TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

Palm used to be extremely popular among Mac OS heads due to their excellent Mac support (especially when compared to Windows Mobile handsets). Unfortunately, the Mac version of Palm Desktop was eventually abandoned…which caused various eekers and happened to make the boys at Mark/Space insanely rich. Mark/Space has since released a plethora of other successful products, and no longer is dependent on Palm – which unfortunately can not be said about Palm (who still need Mac heads).

Seeing that every iPhone developer owns a Mac, Palm’s decision to develop a Mac OS version of the SDK makes perfect sense. Having them leak it makes even more sense…the rest of the story is at PreCentral:
http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/6/29/palm-pre-mojo-sdk-leaked-for-mac-users-too.html

Parker and Marshall Minardo, most famous in the PalmOS world for the Saguaro widget engine, which after a few years of development was scrapped. After scrapping this project, the pair was unsure of where to go. Apparently, they made the right choice in going to the iPhone:

Parker and Marshall Minardo, owners of a software company called EdgeRift, created a $1 iPhone application called Emergency Radio that gives users access to more than 1,200 radio feeds from police, fire and emergency frequencies around the country.
Within days of its launch in early May, the application shot up to No. 2 on Apple’s list of paid applications. As of Friday, Emergency Radio was still ranked in the top 40.
More than 180,000 iPhone and iPod Touch owners have downloaded Emergency Radio, and the application is currently averaging between 1,000 and 1,200 downloads per day, said 20-year-old Parker, Edgerift’s CEO.

The boys net in 70% of each sale, bringing in more profit than they probably ever got in PalmOS sales…

Congratulations, Parker and Marshall. Now come develop for the Pre

Read the full story: Tucson brothers create iPhone sensation.

So far, Palm’s highly annoying SDK approval process has left quite a few developers without SDK – fortunately, this has now changed due to the recently-leaked ROM image. As expected by some, the JavaScript runtime environment was stored in plain text…which means that webOS apps like the calculator can now be run in desktop browsers like Chrome or Safari.

This furthermore allows you to create webOS applications without the SDK – the author of the original post shares a few screenshots of a little proof-of-concept program he has hacked up.

Further information on the topic can be found here:
http://newcome.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/develop-test-palm-pre-apps-under-safari-without-the-sdk/

Quite a bit of time has passed since yours truly last looked at an ad – but the one below struck my interest:

The ad is from Austria’s federal casino, and advertises its poker tables with a little mirror and the statement “train your poker face”.

Even though Daniel Fuhry will kill me for this statement: interactive ads are the way to go IMHO. OK; Flash probably won’t cut it for now due to its insane amount of CPU drain (which is why FlashBlock is a must for notebooks)…but the long-term trend is clear.

P.S. For all Vienniese readers: yep, it is at Karlsplatz. I know that this is bad placement…but more on that another time.

P.S.2 In case you wonder about how interactive ads can look: Taschen’s Advertising OnLine Now can currently be had very cheaply at book outlets…

Don’t ask me why Palm didn’t include the Palm OS emulator into the start-up demo…but it could very well have had something to do with keeping the buzz alive. Anyways, the buzz goes on…as MotionApps has just released a small FAQ and a demo video (below):

The demo video proves that the emulator works pretty well: unfortunately, the Pre’s lack of a 5way (thanks to all readers who pointed this out recently) will likely hamper its usability for high-end gaming.

This is sad, as the emulator seems to be pretty full-functioned. According to MotionApps, it will lack the following:

• DIA support
• Palm’s codec framework
• Access to built-in camera
• Access to external hardware devices through Bluetooth, serial or USB ports however access to network peripherals is supported
• will not be able to access Bluetooth, wireless modem (phone radio), GPS, light sensors or accelerometer
• No hotsync
• Access to native webOS PIM databases is not supported at this time.

Either way, I am pretty sure that the emulator will work well. The only remaining eeker is whether it will be free…

The picture below shows the table of contents of O’Reilly’s book on the webOS – it just received a new chapter on widgets:

Just in case anyone of you feels like reading more: the ebook can be purchased for about 25 US Dollars via the link below:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596802097

Seth Godin is the man behind a very interesting marketing blog, a bunch of top-selling business books and – last but not least – the concept of permission marketing. I thus was somewhat surprised to see him talk about graphics design…but felt that his list could be useful nevertheless.

Seth listed a variety of books and web sites which could be helpful for people wanting to become decent graphic designers – further information can be had here:
http://www.squidoo.com/become-a-really-good-graphic-designer

Palm has just updated its official developer blog with further information regarding the early access program for WebOS developers – here is what they had to say so far:

…
We’ve been thrilled and, frankly, awed by your response. As you may have seen on Twitter, @palm_inc recently tweeted that we’d received about a gazillion applications for early access, and that’s not far from the truth.

We let our first batch of developers in late last week, and another batch early this week. These folks are getting started, and we’re taking their feedback and learning from their experiences as we work to get the SDK ready for the rest of the world.

We expect to accept additional developers into the program each week. The SDK is still in active development, so we’re starting slowly — we need to make sure that our tools and support systems are ready before we scale. But we are eager to get the SDK into everyone’s hands, as we know that third-party applications will play a huge role in the success of webOS and Pre.

