22 May 2009

Make Your Own Mobile Phone (Really)

Looking for a new mobile phone, can't find anything you like? How about a Real Dream Phone, with all the important features, none of the useless ones, the way you want it? You really want that? I mean really REALLY want?

FLOW DIY kit is a do-it-yourself mobile phone! You can choose GPS, GSM, GPRS, 3.5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, Accelerometers, touch screen, extra LCD displays, battery size, normal or Qwerty keyboard, covers. You can even leave the phone away and just do a custom PDA! Size like 69mm x 116.7mm x 13.7mm doesn't sound bad at all.

Based on Gumstix platform, completely modular and customizable. Comes with open source hardware design and a community support. Great for those who actually can do things by themselves and want to have something very special.

Mix this with open source mobile phone platform, like Android (now) or Symbian OS (hopefully later), and you're ready, set and go with an amazing mix: custom hardware with OS compatible with applications written for more boring phones! Want one!

[Gizmo For You via Engadget via Androinica]

19 May 2009

Maemo Harmattan 2010

MobileCrunch has couple interesting articles about rumoured Maemo 6 Harmattan, even with possible early screenshot. Wouldn't be surprised, if that screenshot is actually Maemo 5.

Difficult to see what new they report when compared to Maemo 5 Fremantly, rumoured to be released Real Soon Now (TM) (my preview here). Fremantle already has:
  • Internet tablet, vertical or horizontal scrolling touch screen
  • Home screen widgets, with our without ads
  • Qt 4.5 support, with the native Hildon UI compatibility
To make things exciting Maemo 6 Harmattan could have oFono, open source telephony platform, to enable making telephone calls. It could also run on some near future low-power Intel chips. Timetables seem to be in sync.

Interesting to see what happens, when someone releases internet tablet running Symbian OS. Most likely that someone would not be Nokia.

08 May 2009

Nokia Developer Summit 2009 Offsite

Nokia Developer Summit 2009 was held at Monaco, 28-29 April. I wasn't able to join, but still wanted to know what's going on. With today's technology, it was actually both easy and a pleasure.

First news came realtime via twitter hashtag search #nds09. Several reporters, occasionally even in different sessions, offered good selection of facts, opinions and background info. Thanx to at least @mobilejam @smashpop @AAS @bryanrieger @gloom303 @rayval @inti @mobiliser @henriquemartin onsite, as well as several offsite commenters.

Next there's some more or less realtime blogs, most notably Nokia Conversations and the official event website. They do have an advantage, having access to restricted insider info, and did a splendid job. The official website is most likely the best ever after-event site I've seen. Take a look, if you're interested in getting into the feeling of almost being there!

Talking about blogs, have to mention the old reliable All About Symbian. They might not be the fastest, but provide thoughtful, insightful analysis worth following. Podcast AAS Insight #69 contains NDS summary starting at 21+ minutes. Also Qt-based Orbit UI supersedes S60 AVKON in Symbian^4 article is an excellent overview of the future of Symbian platform. Check the comments, too.

Another interesting blog this year was Forum Nokia Blogs, where FN Champions were requested to blog from the event. Personal touch was a nice addition, great idea!

I'm not a fan of real-time video, with all the background noise, people walking by and coughing and seeing too many talking heads almost in focus. Talking backs of the heads are even worse, can't even try to read from the lips! These videos by Nokia Conversations are something else: professionally edited, short and to the point, with excellent picture and sound quality.

Main news from my offsite view, mainly via twitter (my comments inside parenthesis):
  • It's not resolved yet how to get flash apps into Ovi Store (but I'm sure they will get in there)
  • Forum Nokia delivers resources to 4+ million registered developers, website receives more than 1.5 million unique visitors per month. (Personally I've always "wondered" about that 4 million registered users, but 1.5 million "unique visitors" is an impressive number.)
  • WRT is an abstraction layer. (Nokia keeps pushing WRT so hard, guess it will become a serious development platform)
  • Ovi Store accepts only certified apps: Symbian Signed or Java Verified. (Flash is a bit open, hopefully Flash solution could be reused with python apps.)
  • Finally a form of Map API will be available from Nokia (with restrictions and only for selected partners, but finally it's available)
  • Developer focused twitter feed from Symbian Foundation @symbiandevco (great to see they embrase latest tech)
  • QT Orbit announcement via Twitter, to replace AVKON. (Major major news. Truly surprised how little analysis there has been about this. Too big to understand or devs are just too skeptic)
  • Application suite re-factored and re-written to take advantage of Qt APIs, Orbit widgets, and Direct UI. (This means S60 will fallback one year vs competition. Can they use the option to their advantage?)
  • Maemo 5 Beta SDK was released around this time (there is a future for Maemo)
Wondering whether expos will become like big sports events: want to be there onsite, but will have no idea what's happening. Calling offsite friends to ask where to go, what to see.

