Asus x205ta vs. Macbook Air 11

My little daughter is 9, and we've decided it's time to get her a laptop.
I was looking for something that has a small form factor, no moving parts, and inexpensive.
Was considering a Chromebook, but then came across the x205ta from Asus - A small, Chromebook-like device, capable of running Windows 10.

Price was under 200$, so not much of a risk, and after receiving the machine with windows 8.1, I had to upgrade to windows 10 (Left the upgrade working overnight.)

After using it a little bit, the obvious question was - How does it work in comparison with my (Now wife's) Macbook Air 11?

So here are some conclusions:

- Specs: The Asus has budget processor, 32 GB drive, 2 GB ram and costs 25%. Though these specs are quite nothing in comparison with the Air's Haswell processor and 4/128 RAM, But you can get a 128GB micro SD and extend your HD capacity for dirt cheap.
- Form factor: The tiny Asus is a bit lighter, smaller width, and thicker than the Air 11.
- Finish: No comparison here. The Asus feels much cheaper. Its keyboard and touchpad are ok. The screen has the same resolution, but isn't as good. But it's completely ok, considering it costs quarter than the Mac.
- Performance: Well, you can't really compare a budget processor and 2 GB RAM to a top of the line one with 4 GB. But Windows 10 actually works really well, runs office and browsing fine, and (Compared to the unusable Metro UI) is very comfortable to use. It's not a gaming platform.
- Battery life: Now this is the first time I've seen a windows laptop runs so long between charges. More than 12 hours (For browsing and office usage). The Air? 9 hours was my record.
- Software: The most important software for my kid is office, and though Office runs on both laptops, Hebrew support for Office still lags on Mac OS. The Asus comes with 1 year free Office subscription.

In conclusion - This is a very smart buy for students. Cheap, light, fun to use, and runs everything you need - It's not a tool for heavy programming, photoshopping or gaming, but rather for browsing and office applications. The price is the main disruption here - Why get a tablet for your kid when you can get her a fully functional laptop?
This is quite like comparing apples and peaches (Pun intended) - Eventually, if I'm a casual user, this is a no brainer - The Asus takes it. But if I'm a heavy user and need an ultraportable, the x205ta isn't an alternative to the Air. I would look for something more in the area of the Air's 800-900$ MSRP (Yes, they MSRP for less now...).

The new Macbook Air 11 - From a personal point of view

After spending two years with the Macbook Air 13 (2011 i5 edition), it was time to say goodbye, and get a new laptop.
Decision was made very easy with the 2013 Macbook Air Haswell upgrades - The only thing left to decide was whether to get the 11" or the 13", since in terms of performance they are completely identical.
I went with the 11", only because I wanted to experience something new - The difference in weight and form factor wasn't that big, and screen resolution is quite similar.

My usage is quite plain - Running an IDE (XCode, Eclipse or PHPStorm), a stack (Usually AMP or Node.js), and a browser or emulator, and sometimes Office.

My impressions so far - Wow.

Though performance doesn't feel much faster than the 2011 model (Which was plenty fast for my usage), the Air runs much cooler, and lasts between 7 to 10 (!) hours, depending on how wifi heavy I am.
For a machine that weighs almost like an iPad, this is quite amazing.

And when people ask me "Why don't you just get an iPad", I simply say - An iPad with 128GB SSD costs 800$. Add a 100$ keyboard to that, but you still can't run a stack.

Sorry, for me, this is the best laptop in the world.

At least until the next generation comes out ;-)

My new friend, working on InsideMy.co's stack

In vacation... Notes about devices.

Having the need to be connected even during vacation, I took an iPad (3rd gen) alongside my new galaxy nexus phone.
After using those two devices for a while, here are some insights:

• Android has caught up with iOS. Jelly bean, google voice, google now and other touches (app swapping, the software buttons, a great, huge screen) make my wife's iPhone 4s seem old. 
• Even the form factor of the nexus (and the new s3 as well), the curved shapes, the soft buttons - make apple's device look old. Apple better come up with a killer iPhone 5, otherwise they're in trouble.
• Considering the fact that the next nexus device is also around the corner (rumored November), things seem interesting in the mobile market. 
• I've finally understood the difference between the iPad 2 and the new iPad. I knew that the new screen is great, but only after moving from 2 to new, and working on the new for a while, you get to understand the meaning of a large retina screen. Everything looks analog. You can't see pixels. Amazing. 
• I've played with the new galaxy note tablet, and though it's amazing fast, it's still no iPad. But android devices are catching up. Can't wait for a retina-like jellybean powered tablet. 
• If the next MacBook air has retina, I'm in.
• Still no word from iTunes store about my app - submitted 8 days ago. Waiting sucks. 

