I have just got rid off dirty HTC Sense UI and changed every default stock applications like launcher(homescreen), email, sms, dialer, gallery, music player, lockscreen, to custom apps. The default HTC Sense UI was not that attractive with the curved phone dock a the bottom and absolute no customization to any stock apps. I hate the tiny fonts that show up on the HD Phone and you cannot increase fonts at system level or Apps level. HTC Forget that. The default android fonts looked so small in dialer, contacts, email and everywhere. There is no option provided by HTC to increase font sizes anywhere in their apps. I had no option, but to get rid of all HTC Shit. So here are the list of apps i have brought and replaced default stock HTC apps.

After using Jailbroken iPhone where you can customize all stock apps, I found Android also offer similar function with more user control then iPhone. On Android phones you can complete change all the stock apps and have your own choice of applicaitons. I am going to highlight issues with base/stock Android apps on my HTC Desire HD and what i have replaced it with.

The customization drive for me started with the incapabilities of HTC Desire HD to change lock screen wallpaper. I had previous HTC Wildfire and it allowed to choose lock screen wallpaper. But i was shocked and disappointed to find out this HTC Desire HD dosent have this, even with its running Froyo 2.2. I searched Android Marketplace for lock screen apps and found WidgetLocker Lockscreen App.

WidgetLocker Lockscreen ($1.99)

This app can help you customized more unlock buttons and customize wall paper. Also, it can activate on calls so that by mistake your chick dosent touch the End button. The app said, you can show if you instal ADWNotifier which intern needs ADWLauncher EX . I was introduced to whole new customization sets of app.

ADWLauncher EX (€2.30).

The application that manages your homescreen and list of all apps on your phone is called Launcher. This  ADWLauncher does the same effectively. It offers you to have a iPhonesh homescreen with bottom 4 icon dock, screen transitions and animations like Nexus, etc. You can define rows and column grid for number of icons to be displayed on homescreen. You can have customized backgroun and dock layout. I am loving this and I have replaced the default HTC Sense UI.

There is another competitor Launcher app called as LauncherPro. I have not tried it. But i read its very easy and popular too.

ADWNotifier (free). Only works with ADWLauncher

This is very good app to notifiy you with badge number like iPhone. If can alert you about number of missed calls, no of sms, no of email, etc. But it need ADWLauncher installed.

K-9 Mail (free)

The default email client on HTC Desire HD was horrible. The super tiny fonts, not customizations and bad integrations. After trying many email clients finally i gave a try to this free client. I thought free apps are not good. But i was wrong. This is one of the best email client i have seen developed by 3rd party. I was using ProfiMail for symbian but the UI was horrible. This app is just B&W and cool. It offer customization on color, font sizes, preview lines, alerts, etc. I have yahoo, gmail and personal imap email configured.

Go SMS (free)

This is the ultimate SMS app. The default HTC sms was horrible. This Go SMS offer lot of customization and cool themes. It can show pop up sms on arrivals. You can send batch sms, group ringtones, contact sync. You should try this.

Dial One (Free)

Dial One is the best dialer which is fast and easy. Its very simple and customizable.It offers - Speed dial, Call log grouped by contact, Send contact, Customizable, Swipe between screens, Tone dial, Export calls, Simultaneous search on calls and contacts on two languages

I also tried  RocketDial Pro (Smart Dialer) . It has a unique Hand writing recognition search.  But remember there is no support for keypad. So dont expect to type and search contacts. The developer is very friendly and responds to all your questions.

Gallery Pro (¥180)

The stock HTC Desire HD image gallery app is just a big shame on HTC. Its so horrible and just plain thumbnails. This Gallery Pro app will make you happy. I had Samsung Galaxy S and this app is pre bundled on it.

Contact Group Manager ($9.99)

The base HTC Contacts(People) app is another horrible thing. This expensive Contact Manager is a worth try. I wish they had a dialer built in.

Other apps that I have brought and Like are -

I have just got rid off dirty HTC Sense UI and changed every default stock applications like launcher(homescreen), email, sms, dialer, gallery, music player, lockscreen, to custom apps. The default HTC Sense UI was not that attractive with the curved phone dock a the bottom and absolute no customiza …http://blog.sameerchavan.com/best-android-apps-and-customizations

Having fed up with unusable and non innovative Nokia N8, I decided to get rid off it and buy an Android. Nokia N8 has most outdated OS(Symbian), Nokia thought making big buttons on Symbian will make them Touch Screen OS Leader. But finally they accepted their incapabilities and collaborated with Microsoft to build Windows 7 OS phone. 

While searching for an immediate replacement for Nokia N8 with minim cost, i came across HTC Wildfire. I brought that at the price of Rs13500/-. 

HTC Wildfire

See the full gallery on Posterous

Pros -

• Affordable Android phone with 5mp Camera and Flash.
• Good speakers quality. 
• Option to set picture as ‘Lock Screen Wallpaper’ or Home Screen Wallpaper (missing in Desire HD).
• Track ball for precise cursor movement and text selection. 
• Light weight and good battery.
• 600 Mhz process was enough.

Cons -

• Very low screen resolution resulting of text pixelation. 240 x 320 pixels, 3.2 inches.
• Many times in the chat applications the send buttons were hidden behind the keypad due to small screens
• The video recording is very bad and tiny size. CIF@15fps video recording (352 x 288 pixels) . This is below average standards of any regular phone. 

