Posted in Applications at 1:22 am by Jonathan Greene
While the new OS2008 is the most user friendly and simplified experience we’ve had to date, there are things I’d really like to see both Nokia and the developer community do to keep / make things consistent and easier to use. These are not in any particular order, but are all things I’ve been thinking about regularly since first getting the N810. Each one will add to the list of improvements we’ve already received. I look forward to hearing your comments and seeing what else you think should be added to the list.
Every device does not have a keyboard, but every application should support basic shortcuts for Close (CTRL+W) and Quit (CTRL+Q). Enable additional keyboard shortcuts as well … this has not been how the tablet has worked to date, but the keyboard is a such a compelling way to control the N810, I am always looking for more ways to keep my thumbs driving.
Scrolling in menus (system or application) should let me move all the way around whether I decide to go up or down.
The menu button should work or not work in an application, rather than only work on the main screen. (i.e. Modest message view vs. Folder)
Finger taps should be the preferred and optimized mode for things. I can still use the menus when they are smaller, but icons and general UI widgets should be designed for fingers.
Use a repository for your application. I’ve installed plenty of .deb files but these do not restore today when you backup and update your device. Applications installed from repositories, however are able to re-install easily. Repository based applications can also provide an update notice within the Application Manager. Early stage Garage apps as debs is OK, but as things progress we really need a repo system. Perhaps the Maemo team can help create one the community can manage.
There are system UI alerts as well as a programmable LED on the N810. Take advantage of these things to let the user see what’s happening with applications that provide notifications I would really like to see either an application based preference or a system level control panel that lets us define how we want to see notices for applications by type. (email, rss, im, voip, mauku, etc…) The N800 has an LED as well but I am not sure it’s programable in OS2008.
Let us set default applications for things. I thought I read that the release of Modest will have a setting to replace the default email application in the same way we chose the browser engine when MicroB was released. I should be able to also choose a default voice app (I have three + a SIP account enabled now), IM and RSS reader for starters.
Posted in Applications at 10:48 pm by Jonathan Greene
No video that I can see, but Skype works on both the N800 and N810 using the latest OS2008 updates for each device. I used the shortcut from the My Selection panel which asks whether you’d like to install. I’d had issues previously with the installer in Applications Manager and thought this might do the trick - though I gather the real reason it works today is that the application is actually in the repository! Enjoy!
Just a quick follow-up to this am’s news… I’ve just flashed my N800 without issue using the venerable 770Flasher on OSX. If you are a Mac user, this is really the way to go for flashing the tablet.
If you have not started the download today allow me to recommend the veryunofficial torrent which took my estimated 7 hour download from Maemo down to about 5 minutes.
Boingo Gizmo and Rhapsody installed without issue. Rhapsody refused my credentials, but I think it’s because it is already activated on my N810 … and you can only have one remote client according to the license. Rhapsody activated just fine after entering my password with the stylus, not thumbs. Skype started to download but then told me I need to update my tablet software to the latest version for the N810 (on the N800). I did not really expect it to work after hearing the reports this morning, but it was certainly worth a shot. Soon enough …
One bug I’ve found and confirmed via Jaiku is that passwords entered with the thumbboard do not seem to take. The same phrases entered via the stylus seem to work just fine and I’ve had this issue with IM, Rhapsody and Modest so far… This is apparently a known bug and can be voted on here in bugzilla.
While the N810 is just starting to become available (depending on who you ask) the latest 2008 OS slipped into the wild and I finally got the chance to check out an official release on my device. There’s nothing immediately new, but it does seem that there are some fixes and adjustments which smooth out the whole experience. I don’t see a changelist anywhere…
I’m finally able to run some apps that had given me issues from the initially loaded OS which is nice, though not everything works as you might expect. I actually think this last detail is more a factor of the developer community working on scratchbox configurations than on actual devices in the wild, so this should improve greatly in short order.
As you can see from these two screen shots, I was running a few versions back compared to the active release.
Initial OS:
Current Version:
One key difference existing tablet owners will certainly appreciate is the restore function from backup. I did a backup (61MB) just before I flashed, and after setting my date and time, received a prompt to restore as you might usually expect. The tablet now supports the ability to restore repositories and even applications (from the restored repositories) and it absolutely worked - and worked well! The main issue for someone like myself is the number of apps I’ve installed as straight .deb files. These files must be reinstalled manually again for the time being.
I should note Skype is no longer working for me, in that it is not installed or able to be installed. I should have seen this coming since people I know running 2008 on their N800’s have yet to see Skype actively, but that’s OK for now. Just be warned if you are running a pre-release OS.
There’s been talk about fixing the repositories as well as how firmware updates happen in subsequent OS releases. I look forward to that certainly but welcome today’s changes wholeheartedly. I still need to spend some time re-tweaking my device, but far less than I had to do with previous updates and not having to hunt things down (for the most part) again is just great.
While I’m not lucky enough to try this on my own N810 yet, Marcelo (aka Handful) has shared a few preview videos to show off the amazing progress that’s been done on Canola. When we last saw things it was still in sketch mode… but seems we are getting close to a public release!
