For those who don’t know, she’s done I Love Bees, World Without Oil, and The Lost Ring to name just a few of her ARG’s.  This new one seems to be all about learning to innovate, motivate and solve problems.

I’m trying out Evoke and this post is part of my first mission.  It’s all about social innovation.  Learning to innovate and to engage in “social networking”.  Even though it’s a game, they have some great resources for budding entrepreneurs who might need some guidance on what kind of products to build or how to target your product correctly.

Their first link is to “Innovation in Africa tips”, which (despite the odd language structure in the title) has some great advice.  Like the following point from a post of Ethan Zuckerman entitled “Innovating from constraint”:

Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make them a better stove instead.)

Just this one bit of advice would save developers thousands of hours of time that they otherwise would have wasted.  Just recently we’ve spent an age designing a report based on what we thought were the requirements from the client.  Only to find out it’s completely un-usable because all of our “great ideas” are just distracting from the key things that the client wanted.

Sometimes (strange as this might sound) the customer really is right.  And even if they’re wrong, a silly solution that gets used, is infinitely better than a perfect solution that nobody ever touches.  It’s great to be reminded of these truths that we forget, it’s unfortunately sad that we forgot them in the first place.

In my experience it seems to be used for two main purposes:
1. Training new talented speakers
2. Sharing knowledge

On both of those fronts I think it’s highly successful.  It seemed like today the “new” speakers were first, followed by the more seasoned guys which gave a nice opportunity to see what skills the more “seasoned” guys had that the “newer” guys didn’t.  My list would be:

1. Introduce yourself
2. Let people know where you’re taking them on the talk (think “agenda”, but less formal)
3. Slides – Don’t use too many slides, Less is more (one word and a picture is better than 40 words on a slide), use animations sparingly (moving at pace requires focus on what you’re saying, not your slide)
4. Demos – don’t type your own code (either copy/paste, use snippets, or comment out the code), practice, practice practice (know your code), explain enough but not too much (remember the audience probably isn’t as great as you are at your topic)
5. Engage the audience – find questions to ask (not too many), make the demo’s have an aspect of realism (how will this technology/idea/topic make their life easier – don’t just demo it, say it explicitly), offer to give the source you demoed to people on a USB stick or put it on a website before the talk and hand out the URL.
6. Leave your contact details, point people to online resources that helped you learn. (Demo’s and talks are all fine and well, but when your audience gets back to their PC they’ll have forgotten 3/4 of what you’ve said – hopefully they’ll remember one of the resources you pointed them to)

The talks that left the biggest impression on me were probably the MVVM Pattern talk and the Sketch Flow talk. (VS 2010 was great, and has inspired me to use the product, but the others inspired me to go out and create something)

Thanks to all the speakers for some great topics and to Microsoft for hosting the event.  I’m looking forward to the next one.

This is one of the apps with really cool possibilities.  You can overlay any geographic information on the augmented reality display.  There are layers for Wikipedia, Qype, Google’s “Local Search”, Flickr, Hotels, Mazda dealerships, Brightkite, Twitter, and even International Architecture.

As an application, it’s really easy to use and well designed.  My only problem was not knowing how to find new Layers.  Which was eventually resolved when I realised that from the “Layers” view, you can search for them in the Search tab.

As a concept, I think we’re only starting to scratch the surface.  Imagine a bus service, where you can search see what busses are arriving from where, and at at what time.  Or a movie service where you can search and see where around you a certain movie is showing.  Then click on the location and book your ticket.

Festivals, sporting, music, and cultural events could be greatly augmented by technologies like this.  You have a load of people who aren’t usually in an area, and applications that help you find a place to eat, or see where spontaneous events are happening “real time” will be great tools to organise people and, for businesses, being visible on those applications would stand a chance to get a load of customers.

I’m quite excited to see where “Augmented Reality” applications are going to end up and if they’re as open (developers can use the Layar API to provide their own layers for the application) and well built as Layar, I think there’s going to be some awesome innovation.

Flash Player 10 for smartphone-class devices to be made available in beta at MAX conference in October  [adobe.com]

According to TalkAndroid, the Adobe CEO Shantanu Naraye said:

Google’s Android, Nokia’s Symbian OS, Windows Mobile and the new Palm Web OS will be the first devices to support web browsing with the new Flash player [via Talk Android]

So, still no word on iPhone getting Flash.  It makes me really glad that I chose to purchase a phone based on an open platform.