HTC Sense UI

See the full gallery on Posterous

Lot has been talked about the Sense UI. These are Android modifications done by handset manufacturers to maintain their uniqueness. The things that are currently lacking in android are the integrations of social feeds with contacts. Also any contextual information of email, sms, call log is not shown against the stock contact apps. The HTC Sense UI makes this possible with its Friends Feed widget, home screen navigations and skins. There are couple of HTC widgets like clock and weather. 

Well, there is a HTCsense.com account you can create and they say you can sync contacts and photos etc. You can even track your phone from their site. I tried with no luck. Their site is quite buggy and after writing to their support they accepted that htcsense.com is not working. What a shame on HTC. 

HTC Desire HD

Finally i sold HTC Wildfire and brought HTC Desire HD at a price of Rs27,000/- . 

See the full gallery on Posterous

Pros- 

• Very large screen of 480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches
• Internal memory of 1.5 GB; 768 MB RAM is good for multitasking 
• microSD, up to 32GB, 8GB included
  
• 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon
  
• 8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash, Video recording at  720p
  
• The apps were very responsive. The email scrolling was smooth. I had Samsung Galaxy S. IT was a pice of shit with all bugs and it use to hang. But HTC was very good. 

Cons -

• Pathetic speaker quality and volume. I mean, you cannot hear any ringtone or any music. The sound of speaker is like cheap 3rd rate company product. I was shocked to see this. I had to set a polyphonic old tring-tring ringtone. 
• The screen is not quite visible in daylight. 
• Being large screen, the battery drains in a day. May be 10hrs max. 
• Because of high resolution screen, the system fonts look tiny and unreadable. The default apps like email, sms, dialer have no option to increase fonts. This is a biggest disadvantage which made me to install 3rd party apps for every stock client. I am writing a separate post on Android Apps. 

Having limitations with HTC Sense UI, I have totally changed all stock apps to new Android Market apps. Now on my HTC Desire HD, there is nothing about HTC Sense UI left. Read my next post. 

Having fed up with unusable and non innovative Nokia N8, I decided to get rid off it and buy an Android. Nokia N8 has most outdated OS(Symbian), Nokia thought making big buttons on Symbian will make them Touch Screen OS Leader. But finally they accepted their incapabilities and collaborated with Mic …http://blog.sameerchavan.com/htc-desire-hd-and-wildfire-hands-on

The situation –  

Most of the time we see Nokia prototypes for James Bond movies then something real in the market. Nokia, at least in India, is very popular in marketing and branding through design presentations, Research presentations at all conferences and developer meets.  But in reality,  Nokia has lost ground in mobile innovations to Apple and Google Android because of their laid back approach to touch screen phones. They never imagined touch screen phones to be so popular. Do you know, hardly anyone buys Nokia phones in Japan and Korea, as they dont have interesting design and latest technology. Nokia phones sell only in Europe,  Afghanistan (haa..), India (1.2bn population) and China (1.4bn population).  Yes, that covers more then 50% of world population. Hence Nokia is No.1 company. Nokia is not famous for innovations.  Nokia only makes good entry level phones for taxi drivers. Nokia still dont have a proper Touch Screen OS like iPhone or Android. They have abandoned Symbian and made it open source. They tried LiMo and then switched to MeeGo with Intel.  I have tried MeeGo on my Netbook and found it very unusable and lacking basic features. I switched back to JoliCloud and Ubunto. I think Nokia is not clear about their future strategy.  Technologically Nokia was even the last to introduce Capacitive screens. Nokia dont have gestural interfaces standards like iPhone/Apple. Nokia only relied on their old ‘Options” menu buttons design and put the whole world of actions under that button. The same design is carried forward to symbian OS for touch screens.  Well, we all know that Symbian is old and outdated. Its on the verge of dying. But nokia is keeping it alive on vitamins.  I saw a presentation where someone from Nokia showed how Nokia has maximum number of Research Centres in every country then any other company. Nokia spend the highest in Research and the Researchers have created piles of  documents only. The hugh research has not lead Nokia to the innovation path.  Nokia has no Gestural interfaces or multitouch interactions like iphone in the market, though they claim they have many patents. They came very late in touchsceens and some of the Nokia UI looks like iphone copy, Eg- pinch to zoom, elastic scroll,   

Even after not being an innovative company people love Nokia for good battery life, sturdy design, same UI for every phone (less learning if you switch to another Nokia), good signal reception quality, simple usability(not innovative), robost hardware designs. Even after knowing all these issues, I feel Nokia has maintained its trusted brand quality in India.

Hands-on Experience Nokia N8

After using iPhone 3GS for a year, I had brought Samsung Galaxy S. But looking at horrible lag in Android Galaxy phone where even the “Call Accept” button was not showing up, I switched to my old favorite Nokia / Symbian phones. This time I brought Nokia N8 which is a 12Mp camera phone with Xenon flash & HDMI out. It has 3.5 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen, 16M colors and ARM 11 680 MHz processor, 3D Graphics HW accelerator. Wow impressive specs. The performance was better then Samsung Galaxy.

