Nokia Digital Design Bootcamp – Delhi 2009

As we had informed you earlier , Nokia India had kindly invited us to attend the Nokia Digital Design Bootcamp at Oberoi , New-Delhi.

The evening centered around interaction with Nokia’s design team responsible for the amazing iconography , homescreens and even upcoming UI technologies. We are thankful to Nokia for giving us the opportunity to peek into the mind of these talented designers and get a first hand look at the designers perspective of a device.

The one on one interaction with the very people who design the devices that millions use in an experience to be remembered. Read more

A ring to unite them all!

I was just sitting and watching something known as the television and as soon as the episode was up, it was back to my E75 just doing one of those random things we do on the internet, when we got nothing to do. I hit ‘Search’ and typed news, looking for nothing in particular, and Google News it was. After having read a few articles here and there on the happenings, I hit the Science and Technology section, there was an article on the N97 and below that another article on the N97 being a worthy contender to the iPhone. This article spoke a lot about a many things and it got me thinking. I thought it best to rant them out for you all to read.

The N97 comes at a point for Nokia when a lot of things have changed in the mobile industry. What seemed like a battle of only handsets and megapixels has slowly, with the advent of the iPhone escalated to something more. the iPhone has brought many features previously unknown to us, multi touch and phones were not used in the same sentence, UI – suddenly became a huge differentiator, materials became important.

Then came the rush to overturn the iPhone, Samsung, LG, HTC retaliated with a slew of devices, each claiming to be one up on the iPhone. Nokia trusted it’s flagship – the venerable N95, there were many video comparisons and countless blog posts about the two.

Then Google came not with a phone but with an Operating System and changed the rules of the game. Suddenly with the advent of Android, there were many foundations which were formed to take on the might of Android and Google’s marketing prowess. LiMo Foundation, and a few more, then Nokia decided to make Symbian an open source platform and created Symbian Foundation. In between all of this it is the ‘app store’ which became the next weapon to sharpen the divide between iPhone and the others. Soon every phone manufacturer had to have an app store or be looked down upon. Nokia, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, RIM – they all launched their ‘app stores’.

So what has changed in the last two years? Firstly, the UI has become extremely important to everyone. How easy is it to work with? What else can it do for me? These are the questions people are asking their dealers and the phone companies. The need for it to be Open Source has also never been louder!

Design which was the only thing is now of prime importance, since the physical object has to close the gap between the real life and the digital life. A candy bar, a clam shell, slider are just not enough… It has become increasingly important for manufacturers to give more in the same form and give new devices in new forms to their customers yesterday.

App Stores, an idea that many people thought of, but only one could exploit successfully. Even if you think the apps on iPhone don’t make sense and their tight controls on what goes out and not, it still remains a success story. Other companies also have their own versions of the same idea and you have some independent ones as well.

Internet, which was not so important a few years ago, is now suddenly something everybody (OK, a lot of people!) wants on their cell phone. Internet innovations have spilled over to phones, and there is an inherent need of having a mobile friendly version of it. People’s needs have evolved. They want to be able to do things with their cell phones on the internet. Share, explore, learn and be informed, they want it all.

Features, they were there earlier, but now are even more pronounced. The megapixel war has only escalated; entertainment features are a deal maker and breaker; hardware additions like WiFi, GPS, etc are a must for smartphones and feature phones. A rather nice development here is a rather large consensus for a few components like 3.5mm audio jack and USB in its many iterations. There’s more but I can recall only these off hand.

Environment, this suddenly is the topic that everyone is discussing. It is now an equally important feature for prospective customers. many of them want to know if their next purchase is going to be a power hog or a power saver. Being green was never so important!

With so many factors emerging and becoming powerful decision helpers many companies are taking up their positions. Each wants to be known for one particular feature that makes them better than their rivals. Every one is gunning for a niche category. Nokia being the biggest has clearly shown that it wants to be number one in them all. It can be also, but only when it can be better than Apple, Samsung, Android, Microsoft and many more combined. In the struggle to be this mammoth amongst giants from other areas, it has released the N97.

The N97 is in many ways like the ‘One’ ring in the movie “The Lord of the Rings”, with this device Nokia aims to rule them all. To what extent it will succeed is something only time will tell, simply because the churning has only just begun. The ring has just been forged. There is a lot more to come. So keep your ears to the ground!

