Slashdot Mirror

Agreed. Isn't this the whole "Apple Store" argument: "It's their store and they can do what they want?"

The difference between the two, of course, is that Apple owns the store and is also the mayor of the town and makes sure that nobody else opens a store in their town. Don't like it? Move to a different town.

Google is welcome to make these changes. If developers don't like it, they can still sell their applications. They can go through Amazon's Appstore, Opera Mobile App Store, GetJar, AndAppStore, Handango, onlyAndroid Superstore, Insyde Market, Appoke, and various others. They can also sell them via their own website or they could even put it on a CD and sell it through a real-world store in a box or something. I know--how quaint.

The older blackberry os is completely proprietary, even if you rooted it you'd have nothing to install on it..

WTF? Since when is J2ME proprietary?
AFAIK RIM has never dictated what apps can or cannot be installed. They do however make that power available to BES administrators. One of the biggest mistakes RIM made IMO was their lack of vision creating an "app store". Until I discovered Handango.com around 2004/2005 whenever I needed a particular type of app I would post to a forum and hope someone else knew of an app that would do what I needed.

How good does Handango work? I haven't paid much attention but they've been doing an "app store" longer than Apple.

Android is a Linux. XCode is free, and there is a much larger fraction of free apps on Linux than on OSX, especially excluding darwinports/fink apps. iPhone started the whole app store concept, Apple created a huge market for small application vendors.

I just don't see the $99 as much of a disincentive. If I'm willing to donate days / weeks / months of my time why would $100 even be a question?

Android is a fork of JAVA (DALVIK) that runs on the Linux kernel. OSX and iOS run on the MACH kernel and BSD *nix. Applications run on the COCOA API. As far as iPhone starting the whole app store concept...Yeah RIGHT. Handango and PocketGear have been around since 1999 dishing out all things Palm, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian, and Android.

Handango has been around since ~1999, and was THE app store back in the day, as it had WinMo, Symbian, Palm, and BlackBerry apps for you to purchase and download. Still is the best place to get apps for those platforms, too!

You've been able to load apps of all sorts from virtually any source on BB for years -- why would this change on the PB?

Well RIM has to adapt to the new business model that Apple has made so successful. Blackberry has had apps for at least ten years but it was difficult to find certain apps because each ISV had to market their software individually. Hanadango (founded in 1999) capitalized on that problem starting in 2003 for the Symbian platform and adding new platforms as they materialized.

Add to that the fact that the PlayBook is running QNX and not legacy BB OS and it's not hard to see them making it difficult to install or sideload apps.

The old PalmOS has by far the most "apps" and they don't have to be approved by anyone:

http://www.freewarepalm.com/
http://www.handango.com/
http://www.pocketgear.com/
http://www.mobihand.com/
http://www.pdastreet.com/
and also: http://sf.net/

I never understand why everyone is so amazed by the iPhone's "Apps". Handheld apps have been around for over 10 years.

This is about browser applications. This is about Desktop applications. And there Java is very strong indeed.

Think Handango [1] or Mobile2Day [2] but for MacOS/Linux/Windows - PCs.

And this is indeed something I am craving for. A simple way for low volumes sales into those markets.

[1] http://www.handango.com/catalog/ProductDetails.jsp?productId=247602
[2] http://www.mobile2day.com/en/plattform:symbian/product_1682341_details.html

Compare this to Android, where the user doesn't have root access and is locked out the filesystem. The Android developer is similarly fucked -- she can't just package his application as a file and send it off to whoever but must submit it for approval and then, if the overlords deign to approve, can only distribute it through their app store.

*cough* *cough* *wheeze*

Get Blackberry alerts (makes your blackberry ping you if you haven't answered it)
http://www.handango.com/catalog/ProductDetails.jsp;jsessionid=37239925D458872C11BCFC9520E8B5B0.worker6?storeId=2218&platformId=5&productId=199266&WT.mc_Id=programId11

Also I recorded my skytel pager and then set it as a custom ringtone on my berry before giving the skytel pager back.

If a developer could "simply" switch from the iPhone to a WinMo, Palm, or Symbian phone, then the iPhone wouldn't even need to exist in the first place.

A developer can no more "simply" switch from the iPhone to Android than "simply" switch from the iPhone to any other programmable handset. Different languages, different APIs, different developer platforms.

But setting that aside, the point is really... the iPhone is a competitor to existing smartphone platforms. The question a year ago was "should developers start developing applications for the iPhone as well as PalmOS, Symbian OS, and Windows Mobile?". Obviously the answer has turned out to be "yes", but it was never a given that it would succeed if you couldn't see iPhone as an option on sites like Handango, and there really was some question as to whether it would take off.

But that's how the market works. Not because there's a "need" for any specific new competing platform, but because competition drives improvement. Just because the iPhone is flavor of the week doesn't mean that there's no competition for it.

If you're looking for software for a non-closed smartphone, check out http://www.handango.com/

Handango sells all kinds of third party content for Blackberries, Palms, Windows Mobile devices, Symbian, even Tablet PCs.

And there's no draconian limitation on selling podcast software.

How about 40%? http://developer.handango.com/DeveloperInformation.jsp?siteId=1&CKey=DEV_FAQ#new2. Also, not everyone has heard of Handango, but EVERYONE has an App Store on their iphone, and so know the location. This is a tremendous deal for developers, and there is no denying that. However, what is an issue, is the fact that it is the only channel to get to the iphone. Maybe if Apple allowed people to download apps from elsewhere, but provided no guarantees, that might be a better model.

... I hope developers don't have to pay to gain access to this trust system. I don't have an iPhone/iTouch yet, but if developers have to pay to make software that works on the iPhone and variants, they may well decide to pass the cost along to the end-users—and (F|f)ree software is a selling point for mobile devices as far as I'm concerned.

I've got a Windows Mobile smartphone, and, while there is plenty of for-pay software (my phone came with a built-in Handango catalog), there's also plenty of freeware software available. WM6 warns you that whatever application you're trying to install isn't trusted and asks you if you really want to install it, but it doesn't completely lock untrusted applications out. (Think Cancel or Allow...) Annoying it may be, but it's better than total lockout. I wonder if Apple will do something similar?

Really?

http://www.xda-developers.com/
http://my-symbian.com/main/index.php
http://www.myphonegames.co.uk/
http://www.handango.com/home.jsp?siteId=1
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/mob ile/
http://messenger.yahoo.com/mobile.php
http://www.agilemobile.com/download.html
http://www.pdamill.com/
http://www.adobe.com/mobile/

While I appreciate most of the applications you can get for a mobile phone are Java games, the market is heading towards smartphones using a version of symbian. The iPhone is really aimed at two parts of the mobile phone market, the first is the current PDA market (so blackberry's in the USA and Windows Mobile phones in the UK), the geek/hobbyist which would be the highend Nokia Symbian & Windows Mobile users, its price tag would young teen market (atleast in the UK) as most young teens (I am one and know many others) could afford one (sadly most have iPods) but own small cheap phones because they don't like taking expensive phones out and around with them. I don't understand that thinking myself but then again my last two phones have been free on contract.
I'm aware the American market does have carrier's which lock down phones but most of the rest of the world doesn't suffer this. About the most invasive I've seen is this annoying sidebar Orange stick on all their mobile phones, then again Orange is currently losing customers in droves (least in my home city) because of their new rigid pricing policy. By limiting themselves the way apple have to web 2.0 they've taken the java route on other lowend phones, sure Java can do all sorts of things but the only things that are prevelent for java phones are games. When you compare Doom and Snails (both of which are availiable for Symbian and Windows Mobile) the game selection for Java phones is not as good.
I have no idea how well this would do in American but if the pricing plan were to stay the same in the UK it would tank as its far too expensive for example, I believe the Samsung E900 or Sony Erricson W800i are the current trendy phone's for iPod owners both of which are £80-100 on pay as you go, for the more serious phone owner you have the Nokia N90, Blackberry and Windows Mobile selection all of which are free on 18 month plans, the iPhone is slated to be £200 on a 24 month plan (converting from american dollars.) Symbian and Windows Mobile 5 both have very good User Interfaces, I've yet to meet a person who could tolerate a non symbian phone once they had owned one and to this day every single person who has seen my Windows Mobile phone has been able to get to solitare in seconds (without assistance.)

Without a decent SDK I see the iPhone heading down the Java capable phone route, you'll get hundreds of cheap rubbish games oh and an expensive version of Pacman and Space Invaders.

I see thousands of third party software including some Google Earth like stuff at http://wwwgetjar.com/ and http://www.handango.com/

For me, the decision is simple. I won't buy iPhone since I got paid J2ME software and especially my bank uses J2ME app for pseudo-random password generators. One day I may decide to be a total OS X Geek and may use J2ME SSH Apps too.

I understand Apple's philosophy designing the phone and trying to lock it but I don't agree with it. Understanding doesn't make me defend it like a real smartphone.

Another thing about the Gmail support. I got a SonyEricsson K700i phone now, it doesn't claim to be "smart" by any measure. One day when I need to access my IMAP mail exclusively from phone, I won't use the built in IMAP client which is not so advanced, I will go to a J2ME site and find a J2ME 2.0 commercial client. Now, can you do it on iPhone?

...can you elaborate how you do this with your phone? You have a phone you can ssh or telnet into your box with?

Nokia 6600 + Mocha

Dude, buy a PDA.

Really. Pick one you like (Palm or PocketPC/Windows Mobile/whatever it's called now) and just carry it with you. There are dozens of time-tracking apps for both platforms, as well as others (Symbian, Smartphone, etc.).

A quick Google reveals this discontinued product and this software. If you're going to get free calls you may as well be able to sit in an armchair.

I just got one for my cell phone called MobileSafe. It was $6 from Handango and downloaded directly to my phone. That way I always have my account numbers, CC numbers, login info, and general notes encrypted with 168-bit 3DES (IIRC) on my phone protected by my master password. It's already saved my bacon more than once.

The only down-side is that I can't sync it with anything at home, but I generally don't have to update it very often, so when I do, I also write down the passwords in an encrypted text file on my home machine.

WTF! $15 for Ms. Pacman?!? Who buys this stuff?

-prator

N-Gage doesn't play just N-Gage games.

It also plays all Series 60 games, and there are thousands. See Handango, for instance.

There are also several emulators that run on it: MAME (old 8-bit games only), NES, GameBoy, GBC, ZX Spectrum, and others I don't know about.

amazing
handago, a popular software site for palms
has at

http://www.handango.com/SoftwareCategory.jsp?optio nId=1_1_2&jid=D7E61X5EF8787877C76A5FA961E36DC5&spe cial=&platformId=1&bySection=1&siteId=1&txtSearch= games&sectionId=3258&topSectionId=3258&catalog=1&t itle=Games
two thousand, six hundred, and nintey two games for the palm....-- who are they for?

Actually, I think you can do this with tricorder for Palm.

There are things a _good_ coder (ie: a software engineer) should be able to do that average code monkeys cannot: like being able to build a complex system (something way above the level of a `vb db app').

True enough- but NONE of them pay, because business doesn't really need anything more complex than a vb db app.

If you want some challenges, build a system that can recognize human speech well (no matter who's the speaker---and without training). I'm sure that will sell really well.

Already is for $39.99 a shrink-wraped package. If you're still working on this- you're wasting your time.

The Honda robot may walk, but have you seen it walk? It walks slower than a slug. Build a system that can keep its balance while running, and I'm sure that will sell.

Didn't the guy who created the Segway already create a mobile gyroscopic robot platform? I thought IRobot was already selling it to the military.

Microsoft computer can `talk'... build something that actually sounds like a human (places emphasis in right places, etc.,) and I'm sure that will sell.

Have you heard MSAgent lately? I considered it so good that I just went ahead and licensed it for my talking e-mail application.

There are also a ton of things I can think of in database and information retrieval domains that haven't been done yet (but would change the world if someone managed to do it).

And those will be done by the code-monkeys in Microsoft's new reseach center in Hydrabad, or Oracle's new research center in Bangalore. Nobody's going to bother to pay $5/hr for that kind of work.

ie: these are things that an average code monkey that gets outsourced cannot do---but a person with good education might be able to take a good stab at these problems.

What makes you think the code monkeys don't have an education? Better yet, what makes you think any company is going to be willing to pay American wages for this kind of research?