Nokia N8 Design problems

Wrong Screen aspect Ratio

• Biggest disappointment is its screen ratio. Though the screen is 3.5 inch, the width is very small. (360 pix). This makes the phone not usable for reading any documents or emails. Everything gets truncated.
• Second disappointment is the lack of QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode. At least Nokia designers should understand and copy from Apple, that people dont like rotating their phones for Typing every time.  iPhone with same 3.5 inch screen provides more width to screen and good keyboard in portrait mode. Also emails and docs are more readable in iPhone then N8. Shame on Nokia !

Text input / Keypad is horribly DUMB and a Shame for Nokia.

• The keypad and keyboard designed for N8 is a big dumb job with no smartness build. Here also, Nokia designers have not learned from Apple. The implemented keypad is a replica of hardware keypad. Such a Shame for Nokia.
• The keyboard should be smart enough to understand which keys to show depending on the input filed. Eg. if user is typing email, then the [@] key should be directly visible in first layout.  If the user is in the browser bar, then the [.com] key should be directly visible. All these innovations happen in Apple iPhone.  The Auto capitalization of words while tying in a name field is missing. There is no auto correction in Nokia like iPhone.
• There is absolutely no thinking gone into designing the keypad. The space bar is not centered, the number are not different color, after typing a special character, the keypad should return to text ABC mode. Nothing is done.
• Every text entry is a new screen navigating away from the context. Its another shameful designer job. There is only the OK button after typing text. Eg. if you tried to edit the existing text and made a mistake, there is no way to comeback to original screen without comitting your mistake.

Browser

There is no improvements in the age old nokia web browser. They did tried some improvements in the keypad based phones with browser map. But we dont see any new things or easyness in N8 browser. Texting and navigation is a pain.

12MP camera is mediocre. Full of red noise

• I think with a tiny CMOS sensor Nokia as extrapolate the megapixel to 12. This camera is actually just 5mp worth.
• If you take pictures indoors or in a shadow outdoors, the pictures are full of red noise. I found my previous Samsung Galaxy S camera way better and sharp then Nokia.
• Of Course, Samsung do make DSLR camera(i own NX10), But Nokia is not in the business of digital camera. So it has to borrow lenses and camera from others.

Attaching a 100% crop of a 9MP camera shot by N8, I took at my apartment.

Disappointed

• Backward in Multi toch and gesture interactions on screen.
• Nokia Wifi Bug is famous ” Invalid Server Name”. And you cannot connect to wifi networks  intermittently .
• No Camera lens cover
• No use of volume up and down buttons other just music player and camera.
• Battery life was just 6 hrs initially when i brought. But now it gives me 18hrs.
• No widget to disconnect wifi, gps, bluetooth, edge, call.  You need to dig inside many folders and find how to do this.

Appereciating facts -

• 12 Mp camera and my favorite XENON Flash with 720p@25fps HD video.
• Sexy design and wonderful colors. I have orange. Light and sleek. Seperate Camera button
• N8 with 680MHz processor is very responsive compared to Samsung Galaxy using 1GHz processor.
• Nokia Maps – this is freely available for entire India. Its very good voice guided navigation.
• Ovi music – there is an offer of unlimited music download from Ovi.com store. I download some 5 Gb of Indian and international albums.

Ovi Store by Nokia and only for Nokia.

What is Ovi

Well, after looking at the success of iPhone store Nokia immediately started hosting symbian apps on ovi.com . It offered similar features like Apple ecosystem. It provided email, apps, music, photos, and file sync(now discontinued).  Previously, Nokia never thought of creating a seamless ecosystem to sell developer apps or to allow Developers to sell their apps. The old way was to download some .sis file and then transfer to your phone, then install with all errors. This shows how Nokia was ignorant of creating a good ecosystem, untill Apple did it the RIGHT WAY.

Ovi store problems-

• Its only for Nokia phones. So the apps are limited.
• Most of the time, the Ovi store cannot connect, then if you tried to download any app, it fails, then give errors. The quality of Ovi store is very low. More then half of the apps have technical problems.
• Since Nokia phones come in all sizes and keypad/touch, neither of any ovi app is best suited for any Nokia phone. IPhone is the only phone from Apple,  with fixed screen size and only touch screen. So all 100,000 apps store apps are perfect and designed for single phone. Where as Nokia ovi store apps are a big mess.
• Ovi store shows around only 2300 apps if i do a blank search . Where as Apps store has more then 100,000.
• Most of the Ovi store apps are very badly designed and horrible User Experience. There are no Nokia apps standards like Apple human interface standards for iphone. Ovi apps looks carppie. with tiny text and buttons spread across the interface.  Ovi apps dont know if they are used for keypad or touchscreen.
• Another big problem in Ovi store is, out of many be 2300 apps only 30% apps are for your nokia handset model. As other ovi apps are not  compatible .
• Ovi Apps are most expensive then iphone or android apps. They are something in the range of Euro 10 to 25 . That is damn expensive to $0.99 iPhone apps.

The Symbian OS

The symbian OS is a age old OS which was designed for keypad entry and not touch screens. Since Nokia has no other OS, it has kept this Symbian OS alive on steroids till its 3rd Edition. There were rumors of 4th an 5th Editions. But no trace in real market. Its been 4 years that iPhone has revolutionalized the smartphone market, and Nokia is still thinking on what to do. They have made the symbian OS opensource and tied with Intel on MeeGo.

Nokia has no OS designed perfectly for gestural touch screen interfaces supporting multi touch.

