CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I am looking for clarification as to why there are so many issues and problems with developing for the Maemo 2008 platform.
As a previous Palm user, I was able to do a wide variety of things on my devices. This was even on one device (Sony Clie NX70V) that had half the processing power and a fraction of memory!
Is someone willing to help me understand what an end user needs to know to understand this?
I am not looking for deep explanation, but a general perspective from someone who has developed for both.
thx!

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I think you will have to be way more descriptive. What, specifically, are the problems you would like to discuss? I have not done much work for Palm devices, but I at least made some attempts - had the SDK and all set up. To me it's always been infinitely easier to make Maemo applications.
As you mention power and memory - are you maybe talking about problems with running applications? This again sounds strange to me, if you compare with Palm devices (2KB-12KB heap sizes..).

So, you'll just have to be a bit more specific or it'll be very difficult to comment.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

With PyQt4 development has become quite easy.. whether you're doing it for M2008 or M5 .. both Diablo and Fremantle have PyQt4 bindings thanks to Attila.

I too, would like to know what specifically the problem is?

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

TA-t3:First off, THANK YOU for responding and taking the time!

Let's start with Mypaint as an example. I asked earlier today on that thread about a 2008 version and got the same (for the most part) answer as with other inquiries for this. Thanks to anders_gud for his explanation on this. Other than his explanation, which I still don't understand in terms of the coding terminology, is it possible to create a more stripped down version of this or similar for 2008?

Another seemingly simple thing is the old missing EQ in Maemo mp3 players. There were several in the Palm OS platform to choose from and again for devices much more limited!

I am stuck on the fact that I see lot's of old Palm apps that did a variety of things on what is supposed to be a more archaic platform. Why?

I suspect it is the root drawback of the "open platform": there is no reward for spending energy and time if the end product is given away for free!

I think this is where the iphone and Android platforms have got it going on with the "freemium" model.

Now, if this is NOT the case, I would really like to hear more as to why not...

And thanks again for all of your input here in this community. It is valuable!

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

It looks like you have run into two very specific problems, the complexity of backporting MyPaint (in its current incarnation) from a newer platform to an older one, and the limitation of EQ (limited on Maemo 5 and, as far as I know, entirely missing from Diablo).

This does not indicate a general problem in the development process for Maemo though. I still maintain that it's vastly simpler to develop for Maemo than PalmOS, at least for someone with my background: I'm used to develop for Posix-compatible, Unix-like platforms. I can for the most part develop exactly as I do for my desktops, and, for non-GUI applications, just take whatever I need from the huge pool of existing Debian applications and re-build for Maemo. GUI applications need more work, but, except for some missing pieces the selection of libraries and tools is huge.

As for what will be developed specifically for Maemo (after all, what you want on a mobile device isn't necessarily interesting on a desktop and therefore maybe not already existing): Please note that this is limited by the number of active developers and the time the device has been out. These two numbers alone are vastly smaller than for e.g. iPhone, and probably Android as well. That taken into consideration it looks good to me, we're getting new useful applications every week at least. I just installed a couple of new ones today.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

TA-t3: thanks for the dialogue...

I am starting to see a little of where you are coming from.

One quick related question as to, "we're getting new useful applications every week at least. I just installed a couple of new ones today." Were these n900 or n800 apps?

My issue is with focus of the "community" on the n900. I have no intension of getting one as I am NOT a GSM user. I do, however have an Android phone (Samsung Moment) that I just got prior to Christmas and love it. My two devices complement each other very nicely.

I say I have an "issue" because it seems that many developers have moved on from the n810 to the n900 or more specifically from Diablo to Frementle and are finding many of the same problems they encountered on the previous platform. I make this assumption from all the "whining" of n900 users.

So, all that being said, I would really like to see two apps on my device.

1 An audio editing app. Something beyond the abilities of Wave Edit Pro but simpler than say Adobe Audition or Cool Edit (a fullblown desktop app).

2 An image editing app. Something beyond the abilities of Resco Photo Viewer but simpler than Photoshop. Actually, I would like a layer based graphics creation tool along the lines of Photoshop...

If you aren't aware, I am a media producer; ie video, audio, graphics web... So I am very GUI oriented. I love these devices for what they allow me to do and I always want to push them beyond what an engineer had in mind when developing them;).

