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This is Not a Brain Surgery
May. 9th, 2008
07:06 pm - desktop mentality
The first versions of Windows Mobile (called back then Windows CE) were quite terrible. The problem is that designing software for mobile devices requires special thinking, and just shrinking desktop software into smaller screen space is hardly sufficient. For example, the whole Windows START button metaphor does not fit very well into tiny screen, because it is an extremely tedious task to navigate of 2-3 levels of popup menus just to start an application. And taking the stylus out each time to do so takes valuable second or two of user time.
Another example: having one fixed time zone on device is maybe OK for desktop, but it is not acceptable for mobile phone or laptop. People do travel across time zones! So, making it easy to change your time zone without screwing up your calendar events is important. Both iPhone and Windows Mobile went this far. But it takes few more years of trial and error in mobile words to realize, like Nokia did, that after their travels people do come back home, and it is most convenient to have TWO time zones: home and visiting, and give a user easy way to switch between them.
Now, to the problem that really irks me right now: SMTP servers. There is abundance of free WiFi hotspots available. Most of them, however, block SMTP traffic on port 25, except to their dedicated SMTP server. That's done to fight SPAM. The problem is that SMTP server settings on iPhone (and most other email clients I've seen on mobile devices) are not dependant from the access point you are using right now. So, AT&T has nothing better than suggest their customers to go and manually change SMTP settings whenever they switch between using their EDGE network and their own WiFi Hotspots! I think it is obvious, that user should be able to override SMTP server settings on mobile devices depending on his current access point ( as it is done for HTTP proxy WiFi network details screen under Settings). Or even better,this information should be obtained automatically, perhaps via DHCP.
Apr. 13th, 2007
10:34 pm - Fast4
I have produced a paper on my idea about search method using 4-directional input device, like joystick or a trackball. Besides the obvious uses like mobile phone address book search, it could be also used in car navigation systems, portable music players, game consoles, etc.
There is a demo for J2ME phones as well as Blackberry app which could be downloaded here.
Nov. 8th, 2006
11:10 am - Mobile 2.0
I stopped by at Mobile 2.0 event this week. Frankly, I was little disappointed. In my opinion, mobile 2.0 is not about Symbian OS or Mobile Search or many other topics they have discussed. I was struggling how to explain to friends what it is about and come up with this diagram. Company names, are just examples. So, if you know interesting companies which fit upper right quadrant of this diagram, leave their names in comments to this post and let us see next year who will pop up to the top of the list.
Apr. 2nd, 2006
03:38 pm - Importing SSL certificates on Series 60 phones
I am using wonderful ProfiMail mail client on my Nokia 6620 phone. It works great, but I was getting annoyed that it was constantly asking me to confirm the connection since my IMAP server was using self-signed SSL certificate. Today, thanks to this document, I finally wound a way to import that certificate into my Nokia, so it does not ask me anymore. ( Here are quick steps to do that: )