The situation – Most of the time we see Nokia prototypes for James Bond movies then something real in the market. Nokia, at least in India, is very popular in marketing and branding through design presentations, Research presentations at all conferences and developer meets. But in reality, Noki …http://blog.sameerchavan.com/nokia-n8-ovi-and-symbian-5-hands-on-experienc

I have been using iPhone 3GS on 3G at Seoul, korea for almost a year. Back to Pune, India I decided to buy the famous Andorid 2.1 Eclair , Galaxy S (I9000) Samsung phone. I was delighted to have a large 4” Super AMOLED screen and 1GHz snapdragon processor. But as I started to use, it fell short of my expectations compared to my previous iPhone 3GS.  Well, here are few good things and bad things about Galaxy S in short

What i Liked about Galaxy S -

• Large AMOLED screen.
• Same look and feel like iphone. So no learning.
• Samsung has very well integrated SNS (Social Network Service – Facebook, Twitter, Gmail).
• The Contacts book can show latest SNS updates for each contact.  You can comment and post from there
• The Dialer has T9 search that directly match contacts in adress book as you type numbers. Unfortunately it only matches the First Name field.
  
• The best is wifi Hotspot. The mobile acts as the wifi hotspot and my wife can use my internet plan to browse internet on her phone (iPhone), even when i am on Edge service. Horribly in India 3G service is not with every operator. Big scams have hit.
  
• Good 5MP camera but without Flash.  HD video recording.

What i hate about Galaxy S and Android -

• The most important thing is SPEED. Even after a 1GHz processor the phone behaves like a old 200Hhz Nokia phone. Having used Nokia N97, I think Symbian system is far better in performance then Anroid.
• The Phone hangs constantly and there is a known Lag problem for Android and Galaxy S. Things just dont show up. Funny is when someone calls, the phone rings and i dont see the screen activated with Accept button. Its black for few seconds. Very shameful.
• I just miss the iPhone Gestures for keypad to place curser and select text. Android has a horrible mechanism to select text. You have to change the mode of keypad to 4way Arrow buttons. Then use thse arrow buttons to move the cursor. Very shameful and unusable. 
• They keyboard is very slugish and Predictive text is a big nonsense. It types all the wrong words. iPhone spell check and auto correction is far better then foolish word prediction android.
• Galaxy S has a hardware problem with Proximity sensor. Most of the time when you hold the phone to your ears the screen dosent go off and your chic hits the Big Cancel button.
• The auto rotation of screen is also buggy. Even if you change the phone orientation, the screen hangs in the pervious orientation. You need to shake the phone hard to unlock the buggy roation Gyroscope.
• Samsung Galaxy S which use Kie as desktop software to sync data has bugs. My Galaxy is not recognized by Kie. This problem is written everwhere on internet and Samsung has done nothing.
• Samsung has perfectly copied the iPhone as a typical Korean company always does. The Galazy S shape is having similar corner radius like iphone. Even the home button is similar to iphone, only its square instead of circular. The number of hardware button location is also copied from iPhone. The look and feel of for icons docs and homescreen is exactly like iPhone. 
• Samsung is not a Responsible and dedicated company like Apple. They are not worried for Galaxy S  bugs as they have many other mobiles to sell. Samsung phones come with bugs and they never correct it. They just discontinue the phone and release new model.  Samsung makes around  Apple only has one phone. Apple is CUSTOMER caring company. They will release patch immediately to eveyone if there is aproblem.

Generic Anroid Problems -

• As compared to Apple iOS operating system for iPhone, the Android OS is horrible. Even Symbian is far better then Anroid. Only that Symbian is not designed for touch interfaces.  The Android OS is not smooth like iphone. The scrolling or paging is jurkey and hangs. I have hardly seen any application crash in iPhone. But Android and Galaxy S are full with application crashes, not respongind, exception errors, and what not.. 
• The Emailing application takes lot of time to load emails. It dosent scroll properly.  You cannot edit the quoted email text.
• There is no Copy and Paste from email to other apps or from Internet pages to other apps. This was one of the best features in iOS.
• Not the worst part. Just compare Android and iPhone app from the same company. Example the most popular- Facebook.  Facebook app for iPhone will be beautiful, but for Android it will be half backed. eg. when you click any comments it wil leave the native app and go to browser. Half done work.  Not only this app, take Skype. Skype dosent work in many android phones.  I have notices that the same company makes a perfectly designed App for iPhone but when it comes for Android, they just throw some code to say that they also have android app.  Why is this ? Is it because they follow Apple Human Interface Guidelines properly and for Android they dare to make all mistakes ?

Advantages of Android over iOS (iPhone)

• The best part of Android, i think is, they have allowed more freedom to apps developers to access native OS features and apps. Eg. You can attach a file from your SD card. Or write to the calendar and photos. For iPhone, the native apps cannot be touched or modified by 3rd party apps. The apps developers have to import data and make another copy in their apps database. 
• Android can be customized by handset manufacturers to make their unique homescreens and dialers and SNS integrations. But i heard this is going to stop.
• Well, you can replace battery and add external memory card.
• Have better camera and FM radio. iPhone dosent have Radio.

