[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Maemo 2.0 API changes, signals and properties (was: ANN: Eagle)

[From: Shawn Gordon]

At 12:39 PM 4/19/2006, Philippe De Swert wrote:
>Hi,
>
>On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 12:10 -0700, Shawn Gordon wrote:
><snip 770 praise>
>
> > I've got to say that this review
> > 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041500125.html 
>
> > is pretty much spot on, much as I like the device, from a reviewer
> > perspective there is nothing I disagree with in this review, I had
> > all the same experiences other than the network connection one.
>
>There are indeed very valid points mentioned in the review. However I
>think we need to change something in the attitude that is taken towards
>this product. This is meant to be an open device, so some compromises
>had to be made. AFAIK it would be impossible to distribute the device
>with wmv codecs without some complicated agreements/demands from MS. And
>honestly I really want to avoid any DRM stuff.

I'm totally against DRM, see my iTunes competitor www.mindawn.com 
that I started a couple years ago, we use FLAC and OGG formats.  My 
company was the first one to make a portable ogg player by producing 
software to play Ogg on the Sharp Zaurus years ago.


>Also his complaints about flash are annoying. Nokia cannot help it that
>Macromedia is plain evil and writes hugely inefficient software. Their
>flash plugin eats up to 90% of cpu on my old P3 800Mhz laptop, which is
>absolutely horrible for the amount of displaying it needs to do. Also
>they do not support recent flash for GNU/Linux. It even gets worse if
>you look at flash support for ARM. I don't even think the reviewers
>websites would be viewable on a normal PDA either. On top of that I
>recommend anyone to read the EULA that comes with the flash plugin.
>Personally it kept me from installing the bloody plugin, and I probabely
>never will again unless I really need too. I hope that GNASH will be in
>working order soon.

yes, FLASH blows, but this is about managing expectations, you have 
to control as much as possible what peoples expectations are for this 
device, and without a clear description to the market then they are 
going to have some standard expectations for the device, right or 
wrong, and that is what you can control.

> > With
> > the lack of software, it's really not clear what you should do with
> > this device.  Nokia (or maybe it was just the press) has made it seem
> > that things like VoIP will be coming any day now, but they
>
>Also I don't know if expecting a PIM suite was realistic on a device
>called Internet tablet. Nokia never marketed this as a PDA. Though the
>reviewer did look at it as it were one. And who needs a PIM now that we
>have google/yahoo calendar...

EVERYTHING has a PIM on it, you'd be amazed at how many people use a 
PIM on every dang piece of equipment they have.  Simple example:  I 
never wanted to do a PIM on the Zaurus because it already had one, 
but Lineo asked us to put together a proof of concept for a new 
calendar app for possible future devices, which we did and they 
really liked then they went under, so we decided to release it and 
people gobbled it up and demanded we do an address book, memo and 
todo apps and email - pretty much all of which were already on the 
device by default.  To this day our PIM apps are our biggest selling 
applications.

>For the rest it is perfectly adequate as
>an internet device (at least for me). I would just love official ogg
>endorsement.

You'd need to port Tremor or write your own integer replacement 
library for the floating point.  Tremor isn't particularly efficient, 
but it worked ok with the 206mhz StrongARM when we used it.



> > haven't.  My company has all sorts of cross platform VoIP solutions,
> > I would have ported it to the 770 months ago but I didn't want to
> > compete with a free solution included with the device, but nothing
> > has come out yet.
>
>Well that was your choice. And you can hardly blame Nokia for you not
>porting that application. And to be honest bringing out one of these
>solutions might have been beneficial for the whole development story.

Please understand the point I'm making.  It discourages the 
developers.  Why will I spend time on that if I think Nokia is coming 
out with something shortly instead of doing something else?


> > My whole intent in getting involved with the conversations today is
> > to try to do something productive because I'd really like to see the
> > 770 (or its offspring) succeed.
>
>Well I think everybody is waiting for some constructive action. I think
>there has been enough conversation. This is an open device, with a
>starting community. So if you come with a good idea, a tech-demo and a
>clear plan I am sure you will find people supporting it to make it a
>success.

we're a commercial software company.  We have plans for a few freebie 
apps, but our focus is going to be commercial software, to me whether 
it is open or not doesn't matter (no offense, it just doesn't), I'm 
interested in a viable product with a good user base and a way to 
access that user base to let them know about software that is 
available for the device.

best,
shawn



>Regards,
>
>Philippe
>
>--
>
>| Philippe De Swert
>|
>| GPE developer: http://gpe.handhelds.org
>| Emdebian developer: http://www.emdebian.org
>|
>| Please do not send me documents in a closed
>| format.(*.doc,*.xls,*.ppt)
>| Use the open alternatives. (*.pdf,*.ps,*.html,*.txt)
>| http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html


Regards,

Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com
www.thekompany.com
www.mindawn.com
949-713-3276