February 27th, 2010
This month the Symbian platform has become completely open and free. Lee Williams, CEO, says that this operating system is already a dominant one, but now mobile software development for Symbian gets all the advantages of work with open source projects, almost unlimited possibilities. Mr. Williams also stresses Symbian additional advantages comparing with Android OS. He explains that Android has not more than a third of open codes, and the rest of them are closed.
One more advantage of Symbian OS: programmers and other specialists working at platform development will regularly publish plans of the future upgrades according to Lee Williams’ words.
The initiative to open Symbian appeared in June of the year 2008, when Nokia announced its plans to buy the rest of the Symbian programming codes from other companies and place them under control of Symbian Foundation. Now there are more than 330 million of Symbian-phones in the world. They are produced be such companies as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu and Sharp.
Tags: Android, Fujitsu, mobile software, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, Symbian
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February 25th, 2010
The Game Developer Research Company conducted a new survey to find out which of the gaming platforms is the most popular among games developers. The results of this research showed a clear trend — “developers are migrating towards the Apple iPhone platform”
Authors of the published report also explained that Apple gadgets in its time significantly stimulated the market of mobile games. Before they were launched the mobile games market was amounted to 13% of the total entertainment market, now it has almost doubled to about 25%.
Why do companies develop mobile games for iPhone? Among the reasons that lead to migration towards this OS, experts named the popularity of Apple devices, their broad functional capabilities and sound pricing and marketing policies of App Store. As it was noted in the report, mobile software developers can lower prices for their programs to even ridiculous rates and yet at the same time earn good money. Besides, Apple has done everything to simplify the process of porting existing games to the iPhone OS.
Posted in Mobile Development | 1 Comment »
February 8th, 2010
Hurray! The American version of Nexus One supports multitouch, notwithstanding the fact that it’s a patented Apple technology. Google representatives do not comment it.
Google Inc. released its first update pack for the Nexus One smartphone, which was shown to the general public just a month ago. Besides some fixes this fresh mobile software contained a very useful innovation – support of multitouch technology.
It means that now interface and screen-oriented capabilities of Googlephone do not yield to its main rival, Apple iPhone. So users of the first Google smartphone can test multitouch in action. It works in Google Maps Navigation, picture viewer, as well as in web browser.
As can be seen, a mutual agreement between Apple and Google (so called “promise not to add multitouch support in Nexus One”) now is worth nothing. Search Corporation decided to change its word in the light of recent events.
Studying different modern devices from the main manufacturers, starting with Apple and Palm, and ending with HTC and Motorola, Google’s experts has realized that multi-touch support has become a standard, so many users are accustomed to this option. Undoubtedly it opens new possibilities for innovative mobile applications development, now they can create new software for Android taking into account this new potential.
So now we have a smartphone that based on Android 2.1, and we also can use a new way of control and navigation. By the way, the European version of Nexus One has this function by default. However, the sales in Europe start not earlier than in spring this year.
Tags: Android, Google, HTC, iPhone, Motorola, Multi-Touch, Palm, smartphones
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January 30th, 2010
The South Korean LG Electronics Company has published its mobile strategy for the year 2010. It is going to sell more than ten million of cell phones and smartphones. Also LG plans to release about twenty new models of smartphones this year and more than a half of them will be running OS Google Android. The rest models will be based on Windows Mobile and different Linux versions.
Meanwhile, LG will gradually reduce the number of mobile devices with Windows Mobile “on board”. It’s a notable fact for mobile application developers, because analytics couldn’t foresee such changes. Only in 2008 LG Electronics and Microsoft formed an alliance to join their efforts in mobile devices development. Even in 2009 an absolute majority of LG smartphones were developed on the Windows Mobile operating system, and LG Eve was the only phone on the Android platform. This year the situation has changed dramatically and it definitely will have action upon those companies who provide such services as mobile application development for Android and Windows Mobile.
Tags: Android, Google, LG, Microsoft, Windows Mobile
Posted in Mobile Development | 1 Comment »
January 26th, 2010
Designing new layout for your website live some free space
Free space improves visual perception — it’s a well known fact for website designers. They take into consideration importance of space between paragraphs, images, buttons and other elements on the page. They can also group items reducing space between them, it helps to show connections, structure and hierarchy of elements.
