Hacking & Life & Maemo Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri on 25 Aug 2007 04:27 am
Impressed by 3rd party iPhone apps
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.
11 Responses to “Impressed by 3rd party iPhone apps”
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on 25 Aug 2007 at 8:15 am 1.krum said …
It’s cool, but U must be connected to the Net, that is not always possible. Plus, these apps consume traffic, which is not always free. At last, these apps can be easily run on N800. And don’t forget, that the CPU in iPhone is twice powerful, as in N800.
on 25 Aug 2007 at 8:19 am 2.stezz said …
I don’t know what maemo did wrong or what they did well (or better). maemo grew up from nothing, still when you say maemo to somebody they think you’re talking about a soap for the washing machine.
Iphone has the hype, Apple has the muscles. Come on everybody knew about Iphone months before the launch and still few know about maemo (or the devices that run it).
It doesn’t surprise me that everybody wants to put an app on the Iphone even if they have to struggle to understand the API and fight to get it working.
You put money into marketing, you get a result. I don’t know how much money Apple put into the Iphone marketing, but I’m sure as hell it was so much more than Nokia spent for advertise its two maemo products.
As you pointed out they did few simple things, but, hell, they payed so much attention to details, it seems they have rewritten the history of handhelds.
And regarding UI they did it.
Let’s harmonize the UI, let’s make it nice(r), let’s put there bells and whistles, let’s put money into marketing and then we’ll see what maemo did well.
maemo and Iphone, Nokia and Apple are not fighting with the same weapons, they can’t get the same results.
on 25 Aug 2007 at 12:58 pm 3.Jaffa said …
It’s a very interesting point, and from what I’ve seen and heard of both the iPhone and the surrounding community, one I’d agree with.
I’m also not sure what the difference is between Nokia and Apple and the Maemo devices and the iPhone. However, there are three possible theories, I think:
1) Since the iMac and OS X, Apple have got a reputation for good, intuitive devices. This came into the consumer space with the iPod and consequently they’ve just got more loyal fans and a better marketing machine than Nokia.
2) As you say, modifying the iPhone is “forbidden”, and so becomes more intrinsically attractive.
3) The iPhone itself and its base software stack is so much more polished, well-thought out and “neat” than Nokia’s Internet Tablets it encourages third party apps to do the same.
I think there’s an element of truth to all three: (1) certainly means that (by my reckoning) at least an order of magnitude iPhones have already been sold than Maemo devices; however without the polished environment for the hacked apps to sit, they become half-finished ports or quick terminal-based hacks to scratch an itch. (3) is the most important, IMHO, why are the third party apps for the iPhone so much better? Because the bar is that much higher on the built-in ones. You allude to this in your post yourself, and is the strongest reason IMHO.
Cheers,
Andrew
on 25 Aug 2007 at 7:00 pm 4.handful said …
@Krum said:
@It’s cool, but U must be connected to the Net,
You don’t krum. all application I installed are native applications. They run offline.
@that is not always possible. Plus, these apps consume @traffic, which is not always free.
Of course in Brazil there’s no AT&T, but remember one thing:
The iphone is only sold in the US with the plan (ok you can avoid it) but as a consumer product only sold with an AT&T plan, that comes (there’s no choice on that) with Unlimited data for 20bucks. so theres no excuses like “it costs” if you are a “regular” iphone user.
@At last, these apps can be easily run on N800. And don’t @forget, that the CPU in iPhone is twice powerful, as in N800.
Yes, this is true, but the controls on the n800 for example prevents you from emulators that rely on 8 way controllers, and even worse: even 4 way controllers is complicated because the rocker is kind of sunk.
And I have to agree with Andrew that the basic toolkit that enables the basic application pushes the quality of any application up.
It’s easy to do something “cute” in the iphone basic gui and not that easy with hildon. but for me the main point still one that I have been talking a lot:
Apple managed to use the screen like nobody did in the touchscreen space before: all of it. Why try to mimic a desktop? Why do you need to have the same old window decorations, dialog bars? The same desktop metaphor pushed into a smaller screen makes it harder to deal with.
Of course there was a lot of marketing, apple-cult around, but come on.. it’s just 5 minutes with the iphone to think something like: this is like years ahead, even being years behind in the feature level when compared with the n95.
