Ok, maybe now that Apple released it’s products (iPhone, iPod touch) with incredible hardware power (cpu, gpu, … and a smaller screen, or less things to paint) Nokia will think a bit more for the next devices. We (developers) need more power to do the fancy stuff, or at least non-bogus hardware.
We already have to work on missing infrastructure bits, having us to work around these technical hardware problems is no fun!
Marcelo got an iPhone and I could use it for a while, my initial idea was to compare my virtual keyboard with their (mine is “better”, easier to type, because the screen is larger!), but I also paid attention to graphics effects, and other things that I could use to improve my own skills… BUT what impressed me most was the number of 3rd party applications already available for it!
Apple has invested no money to create a public development infrastructure, community resources and not even a cross compiler toolchain. Actually, they tried hard to avoid people writing native applications, but even with these factors they got to the point they have more useful (IMO) applications than N800, with Nokia creating Maemo, funding scratchbox, tons of resources to improve Gnome and related tools.
Sure, they already ship with great apps by default, as an excellent media player and browser and simple but good enough mail client, maps, PIM… but you can already install game emulators that works (I’m talking about on screen controls, due multi-touch) and even some web applications through Python/Django. See some apps at http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/.
Although there is no documentation on HIG or even widget API, these applications look integrated, they benefit from graphical/physics effects, support screen rotation and more, and if you consider the timeline, it is 2 months old and the cracks to install home brew software is even newer!
I still have no conclusion on what we did wrong and they right, but IMO things are more favorable for them. Maybe it’s about they touching the hackers egos (forbidden is always cool), maybe it’s about better infrastructure, … What’s your opinion?
PS: the device is neat, things seem well integrated, they did just the simple things, but did they right, really. Their attention to details, not just for user interface, is incredible.
Apple doesn’t sell iPhone here in Brazil, we wanted to evaluate its virtual keyboard usability… our solution here at INdT: write one using Python and Edje!
The plan was to do it in less than one week, it took a bit more since I had to work on other things, fix some bugs with the EFL itself and also implement new features (like pointer_mode: NOGRAB) and also did the initial graphics, later replaced with Ian’s nice work. It does no type prediction, word hint, cursor navigation or key composition (accents are not possible).
Summary is 230 lines of Python, 1110 lines of Edje, including comments and blank lines, and a really easy to type keyboard.
http://www.gustavobarbieri.com.br/e17-n800/ bora free