Umm, they already have that. That is why many new PDAs now are equipped with more powerful IRDA.
http://www.handango.com//PlatformSearch.jsp?siteId =1&jid=7F34EE79898E1E2646EDB463CAEX57F2&txtSearch= Universal+remote&optionId=1_2_2&platformId =2

Having the iTMS in my pocket is a groundbreaking concept.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but no, it's not a "groundbreaking concept". I've been doing nearly the same things for the last 8 months, using my Treo 600, a 512mb SD card, and Pocket Tunes. I can download mp3s from the web, play ~130 songs from the SD card, or stream shoutcast radio.

It's actually superior to Apple's "groundbreaking concept", because you're not locked into Apple's proprietary iTunes/AAC/DRM/Riaa-loving bullshit.

So, yeah. Looks like Apple's playing catch-up on this one; although I guess if they repeat "WE'RE FIRST@!!!!!!!11!1oneone" enough, everyone will believe it. Just like they did with the ipod.

production and licensing on nokia are draining their investments?

How can that be when practically anybody can make games for series 60 and sell them on for example handango? however, this could be a reason why some companies don't like the platform, it's too open for anybody to enter the market. with gameboy the companies have privilidge of being the exclusive provider to even the most simplest shit(as it takes money to launch even the smallest title).

how can you justify the price of 20-30$ for a game some highschool kid can make just as well and sell for 1.99$ on the net?

good luck selling tetris for 30 bucks on n-gage! however it's easy to sell it for that price for gameboys when there is no competition that can sell simple stuff like that for 3.99 or better yet, provide it for free.

already true for several games for n-gage. the best I've tried so far is Sky Force a splendid shoot'em'up that's selling just for 10 bucks online(and it installs on an mmc you have, like the other games you can buy online, so no mmc swapping), demo version available as well.
besides, if you don't target JUST the n-gage you get a much bigger potential audience(from other series60 phones).

while at it, please buy my game.(It's your basic arkanoid/breakthrough clone. compatible with all s60 devices installs either on phone memory or mmc) or download my freeware game from the sig. contrary to the rumours it's not a really _that_ hard platform to work on either.

If it's been pulled, now it's supposedly back.
(pulled off of a google cache of their site)

Ok, aping the iPod is one thing, but in using the HP logo, as seen in this screenshot, aren't they going too far - in fact 'asking for it'? Carly could be the 'woman scorned' here...

buy one here (with screenshot).

And the Google cache

Have you tried DVD2PPC (handango.com)? It does exactly that to be run on your pocketPC. I imagine it wouldn't be hard to do this for this device either. I don't recall anyone saying that the video format was proprietary either.

In my experience a user does, in fact, need to agree to install the software. My only contention is whether or not most users realize what they're doing. That's a topic for a different debate.

If it may be said that users are intelligently agreeing to the use of WhenU's software, than there is nothing wrong with the service. In fact it's great for anyone frequently shops online and wants the best deals.

I'll end by noting that personally, I don't think that (users are intelligently agreeing...) can be said.

Calculon (does 2d&3d charts and also allows you to change variables to see how it affects things, etc. I don't think it integrates, although I may be wrong)

Formulae 1 (for writing formulae and recording 'em; I don't think it does a whole lot of calculations, but I could be wrong. Note that it requires Java)

Finally, there's QPlot, which is essentially a frontend to bc.

Calculon (does 2d&3d charts and also allows you to change variables to see how it affects things, etc. I don't think it integrates, although I may be wrong)

Formulae 1 (for writing formulae and recording 'em; I don't think it does a whole lot of calculations, but I could be wrong. Note that it requires Java)

Finally, there's QPlot, which is essentially a frontend to bc.

Well if you're set on AAC I can't help you, but if you're simply looking for an MP3 alternative, tkcPlayer for the Zaurus will do Ogg Vorbis which is about even with AAC in terms of quality. You can find it here.

Fast Forwarding Video is great!

With eBooks, PDFs, and DOC Palm Ebooks ...
use FastReader

Anyone know of another one that reads PDFs?

The reviewer does like the Yopy, but for an expected retail price of $499, you could get a Zaurus SL-5600 that has essentially all the same functionality, with a better processor (400MHz XScale as opposed to the older 206MHz). Granted, the 5600 only has 96MB RAM, but since they both have expansion slots, that's not really an issue.

