Sunday, August 29, 2010

Thoughts about Nokia, Symbian, Maemo, MeeGo, IOS, Android...!

I usually do not write articles like this, but it becomes heavy to bear to read negative reviews about Nokia, Symbian, Maemo and the future of symbian ^ 4, in a fierce market more increasingly "dominated" (mindshare) by Android and Apple platforms IOS ...

That said, my idea for a while was that the staff management nokia does not really have a "clear" idea about their environment (clear targets : where are we, where we would come, do we care about other brands?)... and this has been the case since the launch of the ridiculous iPhone (that i own now!), a ridiculous phone (one and only one phone) that establish "standards" of the smartphone market every time !

It is as if Nokia has ever existed ! Which is true in some ways, Nokia was not a real product competitive in the smartphone market touchscreen (N810, 770 etc.) except the 5800 and in some ways the N97 ... but never an iPhone Killer. .. I say iPhone because it's the one that changed the strategy of all firms in the mobile's area in the last 3 years ! including Nokia ...

It's true that Nokia has made an ashamed move by releasing the N900 (Maemo 5) and i was really happy to see finally an iPhone Killer, but things weren't as expected, the N900 and Maemo 5 is one of others (or another) project in dust by Nokia, a beta testing platform not destined for the large public, and "abandoned" by Nokia itself to make MeeGo... WTF !?

I mean, what Nokia are doing is just catching up with Android and IOS until now...but let me make things more clearer...take a second and think about it a little :

- MeeGo will be rolled out on Media phones, Netbooks, Pocketables/Handhelds, In-car entertainment systems as well as Connected TVs, that's really great, Nokia will probably have a great opportunity to implement OVI services everywhere i guess ! Meanwhile, the open-Community is getting really excited about MeeGo being an open platform.

But is MeeGo the way to go?

As we learned till now, Manners maketh a man, Services maketh a platform !

How can they bring back the massive “Faithful” user-base which Google has acquired with Android !? The constant support and community interest is currently reflected in the constantly evolving ANDROID

What i mean, i'm afraid of the fact that "whatever MeeGo or symbian^4 can do, Android and IOS already does and Does it Better" but i'm still confident and sure that Meego will be an iconic plateform and will establish "standards", and i can give many reasons with out thinking much:

- MeeGo can work on any Hardware platform like intel chips, X86 and ARM.
- MeeGo Platform is completely open source.
- MeeGo contains QT as UI development.
- MeeGo is not locked to any language like JAVA.
- MeeGo comes from already proven platform like Maemo.
- Develop the application once and use it on many devices.

Android and IOS sure have probably the bigger mindshare for now, but I believe MeeGo platform is intrinsically superior, because they share more of their platform with upstream project and use a Native SDK by default. Ultimately I don’t see any of those two die soon.

Are they going to become the new enemy brother in a long genealogy : vi vs emacs, gnome vs kde, MeeGo vs Android ? I don't think so because already stated that it'll compete with ANDROID and IOS by Symbian^4 but meego will be mainly for tablet and pc like superphone, but hey wait a moment ! We are not talking anymore about OS and Services here but also about User Interface !

Nokia, did you see some videos on youtube demonstrating some UI wow effects on some iPhones and Android phones? Do you certainly agree when i say it's just something you're dreaming about in your promo videos (Except the N900) !




Do you want me to show you something about the iPhone's one (with the latest IOS 4)? No, not really ;)

So what you have to do really is making UI as close to real life experience and that is easy to operate as it is our natural way of acting - this may change way we operate mobiles, Symbian^4 has to deliver something... of top quality and be the most intuitive and attractive one beside MeeGo ! But then, why didn't you buy WebOS? Are you happy now that one of the most talented WebOs User Interface Designer has gone to Apple? That sounds good doesn't it?

And android 3? Do you know that the whole interface will be something like this :



Or let's talk only about windows 7 !





