TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog

Long-term followers of Tamoggemon know that the products usually have a minimized interface – this is due to fanatic tap counting in the UI design department. However, tap counting is but part of a successful mobile UI – you usually also need to adhere to common design patterns.

So far, no collection of design patterns for mobile applications has been published in book form. However, the design4mobile wiki is a more than adequate replacement:

Hit the link below to find out more:
http://patterns.design4mobile.com/index.php/Main_Page

Amazon has just sent out a few invites to developers who indicated “interest” in the Kindle – it offered a further form, offering you to “apply for a place” in the Kindle developer test program.

Amazon has now posted an FAQ for Kindle developers – the most relevant questions are below:

# What APIs are available to me in the KDK?
The KDK is comprised of two sets of APIs:

* Java version 1.4 Personal Basis Profile (PBP) APIs for mobile devices.
PBP JavaDocs can be found at http://java.sun.com/javame/reference/apis/jsr217/.
* Kindle custom APIs which complement the PBP APIs and provide UI components, JSON and XML parsers, HTTP and HTTPS networking, secure storage, and other features. Other APIs like audio and dictionary access will be available in a future release of the KDK.
KDK JavaDocs can be found at http://kdk-javadocs.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.

# I’ve already built a Java Micro Edition (J2ME) application. Can I port it to Kindle?
Yes. You should be able to modify existing Java applets and J2ME software to run on Kindle.

…

As of now, Tamoggemon has not been accepted – stay tuned!

Apple’s App Store is unique in two aspects: it is, first of all, insanely successful – and does not allow time-limited trial versions. These two aspects have led quite a few to question the value of free trials – unfortunately, getting data out of developers has been all but easy.

Todd A. Sherman from Smart Box Design (a games company) now shares the following – according to him, trial versions don’t really pay out in the “nice new world”:

I did an analysis of the best selling Word games and compared their numbers and ratings against their free version. For the Word category it did not seem to make a huge difference if you had a free version or not. We got a huge bump in downloads from our Free version, thousands and thousands of downloads, but only saw a modest change in sales. However, getting on people’s mind space was worth it for us.

We are, of course, looking at an individual opinion here. However, the information I have received from other parties sounded similar…

As some of you make checking your bank accounts every day a pseudo-religious habit, I felt that sharing the message from Handango below will definitely save some of you a lot of grief and anger:

With recent changes in resources and corresponding process changes here at Handango, last month’s royalty payments were not made until the end of the month. As you know, prior to last month Handango has typically paid royalties on or near the 15th of the month following the previous month’s close.

The reason for my note today is that due to a number of factors, including ongoing process adjustments, effective this month you can expect to receive your royalty payments on or near the 25th of the month following the previous month’s close. This timeframe for payment would still fall within the allowed month long pay period from previous month’s close.

I understand the importance of timing relative to receiving payment and I wanted to get this information of change to you as soon as I was able to confirm the necessary schedule of the new processes. To the extent that this change in our policy causes an inconvenience, I apologize.

P.S. Don’t forget to forward this to your accountant – these folks can also go bonkers !

RIM’s official blog has just announced a new App World feature called Test Center – it can be considered a “test box” where users can interact with select beta programs.

One of their bloggers describes it as following:

… As part of our continuous effort to both improve product quality and listen to what BlackBerry® smartphone users have to say, RIM has launched a new Test Center category in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

To kick off the Test Center category we have released eBay® v1.0 and MySpace® v2.0 for BlackBerry smartphones as beta applications. We are excited to use the reviews section for each of the applications launched in the Test Center category to collect user feedback so we can help ensure future application releases reflect the features and changes users are looking for.

…

So far, nobody knows how an average developer get in – stay tuned for further info as we get it…

Seth Godin’s blog is difficult to classify, but tends to be extremely interesting for entrepreneurs and marketers alike.

His latest post is extremely interesting for all those of you in the mobile space. Seth basically asks whether your company can benefit from cooperating with somebody else:

…

Good business development allows businesses to profit by doing something that is tangential to their core mission. Sometimes the profit is so good, it becomes part of their core mission, other times it supports the brand and sometimes it just makes money. And often it’s a little guy who can be flexible enough to make things happen.

Examples:
x) Starbucks licenses their name to a maker of ice cream and generates millions in royalties.

…

Hit the link below for a little FAQ on “business development”:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/understanding-business-development.html

The folks at AdMob’s usually compile monthly reports on device market share. Even though these usually are pretty valuable, they pale in comparison to their recent special report on iPhone and Android applications.

I have personally been so impressed by the report, that I felt like publishing it in its entity for you below without further comments:

Source PDF file here

Developers who use a multi-ESD strategy probably know about the huge efforts involved in keeping prices and product offerings consistent across all portals. PalmGear was known to be insane about it; MobiHand was more relaxed and usually didn’t complain if they had to wait a bit.