Also, the Zaurus already has a large developer community, and has drivers for things like wireless cards, and has plenty of software.

I certainly don't want to see Yopy fail (competition is generally good, and having more Linux PDAs is good), but IMHO they should be offering a little more if they want to be competitive.

First off, I'm not trying to be a troll. Really.

Looking at Handango, Zaurus apps sell far less than their Palm/Pocket PC counterparts. Anybody here written/ported a commercial app to the Zaurus and care to share their experiences? Was it worth the time, profit wise? Were there problems with providing tech support for people running OpenZaurus or GPE? How much did it cost to get a commercial license for Qtopia?

Thanks. (In case it wasn't obvious, I work for a company that sells Palm software, and we're considering porting some of our stuff to Zaurus.)

I owned 7650 for quite some time now. It is great, if a bit bulky, phone. My only gripe is, that it does not support Bluetooth audio (no wireless headset support). 3650 supports this, supports movie capture and has somewhat enhanced J2ME support. Also 7650 has tons of software available:
As a bit of shameless self promotion, here is a game our company developed.
You also get obligatory IR control software and some other stuff here
You can get really nice & open source bluetooth remote controler here. There is other cool stuff like miniGPS, which gives you option to customize some options, depending on which base station you are currently connected.
Rant: Also, for anybody developing for nokia using J2ME - this is probably the most buggy implementation I have seen. For example, if you called Sound.setGain(byte) it crashed, no matter what the input was (this is a confirmed bug), and this is not isolated case. I really can't understand how somebody can get through QA when one of the public functions in interface that has 10 or so items doesn't work at all. *sigh*

I'm very happy with the Kyocera,
the new smartphone from Verizon

IMHO it's worth time looking at individual apps
on wireless PDA sites like Handango.
The right apps that fit your needs can make
a huge difference in your satisfaction.

Cheers, Joel

PC HP calc emus:

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/pc/emulators/

Or check out all the other emu goodies at that site:

http://www.hpcalc.org/hp48/

Or just search http://www.handango.com for "HP 48" for more emus for all portable computing platforms.

It's easy to get started. You need the official devkits, which are mostly free. Nokia's developer support is great. Others include Motorola, Sony and of course, Microsoft.

You can use things like Handango to distribute, too.

No problem: WirelessIRC for nokia 7650 (and 3650?) Symbian programs are out there, today, despise the fact that programming tools and API docs suck. Kudos for the coders!

Any end user can download Java phone apps from http://www.handango.com/Java.jsp. All you need to have is a browser in your phone that is MIDP (Java J2ME) compliant (and most Java phones are). After you buy an app there normally you'd get an SMS message with a download link. But you don't even need that for trying it out on your own. All you need is the URL to the .jad (MIDP file containing app info) that you can type into your browser and then you'll be able to download it into your phone. I've done this with my Sprint PCS Samsung A-500 phone. For example you can try this expr calc app on your phone http://wapindustrial.com/eval.jad (at your own risk I'm not responsible if it hangs your phone). In fact for any Java app all you need is a link to the .jad file which has valid link info for the app .jar file. You could even create your own apps and upload it to some website to download onto your phone.

You're better off with a Nokia 9290 Communicator. Not only is there ssh software, RSA makes a SecurID client for it.

Of course, the Communicators are friggin' shoe phones that cost a bit more than $200 (more like $600).

You can look at it here

Your experience was obviously biased for whatever reason.

Agreed. Didn't claim otherwise, and I prefaced it with "I was using an demo prototype unit".

From a development point of view, it looks like a lot of good apps are in the works. I also agree that the Symbian Office apps are top notch also.

It's full-featured, it's got all the features you could want if you actually do work on your handheld, and many fun things in case you don't.

I consider the stylus an important feature if I want to do work on my handheld.

It makes Palms look like glorified wrist watches, and WinCE devices look... horrible.

Palms may be glorified wrist watches, but I find them to synch a lot better than the Communicators. That, in my opinion, is an inexcusable flaw. If you're going go synch tons of data (I had a 64 MB card in there that I put various demo files on), at use a cable that synchs faster than a serial.)

The battery, however, really took a beating. I would leave that thing on for (what seemed like) forever...and very rarely would have any problems.