In a world gone mad..

There are a bunch of post online now about the rotten state of the Google Android Market. Here’s the latest I just stumbled upon.

I wonder why everybody seems to think that Google should create the Android Market. Google isn’t Apple. Android isn’t iOS. For me it looks like Google just provides a Android Market and silently waits for alternative markets to appear and fill more specific requirements.

Doesn’t that make sense?

Look at the AppsLib store for example. Focusing on applications tested specifically for the Archos tablets. There are other, more generic, market alternatives like SlideMe and Pdassi. Both with different payment methods.

Now look at the carriers and big game publishers if you will: Why shouldn’t they come up with their own app stores, too? Isn’t that exactly the freedom they want? Vodafone branded Android phones come with the Vodafone app store preinstalled. Simple payment using the phone bill would be possible. EA could provide the EA Android Store. With special download packs that may not even be apks..

With something like Apple’s closed iOS app store this looks like a good alternative. Doesn’t it?

Well, at least we are free to provide alternative markets.. That’s a good thing, right?

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 9:35 am under Android, Development, Rant
No Comments

before i started android development i did a quick analysis of the apple app store. i came up with some roughly comparable numbers as shown in this Communities Dominate Brands post.

the reason i chose the android platform is that you may still have some kind of first mover advantage. well, second mover. or third mover by now. but you get the point, right? :-)

now.. i still don’t get it why people are flocking like crazy to this weird apple world.. where apple sure makes some big bucks.. but apart from them, only a handful of developers are getting lucky..

of course there’s the coolness factor. it’s not all about money. but it’s very subjective. and for me google wins over apple.. evil both they are, of course.. but who isn’t?

anyway, just my two cents..

amen,
tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 4:11 pm under Development, Rant
No Comments

Now this could be a reason to get an iPhone.

And so, finally, porn arrives on the iPhone.. :)

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 12:16 pm under Android, Rant
No Comments

For some reason I prefer Android over the iPhone.

No, it’s not the tyranny of Apple over the developers. No, it’s not the fanboyism of the Apple users. No, it’s not the high price tag that says “I don’t care how much it is. I’m a superior being. I have to use Apple products.” No, it’s not the horrible look of the Cococa UI. No, it’s not Apple’s defense of its intellectual property rights against other phone manufactures. (Because Apple really build the first phone on this planet! And sure does it make sense to stifle innovation by suing other companies over multi-touch patents and the like.) And of course, for me as a developer, it’s not related to Apple’s latest 3.3.1 developer agreement changes. (There simply isn’t anything better than Cococa and Objective-C in this world. I enjoy having Apple dictate what I do.. :-)

No, it’s none of that..

Honestly, I didn’t know the answer up until now: “Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone”

Now I know..

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 12:52 pm under Android, Rant
No Comments

Before I get started: Does someone seriously consider the iPhone or Android a gaming platform? Not saying that there aren’t any fun games for these devices. But they a clearly playing in a different league than the PSP or the DS, right? And it simply is not only about graphics and performance. Mostly it’s about usability and controls!

The last few days/weeks I worked on bringing touch and trackball controls to IntensiGame. Especially trying to make DroidShock/JamJam playable with these new control concepts.

So far I failed.

I have a somewhat usable trackball control implementation to make Galaxina and DroidShock playable. But when the going gets tough, nothing beats the DPAD of my Galaxy. Even the more precise touch screen of the Nexus One will simply not deliver the gaming experience the DPAD gives you. And so won’t the somewhat improved trackball of the Nexus. Compared to the G1/Dream there is some more control here. But it’s not enough.

Baseline: You can have a very responsive trackball or touch control, or you can have one that translates longer ‘motions’ into ‘multi events’. But combining these two approaches seems very hard.

And so far, it looks as if I am not the only one who failed. I haven’t found one shooter or Tetris-like game with touch controls that I would consider really usable. Everything using touch mostly sucks. Android and iPhone are not different here.

So, no good touch controls?

My point is: No good touch controls for these type of games! There are different games that benefit from touch controls. Of course. And you can bend you game a little and make it workable with touch controls. But for now I am not willing to make this compromise too easily. One example of ‘bending’: Touch controls with Tetris games will almost always result in showing where the tile will drop. Otherwise your finger will be in the way. Simple problem. Simple solution. Well.. Got the point?

