S60 Open to new features

Hi S60 enthusiasts! I’m Joonas, a fresh addition to the blog contributors. I’ll kick off with one of my favourite applications: Contacts aka Phone Book aka Address Book. The application is vital for me. It’s my vault of contacts, addresses, phone numbers and birthdays. It has replaced my memory. However, it’s not a particularly easy memory to use.

The Ring Tone is probably the most noticeable part of the mobile device user interface since the user hears it for every incoming call. As this article from CNN suggests, one of the most successful business areas has been the sales of Ring Tones.

Back in piip-piip-pi-pi-piip days it was really hard for me to understand why Ring Tones were such a hit. Expensive, short and low quality - didn't sound like a good deal to me. Now as sound quality gets better and better it becomes more reasonable to buy a Ring Tone. Man, it still makes me wonder how one can buy a Ring Tone of a few seconds that costs an equivalent price of a full song, but luckily everything just doesn't need to make sense. And after a short brainstorming (today it is the First of May celebration in Finland, using brains isn't the most clever thing to do...;) it starts to make more sense. For me the success of Ring Tones emphasizes how mobile phones are actually a way for personal expression. From the beginning of the mobile revolution, personalization has hugely helped the development of cellular to leap forward, sometimes even more than the technology innovations. Remember those first Nokia color covers? Or what happened with the first camera phones? You took a picture and made it as wallpaper for your phone. And how about all these nice mobile phone charms?

Usability of Ring Tones is quite a hazy area. Most of them are not very recognizable but still it doesn't matter so much - what does matter is your emotional attachment to a particular Ring Tone. If you grew up with AC/DC, it's obvious that Thunderstruck will make your "cocktail party" effect work better than Mozart's Requiem. And vice versa. As it's important to keep Ring Tones usable - you can read many good ideas about how to create a cool S60 Ring Tone from this Ring Tone Guideline - it's even more important to make a user feel good. For example, my mother really started to use her phone after she realized that this new phone actually plays her favorite song every time it ring's (it was a part of my big "do-not-fear-the-mighty-phone"-campaign). And suddenly, all new calendars, to-do's and MMS's made sense to her. It's not about technological innovations, it's about breaking the barrier with human and technology. Ring Tones are one sophisticated way to make people feel safe with new stuff. Ring Tones give users experiences!

But still it feels weird, that if you want to make music that sells, you will have a better chance with Ring Tones than with any other form of music. Do I need to start to sell my synthesizer rig?

Adobe Photoshop, S60 Themes and Creativity

Upside: this text includes new stuff to help some potential Theme developers be more creative than ever. Downside: creativity is not included.

It's a well known fact that you can create 100% customized look & feel for your S60 through Themes. They can be really beautiful and expressive and, at the same time, they can be simply too-hard-to-use. This hard-to-useness is mostly a result of forgetting a few simple rules. Achieving beauty without the beast is a designer’s daily challenge--some can do it, others just can't, while many could. I've been wondering for a couple of years why most Themes make me basically sick. Let’s face it, 70% of current themes actually incur some physical damage to my body. I really would like to offer some examples, but you know, that wouldn't be very constructive.

Yes, I’m provocative. And yes, I think I have the answer...which I will divide into forthcoming topics. But, in general, one of the reasons is that Themes are still penetrating into top-designers day-to-day life. There is lot's of experience and talent for other themes and skins but you can't see clearly in S60 Themes yet. It's something like mobile advertising, every creative person talks about it but most of them haven't done any actual projects. This may be because there isn't enough demand and/or it hasn't matured enough.

But it's getting there, and fast. Tools for S60 Theme developers are now becoming really cool and effective;­ trust me. ­ There's even some unique support from the Nokia side. For example, this brand new Adobe Photoshop template can be useful for many of you with lot's of creativity but no will or time to spend learning a quite complex method of creating Themes. With this file you can start experimenting with Theme creation even if you are not using a PC (yes, I know may Mac users who would love to work out couple of cool Themes). If you have ideas to make it better, just post them here.

What do you think, what is status of S60 Themes today? If you know of any excellent theme designs, post the link as a comment. I know a couple of wonderful ones but I hope someone out there will be the first to contribute. Feel free to show your own stuff;)