This year : an experiment with an iOS device

I have used a number of iOS devices, but have never owned one, and never used one on a daily basis.

Enter iPod touch 5g (16gb model).




Lumia 800 and iPod Touch: going to use both on daily basis.

Now along with my two year old Lumia 800, the iPod will be my companion daily driver device. Being only 86 grams this is a sweet little pocket friendly device and compliments my Lumia in every way.

Let us see how this combination goes :)
 

Microsoft buying Nokia, is a bit emotional

 

My Nokia Lumia 800. Never going to sell it.

 

 

I love Nokia, the brand, the company and the people there that make such great devices. I love Windows Phone for a fresh new perspective on the mobile UI design. But now Nokia being brought by Microsoft is not exactly what I would have wanted, though business wise it makes absolute sense.

Sigh. 

Irrespective of what would be my next phone (if any), my current phone (the iconic Nokia Lumia 800) is going to be preserved with me, till I am in this physical world. So much for brand loyalty, I think is okay ;)

 

Trying my SLR attachment lenses with Lumia 800

About an year ago I had purchased a set of attachment lenses for my Canon 1000D from EBay. These were kind of very cheap replacement for doing some extreme macro shots, as the actual macro lenses from Canon were way too expensive and I simply could not afford to buy them. The cheap replacements turned out to be ok (see one such shot of pollens here http://www.flickr.com/photos/tovganesh/sets/72157628049776643/). But over time I realized that the color reproduction was poor in low light, more over the field of view was extremely narrow. Further, it was quite a task to screw these attachments to the lens only to discover that the subjects have moved away.

 

So when couple of snails visited to my backyard today, I decided to experiment a bit. And today being a bit sunny day helped. Here are some of the shots taken on my Canon 1000D.

 

Shots of 'mother' snail. Top one via normal lens, bottom one using additional attachment lens. Both shot using my Canon 1000D.

 

 

The 'baby' snail. Shot using additional lens attachment on Canon 1000D.

 

 

'mother' snail, shot using normal lens of Canon 1000D.

 

Now snails are very interesting creatures to watch when the crawl by, and my dad wanted me to record a video. My Canon 1000D, though pretty good at photography, doesn't have video recording. This is where my Lumia 800 chips in, which can take pretty good 720p videos. Initial shot was pretty ok. But then it clicked: how about just placing the SLR attachment lenses on top of the Lumia, hold it by hand and shoot?

 

Simple placement of SLR attachment lenses on Lumia 800, and just hold the lens while shooting.

 

 

Surprisingly, it worked out pretty nice. See the video below to get an idea of the additional zoom offered.

 

 

 

So it turned out to be my "jugaad zoom" for my Lumia 800 ;) I will experiment more with "jugaad zoom" till I can get hold of Lumia 1020 or a higher version of that :P

 

In any case, now I will more often than not be using these lens attachments.

 

 

Random thoughts: 24hours without Nokia Lumia

Last week, I had to visit some 'high security zone' where no communication device is allowed in the premises. So I decided to shutoff my Lumia for 24 hours (of the grid) and use another basic Nokia device: the 1280 (which is usually used by my parents), while commuting from and to this high security place. Before going into this place though, I had to hand over my Nokia 1280 to a colleague, who himself was carrying a Lumia 710. That Lumia device and the Nokia Drive were extremely useful to get to many places that day, but essentially for me, I was completely free from grid and my constant companion device. In the retrospect, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and felt no urge what-so-ever of my missing Lumia 800, partly because my colleague was anyway using one when it was needed.

