Harri Salminen's Forum Nokia Blog

Where do you get terminal capability information?

widianuser — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:33:32 +0300

As mobile networks, terminals and browsers improve, creating browser based solutions becomes more interesting. When you start developing services for mobile browsers it won't take long before you need detailed information about the terminal's capabilities to create the most usable pages.

As far as I know, there is at least three major sources for that information:

UAProf data
WURFL database
DeviceAtlas from dotMobi

Some questions: what is your datasource when you need information about device properties? Are there true quality differences between datasources (sources seem to be referencing each other: WURFL uses UAProf and DeviceAtlas uses WURFL etc.)? What about provided API's, are there notable differences? Something else developers should know about this issue - your experiences are very welcome.

//Harri

----

Go to Mobilitics for Mobile Innovations and Custom Search

S60 browser goes iPhone

widianuser — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:06:45 +0200

Sometimes I envy iPhone owners. It doesn't help that my phone - unlike iPhone - has an open platform, tons of 3rd party applications, embedded GPS, good camera, 3,5G connections etc. What my phone doesn't have is the marketing buzz that pushes major web sites to make special optimized pages for iPhone users. I'm a big fan of Google's solutions and when they launched a special service for iPhone, I made a quick software hack and changed the N95 browser to introduce itself as iPhone's browser. Result was somewhat surprising. Both phones have a browser with a common core (I've been told) and AJAX support, so my guess was that pages made for iPhone would work just fine with N95. However, that was not quite the case: iPhonesque Google-pages in S60 don't every time draw completely and some items seem to be missing.

What I can see from iPhonesque pages is that pages designed for iPhone are easier to read and they are visually more pleasing. Take a look at screenshots below for comparison; original S60 page left, iPhonesque right. Perhaps the biggest visual change was on Picasa services (however, no screenshots about that - family pics kept hidden).

~~For those of you who want to try "iPhone on S60", I can send an unsigned SIS-file to you.~~

Update: I managed to upload the sis file here unsigned_S60_iPhone.sis

Note that you must sign it with your developer certificate (this is also a good place to remind about updated Symbian Signed process and new capabilities if you have publisher ID) including capabilities ReadDeviceData WriteDeviceData NetworkControl SwEvent NetworkServices LocalServices ReadUserData WriteUserData UserEnvironment. SIS-file supports S60 3rd edition feature pack 1. When you get the SIS installed, go to www.google.com/m and see how the look-and-feel changes.

Update 17.12.2007

Thanks for all the comments and questions about this prototype; there has been quite a traffic at this blog site and also on my email boxes. Here are some answers to questions I have gathered from different comments.

Why must I have a Publisher ID to be able to install this file?
This is not a requirement that I can influence. Symbian developers are (painfully) familiar with the concept of signing and capabilities, but based on comments a quick tutorial to capabilities seems like a good idea. So here it comes: when you develop anything nontrivial to Symbian devices, you must be granted for application capabilities. For the most powerful (and fun) capabilities you must verify who you are in order to install those applications to your terminal.

In fact situation is now better than before: two weeks ago I couldn't have done this without a permission from "terminal manufacturer" and special business case reasoning. Luckily new Symbian Signed process gives more capabilities to developers (more about this on my other blog entries)

Come on, why I must pay $200 to get a Publisher ID?
Sorry, this is again something that I cannot change nor avoid.

Application is broken and cannot be installed to my XYZ terminal. Installer says "Required application access not granted"
This happens because you didn't sign the application with certificate that has enough capabilities.

What capabilities are needed to install this application?
ReadDeviceData WriteDeviceData NetworkControl SwEvent NetworkServices LocalServices ReadUserData WriteUserData UserEnvironment

I cannot get enough capabilities to my certificate. NetworkControl is missing from the list!
You haven't selected your Publisher ID at certificate request tool.

I don't have a Publisher ID and I cannot install the application. What am I missing now?
Not much, this was only a prototype solution. As I wrote, Google's pages don't draw OK and I haven't systematically tried other sites. Although it is easy to see from press releases that iPhone optimized sites are becoming more and more popular.

I like my S60 terminal, why should I identify my browser as iPhone?
This is a good one. S60 terminals outsell iPhone but still iPhone gets all the attention from website owners. If they are ready to make special versions for iPhone minority, wouldn't it make sense to optimize sites also for S60?

I think the answer is yes.

Now, dear readers, it is your turn: stand up, make noise and contact your favorite website administrators. Tell them that tens of millions S60 users are waiting to get better service than dull text based pages from last millennium. iPhone users already see those pages.

//Harri

MWS and mobile applications for families

widianuser — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:15:09 +0300

Like bloggers here, there and everywhere have already reported, Nokia has released a new version of the mobile web server solution. Unlike Raccoon, the previous version of the solution, this version is targeted more to end-users and I must admit that installation, setup and usage was now really easy. When I installed this application and tried sharing my calendar with my family, I suddenly remembered Hanna Parkkola's dissertation "Designing ICT for Mothers".

In her paper Parkkola studies technologies used in intra-family communications and notices that for the families, mothers are the real decision makers regarding the ICT technologies used and that

"mothers are willing to use technologies and even implement new ones if they can obtain benefits with them."

So, my big question is: Where are the mobile services for the families?

Some examples of mobile services I'd love to see are:

sharing family calendar. I have my own calendar in my mobile phone and so has my wife. Soon my kids will have their calendars, too. Synchronizing these calendars is a difficult task - haven't seen a mobile solution for this
mobile grocery list. Saving grocery list to a shared web server allowing all family members to access it using their mobile devices is something I think every time I go shopping and try to remember what to buy
"family message mediator". This solution would allow me to send messages to all family members at once and also verify who really has read it.

For the design of mobile applications for families, remember two reasons from Parkkola's study why an application would not be successful:

application is slow to use
application is not available all times

Could new MWS solution be a platform for mobile family applications?