mobile device I’m using and whether I have this or that level of plug-in.

Being a genealogist I’m always a fan of open standards as well which would firmly put me in the HTML5 camp, and I’m a fan of anything that causes web designers to take a step back and look at things from the point of view of somebody on a small mobile device whether it’s an iPhone, Android, Palm, or Windows Mobile (Windows Phone 7).

G.L.

Family Bee v1.03 for Google Android

Family Bee, a genealogy application for the Google Android platform, was updated earlier this month.

Family Bee handles an unlimited number of family trees, and allows you to import the genealogy information from GEDCOMs loaded off of SD flash cards inserted into the Android device, through email attachments, or off of the web.

This update is free obviously, but if you don’t own it, Family Bee is $10 and the package name is com.beekeeper.android.familybee.

Changes:
v1.03: Fixed problem displaying sources for MARR records.

Samsung Galaxy S, 32GB microSDHC, Android Development

Samsung has decided to make a Google Android-based phone it’s high-end mobile device/phone. It’s a victory for Android fans and adds another really powerful mobile phone into the mix of those looking to get into smartphones.

It offers a 1GHz processor, 3D graphics (mapping, etc.), Assisted GPS, a 5MP camera capable of HD video recording, Bluetooth 3.0, and 8GB or 16GB versions with support for a 32GB memory card (see below). It’s focused on a 4-inch 800×480 Super AMOLED touchscreen display. It’ll be available sometime later this year.
Link: Samsung Unpacked

Speaking of Android, AdMob, a mobile advertising network, took a survey concerning development on various mobile platforms. While the survey was limited in number (just over 100 responses), it was interesting since these are actual developers. Some notes of interest:
- 31% of developers are developing for more than one mobile platform
- More than 70% of iPhone developers who responded said they would develop for Android over the next six months, while around half of the Android developers were planning on developing for the iPhone.
- Nearly half are new to mobile platforms.
Link: Metrics.Admob.com

It’s interesting since over the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion in development for platforms that are not Windows Mobile or Palm-based. Whether it’s going to carry over into genealogy software development, I don’t know. If you look at the iPhone-related genealogy applications, the highest-profile apps are from existing third party developers for Apple’s Mac OS X who already have genealogy applications available for the desktop/laptop. Even Ancestry.com’s Tree to Go is from a company already involved with genealogy software (Family Tree Maker, among other things). Still, the iPhone opened up the door and we have developers new to the genealogy scene, and the same can be said of the Android platform. Even if we don’t see a lot of new genealogy-specific software, we’ll still see plenty of software that any genealogist can use – navigation, photo storage and management, etc.

Finally, If you have $199 to spare, a phone or other mobile devices that supports microSDHC (possibly including the above Samsung Galaxy S), and a need to carry around a lot of photos, video, music, and data, your ship has arrived. SanDisk announced a 32GB microSDHC card today. Right now it’s available in the United States (and probably Canada) as well as Europe. By the end of next month, it should be available worldwide. Link: SanDisk

Genealogy Applications for Google Android

Although I’m primarily an iPhone user with the occasional Windows Mobile device, I have to admit I’ve been keeping an eye on Google’s Android platform. The thing that gets me is the hardware – performance, expandability, and display resolution. Now that PDAs and smartphones/mobile phones have merged, for all intents and purposes, things are changing – there is more of an interest in mobile computing and mobile genealogy especially. There have been a couple of TV shows on in the US recently – Faces of America on PBS which just wrapped up, and the new “Who Do You Think You Are” currently running on NBC, which are helping this as well. The hardware is moving along while coming down in price. In fact, some of the Android devices are getting into resolutions of 800x which was not possible not too long ago – you were looking at a low-end netbook with that kind of resolution. Then there is the iPad, but more on that later in a later post.

Anyways, there are currently two genealogy-related applications for Google’s Android platform that have been developed over the past 4-5 months (or at least released). Both are basically family tree/GEDCOM viewers/browsers, and both are being actively developed. They may not be as polished as their iPhone or Windows Mobile counterparts, but I think they are probably coming along a lot faster given that both developers appear to be new to the mobile genealogy software scene. Both allow for importing GEDCOM files.

The first is AGeneDB, and it’s still considered to be at an “Alpha” development stage. It’s free at this time, and future plans include adding families, individuals, and events to the GEDCOM file/genealogy database. I don’t have that much information on it, unfortunately.

The second is Family Bee, which is $10, and is much more polished at this point. It has a variety of ways to import GEDCOM files – through web browsing, email attachments, and hooking up to a computer via USB. The GEDCOM files are stored on an SD card, and it’s been reliably tested out to 12 MB of data (which is over 30,000 names).

I don’t like to recommend software or platforms I really haven’t tested, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Family Bee, although it wouldn’t hurt to try AGeneDB either since it’s free. Family Bee has (to me at least) more features and is garnering more favorable reviews on the various Android app websites. I don’t have an Android device at this time to test these out, but will be acquiring one soon.

2010 is shaping up to be a very good year for mobile genealogy software. In the coming days, I’ve got a lot of updates to the site I’ll be rolling out – some really useful stuff for mobile users. More on that as they are rolled out.