You want to reduce piracy?

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Gibson

You want to reduce piracy? Then make it easier for people to get access to your digital goods instead of wrapping it with useless DRM that requires the customer to jump through hoops.

If you make it real simple for people to get your stuff from the internet, they won’t mind paying a few cents in order to save time downloading some ‘cracked’ file which could hold a virus.

Take a look at iTunes. To download an app, I just tap on the icon and key in my password. Whereas on my e63, I have to download the Ovi store app, open it whereupon it prompts me to switch on my bluetooth. What the $%$# do I need to switch on my bluetooth in order to browse whatever is on the Ovi store?

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My predictions for 2010 and the mobile space

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Gibson

Now that 2010 is in it’s 2nd month, I have decided to put on my pointy hair, wave my wand while staring into my fog filled crystal ball and give my predictions for 2010 and the mobile space. Bear with me a while as this could take some time.

1) Rise of the mobile web – If Apple heralded the rise of the mobile app store in USA. Then 2010 will see the rise of the mobile app spearheaded by Google’s Android. With Flash(Not Flash Lite) support for Android 2.0 coming and a whole bunch of Android phones appearing in 2010. 2010 will be the year of the mobile web. Following behind will be Windows Mobile Series 7 and Silverlight support. I definitely will expect some teething issues, but that is to be expected, plus I can’t wait to check out Flash apps on those cool phones.

2) People realise App Stores are overrated – 24 telco operators have decided to band together and create their own App Store to counter Apple’s App Store. Samsung’s new Bada mobile OS also will come with their own App Store and Sony Ericsson is also following suit. App stores are nothing new since I have experienced it years ago(in my own Sony Ericsson phone) when the iPhone was not even released yet and the hype is amazing. What was throughly groundbreaking about Apple’s App Store was
- the 30/70 revenue share when 50/50 was the norm
- standardizing the hardware and form factor of the devices that can connect to the App Store. Previously, App Stores supported so many devices and form factors that if you didn’t know what phone model you were using and download the wrong version. Tough luck to you then.

When consumers realize that the mobile web can fulfill a lot of what they originally wanted in a mobile app. Then mobile apps will find it a challenge to compete against their mobile brethen.

3) The mobile OS space will get even more crowded – After the recent MWC(Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona. 2 companies unveiled their new mobile OSes and those 2 are Microsoft with Windows Mobile Series 7 and Samsung with Bada. Then Nokia also decided to partner with Intel to create a new OS based on Nokia’s Maemo and call it MeeGo. So this makes the already crowded mobile OS space even more crowded. I can’t complain about that since I believe a monopoly is not good for consumers.

4) Mobile games will be huge – Sony just announced that it will included their PSN(PlayStation Network) and obviously, this announcement is fired in the direction of Microsoft which also made known that their Windows Mobile Series 7 phones will have XBox Live integration. This is great news for gamers and game developers alike as I can’t wait to see the new games available on these phones. Maybe Sony will make their Sony Ericsson phones into a PSP-Phone? Or Nokia will resurrect N-Gage to be N-Gage 3.0? N-Gage had promise, but how Nokia screwed it up makes for another blog post later.

5) Freemium goes mobile – When people think freemium games, they think of Farmville, Facebook apps etc. But the freemium monetization model was already established in my part of the world, here in Singapore, years ago when Zynga was non-existent and Facebook was still trying to gain traction in USA. The master of monetization then was Nexon who did an excellent job of freemium monetization through their games such as Maple Story, Audition Online, Kart Rider etc. Although Zynga may be the master of monetization now, at least Nexon wasn’t associated with Scamville. Even Ngmoco is doing it with their game “Eliminate” and Aurora Feint is offering a freemium monetization model through their Open Feint X platform. But for featurephones without all these fancy features, there is still the premium SMS monetization model and every phone can send a SMS.

6) Smartphones becomes widespread – With the cost of chipsets dropping and news that companies such as Microsoft joining forces with MediaTek to develop cheaper smartphones aimed at China and the emerging markets. Smartphones will soon be the new feature phones once these smartphones have dropped to a comfortable price level and more people can afford it. So emerging markets in places such as China, India, South Africa, and closer to home, Vietnam, Cambodia etc, these countries will be where cheaper smartphones will displace feature phones.

Well, that sums up my predictions for mobile in 2010, and I may be wrong on all of these points, so anyone has any comments. Feel free to post it.

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Mobile Marketing

Posted on February 3, 2010 by admin

I did a short impromptu presentation on mobile marketing recently in December 2009 and decided to put it up on slideshare on a whim, as well as to try to experience what slideshare is about. Fast forward a few months later, mobile guru Tomi Ahonen tweeted about my presentation on slideshare and within a few hours, I got an email from slideshare that my presentation slide was experienced a high volume of views and it is now on the “Hot on twitter” section on the front page of slideshare.

This got me pretty excited as this has validated my view on mobile marketing and how it will be poised to take off since consumer smartphones are becoming more popular and cheaper as days goes by. With all the features of consumer smartphones, mobile marketing will grab even more headlines in the months and years to come.

