No updates ?

What is your first thinking when you visit a company website that has not been updated for 6 months ? a year ?

I guess I do think that the company is out of business or not running that well…

I ended up this morning on mob5.com website and the latest news is dated early december when they announced that they will provide ShotCode for everyone. That’s nine months ago… immediately after thinking that using a proprietary format for 2 code was their problem more than mine I did think that since nothing happened for 8 months they must have run out of business. Probably not… but it happens every day (mob5.com was just an example).

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i-nigma, yet another mobilecode reader

i-nigmaWhen testing Nokia N95, I found out on Nokia mobilecode website that a new reader has poped up on the market: i-nigma. It is developped by 3G Vision which is also Kaywa Reader provider, so…

I installed the reader and, likewise Kaywa Reader, code detection is much faster than on the Nokia reader. Really really faster and much more user friendly but what the hell is this user interface ? this design ? The whole website and reader is based on this orange and black flame thing (like the logo) which makes me feel 20 to 30 years ago. Has not design evolved since then ? Is that all what they could come up with ? It is so ugly imho that it actually hurts usability.

It seems they are also providing some services after a registration on their website, though none of them seem to be very appealing (creating mobilecode with my friends infos, creating mobilecodes for my bookmarks or creating some notes). Nothing fancy, not even useful. Geez…. what a pitty.

It seems to be another one of this company that has a very good “original” technology but not much ideas around it.

On a positive note I like the mobilecode creator with the code updated as you type the URL. Pretty cool.

iPhone hype sucks but…

iPhone(written some time ago but never published… not sure why! I bumped into it when preparing another iPhone post to come :-)

Like always Apple’s new product get a lot of press and a lot of traction (with a musical, but yes it blends).

Even though it has a full capabilities browser (ie. a browser that can read any webpage, like most “smart”-phone), it still needs a special “web” development to the point that Apple releases some guidelines. As Russell says:

No matter how great a mobile device’s power is and how much resolution it has, we still have to keep the thing in our POCKETS, use it with our FINGERS, and see it with our EYES. This means that there are physical restraints on mobile applications – both normal and web based – which apply no matter what. This is actually why I think the iPhone is so wonderful since it finally proves the point once and for all: Mobile is different.

iPhone might help mobile web development, that’s for the good. For the bad, it would be nice to use standard technology. Apple seems to have created its own subset of CSS to handle graphics on the iPhone.

Interesting reading:
Russell Beattie: i-Dot Thoughts
Vision Mobile: How iPhone is impacting the mobile industry

On vacation

Off for a few days in Italy. Cheers!

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