Free space also makes content more readable. Numerous studies show that spaces between paragraphs increase perception by 20%.
Effective user testing should not be extensive
Jakob Nielsen has calculate the ideal number of website usability testers. His statistics shows that only 5 testers identify almost 85% of all the problems on your site, while 15 testers identify almost all the problems.
The most serious problems usually can be found by the first or the first two testers, the rest testers will only confirm these problems and will find some more minor bags. So those who working at website and web application development can obtain good results without extensive and expensive user testing.
Tags: buy CMS, website application development, website design, website development
Posted in Software Development, Web development | 1 Comment »
January 20th, 2010
Reviewing platforms for mobile apps development we cannot help but write some more descriptions. Let’s estimate such OSes as Symbian, Linux Mobile and Palm.
Symbian OS
Nokia is losing its forces, it was the best developer of mobile phones in the world a couple of years ago, but now it buckles under pressure of other leading companies. But is still has “margin of safety”. Moreover, Nokia popularizes Symbian, now this OS has open code (open source), and this fact will definitely have an influence on company’s further development.
Symbian UIQ
Symbian UIQ was developed by the UIQ Technology Company. UIQ (User Interface Quartz) is a software platform based on Symbian OS. In early 2009 UIQ Technology was liquidated, and this intellectual property was transferred to Symbian Foundation (non-profit organization). So mobile software developers don’t plan further improvements of UIQ (as an independent platform).
Linux Mobile
Programmers working for mobile development companies make facetious remarks that every self-respecting company making smartphones intends to make its own version of Linux based mobile OS. Some of them achieve success in it, others don’t. It’s almost impossible to enumerate all of them, here are only some examples: Access Linux Platform, LiMo, Moblin, MotoMagxj, Nokia Maemo, Openmoko, Openmokon, Palm webOS, Qt Extendedmn, Ubuntu Mobilem, etc. All these OSes have their own look-and-feels (many of them are incompatible), that is why it’s very difficult to develop mobile apps for such platforms, it’s just a non-value-added process.
Palm OS
Once this OS occupied bulk of the market share. At the same time Microsoft decided to start the development of its own mobile OS Windows CE, because IT-giant was inspired by success of Palm OS. But now it is no longer relevant, Ed Colligan said that Palm will no longer produce products based on Palm OS, the company’s efforts will be focused on Palm webOS, but that’s another story.
Tags: Linux Mobile, Nokia, Palm, Symbian, Ubuntu
Posted in Mobile Development | 1 Comment »
January 11th, 2010
Summing up results of the year 2009, it will be quite reasonable to choose the best operating system for successful mobile apps development. So, what operating systems did we have at the turn of the year? Of course, there were Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, Symbian OS, Symbian UIQ, Linux Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry OS. Let’s try to investigate which of them has all chances to be called the best one.
Windows Mobile
Ah, this “old woman” still holds the largest market share. It has relatively out-of-date interface, nevertheless Microsoft delays the release of Windows Mobile 7 with touch-screen interface (as they promise) and complete compatibility with older apps versions. Though this OS has undoubted plus (a large number of good and stable mobile applications with rich functionality that was accumulated over the years), it’s not a permanent advantage. It can be lost soon as new operating systems are constantly adding new applications, offering new features and up-to-date interface. In general, if the next version of Microsoft Windows Mobile does not have any pleasant surprises for its users, the company will lose its market share under pressure of other mobile operating systems.
iPhone OS
Yes, it’s beautiful, yes, it’s quite functional and it has already accumulated a lot of good features and high-quality applications. Due to the fact that iPhone has taken a considerable market share its application are relatively cheap (it’s an important bonus for those who choose a platform for a mobile device). But it has the main drawback: only Apple can produce hardware and iPhone source code is closed for mobile development companies. Nevertheless it’s not an obstacle for numerous Apple fans, Mac + MacOS + iPod + iPhone can be considered as a modern religion, it’s a way of live, no doubt.