MyPhone V2.11 reviewed!

I’m sure you’ve heard about MyPhone application for S60 devices. MyPhone is an application from MMMOOO, a software design house situated in Shanghai, China.

MyPhone basically is a flash based application which alters the menu and standby screen of the S60 and makes it resemble the iPhone. While doing so it not only brings to the front many features hidden in s60, to the forefront but also adds some features too.

This app allows you to log in to your Flickr account directly, apart from that you can even configure your email address, something that was always possible, but the MyPhone is easier to configure than the standard Messaging option (I’m not referring to Nokia’s Email Service – Nokia Messaging). RSS feeds can be also configured, without starting the browser. there area few more, but I’ll leave it for you to find them out.

This application runs on S60 3rd edition and 5th edition devices. So if you have N81, N85 or a 5800, fret not, it will work on all of these devices. It should work on the N97 also, but I haven’t seen anyone using it on that device.

I got a chance to review the MyPhone V2.10 and just as I was done with the review of that version, I got to know that V2.11 was released. So I reviewed that as well.

There are a lot of changes in the two.

Firstly in the older version when you selected an icon you would see a circular object rotating which indicated that you have selected that icon, in the new version, that has been completely done away with. Now wehn you select an icon, it stands out… I can’t think of any other term to describe it, but rest assured it looks far more polished and less confusing.

Next up, the way one assigns icons to applications has also been reworked a bit. You no longer have only ten applications which can be configured, but it is now unlimited. The unassigned icons which were there at the end in the old version are not there at all in the new version. Instead one has to now choose the My Settings icon at the end of the menu. This option houses not only wallpaper options but also assigning icons to applications which would allow you to use the application within MyPhone.

There have been many additions to MyPhone, but that can be seen only if you have a 5800, on a S60 3rd edition devices, due to manual input, many extra features are not there. I reviewed the app on my trusty ‘Imaging King’, the N82. So if you have a 5800, I strongly suggest you to get this application, it is every bit worth its money.

This Flash based shell is a good alternative for people who are just plain bored with the S60 interface.

Having reviewed an older version V2.03.1, I can say that a lot of the niggles have been sorted out, though a few still remain.

I wish that the method of assigning icons to applications would be far more simple than it is. The current method requires the user to have a file manager, MMMOOO recommends Best Taskman. This app allows you to view the processes and threads that are running on the phone, much like Windows’ Task Manager. Now after you have the file manager app installed you have to find the exact ‘.exe’ file for the application of your choice. This easier said than done. An average user is sure to mess up here. This one area which, in my opinion needs to be made more user friendly.

Another thing which kind of disappointed me was that if the phone rings when you are using this app, you see the regular standby screen that S60 has. I don’t know if that is a limitation by S60, of not allowing changes to that degree by an app or the application itself, but I wish this application had that bit also altered to look different.

But gone are the niggles of going back to the standby screen, exiting the application itself and changing the wallpaper. I’m sure the next version will allow the users to set wallpapers from their gallery.

I have found the current iteration of MyPhone to be far more user friendly than all of its previous iterations, including V2.10. But there is a long way to go still.

I would definitely recommend you to try this app out and use it. It’s worth it… plus you can always show off to your friends the capabilities of the S60 device. If you have a 5800 then you must definitely have this app.

The one thing I must point out is that, this is one of the few applications on the S60 platform whch regularly evolves and goes through updates and becomes even better than the last version. It shows the committment MMMOOO has towards this application.

Head on over to www.immmooo.com to download the application for your S60 device.

Below is a gallery of screenshots…

Gesture Input For Mobile Devices : Are We There Yet?

Gestures are one of the most used Non-verbal communication system,other than the facial expressions,which are far less intentional,but comes naturally out of our faces.In this manner gestures are more easy to understand and readable at a glance as they are purposely generated as a main stream of communication since the time humans started to live in social groups.Not only among humans the gesture communication is present in many animal societies too.As we can understand and distinguish between different kinds of gestures just by observing them,is it possible for a electronic device to read the same as we do?Answer is Yes!