My favourite so far is Handango, but here’s my list of markets.  Worst of the pack (so bad I didn’t include them, were AndroidFreeware.mobi and AndroidFreeware.net – no “on device” experience, and a lot of really bad applications.)

Handango –

Handango has been around for years.  I’ve used them for apps on my old Palm pilot, Windows Mobile phone and now on my Android phone.  Their Android selection isn’t huge, but they have some fun games, apps, and tools.  If you go to http://handango.com from your device you’ll be prompted to install “InHand” – their Android application for browsing through their store and downloading apps.  They even have some EA games in their catalogue.

Rating: 4/5 – Good, but really not as good as Android Market – no way to be informed of updates to an application that you’ve downloaded already.

MobiHand –

I hadn’t heard of them until I started looking for alternative App stores. MobiHand seem to have a pretty extensive collection of applications for many devices.  They have a really well trimmed down mobile site at http://mobihand.com which you can use easily from your Android device.  My only complaint about the online store on the Android devices is that when the list of apps is too long and they start to split them into pages, the links to swap from one page to another are so incredibly small that it’s virtually impossible to click them without zooming in 3 or 4 times.

Rating: 3/5 – It’s good, has a start in the “on phone” experience for browsing for apps, but it’s not a happy experience and could use a few more apps.

Handmark –

Yet another new store to me, Handmark seem to have made a really clean site.  Their software selection seems a little less impressive than both MobiHand and Handango.  That could be because both their mobile and full website seem quite tough to use to find applications.   It looks good, but just seems to require too many clicks to get there.  However, they seem to be the only app store that is selling some of the great EA games like The Sims 3, Spore, Sim City and a bunch of others.

Rating: 2/5 – Not a great search or “on device” experience, but the EA games are a big plus.

Google Search –

Thanks to Google, I found my a great app for Geocaching, which had just been released for Android.  It’s called CacheMate.   I also found GeoBeagle, which is a free app.  That’s how I found Twitli – a really nice Twitter application.

Rating: 1/5 – You can get some nice things here, but it’s a lot of work.

Open Market –

I’ve written about this before – you can get to it at Open Market.  It’s great, but is missing a load of apps. Doesn’t do paid apps, and I still haven’t heard back from them about the app I wrote and submitted to them a few days ago.  Until it gets more fully fledged, it’s not going to be a real contender, but you can download it on your phone at http://tr.im/nX6E. 

Rating: 1/5 – because it’s just South African, has no paid apps, doesn’t let you register as an app developer or downloader.

Splash Screen	Store List	Application Details
Terms & Conditions / Download	Rating an App	Reporting an App

It’s really that simple.  But what Apps can you get?  Well, here’s a few samples:

Facebook (Communication)

This app is apparently a wrapper for the Facebook iPhone site with a few tweaks.  Tabs across the top give you access to most of the common features, upload pics, check your messages, set statuses, comment on wall posts, etc.  Pretty slick, although the “Chat” tab seemed to not work so well for me.  It also has the ability to post notifications to you using the android notification bar.  So if you get a new Facebook message, you’ll get a notification and can read it right away.

Twitter – via Twitli (Communication)

[update: Twitli has been removed from the Open Market store. You can get it on your phone at http://tr.im/ogRs – or via http://www.twitli.com ]

Of the twitter apps in the Open Market this is one of the best.  Unfortunately Twidroid (one of the better known twitter apps for Android) is not prepared to make their app available to people who don’t have the Android Market, but Twitli is a pretty great client.  It certainly beats the client I had on my old Windows Mobile phone. Very easy to read tweets, reply, post your tweets. Even lets you take a picture and upload it.  Small, simple, and functional.

Barcode Scanner (User Contributions – Applications)

This is basically just Google’s ZXing application.  It’s a GREAT barcode scanner, can do all sorts of barcodes and interprets them.  This is often used by other applications to scan barcodes for them, and if you look at a lot of android app sites, you’ll see that they often put a link and a barcode next to each product so that you can quickly scan the barcode instead of having to type in a really long url to get to the app from your phone.  Currently not the flashiest application on the market, but it has some nice uses.

AndExplorer (Productivity)

For the Geek in you, there’s a file explorer – lets you copy, move, delete, edit, open, etc files on the device.

Notepad (Productivity)

A very simple notepad for keeping any quick notes you need to write down.  Its a really simple UI, but then there’s not too much required when you’re taking notes.

