Feb

27

Wireless developer network has published an article this morning, outlining facts about the smartphone OS war that is shaping up. In one corner is the current market share leader – Nokia. The challenger is Microsoft. Both have different ideas on deployment and licensing. The article reviews a recent report by analysis group, ARCChart. That predicts MS can close the gap and own 40% of the market share by the year 2008. This is going to be interesting. Nokia is looking to IBM for help, MS is looking to their PC and PDA OEMs.

2008 seems a long way away to have to wait to see how this all plays out.

Feb

27

Sun for a limited time is offering free certification for J2ME. Apparently, since the exam is new (i.e in beta), they want to offer it free during an introduction phase. I’m not completely up to speed yet on J2ME, but I wish I could be before the deadline of early March. Drats! Click here for more information.

Feb

25

Great article at the Register about the history of Symbian. Found this from Tom Hume’s RSS feed. The article talks at length about Nokia’s involvement and suspected purchasing control of Symbian. In addition, Russel Beattie has a fantastic post about where Nokia may be turning for help to fight off the the mobile efforts of MS. I am very interested in watching the smartphone market unfold.

Feb

20

Nokia has launched a couple of new resources for developers. The first is called MUPE. It is a multi-user environment (both client and server side). Good tutorials coming soon. Open under the Nokia Open Source License.

The second is a site dedicated to the Series 60 platform. Good resource for news and events and developers tools and documentation.

I am blogging them more of a bookmark for myself.

Feb

13

Received this in my email today via a job aggregator:

COMPANY: Good Technology
SKILLS REQUIRED: C++, Java, web app dev., s/w dev, wireless tech
LOCATION: Sunnyvale, CA
RATE: Negotiable
AREA: 408
LENGTH: Full time
TERM: FULLTIME
SUMMARY: Good develops wireless software, services and handhelds that provide mobile professionals with a continuously synchronized wireless connection to their corporate email and information.

Unfortunately I am not in Sunnyvale. But thought someone reading RSS feed might be in the area.

Feb

12

I use iChat A/V on my Mac now as my main IM client. I’ve used the video chat maybe twice. Once with someone who had a cam and once with someone who didn’t have a camera, so it was just video one way, audio two ways.

My wife and I have used MSN’s video messaging when I have been on the road. We both work from home now, so there’s really no point.

Does anyone use video messaging on a daily basis? I am interested in how it impacts productivity and collaboration. A friend of mine and I have discussed how nice it would be if both of us were working on a project. He lives about 100 miles away. We could eliminate phone bills, virtual be in the same office, just with a long 100 mile hallway connecting our offices. I like the idea, but don’t see a lot of colleagues jumping on the bandwagon and buying firewire or USB cams.

If you use video messaging and have opinions about adoption, productivity impact, etc… leave a comment.

Feb

12

Mobilewhack has a good report on Nokia’s CTO’s keynote from ETech. Pretty motivating presentation. Wish I could have been there to see it, especially the Python demo at the end. He mentioned the cooperation of GPRS and Bluetooth. Maybe even WIFI. I like Nokia’s thoughts that a mobile phone is more than just a mobile work tool. That it is personal, on the same level as keys and money. We take them with us everywhere, they are a part of our lives now and not just our work life. It’s interesting to hear them talk peer to peer. I’m very excited about his mention of Python at the end. What a wonderful day that will be.

P.S. Give my son a good vote in this photocontest so he can win a cool Warhol style painting.

Feb

6

If you follow this blog at all, you know that I enjoy experimenting with all kinds of development for mobile devices. Everything from XHTML and CSS to J2ME and .NET. Even some Python on my Pocket PC (hopefully on my Symbian phone soon as well)! As with the desktop paradigm, all technologies have their pluses and minuses. All have their system requirements as well. WAP 1.0 and 2.0 come the closest to the promise of working on all platforms (through a browser). But that approach shares the same standards issues we are all familiar with on the desktop. Opera and the Services browser on my 3650, render things differently than each other. Accesskey attribute in XHTML MP performs differently between my 3650 and my MS Smartphone. Most of you can see where I am going with this. Will there be an emerging technology that will meet the needs of developers across many platforms? And deliver a good data user experience on a handset?