Anway, here is the link to my slideshare presentation

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Hang on to your seats, we ain’t seen nothing yet

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Gibson

Having developed mobile applications for 6+ years. I have observed many trends in the mobile space such as 3D etc and yet, there was 1 trend that I failed to spot back when the Motorola ROKR was the mobile phone that Apple produced in a partnership with Motorola and the iPhone was just a prototype in Apple’s lab in Cupertino.

Moore’s law states that computing power will double every 24 months. But I was unable to reconcile it with the explosion of mobile and the introduction of a new mobile phone market segment called “The consumer smartphone”.

A long time ago, smartphones were the must-have accessories of high powered executives and CEOs who needed the 24 by 7 access to their emails on their mobile and devices such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile blossomed and grew by catering to this market segment

But with the introduction of the iPhone to the consumer market, this has opened up a new category of mobile users who use smartphones to email their friends, not their colleagues. Plus, with Moore’s law driving down the cost of the mobile phone processors while providing more power. Phone manufactures are now able to produce smartphones at a cheaper price and then sell it to the mass market by pricing it within their reach.

Even Blackberry which traditionally catered to executives, have been marketing their new smartphones to the mass market after realizing what a big market this is and the same goes for the other guys such as Windows Mobile etc.

Now, with the better web browsing experience that smartphones offer(Except for Blackberry which still have lousy browsers) and faster speed and more bandwidth. The possibilities for mobile is now endless, so be prepared for the mobile revolution to fully take off and consumer smartphones to be the vanguard leading the way. Therefore hang on to your seats, cause we ain’t seen nothing yet

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Mobile marketplace comparison chart

Posted on January 13, 2010 by admin

Here is an excellent link regarding the marketplace difference between Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone. The article also covers other areas such as ease of development resources, submission procedures etc. If anyone is interested in going into mobile development, the article is a definite must read.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/mobile/wm_iphone_android_market.aspx

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Adobe Flex tutorial + Facebook API = Not Very Good

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Gibson

Wanting to try my hands at integrating Adobe Flex with their Facebook API. The 1st stop was to Adobe’s website where I found this tutorial on creating a Flex application and adding their Facebook API (Note : This is a standalone Flex app, not a Facebook Flex app). The tutorial went well and was simple enough to follow. The only problem is that logging into Facebook from the Flex app produces a popup window.

Next, I went to the next tutorial which covers deployment of a Flex app into a Facebook iFrame which was what I wanted. So I went through tutorial #2 and when I ran my Flex app from my Facebook account. The same popup window appears.

Now, I have played enough Facebook games to see that they do not have this popup window when the games prompt me to grant them permission, so why does this Adobe Flex tutorial show this popup window? Besides, some people who use popup blockers may not see the popup.

Looking around, I found nothing that could solve my problem until I was randomly reading articles on Flex and Facebook development when I came to clue #1 which was this tutorial regarding SWFObject

Then my “programming” sense kicked in and I started to sniff around google for clues. After a few hours of searching and editing, I finally discovered how to get rid of that irritating popup window and put everything on 1 canvas. So here are the steps which I will outline
- Create a swfproxy.php PHP file and add this into the PHP file so that it consists of only this
<?php
header('Content-type: application/x-shockwave-flash');
header('Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT, -1');
header('Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate');
header('Pragma: no-cache');

echo file_get_contents($_GET['swf']);
?>

- Copy the entire line of code and insert your Facebook app API key and change the swfobject.embedSWF(“swfproxy.php?swf=fbconnect.swf” segment where you replace fbconnect.swf with the name of your swf file (e.g swfproxy.php?swf=foo.swf) and save the file as index.htm

<html>
<head>
<title>Main</title>
<!-- include swfobject library -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

function navigateTo(url)
{
window.parent.location.href = url;
}

function openURL( url, target )
{
try
{
var popup = window.open( url, target );
if ( popup == null )
return false;

if ( window.opera )
if (!popup.opera)
return false;
}
catch(err)
{
return false;
}
return true;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<script src="http://static.ak.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

//define your flashVars from the URL GET string

var flashVars = {};
var api_key = "";
var channel_path = 'xd_receiver.htm';

FB_RequireFeatures(["XFBML"], function(){
FB.Facebook.init(api_key, channel_path);
});

var fb_sig_added = 0;

var strHref = window.location.href;
if ( strHref.indexOf("?") > -1 ) {
var strQueryString = strHref.substr(strHref.indexOf("?")+1);
var aQueryString = strQueryString.split("&");
for ( var iParam = 0; iParam < aQueryString.length; iParam++ ) {
var aParam = aQueryString[iParam].split("=");
flashVars[aParam[0]] = aParam[1];

if (aParam[0].toLowerCase() == "fb_sig_added")
{
fb_sig_added = aParam[1];
}
}
}

// first check if they have authorized the app, if not
// redirect them to the login page.
if (fb_sig_added == 0)
{
//alert('0')
window.parent.location = "http://www.facebook.com/login.php?api_key=" + api_key + "&v=1.0&canvas=1";
}
else
{
// load the flash movie.
swfobject.embedSWF("swfproxy.php?swf=fbconnect.swf", "flashContent", "700", "500", "9.0.0", "expressInstall.swf", flashVars);
}
//create your instance of your .swf
</script>