For those of you who have already applied, we thank you for your patience as we come up to speed. As noted in the program FAQ, we can’t provide status updates on individual applications, but we’ll do our best to give frequent public updates on this blog. If you haven’t applied yet, it’s not too late — you can submit your application here.

Thanks again!

The full post can be had here:
http://pdnblog.palm.com/?p=129

An insider report from a close friend of mine over at Palm has informed me of talks that Nokia has begun talks to make a bid for 50% of Palm’s stock, giving them majority share and ownership of the Sunnyvale, California company. Nokia, who recently bought Trolltech’s Qt software, may be planning on turning the webOS into a platform for their newer Symbian devices while also taking out their top competitor.

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, Palm asked their CEO Ed Colligan to step down and brought in Kimmo Kinnunen, Nokia’s Director.
No news has been released on the fate of Palm’s much anticipated device, the Pre, however my sources have information that Sprint may be getting a shipment of new Nokia devices on April 31, including a device known simply as Nebula.

This news is breaking and I have very little information, however, I will update this post with the latest information as it comes to me; my source has gone dead currently, so hopefully I can get some more information as soon as possible!

MobiHand has just informed me of an important change in company policy which will allow their developers to compete more effectively in ultra-low-price markets. Their move comes at a crucial time as credit crunch and iPhone push application prices down – enjoy:

We are happy to announce a change of price limits intended to allow you greater pricing flexibility.

The current $3.95 minimum product price in the MobiHand Catalog is changed to a minimum selling price of $0.99 in MobiHand network stores and $2.95 in developer shopping carts.

Please do not set any product price less than $0.99 for sale in any MobiHand store.

If you use a MobiHand shopping cart in your website or application, please do not offer any price or discount that results in a net selling price in the shopping cart that is less than $2.95. If you need to sell any product for less than this amount, please contact us to arrange a modified shopping cart fee that allows us to meet your needs without incurring losses on individual transactions.

Even though I am not too motivated to lower my products prices as of this writing, the added flexibility definitely is nice to have. Congratulations to MobiHand…

Don’t ask me why a presentation on user interface design made it into the IEEE proceedings schedule of the FH Hagenberg’s NFC Congress. Nevertheless, being the UI fetishist I am, Alice Moroni’s presentation struck my interest. Enjoy:

Alice started out by presenting a few cases of extremely bad design:

According to her, catastrophes like the ones above are caused by a wrong approach to design – it does not consider the user:

The solution is called user-centric design…which means putting the user at the center of the development process:

Understanding users can be difficult – the slide below presents an overview of users needs:

Prototypes are very useful when it comes to figuring out how users “tick”:

Unfortunately, user tests are not easy. Their experience showed them that users should not be given too many tasks at a time (among other things):

Users must be monitored discreetly, as their behavior changes the moment they feel monitored:

Point-of-view cameras can be useful:

Alternatively, a screencast solution can be used:

When it comes to determining the users, a surprising thing pops up: 5 users are usually enough to find 85% of all eekers; whereas 15 are likely to find all of them according to J Nielsen:

The next surprise: advanced users loathed their simple application. Some missed core features, while others felt that the program was “too lowly” for their taste:

Walter Maurer from Austria’s Governmental carrier A1 presented the list below as an assignment at the FH Hagenberg’s Mobile Computing course. As he gave permission to post the list (along with my work) here, find it below for your enjoyment/reference:

Business case
Similar to a use case, but broader in scope. Motivation, WHY the product or project is needed.

CAPEX
Short for Capital Expenditure. Money spent for acquiring stuff.

Concept project
Project which is not intended to produce an abstract deliverable (read: no program or product), but rather a concept which can be implemented later.

Deliverable
An artifact which can be delivered.

Implementation project
Project which produces a result (e.g. a handset or device).

Milestone
A milestone is a goal which signalizes the competition of a project stage. A popular example could be the release of the first beta.

OPEX
Short for Operating Expense. Ongoing cost for upkeep.

Project
Non-typical task which is unique (not routine), involves significant resources and is complicated enough to warrant management of its own.

Project close down
The act of completing the project.

Project goals
Conditions which must be met in order to make the product successful.

Project manager
A person who performs project management and is responsible for its outcome.

Project management
The act of ensuring that: 1) a project remains on track; and 2) that the team remains functional.

Project owner
The stakeholder of a project.

Project portfolio
A list of all projects inside a company!

Project proposal
Document starting the project (aka where the stakeholder gives the order to start the project).

Work Breakdown Structure / WBS
A structure showing which work package is assigned to which project member.

Work package
An individual task.

P.S. Slides with more detailed descriptions will be made available shortly!

Palm’s recent webOS announcements have been mostly behind close doors (targeting selected developers). However, it looks like the boys are now ready to start the global roll-out – the video below is a recoding of their recent webcast:

Cutting a long story short: if you are interested in the Pre and have 56 minutes on hand, hit the link above!

An old English proverb states that the best way to make horse shoes is straight from the horse’s mouth – while this sounds pretty straightforward to me, finding gamers is not always that easy.

Fortunately, PocketGamer took on the job for us and collected quotes from random mobile phone users who were into gaming – their statements range from the mundane to very interesting things which should affect game design decisions.

So, don’t be left out – hit the link above and see what average gamers have to say!