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Things I hope to see in Maemo 6 (part 1)

Having used the Maemo 5(Nokia N900) device for about a month now ,I could not help but express some of my thoughts about the device.There has been some hype around the coming Maemo 6 platform that will supposedly put this platform on par with the rest of the smartphone world.The smartphone war is still heating up and the danger of Nokia not steaming up is that, as more consumers get acquainted with the idea of smart phones and their functionalities, they will form habits, and those habits might be tough to change.These habits are still what holds some customers to their symbiam phones, and new smart phone consumers are now getting acquainted to the Apple world,with such elegance and ease of use, the bar is really high.Right now,the Maemo platform is not the easiest to use neither is it feature packed compared to the likes of the IphoneOS,WebOS and Android.There are a couple of things I think would be nice to see in the next iteration of the platform.

Exchange Server Synchronization

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As an advance user of google services for email,contacts and calendar, I was disappointed to know that the N900 did not fully support Exchange 2003.It takes minutes to get this account running on the Iphone and Android devices, till now, even after the two updates, my contacts,calender and emails will not sync with google services. The “time to personalize” one’s device should be taken into deep consideration when designing a platform, google android has the services built in, Apple supports exchange which makes moving your personal information over a breeze, Maemo does not even support the Nokia OVI services. This needs a very deep overhaul, a new owner of this device should be up and running in minutes not in months, unless if this platform will remain in the island of geeks.

Media Player

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There is no doubt that it might be hard to match the user experience of the media player on the Iphone, but one design paradigm that was very clear (and works well for hand held devices) is “one functionality per screen” design paradigm.The media player on the Maemo platform was not designed with such paradigm in mind.The media application was designed to cram in as much functionality in a small screen with the user experience factor thrown out of the window.

There is always too much happening on a screen in the media application.The same screen tries to cram in the tracks in a playlist,playback controls,media art e.t.c.If each screen of the application are functionality based and not feature based, there will be more room for the application to be more useable and even enjoyable.The video player is another major flaw in design in my opinion, I do not claim to have the answers, but having the slider switch functionality as a volume slider and a media track bar is not remotely elegant and it is confusing at most.

The volume rocker, at least that was what I thought it was until it switches functionality based on application is confusing at best.Listening to music in the background and browsing the web switches the functionality to zooming in and out for the web browser,I am not personally sure how that works well, but for me, it is as confusing as it gets.It is not enough that the device can play music and video, the device should be a joy to use.The Maemo Experience is desperately needed, whatever that means.

When a phone call comes in when watching a video, the video pauses, but then after the call session, the video does not resume, in fact in most cases, the phone shows the task manager, though this might not be a big issue to some, but its a huge experience breaker.The music player seem to handle this well,though.A functionality I enjoyed on my Iphone is that, when I pull out my headphones from the phone , the music player automatically pauses, its a quick way to stop/pause the music.

Messaging

imgres-1The email application on this platform is comparable to email applications on other platforms except that the implementation is a little different.An example is my Gmail account, which was supposedly an IMAP account but leaves messages on the gmail server unread and undeleted.Having said that, composing messages on this platform needs to be overhauled, the “to” field of the composer does not do contacts search, in fact the email application is  almost a separate application on its own that has nothing to do with the rest of the platform. This problem is a something is so wide spread on this platform. The applications do not necessarily all work together, every application is on an island on its on.The platform should be developed as a service provider to applications to share common data source like that of the Iphone and Android,it makes the whole system more useable as a whole as opposed to the different applications working totally in their own world. Though I have to say that I have gone through the documentation of the Maemo 5 platform and such services are provided via DBbus interfaces but the individual applications do not seem to be developed that way.

The email application at the moment is lacking the search functionality of the conversation application,it will not hurt to get some search capabilities from this application neither.

Universal Search

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This functionality has become a trend in smart phones recently, with the  Palm WebOS leading the way and the Iphone following the trend.The searching functionality should include emails,conversations,applications e.t.c. The whole device is a data warehouse and so should be searchable.Making a platform searchable adds so much ease of use to it.As our devices house more data, the need to have quick access to whatever piece of information on the device is of high importance and should not be taken lightly.Other platforms even take it further by enabling online search from the device from their search functionality.