<!-- this is where your flash content will be placed when created -->
<div id="flashContent"></div>
</body>
</html>

- Download the SWFObject Javascript file and unzip it to a folder
- Do the same for xd_receiver.htm
- Put xd_receiver.htm, expressInstall.swf(Look in the SWFObject folder), swfproxy.php, index.htm, swfobject.js and your swf file all into the same directory

Now, if you have done everything correctly, you will see the disappearance of that irritating popup window and the “grant permissions” window appearing in the same window as your canvas

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Google Wave not exactly making waves

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Gibson

When Google Wave was announced, there was big hooha surrounding it. But months down the road, somehow it still has not been met with widespread adoption as their other phenomenally successful product GMail. Wanna know why? Read on to find out more

#1 – A Google Wave user can only communicate with another Google Wave user. Whereas with GMail, I can use it to send emails to my friends’ hotmail, rocketmail(Does it even exist now?) email accounts, so Google Wave is a victim of the negative network effect (Not many friends = not many users which leads to not many friends again, the downward spiral continues)

#2 – Although Google Wave is meant to be a collaboration software or a reinvention of email now. But the idea of using 2 email accounts for personal use is beyond most people. I know of only a handful of people who use multiple email addresses for their personal emails while the rest are just content with 1 email address. So, 1 way to increase usage of Google Wave is to put a link in the GMail interface so that people can access Google Wave from their Gmail accounts without going to http://wave.google.com and logging in again.

Google Wave sounds very good and I do see some potential in it, but technology without the people using it, is useless as technology was created to serve people.

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A small step for Android, a big step for developers

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Gibson

I was happy to hear that Android 1.6 supports the changing of resolution on the fly using code, as now that Android is coming out on so many handsets and all of them have their own screen sizes. This will present a problem for developers who are developing apps or games for Android as fragmentation is a huge issue for developers.

But a closer look at the documentation on Android’s website shows that it is not exactly what I hoped it was. You can’t exactly change the resolution on the fly, but you can specify what type of screen size your app will support and the OS will try to do it’s best to fit everything. So ultimately, this is a big step closer for Android and a game changer for Android developers.

No wonder there are anecdotal evidence that developers are now swarming over to Android.

Posted in Uncategorized, android, iphone | 2 Comments

Journey to Windows Mobile #5

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Gibson

Windows Mobile 6.5 was launched recently with a slew of new devices supporting it. But what was more important was that it launched in tandem with Windows Marketplace for Mobile after Apple shows all the others the power and profits of an app store. Being 1 of the early guys to port my iPhone app over to Windows Mobile. I am also privy to some of its’ teething problems.

1 issue I had was that after submitting my app, I then decided to change the email address in my Windows Mobile Developer catalog to another email address. That was when things went awry.

After that, I decided to submit an app for certification to the Singapore market and there, an error message hit me right smack in the face. The error message said something to the effect that “My account is not enabled” and I can’t submit an app yet. As Bill & Ted would say “Whoa!”

So, I quickly dropped an email to my local Microsoft representative who then gathered all the necessary screenshots and information from me regarding the error. Then he proceeded to send it to the guys in charge and 2 weeks later, my problem was solved.

So now, I am back to being able to submit my apps for the Windows Mobile Marketplace. Microsoft’s eagerness to get developers on board for their Windows Mobile Marketplace shines through in this aspect.

On an unrelated note, Android 1.6 now supports scaling which means that I do not have to recode my games to support different screen sizes and I can just maintain 1 code base. This will be a boon for all game developers everywhere, mobile or not. Now, if only the WIP Windows Mobile 7 will support this mode. Then, we will certainly be living in interesting times. At least for the mobile side of things.

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For mobile, size does matter

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Gibson

Having 2 mobile internet browsing devices, namely my iPod Touch and my Nokia E63. I use both of them to access the internet on the go. Namely, my E63 when I am on the train or bus where Wifi coverage is non existent and my iPod Touch when I have access to Wifi.

My E63 has wifi capability and also mobile internet access so that I can truly access the internet wherever I can get a mobile connection, so why don’t I use my E63 when I have access to wifi? Well, the reasons are

1) My iPod Touch and my E63 have the same screen resolution of 320 x 480, but my iPod Touch has double the mobile screen estate which makes browsing a breeze since I do not have to do so much scrolling when I am surfing websites

2) The Safari browser on my iPod Touch is light years better than Nokia’s default browser and also much better than Opera Mini which I have installed on my E63

With the recent announcement of huge losses made by Nokia. Perhaps, I would advocate that Nokia get their marketing guys to get out of the building and find out what their customers really want, so that they can stem this huge financial blood loss.

1 of Nokia’s strengths is in distribution, but this can’t help them if they still don’t get their act back together.

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