During this off-grid time, it was fun observing how radically different the UI paradigms of Nokia Lumia and Nokia 1280 are. While Nokia 1280 is one of the most basic phones available (monochrome screen), Nokia Lumia 800 is one of the Nokia's flagship smartphones running Windows Phone OS. A while ago, I had written an article on Kosh (building a mobile user experience for myself, part I : http://tovganesh.blogspot.in/2012/01/kosh-building-mobile-user-experience.html ), where I had written about how unintuitive it is to use the most basic function expected form a phone : to make a phone call; on all of the smartphone interfaces available today. I have time and again noticed this with my parents: they never got around being comfortable using Android (even when I had put the contacts on the home screen), they are somewhat comfortable with using my Lumia 800 (probably because of the bigger screen, again pinned contacts are needed, the phone app still looks a bit unintuitive), but they are very comfortable and happy to use Nokia 1280. The phone does one thing extremely correct : make and receive phone calls. When making the phone call, you just need to press the numbers using the keypad and click the call button done. For Lumia, you need to open the phone app and then key in the numbers, so is true for any other smartphone OS. This in itself is a major roadblock. Take the other case: receive phone call. On Nokia 1280, you just need to press the receive button and bingo, start talking. On most smartphone (including Lumia), you have to use some kind of a swipe gesture. These gestures may be so intuitive and cool for most of us (they certainly are for me and I feel comfortable using them), but with my parents this is just a burden. For this is more complex than just clicking a button or lifting the receiver of the landline. In fact, my parents are much more comfortable with landline than the mobile phone. Surely there is a lot of scope for improving the user experience of mobile communication devices.

That brings me to the UI paradigm used in new Asha touch series phones (Asha 305 and Asha 311): the three screens and the drop down. One of these screens is actually the phone app, which is also accessible from the drop down menu. This is so close to what I had enlisted in the Kosh UI design : things like phone (and for that matter any other form of communication) should be easily accessible at any point in time of using the device. To some extent this is what Windows Phone with its Live Tiles help to bring in, but again stop short of integrating other elements like the ones available with the new Asha touch OS. (PS: Just for a thought, I think, the Smarterphone acquisition http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/52030-nokia-nabs-another-mobile-os-buys-smarterphone, played a great role is a substantial transformation of the S40 OS in just a very short period of time).

3dcam script app is live on Windows Phone Marketplace

To download search for '3dcam' in the Marketplace, or use the link (http://www.windowsphone.com/en-IN/apps/50758998-0b2c-4d70-ad02-5326823cc783). You might have to check if it is available in your countries marketplace, although I have opted for worldwide publication.

The 3dcam app is actually a very simple script written using TouchDevelop and is packaged as an app using the tools at touchdevelop.com. I had earlier written a blogpost on the script itself (http://tovganesh.blogspot.in/2012/02/fun-with-3d-anaglyphs-touchdevelop-and.html)

The app is absolutely free (and no ads), and depending on interest I will keep adding and improving this script app in my free time. Enjoy!

(Obligatory Note: This is a personal project, and not connected to my current employer)

Apps I use on my Nokia Lumia

Once in a while a device comes in that you just love, and makes you feel special. Nokia Lumia 800, for me, has been just that. It is simply the most beautiful piece of electronic craft made. And it has been about five months that I have been using this device. So, this is probably good time to give you an idea of the apps that I use on my Lumia device on day-to-day basis.

OS Apps

Now usually one would forget about these ‘Apps’, but these are actually the apps we use most on daily basis. The phone app, the contacts app (people’s hub), the calendar app, the e-mail app (linked mail-box) and browser app (IE 9) are the ones that I use the most. And I would safely guess that this is the case with most. Naturally, using these apps built into the OS is the first hand experience that you would get of any platform. And I must say that the experience here is absolutely premium, perfect and pleasing.

The second set of OS apps, that I use less regularly are: music hub (Zune and others), picture hub (camera app and others) and of-course the office hub (more on this later in the post). I am very much pleased with the design of music hub, but at the same time miss some important things: An equalizer and ability to create on-device playlists. The camera is good, but the app asks for more usability: the controls are simply not easily accessible. I would, in fact, call out on camera app and make it standout as an outlier in the whole of the Metrofied design world of Windows Phone. It needs a serious re-design.