It’s easy to realize why:
Nokia is an engineer-oriented company
Apple is a designer oriented company
Nokia was incredible in the first generations of phone in the usability matter but lost it’s touch a long time ago with the evolutions of the s40 and the s60. Still good UIs but they are not the kind of UI users were demand. I do not compare keypad UIs with full touchcreen UIs but I’m eager to see if apple will release a phone with keypad. Then we will be able to see who understand better the user’s expectation. This is what drives sales in the end. and selling is the point for both companies.
So in the end, it was not features, but design which actually bent the carriers, and made them PAY for the first time a cellphone maker revenue monthly. (ok I understand that there’s the exclusivity term etc etc) but this is quite remarkable. Anyone who has EVER, EVER negotiate with a carrier knows that.
Let’s wait to see what comes next? Or let’s try to bring this design vision to the products that we deal on? This is the same vision that we had for canola: Why try to be a do it all device, if you cannot do ANY of the things in a nice way? So we tried just to make it a nice media player. And we are still trying… let’s see how we are going to manage the next version with such a high standard set by Apple.
Cheers
on 26 Aug 2007 at 6:36 am 5..wo said …
could you imagine to access all Nxxx functions via the Canola user interface?
and could you imagine if the some of them could be integrated yet, you just dropped them for now?
and if there would be too much to be dropped, you don’t release the device until all important things are working well for an average user?
that’s what apple did, in a way.
blast from the past:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=25158&postcount=29
but it’s an open device, and taste differs -> http://tabletblog.com/2007/08/my-home-screen.html
I don’t like my mobile device look like the cockpit of an A320 … but that’s just me
on 26 Aug 2007 at 11:30 am 6.mox said …
WRT. 3rd party apps on Maemo vs. iPhone:
1)
It matters who are the developers. For iPhone, they are not just somebody. Many of them are hard-core Mac people with backgrounds closer to graphics design than a kernel hacker. Just take a look at the shareware/free Mac apps… http://www.tuaw.com/category/software/
2)
It matters what the target (brand/company) is. Anything 3rd party stuff related to Apple comes with the inherent assumption that to survive competition, it has to provide good visual experience and user experience.
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ada/
3)
So Apple sends a message: “use web”. Within weeks, iPhone has iUI.
http://www.joehewitt.com/blog/introducing_iui.php
http://www.joehewitt.com/iui/
combined with Apple making strong design decisions regarding webexperience:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html
on 08 Sep 2007 at 3:37 pm 7.forge said …
As a long term enlightenment E17 admirer and a fan. When i found out how you’ve shuffled part’s of EFL to N800 and possibility for Canola to be a full-time interface for operating N800 (well i use N770 with hacker edition) i would say i would go for it immediatly even if it would only be usable in a handfull of apps.
Currently, the keyboard you wrote looks hands-down ten times better than the orginal.
If you could use canola UI to launch a web-browser and other software the user wants, i would use it.
As handfull said:
[quote]Apple managed to use the screen like nobody did in the touchscreen space before: all of it. Why try to mimic a desktop? Why do you need to have the same old window decorations, dialog bars? The same desktop metaphor pushed into a smaller screen makes it harder to deal with.[/quote]
I agree, small screen devices like N770/N800 shoulnd’t rely on desktop feeling but they should try to use the screen they have to create a better, faster and more user interactive experience since there is a possibility to do so with the touch-screen interface.
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on 18 Oct 2007 at 5:54 am 10.danboarder said …
keep up the good work, your recent work for the N800 is AMAZING and stands up to the iPhone hype well. I love my n800 with it’s SD Card and open platform.
I’m an apple guy but I lean toward all things open. I bought an n800 because it is open, runs skype, flash, and a lot more FOSS that users have ported or developed. How can I help with the UI and other things? I am more a designer than developer, but I will explore the python tools for your recent work.
on 18 Oct 2007 at 8:36 am 11.Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri said …
@danboarder: if you’re a designer, you can help with mockups and new UI ideas. Most developers (myself included) are not great graphical designers and we lack skills to create icons or even lay things out, so any help is welcome.
At INdT we have some designers since the last months of 2006 and now our products are lot better. Just choose a project you want and request to be their designer, I’m sure things will work out.