Anyway, I hope you get the picture.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I see. The new applications I installed are for the N900. I still use my N800, but there aren't many new applications coming there - that's true. This is often the case with older operating systems. In that sense PalmOS had a much longer legacy, most new applications were still m68k apps that could run on just about anything.

For the existing N800 applications that I sometimes want a fix or update for I have to fix those myself, which I do. I use the original source, fix, rebuild and install. That's for 3party software, of course. I don't have to do this very often though, the last time I did this was to fix a BT problem with Maemo Mapper.

There are probably some developers out there interested in the kind of applications you would like to see, but I'm not sure how many -- I myself wouldn't want to do those on this platform, I prefer desktop-sized screens for those things.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Yeah the problem you're seeing is backporting an app can sometimes be quite complicated - and a lot of people don't want to go through the effort of doing that for a device that is not used by many people anymore. The N8x0 is somewhat of a dying breed.

I personally just barely started using mine again because I prefer my own Pandora Radio client to the Android Pandora client on my G1. There is N8x0 instructions in my links in my sig.

However, what you'll find is that I am not maintaining pianobar in the Diablo repo's simply because pianobar depends on libao which is not on Diablo. Meaning that I would also have to go find and grab libao and re-package that for diablo too. I did find a deb out there in a long-since forgotten repo that I link to for people to use.. and compiled specifically for diablo just to have it functional.. but I don't keep up with it.

So, while my python front-end works perfectly as-is on the N8x0 devices (I use it).. pianobar was a compiled app that does not. Unfortunately due the change in the processor from the N8x0 device to the N900, C++ and compiled apps are not simply portable from one to the other and require maintenance.. Thus.. it's less attractive for developers to be maintaining several builds from several platforms - especially old dying ones.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I see. The new applications I installed are for the N900. I still use my N800, but there aren't many new applications coming there - that's true. This is often the case with older operating systems. In that sense PalmOS had a much longer legacy, most new applications were still m68k apps that could run on just about anything. Again, my point, look at what was done with virtually nothing to work with. This is why I am frustrated when developers tell me no on my request to see things happen on the 2008 OS. That would be like people who developed for Win 3.1 saying that Win XP doesn't have enough power!

For the existing N800 applications that I sometimes want a fix or update for I have to fix those myself, which I do. I use the original source, fix, rebuild and install. That's for 3party software, of course. I don't have to do this very often though, the last time I did this was to fix a BT problem with Maemo Mapper. OK, that ability would be nice to have:)

There are probably some developers out there interested in the kind of applications you would like to see, but I'm not sure how many -- I myself wouldn't want to do those on this platform, I prefer desktop-sized screens for those things. I understand but the popularity of the iphone and recently touch have proven that end users are finally showing a desire for this kind of mobile functionality.

hope the color coding makes sense, your quotes are the magenta, my responses are the green.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Well.. and as I said - if a developer chooses to go the PyQt4 route then no changes are required to their app to work on the N8x0 device. As long as the dependencies are there then you are good to go.

The problem comes in that if it needs a dependency you *don't* have, like mine, then you become SOL because nobody wants to take the time to try and rebuild those dependencies when they aren't their responsibility.

If someone ports a C/C++ app to the N900 they are likely going to tell you "No" when you ask for N8x0 just because that requires them to work in a whole new build environment for something they don't have.

This is why I like coding in Python.. but unfortunately it doesn't help with the dependency situation.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

This might notbe true remember maemo is open about it's problems so everyone can see and disucss them. With closed platforms like palm, iPhone, ms they never mention bugs/faults and issues unless someone exploits them here it is shared so it may appear there are more problems when iPhone or palm probably has just as many issues of different types but just don't tell anyone

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I'll look into playlist.com and see if they have an API to call them directly, in which case I can do a python app that'll work for both..

If they don't - then I'll have to see if there is something similar for linux that can be ported. But again - if it gets to this level, it's going to wholly depend on what dependencies are available for the N900 and N8x0 device.

If neither a Linux app, nor an API exists for Playlist.com.. then not much I can do.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Not unless the developer himself has one.. or there is a financial gain to it. Offering a bounty or reward *may* net some results where simple requests fail.