Right now, I think Macromedia’s Flash Lite holds the promise of fitting that mold. The specs on Flash Lite just seem to make sense. Dare I say, even more so on devices than the original Flash does on the desktop. I have a couple of reasons for saying Flash Lite fits the paradigm of mobile/sometimes-connected devices. I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I see content being used differently on a device compared to that of a desktop. I don’t see people browsing the Web like they do on a desktop. I think instead of a browser, people will most likely use rich internet connected applications with specific purposes. For example, I won’t want to read a MSNBC article on Janet’s slip up at the superbowl on a 174 pixel wide screen. I still have a desktop and TV for that kind of content. I will however use my data capable phone to check specific data while away from my desktop. Like whether or not I am still the winning bidder on an auction at eBay. I won’t be surfing eBay, I’ll simply just be extending my desktop communications and giving myself the chance to stay up to date on something while away. Flash Lite makes sense for building this kind of application. I guess J2ME and .NET do as well but they both present obstacles.

So here’s my thoughts on Flash Lite’s promise versus J2ME and .NET. First things first, I have a better chance of Flash Lite running on different platforms, where as J2ME and .NET are kind of married to their respective platforms (Symbian and Windows Mobile). I assume I’ll be able to develop something in Flash Lite much faster than J2ME or .NET. I also assume this is probably true for most developers familiar with all of the technologies. Remember that this is a thin client for Web Services approach to using data on a device.

So the next logical argument is why not XHTML in a browser. All platforms support that. I guess that is true, but I think it depends on the content the user will be using. In the above eBay auction example, Flash Lite makes more sense. Launching a browser, and navigating to a Web Services page can be a long user experience. Launching a Flash Lite app and simply typing in an auction item number into the interface seems much easier and more convenient. Not to mention I know exactly what the interface will look like on every platform, whereas XHTML and WAP have compatibility issues mentioned earlier. XHTML and WAP have their uses. I use them for aggregating blog feeds so I can read them on my phone. But that is about it, for everything else I use specific apps.

So this is where my heads at right now, while I am experimenting with all of these different technologies. Flash Lite still has some obstacles but I think Macromedia has a good plan for it. To me it just makes sense for a lot of the ideas I want to build. That and I am biased, I’ve been using Flash for over 6 years now. But the facts are still the facts, Macromedia can deliver Flash Lite to run on multiple platforms. It’s pretty amazing what can be done on tiny mobile phones these days.

Feb

4

Unlock your Nokia phone.

February 4, 2004 | 1 Comment

Tom Hume points to a good article on O’Reilly about unlocking Nokia phones. If you travel abroad and want to use a local carriers SIM, your phone must be unlocked. Or if you want to sell a phone on eBay, it has to be unlocked so someone else can use the phone on their carrier’s network. The idea is that carriers can lock a phone to only work on their networks. I suppose this is fine in practice, but can be worked around so I don’t know if there is much a point. T-Mobile will unlock your phone over-the-air after 90 days of service. This is kind of fair, considering line number portability and the fact that you can switch carriers and still keep your same number now. But bottomline, it is your phone you paid for it, if you want it unlocked go ahead. Lots of good links and comments on the O’Reilly article to unlocking the phone yourself.

Feb

3

Last night I was contacted by a recruiter looking for a mobile game developer. He wrote “We are a Canadian Studio who specializes in the creation of video games on multiple platforms in need of a programmer to Develop, Debug and assist in the creation of video games on wireless platforms either as an engine programmer or as a game play developer. Expert knowledge of J2ME and/or Brew is a Must! Relocation assistance is offered. The position is in Quebec City,
Canada.” If anyone is interested let me know.

It’s good to start seeing mobile jobs announced. I may have to get my own fulltime mobile job someday.

Linkroll

Recent Projects