Productivity

I love OneNote. And I use it extensively. To have it exclusively available in Office Hub was one of the prime reasons for me to choose Windows Phone 7 over other platforms. Though OneNote is quite well done in its mobile version, there are some of the things I miss : save web clip, insert video clip; stuff that I need to get my work done. I do use other Apps: Word and PowerPoint, Evernote, Adobe reader, kindle reader and the amazing offline Dictionary.com app, PC Remote Pro and SSH Client Pro, handyscan. Apart from these I also regularly use Skype, the Weather app and the World time app all of which are well designed and very useful for me. Intermittently, I use the Sports tracker to see how much of my walking/cycling skills have improved  

Development

Not much to say here except to say that I just love the concept of TouchDevelop. There is nothing on other platforms that brings back the joy of programming the way TouchDevelop does. And that too, you just need your smartphone for your perfect program. Although, I would entirely leave it to you, if you actually want to take up coding. Although, if you ever want to give it a try, TouchDevelop will be a no barrier fun programming experience. To see the ‘scripps’ (script apps, the term I just coined ) I have written visit: https://www.touchdevelop.com/wblh

Photography

As I said before, I simply don't like the inbuilt camera interface. There is a lot to be improved here. Hopefully Nokia can do something about it. In the meantime though, there are some excellent photo editing apps that I regularly use: Nokia Creative studio, Thumba photo editor, InstaCam and PhotoFunia. I also regularly use Flickr to upload my photos.

Video

The inbuilt cam-coder is good enough. What is missing however is a good in device movie editor like Windows moviemaker. This is very much desired if we are to be able to post edited videos on social media. Without this, strangely, the so-called social features of Windows Phone are incomplete.

Games

Before I got my Nokia Lumia, I hardly used to play games. But this Windows Phone hooked me to many games. And, no, Angry Birds is not one of them (though I have it installed on my phone anyways). The games I love most are: Wordament, Shuffle Party, Breeze and occasionally Chess4All and Packman 7. The Xbox integration seems also to be well done, although I personally don't use one.

Social

For Twitter and Facebook, I simply use the People’s Hub. With groups and contact live tiles, this is simply what I need to stay connected on these social networks. There are official apps for Twitter and Facebook, but I simply do not feel the need for them, at least for now. I also use Foursquare and LinkedIn app which are far superior in design and usability when compared to other platforms.

The Special Nokia Apps

I regularly use Nokia Maps and Nokia Transport. Nokia Drive is also used occasionally. All these apps are exceptionally useful and are simply not available on other platforms; for that matter even WP7 phones from other manufactures. This was also one of the reasons I chose to get a Lumia device when switching over to WP7.

Music and Instruments

I love to hear instrumentals and especially Indian classical. Zune, with music got from flipkart does the job for me. I occasionally use the inbuilt radio app, the TuneIn Radio (for BBC), SoundHound and PrimeTube (for Youtube). I also love fiddling around with instruments so I use PianoPhone 7, Honey Guitar, Drum Kit and Synth Free. Hopefully, one day, I can create something interesting like this:

Metro : Track created using free Windows Phone apps

Local Apps

These are apps that are probably of relevance to only Indian users. I regularly use Zomato (the design is just too buttery and the operation smooth) and occasionally Flipkart, ebay India and IndianRail app.

Misc.

Some of the apps that I don’t regularly use but are quite handy and sometimes just fun: Flashligh X, SkyDrive (I use office hub integration), Google search app, Microsoft Academic Search, Face Swap and Face Mask, Fantasia Painter Free, Function Plotter and Jack of Tools.

Endnote:

1) A lot of people crib about windows phone not having enough apps. After using Nokia Lumia for about five months, I can surely say that windows phone is not short of quality apps that you will *actually use*.

2) Two things I miss is official Google Maps and GTalk app. While there are alternative third party apps, they are not exactly of great quality. While Nokia maps can be any day be substituted for Google Maps, GTalk integration to People’s Hub would be great.

3) All icons used here are owned by respective owners of the apps and are reproduced here for information purpose only.