Good overview of everything that was on the Mac and iOS startup slides (along with the SDK slides) in the keynote yesterday by Dave Caolo.

What began as impressive technology (much of it developed by other companies and then acquired by Google) combined with existing data sources (licensed by Google) has turned into the creation of massive sets of original and often unique data over the past seven years. It cannot be underestimated what an achievement the Street View project is. The early 21st century will go down in history as the first time entire countries were systematically photographed and these photos made available to the public. Assuming that this data will still be available in a hundred or a thousand years, what a tremendous treasure this is for future generations!

As excited as I am about what Apple is going to unveil about their new maps platform tomorrow, I agree with Ole that Google Maps is actually quite good. Anyone who has talked to me about maps the last few years knows that I really want Apple to hurry up and release their own platform, but not because I am in a hurry to get rid of Google.

Maps is one of the few Google services that I have no problem with. It has always been cutting edge and ahead of its time. On Android, Google Maps are even better that on iOS because they make use of vector drawing instead of bitmap images like on iOS. This allows for faster downloads and much easier offline use.

The reason that I want Apple to release its own map platform is simply because I think the API for it would be better than the one they supplied with Google Maps. Storm Spotter has always (and still continues to) push the MapKit API to its limits. Storm Spotter has overlays before it was officially supported by the framework and it now does custom OpenGL overlays (which are not supported by the framework).

Apple had their work cut out for them trying to create a Maps solution that was as good as Google’s on day one. We will find out tomorrow if they succeeded or not. For me, the only way that I will consider them successful would be a solution that includes a combination of vectors and a revamped API.

There has been a lot of talk about the upcoming iPhone update that will include a larger four inch screen. Most also seem to agree that we will not be seeing this new iPhone next week at WWDC.

Since we will be seeing a preview of iOS 6, there has been a lot of talk that Apple will introduce some sort of resolution independence feature in iOS 6 without actually confirming a larger screen on the new phone. This would allow for developers to get their apps ready for the new screen size without directly playing their hand.

I think that there is no way Apple will even hint at resolution independence when discussing iOS 6. Even though there is an NDA over everything covered at WWDC, the internet will talk. If Apple talked about resolution independence to developers, they would be tipping their hand to a larger screen on the next iPhone; and they know this.

Apple will make no mention of a new resolution at WWDC next week. They will give out iOS 6 for developers to get ready for that. If a new iPhone with a larger screen is released this fall, then us developers will then be giving the opportunity to prepare our apps for the larger screen.

I have not had time to update the sight in the last few weeks.  During the last few months my life has been busy with looking and interviewing for jobs, graduating from OU, preparing for and then having a wedding, and then taking a trip to Italy with my lovely new bride.

With all that going on, posting here was not a high priority.  That being said, my schedule has cleared up considerably and I look forward to continue with the site.  We are less than a week from WWDC (which I am excited to attend again this year), so this is the perfect time to resume posting.

So basically, I just wanted to pop in to let my readers (or reader, who knows) that normal posting will resume now.