Gabor Torok's Forum Nokia Blog
http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/gabor-toroks-forum-nokia-blog
<p>Software architect working in Symbian/S60 area since 2000 and still being enthusiastic about mobility. Please visit my introduction page on Forum Nokia Champions web page.</p>
tote_b52009-11-23T15:20:17ZMicroWeather for S60 goes Open Source
http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/gabor-toroks-forum-nokia-blog/2009/01/22/microweather-for-s60-goes-open-source
<p><span style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333">I usually don't write about specific mobile software, but this time it's a bit different. You know, it's one thing that one of my colleagues, <a href="http://jouni.miettunen.googlepages.com/">Jouni Miettunen</a>, became a <span style="font-weight: bold">Forum Nokia Champion</span>last time thanks to his active participation in <span style="font-weight: bold">Python for S60</span>community. I'm really proud of him, he really deserved the honour.<br /><br />But it seems that the spirit of open source software has "infected" another colleague of mine. <a href="http://gabor.fetter.googlepages.com/">Gabor Fetter</a>, author of <span style="font-weight: bold">MicroPool </span>(a bestseller in its category), <span style="font-weight: bold">MicroPinball </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold">MicroWeather </span>has now decided to make his last piece of software open source. I'm not going into praising <span style="font-weight: bold">MicroWeather</span>, let it be enough that I use it daily. For more information, you can check out the official page at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/microweathers60/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/microweathers60/</a>. But you can do more than being in read-only mode: why not contribute to it? Any ideas, contribution are welcome!</span></p><p style="text-align: center"> <img src="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/43602/MicroWeather%20-%20City%20List.jpg" alt="MicroWeather - City List" /> <span style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333"><span style="line-height: normal; color: #000000"><img src="http://blogs.forum.nokia.com//data/blogs/resources/43602/MicroWeather%20-%20City%20details.jpg" alt="MicroWeather - City details" /></span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333"><span style="line-height: normal; color: #000000"><span style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333">I'm happy to see that we're that <span style="font-style: italic">agile</span>! ;-)</span></span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333">Tote<span style="line-height: normal; color: #000000"> </span></span><br /><a href="http://mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com/">mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com</a></p>S60DevelopmentPalmOpen Source2009-01-22T10:23:18Ztote_b5Thoughts on Palm Pre
http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/gabor-toroks-forum-nokia-blog/2009/01/14/thoughts-on-palm-pre
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; color: #333333"><p>Of course, I've seen Palm's <a href="http://vimeo.com/2780163">keynote</a> from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">CES 2009</span>. I've also read quite a few blogs, comments on the topic and now would like to share my impressions about it.</p><div><br /></div><div>First of all, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">I liked the device</span>! It looks great, the addition of a QWERTY-keyboard makes it even more complete. The UI <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">looks </span></span>intuitive, I pretty much liked the introduced card system, where you could switch between running applications. In general it's a fancy device with a high WOW-factor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, what else? Well, my first impression was that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">it's a copy device, an iClone</span></span>. It's just a better iPhone, not as if it was not a remarkable thing alone. Nevertheless, I have a few questions on copying a bestselling device in general:</div><div><ul style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px"> <li style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; padding-left: 14px; margin-bottom: 3px; background-image: url('http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 6px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">Is that allowed to sell</span> a very similar device with some enhancements? I'm pretty sure that Apple patented a lot of things and I'm surprised to see the same multi-touch functionality to be present in Palm Pre, for example.</li> <li style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; padding-left: 14px; margin-bottom: 3px; background-image: url('http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 6px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">Is that nice?</span> Does it make good to Palm's reputation that everyone knows that "iPhone was the first"? I'm pretty sure, though, that Palm will not feel sorry if it's profitable and legally okay.</li> <li style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; padding-left: 14px; margin-bottom: 3px; background-image: url('http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 6px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">Will this strategy work at all?</span> As Michael Mace greatly <a href="http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2009/01/palm-pre-think-similar.html">puts</a> it: "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">... Pre is a better e-mail device than the iPhone and a better consumer device than a Blackberry ... [but] it's probably a worse entertainment device than the iPhone (because it doesn't have iTunes) and probably a worse e-mail device than RIM (because it doesn't have RIM's server infrastructure).</span>" The thing is that we don't know too much other than a technical specification. How much will it cost? What services will be available for the user? In general, why users will want to buy Pre instead of other competing products? And lots of other questions, partly covered below.</li></ul><div>I wonder how it will work out that Palm is fighting against such competitors who have existing products in their portfolio. Pre is said to be available in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">H1/2009</span> in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic">Sprint</span>'s network, but no news about pricing policy, international availability, etc. yet. If Palm will be able to ship this product with such a great technical parameters, their top-priority will (have to) be to build an ecosystem around it. That most importantly means services that 1: give Palm post-sales revenue and 2: tempt users to choose rather Palm's device than any other competitor's. In addition to that, developers must be inspired to make great applications that boost 3rd-party business, too.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">development on Palm is a big question mark</span> to me. You know, I've never been into Palm development, but what I've read from others on this topic was that 1: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">WebOS is a completely new software architecture</span>, 2: with <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">no backward compatibility</span>. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">In other words, old applications will not run on the new device.</span> I mean, it's not only that you have to make some tweaking on your existing software and then it will run in the new environment (think of the introduction of Platform Security in Symbian and what that meant to old software), but you have to completely re-write it and even then it's not guaranteed that it will work. Why? Because the keyword for the new SDK is that it's about <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline">web-development</span></span>. Palm toed the line by supporting WebKit (their browser is based on it) and it's great that there's a common platform available on most smartphones by now. Well, Microsoft still resists and I bet that they will always do. In general that means that the boundary between mobile- and full web becomes more and more blurred, but that alone doesn't give you the promise of "Mobile development Paradise". Why? Because you simply can't solve everything with the HTML/CSS/JavaScript trinity. How will you develop your own VoIP, image processing, gaming, etc. application with this technology stack, for example? It's simply not the right tool for a lot of things in software development as in fact no one technology stack can be. But if you limit yourself to one then you eventually shrink your software market. I'm not saying that it will be the only way for development in the future, however, at least it was the message that I got from the keynote.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, two features that captured my attention for different reasons:</div><div><ul style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px"> <li style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; padding-left: 14px; margin-bottom: 3px; background-image: url('http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 6px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">Multi-tasking</span>, i.e. being able to run more than one application in parallel. Everybody is keen on that and points out that how great it is compared to the iPhone. And then what? I think it's not an innovation at all - I would say that what's the innovation in the 21<sup>st</sup> century of NOT being able to do that. Damn, Apple was better again in doing that. :)</li> <li style="list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; padding-left: 14px; margin-bottom: 3px; background-image: url('http://www.blogblog.com/tictac/tictac_orange.gif'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 6px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold">Card-system.</span> Everyone who's seen the keynote or any preview can tell that it's about accessing simultaneously running applications: different apps are shown in a list as playing cards and can be manipulated in a very intuitive way. No doubt, it's a great idea and I'd be happy to use it on other phones, too.</li></ul><div>Comments are welcome,</div><div><br /></div><div>Tote</div><div><a href="http://mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/thoughts-on-palm-pre.html">mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com</a> </div></div></div></span>iPhoneSymbianPalm2009-01-14T11:19:53Ztote_b5