What i miss in Android -

• There is no good music player like iTunes. There is no desktop iTunes like app to sync music and take backup of data
• Upgrading of Android OS is hell and country dependent. iPhone OS is updated globally at the same time. I am Still waiting for Android 2.2 Fryo update to my Galaxy S for India
• Wort part is, the Samsung Kie desktop sync app for Galaxy S is only for PC and Windows. I have Mac and i have no option to update my Galaxy S. I think Google is paying every handset company to not to have a Mac OS desktop app.

I have been using iPhone 3GS on 3G at Seoul, korea for almost a year. Back to Pune, India I decided to buy the famous Andorid 2.1 Eclair , Galaxy S (I9000) Samsung phone. I was delighted to have a large 4” Super AMOLED screen and 1GHz snapdragon processor. But as I started to use, it fell short of m …http://blog.sameerchavan.com/galaxy-s-android-and-ios-iphone-3gs-hands-on

For last 5ys or so, we have seen a gradual transition of mobile popularity from a simple feature phone to a feature rich smart phone. I think, this transitions is also fueled by growth of social networking websites, collaborative gamings, music downloads, 3G/4G, LTE services, easy GPS access, etc. Whenever i see any mobile Advertisement, they show facebook and messenger chats on the mobile homescreens. The importance of handset hardware and form-factor is diminishing. Its shown as mear rectangular block with a large screen.  The software & content delivery is overtaking it. The TV and newspaper Ads dont show the mobile form factor, but the Apps Icons on the homescreen. The whole focus has shifted.

View Full post at posterous. Post your comments and discuss

I wanted an online tool to create simple and fast wireframe for iphone, ipad and web applications. I evaluated couple of online websites for this before subscribing a paid membership for one of them(mockflow). I know there are may desktop based wireframe tools. Most popular being MS Power Point, Word, Excel & visio for Windows and for Mac OS its keynote & Omnigraffle. There are also other regular hi-fidelity tools like Photoshop, Illustrator & Flash.

One funny thing i have noticed that some good wireframe sites (pidoco.com, hotgloo,)  are extremely expensive and not meant for individuals. They cost something like $50/month to $600/month. They only intend to sell this to corporate and not to individuals.

Here are few that i tried personally.

1. MockFlow ($60/year) - Flash based. Has desktop flash tool that sync to web tool.

This is the one I have finally subscribed. Its excellent tool with predefined templates, a free template store, share your templates, etc. It has simple drag and drop shapes and icons to your design, export as png, pdf, ppt and view site map. Best part is collaboration with comments, whiteboard, version control, etc. You can even have a co-editor.

Cons – sometime its slow and the sync dosent happen. There are still many shapes needed. eg. there is no arrow. The zoom is just upto 100%, you cannot do detail works. The UI is little clumpy. There is no toolbar to directly click on action buttons. You have to go the menu click way.

Few features are -

• Simple usability focused to make wireframing easier
• Real-Time Design Collaboration with Team Chat
• Track project activities and get updates from your team members
• Pages can be applied with multiple (recursive) templates saving time
• Invite co-editors and reviewers for your Wireframe project
• Export your Mockup to image / PDF document / PowerPoint presentation
• Layout Builder for designing background layout designs
• WhiteBoard tool for drawing doodles on mockup
• Built-in Web Snap function for capturing webpages
• Unique Expose snapshot feature
• Compare pages function for A/B design testing
• Create, Visualize and export your Wireframe’s SiteMap
• Get annotated feedback directly in the mockup
• Support for Revisions (real-time)
• Import additional Component libraries or create your own
• Never lose your work with the smart auto-recovery function
• Overlaid Graph and 960 grids are provided for layout
• You can apply your preferred Wireframe Font with one-click
• Self-serve License Manager – upgrade/downgrade team members in a click

2. Mockingbird (currently free) – no Flash., no desktop tool. Powered by Cappuccino

There is an  update on 30th July. I got a mail saying its paid now with plans from 2 projects for $9/month, 25 projects for $40/month, and unlimited at $85/month.

Its designed& developed by just two Indians working in US. Currently its free but they will start paid subscription. Its more easy and clean then mockflow.com . But its still in basic stage. No collaboration, no image uploads, no chat or comments, very limited shape library. Very slow development and updates. (I guess they are not fulltime company. Its parttime wrok). But its worth what they have done and competiting with big guys. Oh. there is no flash. Its a different framewrok like HTML5. It called as Cappuccino. Just google and check this. You can have multiple pages, add links, drag buttons and share just as link.

Cons – no collaboration team. very basic shapes, lot of limitations when designing. few export options. No options to make notes on the design. As i said, the feature addition is extremely slow.

3. iPlotz ($100 to $500/year) - Flash. Has desktop version too

This was was my favorite. But  to buy its little expensive. It has all the worlds features – many shapes, direct access tool bar, export to many formats, Project management, collaboration and chats, version control, different UI styles (mac, windows, mobile). Many templates and online snippet store.

4. Gliffy ($5 to $800/month). Little expensive.

I liked this even. It has custom shape tool. You can draw any shape but it does not have multiple pages or projects. Its only one page. Its good for charts and diagrams. I hope they extend this for real wireframe with multiple pages per project.

Posted via email from Sameer’s Scribblings

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With the news of withdrawal of Microsoft kin mobiles(Project Pink), for whatever rumored reasons, I am wondering if there was really a need for different UI for different user segments. As Kin phones were targeted for Teens with low cost and cloud storage and sync, the same can be achieved with just a change of skins to OS based phones. The OS based phones already offer social applications, cloud syncing, multimedia and games. Here i am talking about phones like iPhone & Android. Windows 7 is still not out in the market.