And now what? I'll drop my complaint right here : as you know, i own many many symbian devices from Nokia 7650 to Omnia HD and Vivaz, i'm going to buy the N8 also, because till now symbian plateform is the only one that offer a rich and advanced multimedia experience in a well balanced combination... i own also an N900 which is a really great multimedia and social ready device...Ok till now :

What you don't know probably, is that i own an iPhone 3Gs and i'm thinking to sell my N900 or at least don't use it as my primary device, but why? In one word : the iPhone is simply great ! (yeah i was one of those heaters...) :

- Apple's sense of design and integration is impeccable. (and i don't have iPhone 4 yet !)
- Fantastically capable, flexible device (no lags, fluid UI even while surfing and listening to music etc)
- You don't have to be smart about how you use apps to avoid draining the battery
- I have the right applications for all my needs, games all of kinds and needs (even a METALLICA games, my favorite band) and while im a Muslim, i've a plenty of Islamic apps, especially in this Ramadan holly month ! With N900 : Zero (one or two) !
- Great inboard keyboard, i don't need a real keyboard anymore...

Wake Up Nokia ! Sooner, I'll make a side by side comparison with N900 vs iPhone and you'll be blowed !

Saturday, August 21, 2010

SMScon : Control your device with SMS !

Smscon is a n900 complete control utility by sending sms messages to it. This is handy in case you can't find your phone (it's lost or stolen).

Smscon is a two part Python script running in CLI; smscon & smscon_daemon. Smscon is the CLI control part and smscon_daemon is the "running in the background" part.

Smscon can:
  • autoload at boot;
    when device reboots it loads smscon_daemon in the background.
  • creates a log file (on the device)
  • detect SIM card change and sends new phonenumber and IMSI code (return SMS) to other known mobile number;
    if somebody has stolen your phone and put his/hers own SIM card in it.
  • send current GPS location coordinates (return SMS).
  • reboot the phone;
    only works if your SIM hasn't a lock code.
  • shutdown the phone.
  • open a reverse ssh connection to your own server (WLAN/GPRS connection);
    control the device at CLI level from you own home.
  • ftp a frontcam picture to your own server (WLAN/GPRS connection);
    to see where your phone is or who is using it.
  • send the current remaining battery charge (return SMS).
Future ideas:
- record audio (with phone mic) and ftp the file to your own server (WLAN/GPRS connection).

Smscon is triggered by an SMS message with a predefined known command and then will execute the task in the background.

If so it will send a reply SMS with the information.

More info over here !

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The N9 Pictures revealed !

What you're going to see after the break isn't a mini MacBook Pro but the real upcoming Nokia N9 !






via : eldarmurtazin.livejournal.com

Sunday, August 15, 2010

[UPDATE] Live Wallpaper 0.8 : Support of Xscreensaver and videos !

Live Wallpaper has been updated to fix many bugs and be compatible with videos and xscreensavers ! give it a try :




Great, but my N900 doesn't run as smooth as on the video...

Applocker : Lock/hide your installed applications !

The first time you run the application, it asks for new password. After this you can never change the password (the only way is deleting /home/user/.config/cepiperez/applocker.conf file).

After setting the password, just select the applications you wish to hide from the list. They will disappear from the menu. To show an application again, just launch the program and untick that app on the list.



The way this program hides applications is very simple: it simply renames app.desktop to app.desktop1 in /usr/share/applications/hildon folder.

If you want to uninstall AppLocker remember to unhide all applications first!

Available on Extra-Devel repository !

Saturday, August 14, 2010

[UPDATE] Twitter widget by Nokia

As i pointed yesterday on twitter, The twitter widget by Nokia has been updated, hope the drain battery issue and high CPU consuming were corrected ;-)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Shake-N-Surf : Scroll web pages by just tilting the phone from side to side !

Shake-N-Surf is a great accelerometer based application that enables to scroll a web page by just tilting the phone from side to side !

Thursday, August 5, 2010

ThinkContacts : make a phone call to a desired contact using your brain activity !

ThinkContacts is a mobile application developed for the Maemo platform using Qt that allows the user to select a contact from the phone's address book and make a phone call by only using the brain's activity. It is explained and demonstrated in this video using a Nokia N900 and a NeuroSky Mindset headset.

Note: Pay attention to the progress bars during the demonstration part.




Nice !

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

MeeGo UI On Nokia? Simple, Classy, Sleek !

In the past few hours the blogosphere went "crazy" about a video that poped out over youtube demonstrating Meego UI On Nokia via an emulator...but for me this is rather symbian^4 (?) more than MeeGo especially the status bar area that looks exactly like the last S^4 screenshots :




What do you think?