Mountain Lion, bits and updates

I am writing this post via Mountainlands dictation feature apparently this feature works quite well

(Mountainlands = Mountain Lion)

"I'm trying to use punctuation, feature in the month of life"

(Month of life = Mountain Lion)

Apparently, the only thing dictation doesn't understand in my accent is the name of the OS :)

App development is progressing well. Debugging and testing in my iPhone is really simple, as long as you've got the right XCode version/ iOS etc.
Registration of devices and the whole certification process takes a little effort, but also works seamlessly.
The next step would be recording some narrations, and then (Try) and publish the app.
I've opened up a page for the app on facebook - Come say hi.

Why go native?

... When you've got HTML5?
That's one question I get asked a lot in the past year.

When you've got so many cool new features in HTML5, and want to save development costs, is there any reason at all why your application should be native?
Why write for several platforms, go through the whole approval process (Difficult with Apple, less so with Android)?
Why maintain more than one environment, expert types, development environments? (And yes, I know about Flash Air Mobile, Aptana and Phonegap. And no, I don't consider them as 'native'.)

Well - There are several reasons why you would want to go native.

First reason to go native would be performance.
If you have long tables to present, large stream of information, graphics (Like dynamic maps), you might be better off native.

Second reason is better usage of your device's resources - Camera, GPS, accelerometer - These are all supported/ to be supported in html, but would not work as well as they would with native interface.

Third reason is UI conventions - When programming for a device, it's best to use its native components for UI. Simply put, your users would find it easier to set preferences and options, and learn the application in the visual language the device uses. HTML5 would never look better than a native app, especially in small mobile device screens.

Final reason would be control. You want your users to be focused in your application, rather than have four browser tabs in parallel. You might not want your users to be able to simply 'browse out' of your application (Without doing a proper cleanup...).

There's also a way to enjoy both worlds:
Applications can talk to their 'web view' programmatically: Actually, the only way to spawn a software keyboard in 'editable' divs (Like web based rich text editors do) was by wrapping your site with a small app, and have the javascript 'invoke' the keyboard via the app.
That means you can wrap a web view with a thin app, and that way get all the focus to your app.

So before you jump to HTML5, which is an obvious answer to which platform you choose, think it over a little bit - Maybe native is the way to go.

In the meantime, I'm really having fun exploring Xcode. It's not that bad, once you're used to the workflow. Of course, this isn't visual studio for windows phone (I consider VS to be the best IDE, with WP no exception), but for now - It's fine.

And, finally, here's an interesting article about a small, smart and very popular company. Instagr.am is one of the coolest companies I know. Click the link below to understand why.
What powers instagr.am

Go Xcode yourself

Got a new Macbook Air 13". It's a neat machine, and osx feels great, even for a windows fan like me.
Office for mac is cool, Webstorm is working, and now I'm brushing my unix skills (Installing mysql and activating the built in php and apache), and setting up my work environment.
The good ol' x40 will remain in the family, and go to my older brother.

Another thing I got a mac for was to begin learning iOS development.
Xcode is the official iOS IDE, and after a little bit of fiddling, I still haven't decided whether I really hate Objective-c, or really misunderstand the language.

The principal is supposed to be simple - Drag and drop stuff to the view, write the outlets (Bad name), write some code and then connect them (By doing lots of ctrl+clicking).

But the Objective-c language is, well, quite weird. And the whole concept is a little more complicated than windows phone IDE, FLEX, or even Android.

I will update more about what I've learned once I do some real programming (Some web request and more elaborate controls stuff) rather than just connecting a slider and button to a label...

In the meantime, I'm really, really enjoying the Air's form factor and great performance. Only minor disadvantage - 13" screen with 1440x900 display = Really really small fonts in some web sites.