Device Orientation

imgres-4This is no brainer, using the device only in landscape mode is just not fun.I have seen some hacks on the internet that enables this feature, the next installment of this platform should come with this built in.This feature is no needed for the media player for example, anytime a user needs to interact in anyway with the media player he/she will  have to open the device(which will only turn on by opening the keyboard or switch the nob on the side plus a swipe on the screen) just to go to the next track in the playlist.This is just not practical, not even in the northern hemisphere that we live in here.

Camera Application

imgres-3I have done this in real life testing, the camera application is just plain confusing period.I have given this phone to people with the camera application active to please take a picture of me, and they have no idea of what to do.The application suffers same problem as the media player, the idea of cramming all functionality into one screen.The fact that screen estate is limited on mobile devices doest not mean cram everything possible on a screenful of the application.Its about dividing the application into functional chunks that are screenful and not dumping all available options the application supports on one screen.This might be a personal thing, but seeing common user just go blank looking at this application tells me a lot.

I hope these issues will be addressed in the next major update of the platform, but I will continue my article with an in depth look at some of the bundled applications on the platform and menu design(RSS,PDF reader and Notes) and what I hope to see in the coming updates and a deeper look at the general look and feel of the platform and third party applications.Perhaps as a software developer, I might have something to say about the development environment of the Maemo platform too.


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By duketek – January 15, 2010

WordFoo

A little bored this weekend, I thought I should try something little interesting with the box2D physics library and I came up with this game, its still rough on the edges and surely running on debug mode, but will be smoothing things out in the coming days. This is project was a couple of days and I should improve the game play.

The idea is to clear the words on the list on the right hand side of the game by selecting letter blocks that match the words.Right now the game does not complete nor is it progressive , but I just wanted to put up a quick demo. Thanks to the guy who wrote this nice library(Box2D AS3 Port), I am going to port this to the Android and iPhone , just to compare the performance one can squeeze out of these platforms.

I will release the source code once I am comfortable with what it looks like. I personally like the approach I took in implementing the physics in the game. Have fun playing, will be updating soon.

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Posted in Programming, actionscript, box2d, demos, flash.

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By duketek – November 22, 2009

Grid Test

Click and drag the tiles to make matches. I made this prototype sometime ago to improve on a match making algorithm for a game. I will putting up the source code later.

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Posted in Programming, actionscript, flash.

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By duketek – September 13, 2009

Unique random number generator

I am currently writing an online multiplayer game that involves some random number generator that ensures that no duplicates are returned from a range of numbers supplied to it. There is a client and server side version of the Random number generator, and I thought I could share this with the web. I searched for this code all over and could not a good solution for it.This might help some newbie out. Notice how Actionscript 3.0 is almost more complicated than Java.

This code was quickly wiped up and has no proper checking, but i should improve on it some more later.

Java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Vector;
public class RandomGenerator {

	private ArrayList<Integer> numberSet;
	private int size;

	public RandomGenerator(int size){
		this.size = size;
		reset();
	}

	public int next(){
		int rnd = (int)(Math.random() * (numberSet.size() - 1));
		return numberSet.remove(rnd);
	}

	public void reset(){
		numberSet = null;
		numberSet = new ArrayList<Integer>(size);
		fillList();
	}

	public void setSize(int size){
		this.size = size;
		reset();
	}

	private void fillList(){
		for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
			numberSet.add(i);
		}
	}
}


 


Actionscript 3.0


public class RandomGenerator
	{
		private var _size:int;
		private var _array:Array;

		public function RandomGenerator(aSize:int)
		{
			_size  = aSize;
			_array = new Array(aSize);
			fillArray();
		}

		public function get next():int
		{
			var rnd:Number  = int(Math.random() * _array.length);
			var cur:int 	= _array[rnd];

			_array.splice(rnd,1);

			return cur;
		}

		public function reset():void
		{
			fillArray();
		}

		private function fillArray():void
		{
			_array = new Array(_size);

			for(var i:int = 0; i < _size; i++)
			{
				_array[i] = i;
			}
		}

		public function set size(aSize:int):void
		{
			_size = aSize;

			fillArray();
		}

		public function isEmpty():Boolean
		{
			return _array.length == 0;
		}

	}

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Posted in Programming.