Unfortunately, these times are over. The company has just sent out a newsletter to its partners, reminding them to set prices consistent or else. Even though the note currently address BlackBerry developers, I am pretty sure that they will widen these measures to other platforms in the near future.

P.S: The full statement goes as follows:

Dear Blackberry Developer,

MobiHand is committed to offering competitive prices on the products we sell. For some products, we are seeing pricing higher on MobiHand than in other channels. This is in violation of our Developer Agreement (see http://corporate.mobihand.com/sda_dev.asp). More importantly, it conflicts with our commitment to our customers.

When products are priced higher in the MobiHand catalog, we hear from angry customers, and in some cases we have offered refunds and even incurred bank expenses for chargebacks.

Please check your products in the MobiHand catalog, and align prices as needed to assure that MobiHand prices are not higher than in other channels. If prices elsewhere are promotional prices, feel free to set promotional prices in the MobiHand catalog, too.

This is a very high priority for MobiHand, and we look for your compliance in the coming days. Thanks in advance for your help on this important issue.

All the best,
The MobiHand Team

PS: Please note, as previously announced, MobiHand now supports prices as low as $0.99.

The slide below should give all developers food for thought – it shows Hutchison Austria’s mobileTV channel portfolio:

The surprising effect is that a very small group of Austria’s population (Turks) have all moved to the carrier because of the Turkish TV channel, and now bring large amounts of reliable revenue to the carrier.

Catering to small groups can pay out – sometimes even more than hunting after the masses…

RIM’s BlackBerry App World seems to be a pretty good store: nobody has complained about it so far (which – in RIM-land – means that the developers are too busy counting their loot).

According to BerryReview, the store will soon receive a minor update – it will add various comfort functions. First of all, the App World will receive an on-line frontend: this means that users can look at the contents of the store even while not being logged in to App World.

The second – and IMHO more important – change reminds me of Handango’s download protection: it lets you archive your apps on-line and reinstall them when needed.

As of now, no information is available on availability – stay tuned!

RIM’s BlackBerry has always suffered from a somewhat incoherent developer tool landscape – while not as confusing as the one seen on recent releases of the S60 platform, finding your way through can nevertheless be daunting at times.

RIM’s latest additions are a plug-in for Visual Studio and one for Eclipse. Both of these are targeted at web developers; which means that they are little more than a glorified version of FrontPage.

Further information can be had here:
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/BlackBerry+news/news.asp?c=14635

Long-term followers of the Tamoggemon Content network should know that I am a fan of MobiHand – this ESD has rock-bottom rates, friendly support staff and a no-idiocy policy.

Unfortunately, their device matching system has problems with RIM’s recently-released BlackBerry Tour. Because of this, all developers who have apps which support the Tour, are hereas requested to inform MobiHand of this as shown in the email below. The process is painless, quick and free – the full announcement is below:

If you have products in the MobiHand catalog (www.mobireach.com) which are compatible with the Blackberry Tour (9630), please set these as compatible.

MobiHand has set all previously uploaded software products to incompatible with the new Blackberry Tour (9630). While device compatibility can generally be assumed for new devices with a given version of a smartphone operating system (OS), the differences within Blackberry OS version 4.7 between the Storm (a touchscreen device) and the new Tour (a trackball
device) cause an exception to this assumption. For this reason, we have overridden our automatic device matching system in MobiReach, and have set all existing products to “incompatible” with the Tour.

If your product is compatible with the Tour, please follow these steps to make sure it is made available to Tour owners in MobiHand-powered stores:

- Login to www.mobireach.com, and select the product.
- On the Devices tab, in the Manual Include column, check the checkbox for “9630 (Tour)”.
- Select Save.

Seth Godin is the man behind a very interesting marketing blog, a bunch of top-selling business books and – last but not least – the concept of permission marketing. I thus was somewhat surprised to see him talk about graphics design…but felt that his list could be useful nevertheless.

Seth listed a variety of books and web sites which could be helpful for people wanting to become decent graphic designers – further information can be had here:
http://www.squidoo.com/become-a-really-good-graphic-designer

The statement below is part of RIMs latest press release:

“We are very pleased to report another record quarter with standout subscriber growth that speaks volumes about the early success and momentum of our new BlackBerry products,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM. “RIM experienced an extraordinary year in fiscal 2009, shipping our 50 millionth BlackBerry smartphone and generating $11 billion in revenue. Looking ahead into fiscal 2010, we see exceptional opportunities for RIM and its partners to leverage the investments and success of the past year to continue growing market share and profitability.”

P.S. Windows Mobile devices are considered successful if 1 million units are sold…