Traditionally all the hardware companies made many mobile phones , each targeted for ’so-called’ different user groups – college going, business users, multimedia users, gaming users, etc. And accordingly the price and features are added or removed from each phone to create thousands of models. Non of these phones are perfect for anyone. Forget the UI design.  Do you really need so many variety of phones from same company ? or only one phone for all, like iPhone from Apple. Yes, Apple only has one phone. 

I use iPhone for emails, photos, cloud syncing, etc. all the day.  When i go home, my 3yr daughter uses my iPhone very easily to navigate to games and play games. She even tries to download new games from apps store icon. One day I was very surprised to receive iTunes receipt for new game downloaded(by my daughter). My wife uses my phone for checking her social networking and messengers. So one single phone is satisfying needs for different users. 

I feel that, as the cost of mobile OS goes down along with the cost of hardware(memory, processor), everyone would love to have a OS based phones then these proprietary feature phones made by hardware companies. The advantage of OS phones is that you can add new applications, update the OS with new features and really customize it. Feature phones dont offer any of this. You have to just throw the phone if it becomes outdated. 

If you realize now, the word PDA has lost its value. Few years back Microsoft popularized the term PDA with windows CE phones. They differentiated themself with phones having capability to add memory, document editing and emailing. I wonder why these phones were kept purposely low multimedia standard. They would always have a bad camera and no music player or FM. Blackberry phones followed the same strategy . The reasoning was, business users are machines and they dont have human feeling to take pictures and listen to music. What a shit!. Why would you prevent anyone from doing so. Ya, just to make another category of mobile phones. Sales strategy !. Thanks to new term, Smart Phones, you now have every feature of business phones along with all multimedia. The line between business phone and multimedia phone has vanished. These new category of Smart phones satisfy every category of users. They are OS based. 

Another term that become popular is Apps Store. Ya, with iPhone having more then 100,000 apps in its Apps Store and that too mostly at $0.99, it has really become affordable for everyone. Moreover Apple made it very easy to add applications, whereas Microsoft and Nokia had terrible application download process.  Think of any idea on mobile and you will find an application in app store. The Apps store provides something for every user category. Now, where is the question of designing the whole phone for only one user group. If the OS offers flexibility to customize the layout, style and information on screen, there is no need to design for just specific category of users.  Instead, have a generic OS and allow for applications designed for specific user groups. This enables you to have only one phone and one OS satisfying every user. Slowly the control of mobile UI design is getting transfered from handset manufacturer to Apps developer company. 

With the advent of multi touch screens the phone form factor has also reduced to a mear rectangular block with glass. The industrial design for handset company is minimalistic approach. Similar to OS apps , you can have different mobile covers to customize your mobile look & personality.  Some covers look business class(leathers) and other look funny for teens (yellow covers). The product industrial design is also commoditized. Users can change the design as they want.

Posted via email from Sameer’s Scribblings

Whenever I look at a great software product or a product company, I see that they were started by someone with strong engineering background. I can hardly recall if there are any product companies stated by designers. By saying designers, I mean UX designers (Lets keep Industrial designer out for time being). Ya, designers do have stared some UX service companies. What after that ?

Whenever you have a great idea, designers are constrained by their lack of software programming knowledge. They have to depend on software engineers. They cannot own the product code or check-in their idea to apps stores. Whereas software programmers can easily hire designers and still fully control the code ownership. Is it that in a software product, UX is not a core requirement ? UX can be done by anyone with good commonsense and little readings. 

Or is it that the entrepreneurial nature of UX designer is less then a engineer ? Do designers like the cozy jobs and live in their fancy world of creativity & criticism ? Are they afraid to take business challenges which programmers can take? Are designers soft hearted and shy ? I know UX designers cannot be that shy, they do have to sell their ideas like a sales persons.  As a designer you have to always convince your theory, either by backing it by design standards or usability test results. Engineering dont have to convince you their coding algorithm, even if they, you will not understand, But thats it. UX designer’s world is limited to their 1st level of colleagues (PMs, Developers, Business heads). They dont like to interact with Sales, Finance(business value), marketing, technology. They are happy to do this job and for years. They like to attend conference and publish papers. Done !. So where is the need of entrepreneurship ?

But why dont i see startups or great product companies started by designers. Would things have been different ?   

Posted via email from Sameer’s Scrbblings

1. Mobile advertising will surpass the decidedly outmoded Web1.0 & computer-centric advertising

- and ads will become content, almost entirely. Advertisers will, within 2-5 years, massively convert to mobile,

location-aware, targeted, opt-ed-in, social and user-distributed ‘ads’; from 1% of their their budgets to at least 1/3

of their total advertising budget. Advertising becomes ‘ContVertising’ – and Google’s revenues will be 10x of what

they are today, in 5 years, driven by mobile, and by video.

2. Tablet devices will become the way many of us will ‘read’ magazines, books, newspapers and even ’attend’ live concerts, conferences and events.

The much-speculated Apple iPad will kick this off but every major device maker will copy their new tablet within 18 months. In addition, tablets will kick off the era of mobile augmented reality. This will be a huge boon to the content industries, worldwide – but only if they can drop their mad content protection schemes, and slash the prices in return for a much larger user base.