Shopping List (Productivity)

A pretty simple shopping list app. Really quick to add items to a list and mark them as purchased. Not filled with major functionality, but the font’s and buttons are easy to use one handed while pushing a shopping cart and looking for the best deal on Organic Soaps.  For a scatterbrain like myself this is a super useful application.

Quickpedia (Reference)

This is a pretty nifty wrapper around Wikipedia.  If you’re not keen on loading up the browser then this might be the best app for you.  It’s “News” tab is a neat view of current news.  The “Nearby” tab is especially interesting, giving you a list of articles about things that are in your current location.  I imagine this could be particularly useful if you’re travelling overseas (or even locally) and want to find out more about a tourist attraction or historical site.

I emailed Leaf this weekend and got some info from them.  Apparently some phones initially went out without the Open Market on them, but they’re getting sms’ed by their contract providers to be shown how to install it.  If you don’t have it on your phone, you can go to http://www.leaf.co.za/openmarket.  I’ve setup http://tr.im/nX6E to redirect there in case you’re not keen to type out that whole URL on your phone.

I’ve read their press releases and they basically say something along the lines of:

The phones are awesome (true) but a powerful phone is only as powerful as the apps that are on it.  While they come with a load of great apps, more is always better and because of the “open source” nature of the OS and development tools there are LOADS of great apps.  What we need in SA is a market for them, and this is basically what Open Market is about.

So my questions are “Does it live up to all that?”, “Is that all that’s needed in a market?” and “Do I think that this will be enough to convince developers to put their apps on here?”.

My Requirements for a software market.

1. Easy to use

This goes without saying – but it should be quick to load, and unobtrusive.  Needs searching abilities, and good categorisation.  Data going into the app needs to be standardised. (ie. if you allow people to specify what version of the OS an app runs on then keep the possible entries limited – not “Cupcake”, “1.5”, “1.5.0”, and “Newest version”).  It should display the download sizes of the apps.  Needs previews, ratings, comments and decent descriptions.

2. Highlights new apps

If I’m going to visit it every few weeks, a summary of the most recent apps would be essential.  Otherwise I won’t know what the new stuff is and I’ll have a hard time finding the latest apps.

3. Automates updating older apps (and hence displays version numbers easily)

I know a number of developers who would hate to have to build an Auto updater for their apps, so having this built in would be sweet.  It appears that a number of the devs who have put apps on the Android Market rely on this ability and are loathe to build something like this themselves

4. Does not restrict who can buy what

Seriously – why should someone in the UK see one app while someone in SA not?  To be truly a simple solution for a developer it needs to provide an easy single place to distribute your application to as many people as possible.  Providing roadblocks to that purpose is only going to make developers less likely to use the system, which in turn means less applications for your users

5. Provides user feedback on Apps

Ratings, comments, sharing apps with friends – all provides a social interaction.  Extending this beyond the marketplace application is only going to improve your rating.  Let people outside your device access a list of apps for download from your site.  Let them link, and comment, and rate.

6. Provides users some kind of guarantee/trial system for apps

I’m not keen to spend R100 on an app only to have it be a piece of junk.  Trials or 7 day money back guarantee’s are essential.

7. Allows for Paid and Free apps

Some people might code for love, but most of use need some kind of reward at the end of the day.  You need to have a mix of both.

8. Keeps a history of previously bought apps so you can re-download apps again

If I spend R100 on an app and I have to reformat my phone, or get it replaced, I certainly want to be able to access the application again without having to pay.

9. Allows outside apps to link to apps in the installer

Especially with Android where apps can share Intents, it makes a LOT of sense to allow me to link to an app that has intents that I require directly from my App.  If I can create a standard url, then its even better.  I could then link to the app from a standard web page, and have the app market show more info about the application before the user chooses to purchase or install it.

10. Provides user and developer accounts

Without this, there’s no real way for much of the other requirements to be met, but this gives me ways to know who’s saying what about my app, gives me some assurance that if I upload an application, only I can update it.  It allows usage information like “how popular is my app” and it allows users to see what they’ve downloaded and provide the ability to re-download apps that they’ve downloaded/purchased in the past.

Summary

I’m going to quote a bit of the slightly paraphrased response from Leaf to my questions:

[We’re releasing] Phase 1 of the website today. http://www.openmarket.co.za/. This will be the key point of internet interaction, we will over the next [while] release several new features, [hopefully this will include]: Contributor registration, Contributor management console, blogs, forums and then billing.

It seems like leaf’s got most of the main points under control. I’ll go through them quickly again with comments:

On the whole that’s a pretty awesome system.  Looks like we’ll be in for a pretty good ride with Android in SA.

