By Erik Starck | Published: October 16th, 2009
More OpenGL ES goodies in this video interview with Gordon MacLachlan from Imagination Technologies. The interview is done by Albin Olofsson, Tools Manager at the Sony Ericsson Developer World.
The interview includes:
Enjoy:
By Erik Starck | Published: October 16th, 2009
The good folks over at symbian.org just published a blog post on their blog about our presence at the SEE 09. Some quotes:
Sony Ericsson will be showing the new Satio™ phone (above – which is now available for retail); running speed-meeting sessions for developers and be hosting a workshop entitled Shortening the path from ‘Code to Cash’, as well as taking part in the Wednesday panel discussion ‘Open Innovation, The Collaborative Evolution of Symbian’.
More here.
Erik Starck
Community Manager, Developer World
By Erik Starck | Published: September 1st, 2009
Apart from this blog, which is about the Sony Ericsson developer community, there are also a few people from within Sony Ericsson with their own blogs.
Yours truly recently asked the question: what’s the dream mobile for developers?
Nicklas Ekstrand wrote a good post about Java ME memory management and changes done in JP8.5.
From our US office, Andrew Braun asks the question, should you strive for building a mobile killer application?
Finally, Andreas Bexell is raising an important issue regarding development tools for emerging markets.
Feel free to join us in the discussion!
Erik Starck
Community Manager
By Erik Starck | Published: August 26th, 2009
Our application store has been open for application submission since July and the first applications have been available on PlayNow™ arena for a couple of weeks.
One of the first applications that went through our submission process was an ebook reader from GoSpoken. I asked Rebecca Williams at GoSpoken a few questions about their experiences as a mobile application development company and about selling their Michael Jackson ebook on the Sony Ericsson application shop, PlayNow™ arena.
Developer World: Tell us a little about your company and the application you submitted?
Rebecca Williams: The idea of GoSpoken is to read or listen to your favourite books whenever and where ever you are; simply books on the go. We launched GoSpoken last April (08) at the London Book Fair with 8 audio books on our mobile site. Since then we have grown to a catalogue of over 6,000 ebooks and audio books (25,000 by the end of the year) for download direct to mobile including bestselling authors such as Stephen King, James Patterson and Sophie Kinsella. Bestselling author and ex SAS operative Andy McNab is an enthusiastic business partner and last year Lord Ashcroft’s investment companies invested in GoSpoken to allow us to expand into new territories.
The app we have live on Fun & downloads and PlayNow™ arena is our ebook reader which downloads onto any JAVA-enabled handset. Each book comes with its own reader which means you don’t need to download the ereader and then the content. It comes all at once so you have quick and easy access to your content.
DW: What was your biggest challenges when developing the app? Any advice to other developers who’s thinking about selling an application?
RW: The biggest challenge was to create an ebook reader which serves many handsets whilst being easy to use. We speak to our customers as much as possible to understand how we can improve it and we are constantly developing it from their feedback. I personally love the night mode (white text on black background) which means I can read in bed at night without waking my husband! My advice to other developers is; whatever the application it must be easy to use or you will turn customers off very quickly.
DW: What can be improved from our part when it comes to selling and developing the application? Any feedback to Sony Ericsson?
RW: We have a great relationship with Sony Ericsson and the process of going live on your platform has been quick and painless. We are already talking about how we can best promote books to your customers, particularly on your large screen handsets which are ideal for reading books, and offer our full catalogue rather than selected titles; so watch this space!
It would be great to have access to real time reporting and be able to pre-load new handsets with free books or exclusive content.
Thanks, Rebecca, and good luck with your application!
Erik Starck
Community Manager, Developer World
By Erik Starck | Published: August 21st, 2009
This blog is about the community around Sony Ericsson development. This time we’re meeting Richard Spence (user bluetrail in the forums) to talk about the future of Java ME.
Developer World: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company. What do you do? Who’s your customers?
Richard Spence: My company is called Bluetrail and we have been developing mobile applications since 2001. Along the way we have had a go at Windows mobile, Java Me and Android.
I get my hands dirty with most things from sales to design, coding and emptying the ashtrays 
We have created a number of mobile systems for Red Bull and some other clients I am not a liberty to mention because of NDAs
Over the last 2 years we have focused our efforts on creating a data capture product for mobile phones called Swift. This is sold in the UK and Europe by our partner company Matador Intelligence. More information and idea of what clients are using it can be found here.
DW: What’s your view on the Java ME market? What strengths and weaknesses does the platform have? What’s your view on the future of Java ME?
RS: The strength of the platform are the installed base – this represents a huge opportunity.
The weaknesses are legion. Fragmentation, signing, where the apps get installed on the device, differences between operators …. it goes on and on.
The tech community can get too obsessed with the iphone when the vast vast majority of users have Java ME enabled devices. When we first started the restrictions on the environment were horrible but now devices (particularly sonys I might add) can handle large Jar files and are very well behaved. Java ME with the manufacturers help still enter the main stream.
DW: What would you like to see from Sony Ericsson that makes your life as a mobile developer easier?
RS: What would be great would be more tools to overcome the issues above.
Not just tools from Sony for Sony phones but a collective effort from a number of manufacturers. Getting behind the LWUIT project would be a good start.
Thanks, Richard! There’s still a future for Java ME after all, it seems.
What’s your view on the future of Java ME? Tell us!
Erik Starck
Community Manager, Developer World
By Erik Starck | Published: July 14th, 2009
I’ve been getting reports from people trying to use our forum that sometimes posting doesn’t work. We haven’t been able to reproduce these problems so if you run into problem with posting, please tell us. Write a comment below describing the problem, what browser you’re using and what operating system. Thanks!
Erik Starck
Community Manager
By Erik Starck | Published: June 23rd, 2009
Sony Ericsson Labs was recently opened to the public. Labs is a somewhat new direction for Sony Ericsson, showing stuff that’s still in beta and may in some cases never appear anywhere else. To tell us a bit more about Sony Ericsson Labs I asked one of the main drivers behind the project, Thomas Bailey, a few questions.
Developer World: How did Labs come about? Tell us a little bit of the history behind the site.
Thomas Bailey: We wanted to drive technology awareness and interest from a different direction by sharing the various prototypes we create. In addition we wanted to join the conversation with anyone interested in helping shape future applications and services.
The project was about 8~months since we are quite distributed but the actual site design and implementation was done in less than 2 months. We made use of Drupal with an emphasis on configuration rather than writing of new modules with an initial showing at JavaOne 2009. (DW note: the site was built by NodeOne, you can read their summary of building Labs here.)
Sony Ericsson Labs is somewhat different in that we launch it in a “as is” state and will work on it in the open. My hope is that Sony Ericsson Labs can be one way to be more personal in how we communicate – blogs, Twitter, real names and faces etc.
DW: Where do you see it going? What’s the future of Labs?
TB: If I quote Christoper David, Head of Developer and Partner Engagement, during our recent JavaOne 2009 keynote:
“We are putting the platform out there for you guys to create really innovative applications”.
I would like Sony Ericsson Labs to become a forum for third-party developers to showcase this innovation built upon Sony Ericsson platforms and supported technologies.
DW: Any application or type of application you would like to see on Labs?
TB: I think vertical applications that do simple things really well are going to be well received – an example might an application that uses your location to give you a weather forecast where you are for the week. The emphasis needs to be on the user experience and making the most of the supporting technology, such as Project Capuchin or JavaFx together with accelerometers and location-based services.
So, while Labs is starting out as a display of our internal beta projects, in the future we will open up for external developers as well. That’s a very good reason for you to put the Labs RSS feed in your favorite reader and follow the http://www.twitter.com/selabs Twitter-account, don’t you think?
By Erik Starck | Published: June 4th, 2009
We’ve recently added a new section to Developer World: The Sony Ericsson Ericsson UI Style Guidelines. This section is all about the user experience of mobile applications. From our news release about the guidelines:
This new Developer World web section is designed as a source of best practice and inspiration, for novice and experienced designers and developers, and is divided into three sections – UI Philosophy, UI Rulebook and UI Component Catalog.
I asked Sofia Carlander from our User Experience Creative Design Center a few questions about the guidelines.
Developer World: Is this the same guidelines used by Sony Ericsson internally?
Sofia: Yes it is.
DW: Tell us about the UI Components catalog. Can anyone use these components in their own application?
Sofia: Yes, anyone can download them from the Developer World Flash Lite site as soon as they gets published later in June.
DW: What’s the most important things to consider when designing a mobile UI?
Sofia: The most important thing when designing a mobile UI is to have a clear goal of the user experience of the application. Consider who you are developing for and why they should use it. Prioritize the top use cases and utilize the mobility of the device.
We think that using Flash Lite for building your user interface makes it much easier to make a good user experience compared to using Java only. Sharing our UI Guidelines and the upcoming UI Components is a way for us to help you make the best out of our phones. As always, we appreciate feedback! Do you agree with us? What can we do better? Tell us!
Erik Starck
Community Manager
By Erik Starck | Published: May 20th, 2009
Welcome to the Developer World blog at Sony Ericsson!
This is the new home for our blogs. They used to be located here but now we have a nice and shiny Wordpress installation and a new URL: blogs.sonyericsson.com/developerworld. Much easier to find!
This is sort of a new start for us when it comes to blogging and we will grow the number of blogs in the near future. As of now, you can start following one of our developers, Erik Hellman, who will be blogging from the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Erik has managed to have no less than 3 talks accepted to the conference, so he will have a busy week for sure. Do try to catch him or someone else in our team at the Sony Ericsson booth at the conference. We are interested to hear what you as a developer think we can do better. Tell us!
We’re really looking forward to (re)start blogging! This will be fun.
Oh, I almost forgot. We also have a Twitter feed. Follow us at http://twitter.com/SonyEricssonDev.
Erik Starck
Community Manager, Developer World