3. Many makers of simple smart phones – probably starting with Nokia- will make their devices available

for free – but will take a small cut (similar to the current credit-cards) from all transactions that are done through the

devices, e.g. banking, small purchases, on-demand content etc. Mobile phones become wallets, banks and ATMs.

4. Quite a few mobile phones will not run on any particular networks, i.e. without SIM cards.  The

likes of Google (Nexus), and maybe Skype, LG or Amazon will offer mobile phones that will work only on Wifi /

WiMax, LTE or mashed-access networks, and will offer more or less free calls. This will finally wake up the mobile

network operators, and force them to really move up the food-chain – into content and the provision of ‘experiences’

5. Content will be bundled into mobile service contracts, starting with music, i.e. once your mobile

phone / computer is online, much of the use of the content (downloaded or streamed) will be included. Bundles and

flat-rates – many of them Advertising 2.0-supported – will become the primar

—————————

1. Things and services: The increasing connection between physical devices and online services will

drive new applications that take personal data and turn it into useful, personal, social, visual and

manipulable representations. With all of these personal activities that can be measured or

‘counted’ (Nike+, Wattson and Foursquare are prototypical) there is potential for a broad range of

personal and public services.

2. Physical diversification: There will be an enormous physical diversification of connected devices.

In many cases a connected object are no longer just ‘mobile’ but e-readers, cameras, music players,

and household appliances all the way up to cars, public spaces and buildings (where there is a good

reason to do so).

3. Daily data: As we begin to learn how to create and manipulate our online ‘data shadows’ that are

created out of this data (cf. Mike Kuniavsky), this will have significant effects on everyday life and on

our sense of value in personal information. The impact of this will be felt through changes in daily life

that try to influence the ‘things that can be counted’.

4. Pervasive privacy: Because of the increased visibility of everyday activities, places, relationships,

finances, health, etc. the issues around privacy will really come to a head. Not just the ‘big brother’

privacy issues that will be tested through the legal system, but really sticky, complex social and

personal privacy issues that are difficult for technology alone to resolve (cf. Everyware).

5. Always-on backlash: In reaction to increased, pervasive connectivity, there must be an ‘alwayson

backlash’ en masse. There will not just be niche communities choosing to ‘opt-out’, but it will

become culturally, socially necessary and desirable to be offline. The ability to gracefully disconnect and

go ‘dark’ must become a USP for many products and services.

——————————————-

1. Web of things: an average networked pet will have a voice, generating more

data traffic than the average human

2. Digital syllogomania: digital garbage collection becomes a (very) lucrative

business

3. Networked urbanism: mobile data warping scandals will make us doubt on the

ability to regulate urban dynamics with data and intelligent algorithms

4. Seamful design: opt-out mechanisms with awareness before experiencing dense

data clouds, their scattered intelligent services and their occasional hail of contextual

information.

5. The messiness and unpredictability of the world continue to seriously

challenge any technophilic dreams and their strategies of bordering

————————————-

1. Augmented reality becomes the new band wagon, with much misinformed

digital ink spilt

2. The penny starts to drop with companies that Social Marketing Intelligence is

the black gold of the 21st Century

3. Accessing multiple dynamic data bases that are constantly updated

to deliver better enabling services begins to transform the media industry – for example

creating highly accurate 3D location maps by accessing the Flickr database

4. Convergence enables the blending of reality from online and off so there is

no distinction

5. The communications revolution accelerates destroying businesses that refuse

to think the unthinkable

——————————–

1. Connection managers. They will become critical for

differentiation as devices will be able to handle massive

data speeds for microseconds and limited data speeds for

hours; from any available network.

2. User Interface. Mashup interfaces across voice, touch

and movement will create new experiences for getting data

into and controlling mobile devices. Open (environments)

will change the game.

3. Sensors. Mobile devices will have sensors added which

will enable the capture local data from temperature to noise

and from location to who else is in the room.

4. Business model. Based on game changes 2 and 3,

brands realize that more value is created from the analysis

of sensor data taken off the mobile devices than from user

voice or data usage analysis. Combining the two, sensor

and user data, it will be possible to generate new business

models and shareholder value.

5. Ownership of your data footprint. Every brand

wants to own you and your data. Users will become

discriminating about brands who deliver value to them and

these will be different from those who are in the mobile

retail value chain today. Trust and privacy will be at the

forefront of the user decision.

—————————————

1. Mobile DNA: anonymous DNA profiles for 10 euro on mobile devices will be used for hyper

targeted DNA-based services (dating, finance, education, medicine, food, sports)

2. Mobile Neurotech: using mobile devices to directly regulate and stimulate senses, thoughts,

emotions and behavior as spinoff of cosmetic neurology

3. mHealth: using mobile sensors, bodily sensors and fungible/internal sensors to boost mobile

health lifelogging and disease prevention/correction and boost scientific health research

4. Internet of Things: multimedia sensors in animals, objects, buildings and places that allow

being present of everything if needed, filtering will be biggest theme in this respect