Hopefully with a bit of luck the last “red” items there will be sorted out and I’ll be a happy camper. Right now they’re doing pretty darned well as a first major app store that I know of that’s been built by a local company.  I’m seriously hoping for good things from this.

I’m going to quote a fair bit of their instructions, and make one or two modifications as necessary:

Step 1: Enable USB Debugging
On your Android phone (in this case, the G1), go to Settings, then Applications, and then Development. Check the checkbox for "USB debugging."

Then

Step 2: Download the Android SDK
Download the SDK for your platform here. Google also has some great installation documentation if you get lost. You will need to make sure you have a current copy of the JDK.

They then go on to say that you’ll need Eclipse to carry on, but you shouldn’t.  All the functionality is contained in the SDK.  I’m working on Windows XP, so your mileage may vary on other OS’s.

Go ahead and plugin your Android handset into a USB port on your computer, if it is not plugged in already.

Step 3: Run DDMS
After configuring Eclipse or whatever IDE you use to work with Android, you need to open up the DDMS application from within the "tools" folder in the Android SDK’s main folder.
After DDMS launches, select your handset from the menu on the left (it should be the only device listed). You might see an error message, but the debug tool should be loaded. Then, click CTRL-S on your keyboard. This will bring up the "Device Screen Capture" interface. From here, a static image is captured from what is appearing on your handset. You can save the image (nicely defaulted as PNG) and then refresh to your heart’s content to grab updated or different screenshots from your phone.

That should be it… Easy and quick screenshots.  Just remember, if you choose to make the SD card accessible to your PC by doing the following, then you won’t be able to use it on your phone for your demo’s:

But if you don’t do that, then the phone should operate like normal.

From my initial reading, I’d not seen much that gave me great hope for any better keyboards in portrait mode.  One of the guys in our offices recently got a Samsung Omnia and was showing how he’d swapped to an “XT9” keyboard in portrait, and I wished that Android had been clever enough to do the same.  With little hope I clicked on the little “cog” and went through the following steps:

Click the “Setup” cog< /td>	Touch Input Settings	Click Keyboard Types
Keyboard Types List	Click “Compact QWERTY”	Enter Text

The result is a slightly fatter keyed QWERTY keyboard.  It’s not one I’m used to using so this didn’t quite work out too well for me.  Looking at the other option in the list of keyboard types (“Phone Keypad”) I just assumed it would be a quick way to enter numbers.  Boy was I wrong.  I followed the same steps as above, and chose “Phone Keypad” and came back to my browser and found this:

I now had a phone keypad just like the physical pad I used to have on my old iMate SP3.  The little “XT9”/”ABC” button on the left swaps between T9 predictive text and standard multiple-push ABC style entry.  To make things even cooler, if I tilt the phone on it’s side, it doesn’t stick with this keyboard but rather swaps to the standard QWERTY layout again because there is now enough space to use bigger keys, as follows:

Now I can have the best of both worlds.  Of course my fingers still sometimes make mistakes, but that’s where the clever “auto correct” type feature kicks in and saves the day.  For example, if I’m typing an SMS and I want to start with “Hello” but by mistake I miss the “h” and press “g” to start with, the following happens:

It actually lists alternative words that use keys near to the ones that I pressed, and selects the one it thinks is the most likely correction.  If I press “space”, it will automatically choose the word highlighted in green.  This is really useful and, as Leo Laporte said in an episode of TWIT (referring to the iPhone’s auto-correct feature) “as long as you trust in Steve, it will all work out” (slightly paraphrased). 

There are times when it’s not so great, as in the first time I typed in “Er” where it helpfully substituted the word “We”.  I didn’t realise that it thought I’d made a spelling mistake, so I happily sent off a rather cryptic sentence via Google Talk.  But that’s where Android have been really smart.  If I type in a word that the phone doesn’t recognise, I just have to tap on the word in the list of suggestions and it adds it to it’s dictionary and will use the new word in future.

I think the reason that the “T9” style keyboard is called “XT9” is because they’ve extended the standard “T9” to allow for similar mis-pressed keys.  So that the same ability that the landscape keyboard has to recover gracefully from my badly pressed keys extends to the “T9” keyboard too.

By mistake I also found out that doing a “long press” on a key gives you an “options” menu as follows:

For people who have to write Afrikaans stuff often, the ability to write é or ö at will could be great in the standard keyboard and when using the “ABC” mode of the “Phone Keypad”, it can be a nice time saver sometimes.