Tags: Apple, BlackBerry, iPhone, Linux Mobile, Microsoft, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile
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December 28th, 2009
Creating a new site use unique design, but when it comes to usability, it is better to use approved models (like most of web developers do). When people visit a new site, they always look for well-known things; they use their experience to perceive new content. People want to use the same modules on different web pages (such as color options, company logo location, principles of navigation, etc).
Google always makes its links blue, and there is a reason: this color is familiar to most of users (that is why it’s much easier for them to find all the links).
Any other color is not a problem, but users will need some more time to find your links.
An ideal input field for search queries must be 27 characters long
Jacob Nielsen conducted a research to determine the ideal length for search boxes. So he ascertained that most of modern input fields are very short. Despite the fact that you can write quite a long search query, you can’t see all your text. It’s a problem with usability, because it’s difficult to edit such a search query.
The study showed that an average input field has width of 18 characters. According to the research results 27% of search queries are too long to fit in these input fields. But 27 characters wide fields can contain 90% of search queries. Remember that you can determine width not only in pixels and points, but also in “em” (a relative unit of length for current font).
Input field in Google search is wide enough for long searches
Apple input field is too short, the query “Microsoft Office 2008″ does not fit in it
In general, it is better to do too long field than too short one, so your users would be able to find all the information without any problems. This is a very simple and useful advice for website designers, but, unfortunately, they often ignore it.
Tags: Apple, Google, usability, website design, website development
Posted in Web development | 1 Comment »
December 26th, 2009
Two titans of high-tech world, Google and Apple, may come together to fight for competitive advantages. To be precise, this fight will take place on the US mobile phone market. Google plans to start sale of its first smartphone at the beginning of the year 2010 – that is a stumbling-block. It’s a real challenge that may lead to serious confrontation on one of the highest growth and most important segment of high-tech market.
A new Google phones with touch screen is based on Android OS. These gadgets have been already given to the company staff for testing. Google plans to use the popularity of its own brand and make direct retail sales via the Internet.
It’s a well known fact that Google management didn’t plan to enter the equipment market, in the previous years the company limited its activity to mobile software development (Android OS) and internet projects.
Google makes a serious bet on the mobile phone market and evaluates it as a promising direction for the future development. So, now the company does not intend to limit itself to Android software development and online services. 
But analysts are not sure that Google will be able to transfer the success of its previous activities to mobile phones production and sales. Much will depend on its pricing policy. Kathy Watson, a Google representative, declined to comment on the future plans. She referred to the recent publication in the official corporate blog, where we can read that a new device is just a “mobile laboratory” for testing of some new technologies.
However, some Google employees have agreed to provide more detailed information (anonymous statements). According to them, devices were made by the Taiwanese HTC company, and they are thinner and have a larger touch screen than Apple iPhone. Well, soon we will be able to verify this information, because Google phone sales can begin in January, 2010.
Tags: Android, Apple, Apple iPhone, Google, mobile software development
Posted in Mobile Development | 2 Comments »
December 15th, 2009
1. Users concentrates on faces
People instinctively notice other people. The same occurs on web pages, users focus their attention on somebody’s face and eyes. So web developers and designers have a good tool to manage users’ attention. Moreover they also can take into account that people usually start to look in the same direction, following photomodel’s look.
Temperature map that shown quantity of users looking at an image with a child who looks at them.
And now he is looking at the content. Pay your attention to the increase in the number of people who read the title and the text.
2. Most of users do not see advertising
Jakob Nielsen says that most of people do not see ads. Looking for some information or focusing on site content, they simply do not pay any attention to banners. It means that users also avoid anything that looks like an advertisement, even if it is not an ads actually. Some menu items may look like banners, so website designers should be careful creating such elements.
Square banners on the left side of the FlashDen site are not banners: they link to content on the same site. But they may be ignored by some users.
However, advertising that looks like content, can be visited by people who are looking for this very information. It can bring more revenue from advertising, but also can reduce level of visitors’ trust because they will click on a banner thinking it’ just a reference to required material on the site. So consider what will be better for you: short-term gain or long-term trust.
Tags: usability, Web development, website design
Posted in Software Development, Web development | No Comments »