Please don't underline entire posts.. it's very hard to read.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Hah.. Italics don't work when quoting :D - it all looks the same lol.

If you want to add comments to a quote.. colors are probably your best bet.. but also you don't need to make the underneath body of your post the exact same as your replies above.. usually people can figure it out :).

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Yes.. it is a *a* flaw I see.. but the problem here isn't so much the Open Development as the consumers.

If the consumers of the N8x0 devices were more willing to pay for apps from developers, or at least consistently donate, then more apps would be made for them. Unfortunately, most of the consumers of a device like this want Free Apps.. and as such - when your device isn't the hottest thing on the market you get left behind. Nature of the beast.

I personally have not purchased or bought a single app on my Google G1 phone... I always find free ones. They may not be "open source" free.. but free to me to use.

I have also donated to apps that were free.. although admittedly not as much as I should.

But how many people can actually say they've donated for a Free app? How many people have sent money to Mandrake, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc.. for their work on free operating systems?

There is obviously *some*.. those distro's -do- make money.. but I haven't seen much in the mobile community.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I have never ambitiously developed for Palm devices, but have a few of them still lying around in a drawer. I have read a beginners guide on C++ on these things, and I hated it. I was only 15 or so at the time, but some things stick. :)

I enjoyed it so much more to just whip up a simple interface in glade and write a really short script in python around it for my n800. That was so easy, it's ridiculous. Although I sucked at python, and will likely continue to do so.

That's why my opinion doesn't really count from a developers perspective, but rather from the perspective of a power user playing with his little computer and having a good nerd time. :)

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

@fatalsaint: This is probably a time waster but here goes ;)

I disagree about the consumer being the problem with available apps.

Since the development community sets the standard and has created the open system on their terms, the end user follows and meets the expectation.

The same was true in the Palm world a few years ago. I paid $500 for my Sony Clie (in 2002!) and spent another + or - $300 in apps because there was NO OTHER way to get the apps I WANTED.
Not to mention there were several full fledged corporations (Data-Viz) that saw the opportunity as a revenue stream and FORMALLY went after the market. Due to this, it wasn't uncommon to see apps selling for $24.95 (even though I thought that was high)!

We haven't even brought Windows Mobile into the equation!

Now, the process repeats itself with developers moving to the "Freemium" model with the iPhone and recently Android. The difference between the iPhone platform and Maemo platform is shear volume. The iPhone developers can hit gold if their app takes off, as $1 a piece times a million sales equals an effort well worth their time. This is why the market was flooded with iPhone apps. All of those developers were hoping to "hit the lottery"!

Back to the Palm model: their issue was that there were never enough users to make a volume model work like iPhone. So, they went for what ever the market would bare and sold apps from $10 - $25.

So, as I see it, the "FLAW" is that to be successful in an open platform, it has to be that all the users have the skills to contribute, of which, I am NOT one. And, you can't tell people you are open and free and then turn around and expect to get paid.

The other issue is that there is the old, "You get what you pay for" issue which is in this case, nothing. Most of these apps are NOT of a commercial grade. Many are very much past that and their developers are to be commended for their efforts! For the apps that fall short, if the guy isn't getting paid, their is no incentive to take his project from 80% complete to at least 99% complete and that is where we are at in the case of the n810 falling short. And, I don't blame this on those developers either. This is why I say the MODEL fails. Other than monetary gain (we all have to make a living with our time out the door), EGO would be the secondary motivator.

But, I AM VERY appreciative to those of you willing to put in the effort to make this possible.

Finally, would I have paid full price for my n810 like I did with my Clie? NO WAY! And I probably won't ever do it again with this type of device especially when it comes to the n900. But I am no where near ready to bail out on my NIT yet! Even with the flaws, I use it four to six hours a day.

If only the iPad worked with Flash AND a stylus, it would be the perfect Photoshop and Wacom replacement device via sumopaint.com! But try doing serious Graphic work with your finger...NOT!

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

See and you and me have a fundamental differing of opinion there. The Open model allows for both paid and free apps, and of the free apps - donations.

There still is ways for the consumer to drive people to develop for their platform if they *want* too. They pay for it.