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By duketek – August 26, 2009

Playstation 3,the Mac of gaming consoles

sony_playstation_3

Recently, I finally moved to the Playstation 3 camp after experiencing the famous “red ring of doom” on the Xbox360, I knew, finally I was done with the platform. Then I bought the Playstation 3 and my idea of a gaming console was changed in a weekend. I can not but feel that the Playstation 3 is the Mac of gaming console. Here are the subtle things I like about the Playstation 3 having used in less than a week.

  • atv22geniusBackground Processing :  Unlike the Xbox360, Playstation 3 allows you to download games and videos in the background while playing your games,watching a movie or doing what ever else you are doing. This feature was very limited on the xbox360.Downloading stops immediately you begin  playing  a game. I like the ability to be able to check on my download progress during a game and pause and resume it without quitting my game.
  • Wireless Networking : This is wirelessself explanatory, The Playstation 3 comes with built in wireless networking support,It means one more less wire to deal with in my apartment. The configuration of the network was also flawless.
  • Better Interface : I really like the fluid interface of the Playstation 3 better, it feels better to navigate than the Xbox360 interface. particularly, the media browsing, though truth be told, the music player in the Xbox360 is better and more user friendly.
  • Browser (with Adobe Flash) : The Playstation 3 comes with a rather rudimentary web browser but nonetheless , ability to quickly check the news,twitter updates,facebook and so on from my couch is a nice addition. The support for Adobe flash 9 with full screen is really nice too. I can now view all of my G4TV,crankygeeks and so on podcast from my couch, this effectively rendered my AppleTv almost useless, I haven’t had any use for it since my Playstation 3 came in. It would have been nice if the browser was based on the open source webkit, but something is better than nothing. It will be nice to create a 10 foot UI experience of twitter, or facebook update solely for the this browser.
  • Media Player : I really like the media player in the Playstation 3, its much more snappier. Videos loads faster and quits faster than what I had experienced previously on the Xbox360. There is a particular feature that I really like, which is the frame search. Its more like  the scene selection feature in DVDs but now available in regular video files. The Playstation 3 also supports quite a lot of codecs out of the box, AAC,windows media,Divx and MP3 and the MPEGs . I noticed that I could not play my Divx movies on the XBox 360 without an internet connection.
  • iphoto5Photo Application : Everyone will agree that the photo application on the Playstation 3 is superb. I have not used it much yet, but I really like the interface and very soon, I will be preparing to show some friends, photos of my trip on my 10 foot Tv.
  • ps_storePlaystation Store :-  While the Playstation 3 store is not a match for the Xbox 360 in terms of content,I generally think that the Playstation store is much easier to navigate. The arcade features are lacking, but the general feel of the store is better and getting to content is faster. The ability to search the store is also a big plus.
  • batteryRechargeable controller : I  was happy to know that I will no longer have to deal with my controller dying on me during game play because the batteries went out. Another issue is about dealing with disposing these batteries, just eliminating the total need for batteries is just good news. Some games like  Star wars, force unleashed, uses quite a lot of vibration that eventually drains the battery of the controller really fast. Now all I have to do is to plug back my controller via a usb cable and I can recharge while still playing.
  • blue-ray-discBlu-ray : For those who care about this, I like the support for Blue-ray disc. Its gorgeous and I dont have to buy any Blue-ray player in the future.
  • Speed :  I could be wrong here , but the whole Playstation 3 OS feels so snappier , starts up faster and closes faster.Especially when watching video, it feels like the video has been preloaded into memory, its so much faster than my experience on the Xbox360. I must say that when playing some games especially for the first time, the games are  “installed”  the drive, and that drives me nuts, even downloaded games. That is not fun at all!.

So far these are the things I have enjoyed about my new Playstation 3, it is proving to be my best toy of the year.It is slowly taking the center place in my living room and my     digital media player and  I am sure there is still much more to find out about the system and I am sure future firmware updates will include even better features . Great work Sony Inc!.

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Posted in General, Uncategorized.

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By duketek – July 7, 2009

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