I was out jogging the other day.

At the end of my run, I wanted to buy a drink, but I soon realized that I have forgotten to bring along cash with me! I have my iPhone with me, but can it pay for my drinks?

I started to think of solutions..

Thinking: If everyone is a mobile ATM, and I could use my phone to transfer money electronically to these mobile ATM, it will be great! As long as they could “dispense” the money, I would not mind paying a commission fee for the service.

Not bad an idea.. Hence I am submitting it for Paypal X Developer Challenge.

On a full page advertisement for Samsung Galaxy S in Straits Times today:

I am happy to find SG Toto as one of the app that works for the Android phone.

Great.

But wait, I don’t remember releasing the app for Android..

Spare yourself watching the 1 hr long iPad keynote.

This is better, and it shows that if we repeat the same thing over and over in a presentation, the audience will bound to believe..

Late last night, we found out that AppVault has added a all-too-familiar-looking Broken Apple to their website – because AppBox complained that AppVault was too similar and infringed on their copyright. Here is the original website from AppVault:

But if you go to the website now, you would see the below instead. Spot the differences?

Hmmm.. they took away MY BROKEN APPLE graphics! I am fine with you infringing my copyright, just give me due credits, can?

@AppVault, can you not silently drop my case? You don’t just remove an infringed material from your App Store blog just because you can :p

This a good commercial ad to Nokia’s Ovi Store.

The ad is good, but Ovi store is still inferior to Apple’s App Store.

Its a New Year!

WJS has an interesting look at the top 25 companies across a decade – 1999 compared to 2009.

One note is that there were 13 Technologies companies in 1999, while there are only 6 in 2009. Bad..

I am a Mac fanboy, and that is how I see you Linux and Windows users!

Neil Gaiman, one of the most creative writer who writes stuff out of nowhere, explains how he gets his ideas..

In the post, he said everyone has some good ideas. Some people will approach him with the idea and ask him to write for them, and split the money 50-50..

I’m reasonably gracious with these people. I tell them, truly, that I have far too many ideas for things as it is, and far too little time. And I wish them the best of luck.

Developers are akin to authors.

I too, keep a long list of ideas.

Inspired Zdnet’s prediction of the smartphone market, I gazed into my own crystal ball for 5 reasons why Google Android will prevail in the coming years.

1. Android is an open source operating system that welcomes every handset manufacturer. This means there will be many manufacturers churning out Android powered handsets.
2. Android SDK is powerful, feature-rich and yet easy to use. Good SDK attracts good developers, who will develop more and better apps.
3. Android app store (Market) does not restrict the type of applications. This means happy developers, more creative apps and makes the phone more than being just a phone.
4. Android phones are highly usable usable with cool user interface, seamless Google’s integration, multitask-able, etc.. We know users love great phones.
5. Android phones will have a huge variety, ranging from very low to very high price. This means Android is made affordable for any market segment.

Gartner forecasted the market share in 2012. I have my own:

• Symbian – 32%
• Android – 22%
• iPhone – 18%
• BlackBerry – 12%
• WinMo – 6%
• Others – 10%

Symbian will still top the market share due to its hardwork done in the last decade, as we have seen it trending down in the last few years. WinMo will go down even more if it continues using the Windows mentality. Android and iPhone will be the 2 most talk about mobile OS, with RIM doing catching up. The rest, including Palm Pre, will fight for survival.

I will review my crystal gazing ability in 2 years time..

HTC Dragon on Android

Android Developer Challenge 2 (ADC) is just like American Idol, a big contest for software developers.

The first similarity is that there are big prizes to be won. A whopping total of $1,975,000 USD to be won by 30 developers!

The second similarity is the nature of the competition. Unlike other software competition, this is the first that involves voting from the public. If an application passes the first round (audition O_O), it will proceed to the second round, where any Android users with Android powered handsets would be able to download, evaluate and vote for their favorite application!

Do remember to vote for your favorite application, when it comes to Market in October! (: