S60 Open to new features

Well, it would be a welcome addition to the existing line of 3rd Edition phones, but i am not pretty happy with the RAM usage of the web browsers.

How would be the RAM requirements of Widsets? Will the be accessed through a centralised Widsets manager or they can be individually run from anywhere?

I've always thought of widgets as glorified status indicators or utilities. On a PC/Mac I find they are most useful if they can be embedded into the desktop background or task bar / dock so that they are always visible. That way I can see at a glance what the weather is, what the latest headlines are, what my CPU load is, etc. etc.

Coming from that point of view I would have expected widgets on a phone to be something that could be embedded on the idle screen (so that I can see several at a glance whenever I take the phone out of my pocket). However, judging by the screenshots I've seen so far the S60 widgets are displayed in an app of some sort and only one on the screen at one time.

Therefore I'd like to know:

• Is integreation with the Actice Idle screen possible or planned?
• Can several widgets be displayed at once?

Finally a random suggestion: On clamshell phones with outer displays it would be neat if a widget could be set to run on the outter screen!

I second the integration to active idle etc things. I don't think I'd ever use a widget that I have to run from application list or something that hard. Instead, if they had an icon and a possibility to show popups on top of other apps it would be very interesting.

And naturally this kind of thing should be possible for all applications, not just widgets. And at this moment there doesn't seem to be any way to add your app to active idle :P

Tommi, first off, thanks for doing this. I think alot of people were confused with the announcement, and it's awesome that Ganesh is volunteering to clear up any questions, and you for hosting it. Again, part of the reason I love S60 is the community.

A little clarification on my question. I realize that this is not *actually* Widsets being built into the OS, it was more figuratively.

I.e. Let's assume I HAVE an FP2 device later this year. What would be the difference in me loading up Widsets on it, and having the built-in Widgets (other than speed/quickness)?? From what I could gather from everything, they're 2 different things, but more competitors, really, than anything else.

Posted by: Ricky Cadden | April 18, 2007 04:49 PM

Hi Tommy,

It's a long time since I commented here but there I am again.

This one is not a specific question for Ganesh but rather more general view at S60 as a development platform.

I think that one of the real question that hides behind all the frustration expressed after the widget announcement is:

do we really need yet another incompatible-with-everything-else "full of potential" platform when we already have so many existing platforms which potential have not yet been exploited?
Is it really necessary and beneficial to try to attract every Joe Public who knows a bit of HTML and javascript to create applications for S60 or wouldn't it be better to try and attract more professional and advanced amateur developers to the S60 platform?
Is this widget platform purely a marketing ploy in order to be able to stick a "Web 2.0 compatible" sticker on every S60 phone box or is it really driven with the end-user benefit in mind?

I do not have clear cut answers to these questions.

Not that long ago, Python was released for S60 3rd eidtion and many people saw a lot of potential in this new platform as it would allow a lot more developers to develop full fledge applications in a fraction of the time as it would take them to develop them in Symbian C++. Where did all this potential go? Nowhere.

A bit before that, Nokia released the Active Standby Screen and many people saw a lot of potential in this new plugin architecture as demonstrated by Nokia's default plugins (Messaging, Calendar, Music player, wifi coverage...). Where did all this potential go? Nowhere because the SDK allowing third party developers to create their own plugins has never been released (not that Nokia ever said that there would be an SDK but it's obvious that there should be one).

A long time ago, Symbian and Nokia released the Symbian and S60 SDK and many people saw a lot of potential in this new open platform. Where did this potential go? Well, somewhere. But, and even Nokia agrees on that, no far away enough. Why? Loads of reasons of course from the appalling documentation to the almost complete lack of books on the topic to the lack of proper development tools (I know, Nokia is working on this one) to the lack of proper usenet newsgroups for developers support (come on, a web browser-based support newsgroup for developers, you've got to be kidding me!), etc, etc. Oh, yeah, and where is the .NET style wrapper API (or even full blown .NET compact framework implementation) that would make S60 development so much more affordable for many of us?

I'm not gonna talk about OPL.

I guess that I could summarize all that in 2 questions:
- What makes widgets so much better than everything else to justify spending so much time building a widget platform and all that goes around it instead of capitalizing on the existing platforms that still have an awful lot of potential in them?

- Are widgets going to suffer the same fate as all the other platforms (poor documentation, poor development tools, pretty much abandoned after a little while) or is Nokia committed to provide top-class support and tools to widget developers for the foreseeable future?

Sorry, it's Tommi not Tommy (told you it's been a long time since I came here)

Ciao

any intergration/communication between Widgets/Web Runtime and Flash Lite?

Alessandro

Ciao

any integration/communication between Widgets/Web Runtime and Flash Lite?

Alessandro

Indeed the announcement was confusing (and I made a mistake in my blog posting yesterday, http://www.s60tips.com/2007/04/17/widsets-or-widgets/). I agree with Ricky, why we need two "widgets"?

I am also interested to know about Platform Security related issue. Do S60 widgets need to be signed? If yes, how will the signing be done? If no, will the widgets pop-up warning messages each we want to access certain features?

I have played a little bit with Reuters Enhanced Mobile Service. It keeps asking me for Access Point each time I want to access something. It's quite annoying.

Man, i dont get it with Nokia. Where is the Web Browser Update! Gonna switch to Winmobile again with the next phone ...

To follow up on the first comments regarding integration with the active idle, I agree with the comment that a widget is most useful when on the idle screen with multiple active at any one time. I have been using a product by Onskreen that provides this pretty well already on my S60 device.

However, they haven't yet opened up their APIs, so I am curious if the S60 widget platform will integrate with the idle screen?

What would be the difference in me loading up Widsets on it, and having the built-in Widgets

Widsets are basically just RSS feeds (plus there are a couple of "widsets" with more functionality), these widgets can have anything you want and can do via Javascript, AJAX etc (if I have understood correctly).

So one is an over-hyped news reader and the other is a whole development platform (a little over- and understated, but you get the picture).

Hello, just to make sure I am reading this correctly, the answers will come to this forum right?

I would like to suggest some sort of general Q&A topic for the whole S60 team which would be used for constructive technical questions and comments... What do you think? Is that also doable?

Some questions for the new topic:
1. What is the limit for the 4 Gb memory cards? (why the large disk works with N91?)

2. Stereo bluetooth, Bluetooh 1.2 supports A2DP in theory why not in S60? (why 2.0 needed?)

3. Is this really a hardware issue or mostly politics that Feature Packs are not upgradable? (I read your topic, but let's get serious in light of the E90...) How about the E90? That will be FP1 so it will not support the "hot Widgets"?

etc...

Thanks & Regards!
Aron

> the answers will come to this forum right?

Yep. I just consolidated the list of questions to Ganesh. I believe he'll reply quite soon, although I know he's a busy guy...

> I would like to suggest some sort of general Q&A topic

Good idea! Any ideas how to do that in practice?

>Yep. I just consolidated the list of questions >to Ganesh. I believe he'll reply quite soon, >although I know he's a busy guy...

Great news! Thank You for the clarification!

>> I would like to suggest some sort of general Q&A topic

>Good idea! Any ideas how to do that in practice?

Good question! :-) I see three different approaches which could be effective.

1. You have once asked your readers to propose topics for blogging. As this place is about blogging I would see this as a good way to ask questions. In this case there should be a "Blog" about topics for blogging. Based on suggestions You S60 guys could get ideas for blogging and we would get answers... You made the request for blogging ideas in one of your blog entries. I think this Q&A blog idea collection should be a separate "forum".

2. Second and simplest idea is to just run a forum, much like your blogs, or maybe a little more forum like. (to easily follow discussion lines)

3. Complex stuff (requires much effort and cost, and there is a great risk that it will not catch on fire like it "should") which could be integrated to your internal "ticketing" and debugging system.
This could be a "developer & super user" forum with dedicated topics, areas, expert responsibilities. This could be used for quality management (e.g.: opening tickets by users and tracking them down by s60 developers) and knowledge management purposes too.

In my opinion option 1 or 2 are realistic. For No 3 you would need to create a dedicated "task force" and the ROI is a bit questionable. However if No. 3 works it could become a great way to reinforce the S60 "community".