Like you said.. you get what you pay for: If you're not willing to spend a dime on your N800 to get more use out of it.. nobody out here is willing to put their time and effort into making your N800 useful for you.

You have two choices with a device like this: Do it yourself, or pay someone to do it. This is also the same with Android.. however with the iPhone it's harder. Unless you're jailbreaked you need to be an official developer and upload to the app market to be able to use your new app you wrote for yourself.

So really.. the only option there becomes to pay for it. You either pay apple, or you pay a developer.. either way you're paying.

That is why I like and will spend money on devices such as this.. if it gets to the point that I am missing something I want I can do it myself without interference from an overlord.. or having to pay someone.

However, if I was incapable of doing it myself - then I would offer $$ to a developer that could if it was really that important to me. Otherwise.. I go without. That is entirely a personal choice.. and a choice that belongs in the hands of every consumer. Not Apple, Not Google and Not Nokia.

If you put up a thread offering $80-$100 for a new app for the N8x0.. depending on the complexity of the app.. I will bet you get at least some answers. Now.. working out the payment details: half now, half on completion, all on completion, using an escrow, whatever will be between you and the developer to try and avoid anybody getting screwed.

ETA: As an example, my app. I have a link to a donation in my sig that is quite clear - and I know at least 7 (they voted) and I am going to make a conservative guess that at least 10-12 people have used at least one if not both of my apps since I put it up into extras-devel. Also included are a very small number of N8x0 users.

I have not received a dime in donations for it. So here I am, developing apps for a phone I don't even have - spending time and effort merely because I think it's cool to have an app in the Maemo Repo's for the new N900. Do I demand payment from people? No of course not.. am I ungrateful to all the guys that voted for pianobar and haven't paid me? Absolutely not. (In fact I'm grateful that they *voted*.. that seems to be a monster to get votes, and they're free!) I didn't make the app to get rich, i did it because I wanted to.. but that mentality is not going to help people with old devices that nobody owns. People, generally, do not do things for things they don't have for fun. I just happen to be slightly psychotic. If people find the app worth $$ then great, if they don't they don't.. no big deal.

In all fairness I should note that I have received a couple offers of discount coupons for the N900.. unfortunately all of them come with an expiration date: and without getting any actual money to build up to paying even the discounted price I must regretfully decline the offers. But.. to those people I am truly appreciative that they offered.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

fatalsaint:

No differing opinion as I agree with 95% of what you said.

I did not know that the open platform allows for BOTH free and paid apps so that you for that info. As I said earlier, even after a year of use, I am a NEWB here.

Don't misunderstand me as a consumer who has no coding ability what so ever. Remember, I paid for many apps for my Palm OS Sony Clie device through the ORIGINAL app stores PalmGear and Handmark. The difference is there were easy to find and implement ways to get and pay for what app I needed. That isn't available here in the Maemo community. In the downloads page everything is free. If there were paid options, I probably would have opted for a few of those.

I will also say that back in my Palm user days, when I had an issue with a $20 or more app, those developers damn well better have fixed the problem quick or those customers get very irate (myself included) quickly. Again, it was a different expectation. This is why this platform is really more of a Geek centered arena. Since the apps are all free here, who do I complain to if I can't get something working or need help? Ah yes, the community ala you all. This is why I said I really do appreciate what you all have done for this model and community.

In the above post, I did not mean to allude to the fact that the consumer oriented model I spoke of is how it is supposed to be but rather how it is in reality and I didn't create it that way. I just saw it for what it was and followed along like the others because there were no alternatives at the time. Now alternatives are everywhere for the consumer.

The only thing I would now disagree with you on is the low dollar figure you suggested to get some attention on app creation ($80 - $100). I was under the impression it would be several hundred dollars just for starters.

One more thing, just for the record is that I am not a Linux user at all. I have nothing other than my NIT that I know of that is Linux based (Woops, Samsung Moment). I do however have 5 Windows machines in the house and two additional Windows machines that no longer work.

To me, it is about getting things done with a tool that I need and in this case for media creation Windows has worked for that. It would have been nice to do it in a less expensive way (via Linux) but I haven't had that extra time to invest to learn the back end just to get up and going. I know, Ubuntu is said to be the simple man's Linux. Maybe one of these days I will sacrifice a Windows machine and give it a go.

