Category Archives: software development

.net, cloud computing, mobile, software development

Xamarin acquires LessPainful, announces Test Cloud for mobile apps

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Xamarin, a company which provides tools for cross-platform development in C#, has announced its acquisition of LessPainful and the creation of cloud-based testing for mobile apps based on LessPainful’s technology and the Calabash scripting language it created.

The Test Cloud will perform automated user-interface tests on real devices, hosted by Xamarin, will provide detailed reports in the event of test failures, and will support Continuous Integration so that bugs are caught as early as possible.

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“After you’ve conquered the cross-platform mobile development problem, testing is the next large pain point” says Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman. “You can’t just get by with manual testing. There’s a need for the same level of tools and processes in mobile testing that you have in desktop and web testing.”

“Quality is actually more important on mobile than in other places. Mobile sessions are very short. People are really intolerant of low quality on mobile. The release cycles are shorter too. People are revving more frequently, and testing is a bigger challenge.”

Another issue with mobile testing is the number of devices out there, especially if you throw cross-platform into the mix. “You have on Android all these manufacturers who customise the OS in different ways, you have multiple different versions that are in use, and you have multiple different form factors and device capabilities. The testing permutation matrix is huge.”

“Automated UI testing is the only kind of testing that can ensure that the app does what it is supposed to do.”

Friedman says that the Xamarin UI tests are more robust than competing UI test frameworks because they do not depend on UI image recognition. “The right answer is object-based, you identify user interface elements on the screen by object IDs”.”

How does testing on real devices work? If you have 50 developers testing on 27 devices in Xamarin’s cloud, will there be racks and racks of devices to support them?  “That’s what it looks like at our end, racks and racks of devices,” confirmed Friedman. “The service is going to be built based on device/hour usage. We’ll be able to scale up to match what people need.

“We talk to developers who spend $8,000 a month just to get new devices. That’s not counting the labour and everything else they need to do, to set up their own testing infrastructure. It’s a giant pain point.”

Xamarin’s Test Cloud will offer plug-ins for Jenkins, TeamCity, and Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server, to support Continuous Integration.

The scripting language for the Test Cloud is either Calabash , or C# scripting which is under development by Xamarin.

The Test Cloud is not just for applications developed using Xamarin’s C# framework, but also supports other frameworks including those written in native iOS Objective C. However, only iOS and Android are supported.

Availability is set for the third quarter of 2013.

Xamarin’s Evolve conference is currently under way in Austin, Texas, with around 600 developers in attendance. Friedman says the company is growing fast. 1000 developers a day download the tools, there are over 15,000 paid developers, and the company now has 65 employees.

More information on the Xamarin Test Cloud is here.

adobe, google, intel, open source, professional, software development, Web

Intel fights back against iOS with free tools for HTML5 cross-platform mobile development

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Today at its Software Conference in Paris Intel presented its HTML5 development tools.

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There are several components, starting with the XDK, a cross-platform development kit based on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript designed to be packaged as mobile apps using Cordova, the open source variant of PhoneGap.

There is an intriguing comment here:

The XDK is fully compatible with the PhoneGap HTML5 cross platform development project, providing many features that are missing from the open source project.

PhoneGap is Adobe’s commercial variant of Cordova. It looks as if Intel is doing its own implementation of features which are in PhoneGap but not Cordova, which might not please Adobe. Apparently code that Intel adds will be fed back into Cordova in due course.

Intel has its own JavaScript app framework, formerly called jqMobi and now called Intel’s App Framework. This is an open source framework hosted on Github.

There are also developer tools which run as an extension to Google Chrome, and a cloud-based build service which targets the following platforms:

  • Apple App Store
  • Google Play
  • Nook Store
  • Amazon Appstore for Android
  • Windows 8 Store
  • Windows Phone 8

And web applications:

  • Facebook
  • Intel AppUp
  • Chrome Store
  • Self-hosted

The build service lets you compile and deploy for these platforms without requiring a local install of the various mobile SDKs. It is free and according to Intel’s Thomas Zipplies there are no plans to charge in future. The build service is Intel’s own, and not related to Adobe’s PhoneGap Build, other than the fact that both share common source in Cordova. This also is unlikely to please Adobe.

You can start a new app in the browser, using a wizard.

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Intel also has an iOS to HTML5 porting tool in beta, called the App Porter Tool. The aim is to convert Objective C to JavaScript automatically, and while the tool will not convert all the code successfully it should be able to port most of it, reducing the overall porting effort.

Given that the XDK supports Windows 8 modern apps and Windows Phone 8, this is also a route to porting from iOS to those platforms.

Why is Intel doing this, especially on a non-commercial basis? According to Zipplies, it is a reaction to “walled garden” development platforms, which while not specified must include Apple iOS and to some extent Google Android.

Note that both iOS and almost all Android devices run on ARM, so another way of looking at this is that Intel would rather have developers work on cross-platform apps than have them develop exclusively for ARM devices.

Zipplies also says that Intel can optimise the libraries in the XDK to improve performance on its processors.

You can access the HTML5 development tools here.

cloud computing, google, software development

Twilio integrates with Google App Engine for cloud telephony applications

Cloud telephony company Twilio has announced a partnership with Google to integrate its API with App Engine, Google’s platform for cloud applications. Google has a clear explanation of what this enables here. You can have your application respond to incoming SMS texts or voice calls, and send an SMS back, or for voice, play messages, record the call, or ask for further digits to be pressed to route the call appropriately. You can also use the API to initiate calls or send texts.

If you look here there are how-to examples (generic to Twilio, not specific to App Engine) for some of the things you do with Twilio:

  • Automated reminder calls
  • Click to call on your web site
  • Company directory
  • IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for automated support
  • Conferencing
  • Phone polls
  • Voice mail
  • Voice transcription

and more of course. Help desk applications and other kinds of support are the most obvious applications, but there are no limits: if you want to build voice calls or SMS messaging into your app, Twilio is the obvious solution.

The relationship with Google is not exclusive. Twilio already has integration with Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. Google has one-upped Microsoft though. The Azure promotion gets you free credit for 1000 texts or minutes for Azure, while there are free 2000 texts or minutes for Google App Engine customers.

You can also use Twilio on any platform that can use a REST API. There is a module for Node.js, and libraries for PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, Java and Apex (used by Salesforce.com).

gpu computing, professional, software development

Big GPU news at NVIDIA tech conference including first Tegra with CUDA

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made a number of announcements at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) keynote yesterday, including an updated roadmap for both desktop and mobile GPUs.

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Although the focus of the GTC is on high-performance computing using Tesla GPU accelerator boards, Huang’s announcements were not limited to that area but also covered the company’s progress on mobile and on the desktop. Huang opened by mentioning the recently released GeForce Titan graphics processor which has 2,600 CUDA cores, and which starts from under £700 so is within reach of serious gamers as well as developers who can make use of it for general-purpose computing. CUDA enables use of the GPU for massively parallel general-purpose computing. NVIDIA is having problems keeping up with demand, said Huang.

There are now 430 million CUDA capable GPUs out there, said Huang, including 50 supercomputers, and coverage in 640 university courses.

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He also mentioned last week’s announcement of the Swiss Piz Daint supercomputer which will include Tesla K20X GPU accelerators and will be operational in early 2014.

But what is coming next? Here is the latest GPU roadmap:

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Kepler is the current GPU architecture, which introduced dynamic parallelism, the ability for the GPU to generate work without transitioning back to the CPU.

Coming next is Maxwell, which has unified virtual memory. The GPU can see the CPU memory, and the CPU can see the GPU memory, making programming easier. I am not sure how this impacts performance, but note that it is unified virtual memory, so the task of copying data between host and device still exists under the covers.

After Maxwell comes Volta, which focuses on increasing memory bandwidth and reducing latency. Volta includes a stack of DRAM on the same silicon substrate as the GPU, which Huang said enables 1TB per second of memory bandwidth.

What about mobile? NVIDIA is aware of the growth in devices of all kinds. 2.5bn high definition displays are sold each year, said Huang, and this will double again by 2015. These displays are mostly not for PCs, but on smartphones or embedded devices.

Here is the roadmap for Tegra, NVIDIA’s system-on-a-chip (SoC).

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Tegra 4, which I saw in preview at last month’s mobile world congress in Barcelona, includes a software-defined modem and computational camera, able to tracks moving objects while keeping them in focus.

Next is Tegra Logan. This is the first Tegra to include CUDA cores so you can use it for general-purpose computing. It  is based on the Kepler GPU and supports full CUDA 5 computing as well as Open GL 4.3. Logan with be previewed this year and in production early 2014.

After Logan comes Parker. This will be based on the Maxwell GPU (see above) and NVIDIA’s own Denver (ARM-based) CPU. It will include FinFET multigate transistors.

According to Huang, Tegra performance will includes by 100 times over 5 years. Today’s Surface RT (which runs Tegra 3) may be sluggish, but Windows RT will run fine on these future SoCs. Of course Intel is not standing still either.

Finally, Huang announced the Grid Visual Computing Appliance, which I will be covering shortly in another post.

development, microsoft, software development, visual studio, windows

Microsoft’s Windows 8 app problem will not be solved by incentivising junk

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Microsoft has launched a “Keep the cash” offer to developers. Publish up to 20 apps, 10 for Windows Phone and 10 for Windows 8, and get $100 for each of them.

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The offer is little use for most of the world. The terms state that “Offer good only to legal residents of the 50 United States & D.C. aged 18 or older”.

It is little use for Microsoft either. How much development time does $100 buy? Still, there is a way to make sense of it for hobbyists or developers with some spare time. What you do is to create one of those apps that does very little but is specific to something like a particular sports team or pop star, and maybe searches the web for news about them. Then you replicate it 10 times over for 10 different teams or celebrities. Then you adapt it for both phone and Windows 8 store. That’s 20 apps, $2000.

In other words, the only thing this will achieve is to increase the amount of dross in these two stores. Microsoft is pumping the numbers, so that there is an appearance of success on the most naive analysis, counting the apps.

Incidentally, this is something that Windows Store VP Antoine LeBlond assured me Microsoft would not do, at the launch of Surface RT in New York last year.

Does Microsoft have an app problem? Yes, particularly on Windows 8. Windows Phone 8 is less of a problem; Microsoft’s phone is actually building some momentum from what I can tell and app availability is not too bad, despite some gaps such as Instagram and BBC iPlayer.

The app problem is nothing to do with quantity though. 10 good apps for the Windows Store is worth more to the platform than 10,000 poor ones. In fact, filling the store with junk is a negative that will cement the perception that there is little there that is worthwhile.

Rather, the app problem is the consequence of several factors:

1. The development platform is not good enough. Most things can be done, but not easily, and the default look and feel results in blocky apps that tend to scale badly on big screens. The built-in controls are too primitive. The user interface is insufficiently intuitive and users struggle to discover the menus and features hidden in the Charms bar.

2. Microsoft has so far failed to establish Windows 8 as a tablet platform. The reasons are complex and to do with the Windows heritage, the way OEM and retail partners treat Windows, and the fact that there are other tablet platforms (iOS and Android) out there which meet the need for many people.

3. Windows 8 is out there in reasonable numbers, but most users spend most of there time in the desktop, making the Windows Store app platform less successful than the quantity deployed would suggest.

4. Businesses are mainly standardising on Windows 7, not Windows 8, to the detriment of the new app platform.

In this context, the best thing that could happen for Windows 8 is the appearance of new compelling apps that will drive users to the underused tablet personality. Microsoft could and should do some of those (there are a few efforts, like Fresh Paint).

Those apps, though, will not be developed for $100. They will be developed either by enthusiasts who love the platform (which will not happen until the platform is improved), or by businesses who invest real money and effort in building them.

As it is, this misguided initiative does little other than to draw attention to the problems Microsoft has with its new Windows.

hardware, software, software development

Intel Xeon Phi shines vs NVidia GPU accelerators in Ohio State University tests

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Which is better for massively parallel computing, a GPU accelerator board from NVidia, or Intel’s new Xeon Phi? On the eve of NVidia’s GPU Technology Conference comes a paper which Intel will enjoy. Erik Sauley, Kamer Kayay, and Umit V. C atalyurek from the Ohio State University have issued a paper with performance comparisons between Xeon Phi, NVIDIA Tesla C2050 and NVIDIA Tesla K20. The K20 has 2,496 CUDA cores, versus a mere 61 processor cores on the Xeon Phi, yet on the particular calculations under test the researchers got generally better performance from Xeon Phi.

In the case of sparse-matrix vector multiplication (SpMV):

For GPU architectures, the K20 card is typically faster than the C2050 card. It performs better for 18 of the 22 instances. It obtains between 4.9 and 13.2GFlop/s and the highest performance on 9 of the instances. Xeon Phi reaches the highest performance on 12 of the instances and it is the only architecture which can obtain more than 15GFlop/s.

and in the case of sparse-matrix matrix multiplication (SpMM):

The K20 GPU is often more than twice faster than C2050, which is much better compared with their relative performances in SpMV. The Xeon Phi coprocessor gets
the best performance in 14 instances where this number is 5 and 3 for the CPU and GPU configurations, respectively. Intel Xeon Phi is the only architecture which achieves more than 100GFlop/s.

Note that this is a limited test, and that the authors note that SpMV computation is known to be a difficult case for GPU computing:

the irregularity and sparsity of SpMV-like kernels create several problems for these architectures.

They also note that memory latency is the biggest factor slowing performance:

At last, for most instances, the SpMV kernel appears to be memory latency bound rather than memory bandwidth bound

It is difficult to compare like with like. The Xeon Phi implementation uses OpenMP, whereas the GPU implementation uses CuSparse. I would also be interested to know whether as much effort was made to optimise for the GPU as for the Xeon Phi.

Still, this is a real-world test that, if nothing else, demonstrates that in the right circumstances the smaller number of cores in a Xeon Phi do not prevent it comparing favourably against a GPU accelerator:

When compared with cutting-edge processors and accelerators, its SpMV, and especially SpMM, performance are superior thanks to its wide registers
and vectorization capabilities. We believe that Xeon Phi will gain more interest in HPC community in the near future.

development, mobile, professional, software development, web authoring

Native apps vs HTML 5: no consensus over how to choose

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Wondering whether to invest in native apps or HTML5 web apps (maybe wrapped as native) for your next mobile development project? Welcome to plenty of confusion about which is the best path to take. Here are a few pieces of evidence from this month:

A Compuware survey of 3,500 consumers showed a preference for mobile apps over mobile websites:

When consumers were asked about the benefits of using a mobile app versus a mobile website (a website that is specifically designed to be viewed on a mobile device), the majority (85 percent) said they preferred mobile apps primarily because apps are more convenient, faster and easier to browse.

Just 1% expressed a preference for mobile websites over apps. Note that consumers cannot be expected to know whether or not a native app is actually written in HTML5 or not; but here is an intriguing report from Xero, which makes accounting software:

Very early on we chose to build Xero Touch using HTML5 technologies. That choice showed that we care about the future of the open web and its continued success as an application delivery platform and we firmly believe that HTML5 is the future of development across any and all platforms. We do not regret this choice – but we’ve found that building a complicated mobile application in HTML5 has been hard. Even with frameworks as amazing as Sencha Touch, we’ve found the ability to iterate as fast as we would like has become harder as our application has become more complex.

… the lesson we’ve learnt over the last 12 months has been that the cost in time, effort and testing to bring an HTML5 application to a native level of performance seems to be far greater than if the application was built with native technologies from the get-go … Maintaining and iterating a web app was becoming a big impediment – so the next release of Xero Touch will be built with native technologies and we’ve already made a lot of progress. It does feel better.

If a company is so unhappy with its development platform that it is willing to endure the pain and expense of switching, that is evidence of deep dissatisfaction.

On the other hand, here is the UK’s Government Digital Service:

Our position is that native apps are rarely justified. Since November 2012, central government departments and agencies have to get approval from Cabinet Office before starting work on apps. For government services, we believe the benefits of developing and maintaining apps will very rarely justify their costs, especially if the underlying service design is sub-optimal. Departments should focus on improving the quality of the core web service.

Is this because the Government Digital Service is spending public money and therefore apps are an unnecessary luxury? That is arguable, though it has not stopped the BBC (also publicly funded) from delivering a ton of apps, to predictable complaints from owners of less favoured platforms like Windows Phone.