5. Mobile Learning and Science: mobile devices will drive permanent and highly personalized

learning (a.o. DNA based) and discovery of important changes in the environment

——————————————-

1. Still to come ‘Easy Back Up & Storage’ of Address Book, mobile content

and now Apps in case phone is lost, stolen or changed

2. Emotions and social network recommendation based mobile search

3. Mobile payment and transfer (in Europe)

4. SMS based Health & Wellness monitoring and coaching

5. ‘Green Tech’ phones and in emerging countries, self-repairable ones

6. Mobile battery performance and charging solutions

—————–

1. Mobile DNA: anonymous DNA profiles for 10 euro on mobile devices will be used for hyper

targeted DNA-based services (dating, finance, education, medicine, food, sports)

2. Mobile Neurotech: using mobile devices to directly regulate and stimulate senses, thoughts,

emotions and behavior as spinoff of cosmetic neurology

3. mHealth: using mobile sensors, bodily sensors and fungible/internal sensors to boost mobile

health lifelogging and disease prevention/correction and boost scientific health research

4. Internet of Things: multimedia sensors in animals, objects, buildings and places that allow

being present of everything if needed, filtering will be biggest theme in this respect

5. Mobile Learning and Science: mobile devices will drive permanent and highly personalized

learning (a.o. DNA based) and discovery of important changes in the environment

———————

1. VoIP on cell-phones+less expensive data transfer

2. The return of curious LBS+AR applications after few years in the

“through of disillusionment”

3. Some (rich) people will pay to be disconnected

4. Non-humans (objects, animals, places) will generate more data

than humans

5. Data Structure Service: services that allow to maintain/sort/

structure all these data will gain even more weight

————–

1. All urban areas offer free (or funded by

tax payer) Wimax connectivity, meaning that most

people don’t bother with an operator relationship any

more. Landlines are gone.

2. Mobile overtakes the PC as the largest

marketing channel, offering the best results and

tracking in the history of marketing.

3. Current handheld form factors disappear,

with interfaces being via glasses or contact lenses, a

microscopic ear piece and a device which we can

envision as a ring for the finger. Three options of

viewing will be available, Real World, Digital World and a

combination of the two ie Augmented Reality. In this

Post PC Era, laptops will be quaintly old-fashioned and

unsupported commercially.

4. Mobile product and service innovation will

be greatly influenced in the next 10 years by emerging

markets, who already live in the Post PC Era today.

Education is the first vertical to be hugely impacted.

5. People still won’t pay for Digital Content.

————————–

Keyboard dimensions and screen size cease to be the primary limiting factors in

handset design as new input and display technologies free designers to radically change the

form factor of personal communication devices.

Services and content are purchased once and accessible across all devices (PC,

mobile, TV etc…) as business models start to reflect the reality of consumer value perception.

The mobile browser becomes the main applications platform.

Smarter middleware becomes essential to mediate between rapid growth in cloudbased

media storage, inherently unreliable wireless networks and a proliferation in access

devices employed by the user.

The most successful network operators will narrow their focus to the ’3 Cs’:

customer service, coverage and capacity, stepping away from large-scale portal, application and

media development efforts.

——————–

1. Device makers will continue to drive the

mobile industry and operators will become more

traditional service providers competing on cost and

network quality.

2. Brands will use apps to drive hundreds of

millions of dollars in sales. Apps will become a

core revenue generator for businesses.

3. Location will become THE core technology

to mobile devices. It will become more ubiquitous

on the device than any other feature. nearly every user

interaction with mobile devices will become location

aware.

4. Location based advertising will explode. The

classic starbucks example will be forgotten. That starbucks

example is driven by a mindset stuck in the web – pop-up

ads, banner ads. Apps and the mobile web will be location

aware, and most mobile advertising will be informed and

targeted by location.

5. Venture capitalists will begin to make major

strategic investments in mobile app companies in

2010 (like the 2009 investments in Shazam, Smule, etc).

Big brands will acquire small apps that enhance their

product offering (eg Amazon & SnapTell)

Ted Mor

————————-

Mobile Networks: Imagine mobile networks without voice services. The switch

from 3g standards into all IP network infrastructure (4g) will turn mobile operators to broadband

providers, decrease the revenues of cable companies, increase profits of voip services and spawn a new

range of mobile services, mobile apps and even mobile devices.

Mobile Internet: Internet usage through mobile devices will overtake desktop/pc usage

based on massive adaptation of mobile internet in the developing world.

Mobile Payment: the mobile is the credit card.

Mobile Entertainment: Games, Music and Movies will find new formats on mobile

devices especially through the rise of augmented reality technology. A handful of startups in this sector

will manage to attract significant audiences.

Mobile Hub: Laptop schlepping will be over cause your phone will fulfill your computing

needs. Smartphones will become as powerful as laptops and take over the laptop and notebook market.

With an increasing number of peripherals from keyboards to displays to 3d glasses the mobile will

become the power processor of your life. Don’t loose it!

————————–

1. 5x more sensors in everyday life;

combination of wearable sensors, remote

sensors and sensors in your phone

2. Operators build and market their own

mobile devices competing with OEMs

3. Wireless charging becomes the standard

and is available everywhere

4. Your super-modular mobile phone will be

powered by a cloud based OS

5. You will travel to go to a no-airwaves

National Park; the first cellular reserve

—————————-

1. Unofficial currencies gain power.

2. Login will replace SIM cards.

3. Some nations will grant its people

the right to a cellphone.

4. Appearance of a massively

destructive synchronized mobile

virus.

5. North Korea will join the Web.

——————–

These thoughts are from Rudy De Waele at http://m-trends.org