Saturday 8 October 2011
Support the humble hyperlink

new web-service from myappmarks

I see that Joe Hewitt is also concerned that we may be foregoing many of the things we take for granted with the humble hyperlink in our headlong rush to embrace native apps, see What the Web is and is not and Apps and Web URLs: Perfect Together.

He also says that "We don't have to wait and hope that Apple or Google solve this problem for us." and suggests a web service that transforms between different URL representations required by different devices.

Using the core of myappmarks, I've put together a basic service that might do something similar to what Joe describes. The following two URLs both identify the movie entry on IMDb for 'The Godfather'. One is based on the common representation we see on the Web and the other uses the custom URL scheme used to invoke the IMDb native app on both iOS and Android.

To get an idea of what happens, follow these links on a variety of devices: desktop browser, iPhone, iPad or Android device. In all cases the service tries to present the most appropriate way of linking to IMDb.

Currently the service supports URLs for YouTube, Yelp, IMDb and Gowalla.

0 Comments Posted at 13:08 Permalink »
Saturday 26 February 2011
Some of you may have noticed...

no longer using the 'apple-mobile-web-app-capable' tag

The myappmarks iPhone webapp is no longer using the apple-mobile-web-app-capable meta tag. Using this tag meant that launching myappmarks from a bookmark saved on the home page came up in full-screen mode, not as just another tab in Safari. It bought some extra screen real estate at the bottom of pages because there was no need for the Safari tab bar. Better still, in a multi-tasking environment, it gave myappmarks its own icon when looking at the active apps.

Unfortunately full-screen webapps don't seem to support very sophisticated fast-app switching. When you switch back to a full-screen webapp, it starts all over again with the splash screen. Switching back to myappmarks running in a tab in Safari doesn't show the same problem.

I'm pretty sure there's no easy way around this - other than waiting for Apple to fix it. The new Basecamp webapp from 37signals exhibits the same behaviour and they offer the very best user experience they can.

myappmarks was built for multi-tasking and you need to be able to switch back to it fast. So - for the moment - myappmarks lives in a tab in Safari.
0 Comments Posted at 20:43 Permalink »
Sunday 13 February 2011
New version available

Introducing shared appmarks and iPad support.

The latest version of myappmarks is now out and introduces sharing appmarks - it makes it easy to share appmarks via Facebook, Twitter and email. In fact you can share an appmark just about anywhere using a simple link.  Better still you don't need to create an account to try out shared appmarks - here are just two examples:


If you want to see how appmarks behave intelligently depending on the device, be sure to try these out on both a desktop/laptop and a suitable iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch).

It's also worth noting that this latest version of myappmarks does a much better job of supporting the iPad - appmarks actually launch apps on the iPad rather than just opening a webpage.
0 Comments Posted at 11:15 Permalink »
Tuesday 14 September 2010
MoMoLondon

Yesterday myappmarks got its first outing.

It all happened at MoMoLondon's Demo Night - Autumn Edition.

It was a great format; sixteen x (3min demos + 2min Q&A) and it stayed on schedule. A huge range of demos as well as winners from the weekend's Over-The-Air event. Lots of new names (for me at least) and a surprising amount of HTML5 - obviously I use the term loosely. Certainly more than I would have expected based on the discussion at the Living in a Multi Platform World event earlier in the year, where it hardly got a mention except in the opening blurb.

But what truly made the evening was a really generous and enthusiastic crowd.
0 Comments Posted at 21:25 Permalink »
Sunday 13 June 2010
Coming soon...

Do you ever sit back and wonder at the marvel that is the digital bookmark?

Bookmarking a web page gives you direct access to that page, not just a homepage for a website. And if you store your bookmarks on a service like delicious, then that bookmark is there for you whether you are at work or at home, on a desktop, a phone or any other device.

And if you've bookmarked something really important or interesting then you can send it to your friends and colleagues.

Is it possible that we've thrown away something really important in our rush to an app-centric world?
0 Comments Posted at 12:25 Permalink »