This one will run and run. HTML5 will get better, but so also will native platforms, so I doubt this difficult choice will get easier any time soon.

It may be a matter of whether your particular app is a good fit for HTML5 or not. However, I am not aware of any consensus over what characteristics make an app a good or bad fit for an HTML5 solution, except that for broad reach HTML5 cannot be beaten, and for full access to device and OS features there is no substitute for native.

.net, development, microsoft, professional, software development

Internal Windows Runtime apps are prohibitively expensive to deploy, says Microsoft Regional Director

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Now we know why Microsoft has been so reluctant to divulge details of how to deploy a business app that uses the Windows Runtime (also known as Metro apps or Windows Store apps; though in this case the Windows Store app designation is particularly silly since these apps are precisely not Store apps).

Presuming Windows MVP and Regional Director Rockford Lhotka is correct, a business that wishes to sideload Windows Runtime apps (in other words, to deploy but not via the Windows Store), a business needs to purchase a $30 sideloading key which, by a stroke of marketing genius, is only available in packs of 100.

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Note the above screen grab shows a price of more than $30.00. I believe this is because Lhotka’s figures do not allow for any reseller markup, though there could be regional differences as well.

Here is what Microsoft’s Antoine Leblond said back in April 2012:

To enable sideloading of a Metro style app onto a PC:

  • Set Group Policy for “Allow all trusted apps to install”. If you cannot use Group Policy, then you can set this through the following setting: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Appx\AllowAllTrustedApps = 1
  • Verify that the app is signed by a CA that is trusted on the target machines
  • Activate a special product key by using a script on the target machine to enable sideloading. We’ll go into more detail about how the IT admin will acquire the product keys in an upcoming blog post. The product key only needs to be install and activated once on the PC.

I have not seen the promised upcoming blog post but would be interested in doing so if anyone has a link?

Sideloading keys are only valid on Windows 8 Pro or Windows 8 Enterprise.

As a further disincentive, if you want to avoid running a PowerShell script on each target machine, you will need either System Center or InTune to manage the PCs. InTune is the cheaper option, at $6.00 per device per month. Lhotka calculates:

Let’s assume that your organization has 100 Windows RT or Windows 8 Pro devices, so you buy $3000 worth of side-loading keys. And let’s assume you use InTune. Finally let’s assume your devices have a 3 year life – which is pretty typical for corporate devices where you buy a service agreement from Lenovo or Dell or another vendor.

These 100 devices will cost $3000 for keys, plus $6 per device per month. This means that your org with 100 devices will pay around $23,000 extra to deploy a WinRT app just for this licensing.

and he concludes:

Right now it appears that Microsoft has worked very hard to devise a licensing and deployment scheme for WinRT apps designed specifically to discourage the creation of any WinRT business apps. Whether this is intentional or accidental I can’t say, but it is surely the case that no responsible business or IT manager could look at these scenarios and think that a move to WinRT for business app development makes sense at this time

That said, I am not sure he is being completely fair. I doubt a business will subscript to InTune just to support sideloading, and for those who do not want to subscribe, running a PowerShell script is not that hard. It seems to me that the problem could be mostly fixed by offering the sideloading keys in smaller packs.

I would add that now is probably not the moment to deploy a Windows Runtime app. The platform is not as good as it should be, and there is a case for waiting for the first major update in my opinion.

Still, $3000 for a licence pack is substantial, especially for a small business with fewer than 100 PCs.

The “Modern UI” side of Windows 8 has not taken off as yet, and a rational approach would be to encourage rather than discourage corporate developers to target the platform.

Note: a Microsoft Regional Director does not work directly for Microsoft. Lhotka works for Magenic. A Regional Director is an independent professional who is recognized for their ability to train and evangelise development on Microsoft’s platform.

apple, google, microsoft, mobile, software development, Uncategorized

Power shifts at Mobile World Congress: Samsung rises, Apple absent, Google hidden, Microsoft missing

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Mobile World Congress, now under way in Barcelona, is a big event. Exact numbers are not available, but I have heard talk of 70,000 trade attendees; it is not something you can safely ignore if you have a presence in the mobile industry.