I have not gotten any of the media player applications to work yet on the N810, and am standing by with my 6GB microSD (and adapter)!
Posted in Applications at 7:18 pm by Jonathan Greene
Daniel Yerga was able to sort out the issues in running Maemo WordPy in chinook thanks to an update in Python as well as some solid dilegence. And perhaps the desire to stop my harassment on Jaiku. It’s hard to really find fault here sice he was not only incredibly responsive but without a machine on which to test. The python release before today’s had some issues we’d discovered previously and today we (I feel a part of the process) sorted it and Daniel got thing working!
If you have a wordpress blog and a tablet this is a must have killer app. Menus and the ui in general are considerably more finger friendly which ties really nicely into the update for OS 2008. Mobile blogging from anywhere is really handy and something I expect to do quite a bit with the N810 and my N95.
My first, ahem… feature request would be for multiple blog support. I’ve got two and I know a few tablet owners in the same boat.
Zerojay and Texrat from the Internet Tablet Talk forums and (more recently) Jaiku got to talking and decided it would be great to offer services specifically to the tablet community. And so Jablet was born…
While clearly in very early beta, Jablet’s focus is on the use of Jabber which is built into the Tablet OS. While out of the box, you only have direct access to Google Talk (unless you use jabber today), they are working to make it very simple to get the rest of your IM accounts also flowing.
There’s a nice piece on the Jablet forums which walks you through setting up an account. I used the web form and then used a cross-platform and free jabber client called Psi to show the available transports (other services enabled on the server). It was just a matter of choosing my IM services and adding my login info to get AIM, MSN, Yahoo and Gtalk added. Gtalk is actually redundant when you run on the tablet, but it lets me keep tabs on Jaiku as well as my main IM stuff via Pidgin on when I am using a PC which I do not have admin privileges. Once this is configured a quick shot into the tablet’s accounts control panel and you can add your new Jablet account to be up in running. The whole process took me about 5 minutes.
Once your account is configured on the tablet, you’ll be connected to the Jablet server with access to your IM accounts from within the Tablet’s chat client. This is a really excellent addition for me as it’s one less application to install (Pidgin) and I can see and set presence from one application. I also have full access to all my IM contacts from across services within the contacts application! System notifications work seamlessly with all services through jabber which is very cool!
The Jablet guys are very interested in giving back to the community and want to develop services which let people enhance their Tablet experience. I’m in complete support of this and think it’s a fantastic idea! Well done! Even in this early stage it’s absolutely worth getting your IM services connected.
Posted in Applications at 12:42 am by Jonathan Greene
Access, the owner of the Palm OS has released a potentially powerful weapon for the Nokia Tablet, but is far too rough at this point for me to really recommend for anything other than experimentation.
When I read the news this morning I was very excited and actually downloaded the .deb while waiting for the train. I did not really read much on the Access site initially and have found since that even though there are over 30,000 Palm Garnet Applications in the world, only about 12 are promoted as working and in my search to get things running, I’ve found more that don’t work that do … for now.
The Garnet application lets you see what’s installed, launch the virtual machine, define settings - fullscreen or not which puts the device in portrait mode, set memory options etc. When you launch the Virtual Palm, you’ll see a windowed Palm running the application you’ve selected.
Yes bejeweled works which is a nice memory for me, though it feels hokey to play this game in a restricted space as you see above. I’d really like to see the VM support the full size of the screen even though the resolution would need to be adjusted to do this. Perhaps with some pixel doubling (or you invent the method) we’ll see a way to get a larger virtual Palm on the tablet. Ideally I’d love to see a transparent mode as we have with Parallels and VM Fusion on the Mac. If I could launch a Palm app from within my applications list it would really be slick.
I’ve tried SnapperMail, SplashID, TideTool, Agendus, eReader and Google Maps. SplashID works fine. SnapperMail does not support Gmail IMAP and is not letting me connect to my Fastmail IMAP account either… TideTool, Agendus and eReader won’t install. Google Maps works, but does not support the GPS and I did not see a way to tell the app that I had one - checking the Google site I see this is how the app seems to work for Palm, not just the virtualized version…
Sync reportedly works but only with a PC over IP. I have a feeling that Missing Sync would be able to connect with the Virtual Palm though I’ve yet to test. I can’t see syncing my PIM data for the moment and would really only use this as an easier way to install things that removing the memory card which is what I’m doing now. (there’s a bug in the Chinook beta that might corrupt my OS with a file transfer over USB)
At the moment my Virtual Palm will not launch. I think it’s in need of a reinstall, but since I can’t even get the email working I’m going to pass until the next update. While I really like this idea there’s a lot of work to be done here to make it useful and not just an exercise in “because we can.” I know this probably reads a bit on the harsh side, but for now this is a work in progress…hopefully we’ll see some improvements and if Palm ever actually releases a linux based distro, perhaps even some interesting native application opportunities.
Posted in Multimedia at 4:13 pm by Jonathan Greene
One of the contentious points in the user community is the Internet Tablet’s support for Ogg files. While this is not something I’ve been personally looking for, I’m still quite happy to share that Ogg Support is now just a click away!
For the time being you can use UKMP to get your OGG on…