Like our eyes,the Camera on an Electronic device(In this specific case a camera on a mobile phone) acts as a input slot for these physical signals and then turn them into digital ones where a processor will decode it and recognize the meaning of it. Yet yield results are not on par with the biological human eye,but rather interesting to see how close they will get by the time.

Still these concepts may look just futuristic but we’ve already seen few amazing experimental work published,some may not directly link to this topic as it is,but others we can call them as previews of early steps of evolution.One such thing is the NinjaStrike game,in which the backside camera sensor detects the movement of hand across its visual path and then quickly translate that action into a digital signal.

Camera-based motion data is problematic to use for gesture recognition due to the low quality of the data, caused by a low sample rate combined with high noise.So as a solution most gesture detection systems use a gesture recognition algorithm that tries to solve this problem by using state machines, modeled from a gesture rule set, that parse the motion data and interpret the gesture the user has performed. Which is the core technology behind what Samsung has patented some time back.In this a particular gesture is identified by comparing it with a one stored in its gesture rule.So misinterpretations should be expected.Interference with surrounding environmental disturbances on the gesture input is much low than  it’s for Voice input system but still the factors like light levels and other visuals barriers may stand in the way of this gesture readings.

Camera-based motion estimation was first proposed as positioning input for mobile phones by Rohs. And since then there are several Gesture input recognition algorithms developed and available but still non-of them made their way on to a public retail device,as a fully gesture controlled one.But in the recent past we saw some interesting and promising demonstrations involving touch less gestures where no contact with the device  screen is done during the input.

Samir’s Hand Wave is one such innovative application which users the front camera sensor to detect input,

or using a smile to trigger a camera shutter

So all these things are indicating the gradual approach to a new level of input system that we will soon experience on our devices.Yet we are not there,but in close vicinity.

Little Bit of Future Unveiled

Only few days have gone passed since Nokia officially announced the S60 Fifth Edition supporting the First ever Touch based Symbian Devices,with Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Lot of mixed ideas are flowing around the web about the Device and its looks,and personally not my kind of device. Anyway to me what’s so hot there is not the device but the new S60 5th edition OS. In the Demo videos it is apparent that there are few improvements to be done with the UI,especially the response speeds (Probably the Exhibited devices are running on pre-release firmwares and final release may carry lot of changes,as they have mention it specifically for the icons)but overall UI gives an appealing feeling to use,wow I would love to have a hands on experience even on the 5800,and can’t wait till the flagship device comes out.Yet I didn’t come across a full UI walkthrough of this new OS to analyze what it has to offer and what surprises are there to make the next big wow.Few things were covered briefly in the release videos but to get the full impression it requires a hands on experience,isn’t it?

So on those videos we saw some nifty little UI features and effects,you can check them over here.

But is this all waiting to be graduated its way onto the flagship device, which is said to be come in next February,or there will be more.If you can remember I told that the TAT  is the secret behind Feature Pack 2’s Transition Effects quoting official press release, revealing their long rumored relationship with S60,who could say that they’ll stop by 3rd edition.Anyway to be a coincident or not( Or to make it to be so) few days after the S60 touch became official,yesterday The Astonishing Tribe(TAT) went on an amazing demonstration on where the future touch devices are heading on and what are the paths and different options for UI customizations they have. No connection or hint was given out about on what platforms these cool stuff will be available,though they’ve used a HTC Touch Diamond to run the application,it was clearly mentioned that the device is used only for demonstration purposes.Just take a look at these videos, and wouldn’t they be  nice additions to the Next S60 5th edition flagship device? This not a rumor again but just a radical thought popped up in my mind after a fantasized mobile dream.

All these videos are property of TAT and full credit of concept goes to them,

1. Customized Unlocking Sequence – GPS:

Click your location on the spinning globe to unlock your phone

2. Customized Unlocking Sequence – DragDrop:

We customize UI’s all the time, why not customize the unlocking sequence? Drag and drop icons to unlock your mobile.

3. Customized Unlocking Sequence – Combo:

Using a combination lock, unlock the code to unlock your mobile!

4. Customized Unlocking Sequence – Slide:

Slide the background to discover applications, and slide one further to unlock the phone, opening to that application!

5. Customized Unlocking Sequence – Drum!:

Be a rockstar with your own mobile, do your drum solo sequence to unlock your mobile!

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