What do You think? No 1. - The blog for blog topics, or No. 2. Web forum about S60 at the S60 site with answers from the S60 fellows...???

Or something else...?

Regards!
Aron

Symbiatch, Viocc -- excellent points, and though I am a "company man", I also question why we don't open up the active idle screen for customization. It seems that we could still maintain screen real estate control by confining the layout area of a widget that runs in active idle, yet be able to create unique customizations of the idle screen to better serve whatever the need of the user - be it myspace updates, linkedin connections, traffic updates, or the all-too-old weather widget.

My challenge to Vioccc and Symbiatch are, given that operators and Nokia both want to have (too much, arguably) control over the user experience, and don't want to become just an access technology, how would you propose we balance the fine line between offering operator and Nokia's brand needs, and the free-and-flexible world of widgets on active idle?

Thank you all for the comments. I have been on road for the last 2 weeks. first stop SFO where we launched widgets and then in Madrid at S60 Summit.

I wanted to drop a note to thank you and inform you that I will soon respond as I'm on vacation now.

Just a quick note: Launch has been very well received. It is a natural next step and widgets & Web Run-Time enables rapid development of apps & services for mobile.

In reply to Markus Ahonen re The Active Idle screen.
I have been working with professional application development on mobile phones for a number of years. One of the main problems we have is that 3rd party applications are not running as first class passengers, not even second class. The app gets installed down in a folder somewhere and its often not even possible to create a shortcut to it.
If you look at the old Palm Pilot, nearly all people that bought it had one specific 3rd party application that was the main reason for using the device. Often some specialized niche app that could not be developed by the manufacturer.

People don't buy a smartphone for just calling and sending text messages. They buy a smartphone because it is a small computer. People that use smartphones "personalize" their phones with life hacks (features and applications), not with ringtones and replacable covers. When a person buy a $700 device he or she should be able to create the life hacks that makes the phone really usable to them. And I frankly don't think neither the manufacturer not the operator has a moral right to keep the idle screen for their own marketing purpose.

Just to improve the list of interesting questions, and to demonstrate the need for an advanced technical session about S60:

Are You Gentlemen considering to add SDHC support to upcoming firmware upgrades, so we can buy new SDHC cards starting at 4 Gb?
Regards: Aron

hello i just had some widget concerning questions.

is there a fixed size for widgets in general?
is it possible to use flash lite content?
is it possible to read out gprs data into the widget?
can widgets get access to other mobile applications?

thanks for your support!! :)

Allowing user to add Widget to Active, Idle screens is a must. But here is what is even more important: SMS message with a link to the specific Widget. This way user does not need to spend time looking for a widget - just click on the link in SMS message. See how Funambol push mail is making use of this approach. This is the way to push any data to the widget without wasting network and battery juice on polling.
Come to think of it - a link (to a locally installed Widget) in an HTML page would be very useful too. May be this can be done using widget:// schema?

Hello!
How to maximize a widget?
So, to open it full screen.
Thanks.

Are we still waiting for answers ?

> Are we still waiting for answers ?

Yes. My sincere apologies.

No problem, thanks for update :-)

Some more questions:
What is the difference between
symbian 9.1 and 9.1a?
I have noticed that my new E61i handles the memory much better than my E70. The E61i can run for days without rebooting and has 20 megs of system RAM after two days, while my E70 with v3.x firmware and extensive usage, has to be rebooted every day because memory falls to 11-12 megs which makes browsing impossible.

On the web I read that the operating system of the E70 is symbian 9.1 while the E61i has 9.1a ...

I also noticed that the firmware numbering of the E61 and the E70 for their v3.x firmware is identical, all 8 digits. So I was wondering: Does the E70 and E61 have identical software for v3 firmware?
If so, could we get the firmware of the E61i running on the E70 so we would have that wonderful memory handling there too?

Is that differce related to the difference between symbian 9.1 and 9.1a?

would that solve the browser memory handling issues?
T.: Aron

P.s.:one thing I like better in the E70 is the little blue "Motif like" popup window "copied" and "paste". It feels like unix... ;-)

I like better in the E70 too

Any news?

Is there any update?

No. This thread died. Sorry.