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Nevertheless Apple chooses to ignore it, preferring its own exclusive events. This is a strategy that has worked in the past, but this year it may be less clever. Several have said to me that Apple is falling behind, being too slow to innovate its iOS device family. Of course many here are using Apple devices, but the momentum for now is elsewhere, though one magical announcement could change that any time.

Samsung on the other hand has the biggest stand here (actually several stands) and is everywhere. The underlying story is how Samsung is moving on from being an Android device vendor and focusing on Samsung-specific features. In the consumer world that means hooks into Samsung TVs or its new HomeSync media box with a Terabyte of storage, intended to be the place for all your music and video, as well as enabling Android games in your living room.

The bigger Samsung news though is its enterprise offering, called Knox, which creates a secure, encrypted container on your Samsung smartphone or tablet exclusively for business use. IT admins have full control over access and app deployment. This is the same approach used by Blackberry with the Balance feature in its new Blackberry 10 devices. Knox is implemented by third-parties, and links with Active Directory, making this an attractive proposition for businesses getting to grips with the challenge of mobile device management.

Crucially, Knox works only with Samsung devices. It is based on a secure edition of Linux and includes a hardware element so that other device vendors cannot implement Knox, though they could create their own similar system.

Blackberry on the other hand has not taken a stand at this event. Instead, it has parked itself in a hotel across the road, which its staff informally call Blackberry Towers. The symbolism is unfortunate. Last year it had a big stand; this year it is out of the mainstream. Blackberry’s new devices look good but its key business selling point is Balance, which means it will not be happy about Samsung’s Knox.

Microsoft is a puzzle, as is not uncommon for the company. Via Windows Phone it is a premier sponsor (which I imagine means a ton of cost) but does not have a stand. Windows Phone is mainly represented by Nokia, though it can be glimpsed elsewhere such as on the HTC stand. This is a company that wants to convince us that it is a serious force in mobile? Windows 8 is meant to be a new start on tablets; so where is Surface RT or Surface Pro?

I also wonder if the company has left it too late to establish Windows Phone as the best choice for secure mobility. I have been talking to Centrify here at Mobile World Congress, one of the third-parties implementing Knox solutions. Everything in a Centrify Knox deployment is controlled by Active Directory, and it forms an elegant and secure option for enterprises who want to give employees the freedom of a personal device combined with the security and manageability of a mobile device. I also saw how app developers can query Active Directory attributes on Knox Android devices just as they would with a Windows application.

So where is Microsoft with its enterprise smartphone story? It has all the pieces, including Active Directory itself, Bitlocker for device encryption, and System Center for management, but it has not yet assembled them for Windows Phone.

At least it is better than last year when it ran embarrassing "smoked by Windows Phone" demos.

Google is another puzzle. Last year a huge stand and a hall dedicated to Android; this year, nothing. Android may have won the mobile OS wars, but do initiatives like Knox show how Google is failing to reap the benefits? Possibly. It does seem to me that Google is now engaged in differentiating its own products and services from what you might call generic Android; and its absence from Mobile World Congress is likely part of that effort.

.net, development, professional, software development

Cross-platform frameworks ordered by percentage of shared code

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Following my piece on different approaches to building the user interface in cross-platform frameworks, twitter user Sam Hogarth pointed me to the PropertyCross project. This implements a non-trivial application in 8 different cross-platform tools, covering Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Note that only four of the frameworks support Windows Phone.

Using the pie charts presented for each framework, I was able to order them by percentage of shared code as follows:

1= Adobe AIR (100%), JQTouch (100%) , RhoMobile (100%), Sencha Touch (100%)

5. Appcelerator Titanium (around 90%)

6. JQuery Mobile (around 80%)

7. Xamarin (around 40%)

8. Native (0%)

A couple of notes. Of the 100% frameworks, three do not support Windows Phone, and the one which does (Rhomobile) seems to be a bit broken on Windows Phone, judging by the screenshots. The Property Details and Favourites pages do not render properly.

You would get more code sharing with Xamarin if you only supported two rather than three platforms. That is logical: since it does not abstract the GUI.

In most cases (not Rhomobile) it is striking how different Windows Phone appears versus iOS and Android, even with jQuery Mobile which uses HTML5.

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