BB10 Gets Shown OffAugust 27, 2012
I had a great time at KW BB10 Jam, and it was great to hear that RIM showed off final hardware to press. Encouraging too that some people reported that the software is already looking very solid. I will be very curious to watch the keynote of BB Jam Americas to see what else is shown off.
At this point, BB10 is starting to feel very much more "real", no longer a vague concept to be released in some future calendar year. That's exciting. You can feel it in the air: BB10 is almost here.
That said, we still have all fall to wait!
This week my plan is to finish off my verbatim conversion of iTunes Sync to BB10 and submit it to App World so that other devs can download it and try it on their devices. I'd also like to finish off my first BB10 native app, Baby Names, and get it submitted.
I should also get Flix submitted for BB10, which will involve using the web view control so that movie selection can be integrated into the main app. This may end up being a complete waste of time -- actually I hope it is -- because if BB10 has a Netflix app, Flix won't be necessary.
BB10 Jam KWAugust 22, 2012
Tomorrow I'm excited to be attending BB10 Jam KW. I attended BB10 Jam and Orlando and had a great time, although I was distracted with the release of Flix and so I missed a few sessions that I wanted to attend.
I enjoy the atmosphere of conferences: Meeting new people, going to keynotes that energize you, being pampered a little bit, and going to interesting talks. Although software development is becoming more "social" these days, such as the social aspects of making mobile apps and selling apps to real people, most of it is still a bit impersonal, with interactions happening over the Internet. So it's great to make the most of opportunities to be with other developers in person.
One thing I'm curious about is whether the sessions will be almost the same as the ones in May, or whether they will have evolved, with new or more in depth information.
Last week I had a few hours to work on converting iTunes Sync to BB10 and almost got it finished. I ran into a snag with the
textWidth and
textHeight properties of
Label not working and I don't think I've gotten a response on the
forums yet, so I should see if I can get a response.
Samsung Galaxy S III: Early ImpressionsAugust 17, 2012
I bought the S III today and have had lots of fun playing with it. Overall, I'm extremely impressed. Here are some of the things I've liked, in no particular order:
Screen resolution
Similar to BB10, the SIII has a 1280x720 screen resolution, which is very pretty. These retina display class screens really raise the user experience bar.
Phone body
I have the "blue"/gray version of the phone, which has a brushed metal under plastic appearance. I like it! It looks sophisticated enough to avoid the "cheap" feeling that some phones have. For example, the Google Nexus phone that was released recently, while decent, has a bit of a "cheap" feel to it.
Thickness/weight
The phone feels fairly light, and feels thin. That's a great combo and will delight users.
Appearance and usability of UI
I like the appearance and polish of the UI. When viewing the "Apps" screen, it does feel somewhat dated / simplistic in how it's just a giant matrix of icons, but it works. The home screen is great: I like the prominent time, the temperature, the weather icons, etc. The image behind the time/weather even changes when it gets dark, which is a great touch. Having the Google search bar front and center is brilliant, even with one-click access to a voice search. I hope RIM is taking notes on that.
The widgets and feel of the UI is quite good. It feels modern, pretty, and fast. The transition between screens when swiping left/right is great -- side-to-side rotation, and smooth as butter.
Camera
One of my favourite features of the phone so far has been the picture quality. I took a few photos of our daughter while she was in the shade of our garage and I was extremely happy with the quality of the photos. I'll have to use the camera some more to get a better sense, but my feeling at this point is that it is a far superior camera to the PlayBook camera. I really hope RIM puts a solid camera in BB10, because using your smartphone as your primary camera is an awesome use case. But it's a use case that starts to quickly wilt if the camera is only mediocre.
Menu and back buttons
The "menu" and "back" buttons at the bottom light up when they're touched, but disappear when not in use. It's like magic. When they're not visible, all you see the is brushed metal look of the phone body. Cool!
Unlock
To unlock the phone you drag your finger. When your finger touches the display, it creates the effect of touching water. It's elegant and adds a nice touch.
Summary
These are only my very early impressions of the phone, so I'll keep using it and will perhaps share further thoughts later on.
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