I consider marking games via the AndroidManifest.xml to not work on devices without a DPAD or trackball, etc. Because: What is the alternative? People complaining about bad usability? Non-responsive touch controls? Too responsive touch controls?

I’ll keep on tweaking my implementation and I’ll add various control settings to the engine to let users tweak the touch and trackball behavior. But I doubt this will ever come close to proper game-pad-like controls. (Of course! Doh..)

Amen,
tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 3:41 pm under Android, Development, Mobile, Rant
No Comments

I know it doesn’t make much sense to appeal to you people out there about this.. In a world gone mad.. What’s the point? But hey, you just ignore it then, aight?

Get this movie and watch it:
Food Inc at IMDB
Food Inc Homepage
Food Inc at TPB

Enjoy Life! Respect Life! Go Vegan!

There are so many things in life you can have fun with.. Make your choices.. Wisely..

Amen,
tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 1:22 am under Rant, Vegan, World
No Comments

From time to time I help people clean up their laptops and PCs. Uninstall stuff. Reinstall the OS. And things like that.

When Windows Vista came around I started telling people sorry, can’t do it. Don’t want to do it. Luckily for me most people skipped Vista. Those with Vista came running to me with Wifi trouble and stuff like that. And I usually shrugged my shoulders and say sorry. Well, we all know what a great job Microsoft did with Vista.. :)

Now there’s Windows 7. And for some time it looked like it could be a replacement for Windows XP. Finally.

But it’s not. It’s crap. The same as Vista. Same problems. New problems. Usability is really bad. We don’t have to get into any discussions about security I assume. With the latest IE8 hacks out there it is futile for anyone to defend Microsoft in the area of security.

Anyway, I have to continue shrugging my shoulders and will continue to urge people to stick with Windows XP as long as possible. Or switch to Ubuntu/Linux. A few converters are really happy with Ubuntu. The switch does make sense by now. If you are into games you can keep a dual boot Windows partition or switch to a console. But don’t bother with the Windows 7 crap as your main desktop OS.. Please..

Amen,
tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 11:47 am under Rant
1 Comment

it’s like the matrix reloaded.. something went wrong.. when the antenna guys added the new v2 preprocessor.. trying to move closer to j2me polish? integrating the same bad decisions.. amazing how things go sometimes..

i’ve been working with an older antenna version for quite some time now. i don’t see a reason to upgrade. or let me put it another way: i see the need to replace antenna with something else. or new. or maybe add a v3 preprocessor to it.. :)

i’m not saying antenna or j2me polish are bad tools. looks like they are good if you want tools that integrate tightly with your IDE. but i want something else. clean preprocessing directives. clean API. made for command line and/or ant use.

in my rage :) i totally forgot to mention a few things. for example this: in my world i’d like a preprocessor to understand

#if true

without me having to define anything. simple things like that.. i also simply don’t like defines that look like

#ifdef something:defined
or
#if something:defined

instead i would argue that

#ifdef something
or
#if something

should suffice. and i would also argue that it is a good practice to keep names of defines all uppercase. and reserve lowercase to other things. like for example built-in values or variables..

as you can see this is a lot about me not liking something. nothing else.. i guess..

well, my two cents only..

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 12:57 pm under Development, J2ME, Rant
No Comments

After reading some (in theory :) useful comments on Symbian development here, I thought adding my own two cents could make sense. Here we go:

DO Use Python S60 to write applications.
DON’T Use the Symbian C++ SDK for anything.

Oh how much anger do I feel when looking back to my Symbian C++ programming days.. :) The most horrible SDK I’ve ever had to work with.. Of course, in the last four or five years the SDK has improved quite a lot. Especially the Eclipse-based Carbide IDE seems to provide a rather good development experience.

Anyway, I’m happy that I was able to move on to Python S60 and J2ME development.

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 2:30 pm under Development, Mobile, Rant
No Comments

Finally some intelligent words on software piracy: Ignore Software Pirates Check out the /. comments, too.

I personally think that copy protection and fighting piracy implies you have a shoddy product and you’re trying to get as much money out of it as you can. Ok. Oversimplifying a bit.

Now take another useless comment like this from the Tetris father.

Of course this is a high level system discussion. But putting wealth and prosperity over freedom (of any kind – and for god’s sake, FOSS is about freedom :) is plain and simple stupid.

Anyway.. the world we live in.. funny..

tfdj

Filed by The.French.DJ at 1:40 pm under Development, Rant, World
No Comments