07 May 2009

JOM PyS60: 12 months, 22 apps, 45000 pageviews

What can you do with PyS60, the python programming language for Nokia S60 mobile phones? Software, of course! Lots of software, quickly, experimenting and having fun.

Last autumn I had the pleasure to be selected as Forum Nokia Champion, mostly due my engagement with PyS60. This is a report of the last amazing 12 months. If anyone objects shameless self-promotion, please skip the rest. I'm just so happy with the results of using PyS60, that I wanted to share this story.

I've done Symbian C++ for years, survived and never liked it. There was an odd addiction, have to admit that. Getting deep inside Symbian development, focusing 110% for hours and being able to solve complex issues does feel very satisfying. However it never felt very productive. But C++ coding was years ago, maybe things are different now.

Tried Java ME, but run immediately into fragmentation issues. Each line of code seemed to require few more "just in case", no pleasure at all.

Late 2006 PyS60 seemed like a toy programming language. Nice idea, but just didn't have enough anything to be taken seriously. 2008 I tried again. Didn't have much time, didn't want to use too much energy, just a quick look. Surprisingly PyS60 had developed quite nicely and it was possible to write sensor enabled software. PyS60 wasn't only "just another programming language" on par with everything else. It additionally offered access to accelerometer data with just a few simple lines of code!

March 27, 2008, I created my own website for releasing mobile software written with PyS60. From Day One I have been following Google Analytics statistics (free). Can't help it. I cannot write any software and NOT release it. Likewise I cannot create a website and NOT follow what happens with it. No big plans, it's just a way I'm internally wired. Fortunately it turned out to be interesting.

During last (about) 12 months I wrote and released (about) 22 applications written with PyS60. My website has received (about) 45000 pageviews by (about) 16000 absolute unique visitors. They look at average 2.32 average pages using 1:35 minutes on site. Says Google Analytics, can't argue with them.

http://jouni.miettunen.googlepages.com/

Never thought PyS60 software would be able to achieve that! Additionally during last one (1) week, I got 2700 pageviews by 1200 visitors, which projects into 11000 views by 5000 visitors for on-going months. Not too bad, considering each and every user has to find, download and install PyS60 runtime before they can use any of those apps. Hope they do. Wonder what the numbers would be for standard Symbian C++ software, much bigger no doubt! But this is python.

What is the future of PyS60? Since it's absolutely beginner friendly while still powerful, one would hope there is some future.

PyS60 1.9.x project is going on and progressing nicely. There are some issues with releases, but it's acceptable for work in progress. Just happy that Nokia Python team has the courage and foresight to make public sprint releases. The much expected PyS60 2.0 will be great, I'm sure about that:

Based on python 2.5.4 core with most of the standard libraries, support for Sensor Framework, support for Touch UI, graphical application packager, support for Platform Service API, some support for development on linux and Mac etc.

Just one request: would you please try to keep same UID, not change it for each and every release unless absolutely necessary?

Does PyS60 have any commercial future? Currently it seems that Nokia Ovi Store accepts only Symbian C++, Java ME and some Flash content. No news about PyS60. Well, as long as PyS60 remains fun to use and more productive than alternatives, I'll remain a happy coder. Wouldn't mind getting serious with Nokia Ovi Store, but that's a business decision out of my reach.

Cheers,

--jouni nighttime and weekend coder

PS.

Want to know what those 16000 visitors came to see? Here you are:

PS. Initially released at Forum Nokia Blogs

04 May 2009

Symbian OS Fragmentation Has Started

There are two recent phone specific SDK releases: Nokia N97 SDK and Samsung i8910 HD SDK (aka Omnia HD). While it's good to see quick SDK releases and updates, this can be the start of Symbian OS fragmentation.

Nokia N97 SDK release note is reassuring, making it look like their SDK add-on is pretty backwards, forwards and device compatible. Wouldn't expect anything less, considering Nokia used to own S60 platform. However Samsung release note especially says:
NaviSensor provides an alternative to the S60 5.0 Sensor Framework API.
The very first non-Nokia S60 SDK extension is fragmenting the Symbian OS platform. Even thought Samsung i8910 is a delicious device, I think this is the beginning of a troublesome developer friendship (walking into fog).