Thanks again for letting me steal your time in this conversation.

Maybe I will have to start a new thread about hiring a coder to get these other apps I still want ;)

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

You're correct that the community is more free-app oriented.. but if developers of free apps got more donations they'd be more inclined to continue developing for that platform ;).

I specifically followed that with "depending on the complexity of the app" ;). So it's all going to depend on what you want that will judge how much a developer will determine it will convince them to try.

For example take your Playlist.com app.. I am looking and so far unsuccessful at finding a normal desktop app for Playlist.com for Linux that I can port..

And the Playlist.com API is.. well.. Yeah .. THAT'S useful.. so unfortunately at this time I can't do it unless I just want to re-engineer another interface to Flash, which is what playlist.com the website uses.. but what would be the purpose of that considering the browser itself has flash and can play it?

So really.. it's going to depend what you want, seconded by what you're willing to pay.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

"So really.. it's going to depend what you want, seconded by what you're willing to pay. "

I agree...

I think the easy stuff (low hanging fruit) has already been developed.

and as far as the playlist.com thing, thanks for looking into it but don't sweat it. Not a huge priority.

Do you really think that either of my graphics editor or audio editor apps have any sort of possibility of getting created?

Even though I love the Android thing, you can't make precise control gestures with the end of your finger so for editing apps, it just is the wrong direction. But with the precise control of the NIT, it would work very well.

This is why I am frustrated. My freakin phone has an 800 mhz processor that is controlled by my sloppy finger. My NIT works with a stylus but the architecture is so screwed up, no one can develop what should be created...go figure!

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I must have missed something.. what are your requirements?? Both of these seem possible... Audacity and Gimp immediately come to mind as being on Linux and I believe in Easy Debian - meaning they should be portable.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

been down the Easy Debian road before and was very impressed with the concept but it just wasn't feasible. Come to think of it, that is probably the same experience most people are reporting with Firefox Mobile, which I absolutely love and don't really know why? FF alone has given me hope for really using my NIT full throttle!

So, maybe what I really need is to learn (get help with) the whole Tuning or optimizing my n810 and then trying Easy Debian again? What do you think?

As to requirements, I don't know...something more than the Palm versions but less than the PC counterparts. I mean, there has to be a sweet spot with the processor and memory of the NIT as opposed to the Palm OS limitations.

One other possibility is to actually make Garnet VM a more polished product. for example, use the screen resolution of the NIT as opposed to the 320 x 240 Palm OS resolution that is unbearable to look at on the NIT. It is like looking at an 8 bit gameboy on an the Wii! Yuck!!!!

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Well really we need to know specifically what you want in a image editor and audio editor.

I recall using The Gimp on my N810 and was fine with it. It was a tad sluggish at times but overall excellent. Audacity would probably be much heavier and slower.

The problem you run into isn't the framework involved at this point.. it's the CPU in the N8x0 sucks... heavy duty apps run atrociously slow. So if you layout a specific list of requirements for what you want the app to do it could be easier to find a lighter-weight alternative to port.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

FYI, I just found this http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...498#post514498

will give it a look.

thanks to several of you guys this is the most productive Maemo day I've had with getting anywhere...

thanks ya'll (the ya'll is a joke sorry)

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

You are talking about hiring a developer to create a new app from scratch. I can only assume you meant $80k to $100k. if you know anyone willing to develop an app for $80-$100 by all means let me know, I will keep them very busy.

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I said new to the N8x0. Doesn't mean it isn't ported from somewhere else. And for the third time I specified complexity.

For example.. I would have gladly done my 2 apps in my sig for $100.. considering I did them for free anyway.. and one of those was a completely new app, and the other a port.

So how about enough with the generalizations and nit-picking here. Depending on the app, for $100 people may be interested. If you want a full new updated operating system on your phone then yeah.. you're prolly looking higher.

There's thousands of completely free software out there... so.. how many people paid $80k to get those developed... oh.. right :rolleyes:

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

Yes, enough with the generalizations and nit-picking here. I got what you meant.

@fatalsaint

here is one of those "simple" app ideas I was thinking about...

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=43919

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

oh, and as far as specifics for an image editor to build on, have you seen mugtug.com/sketchpad?
At least the interface loads in Firefox mobile.
Could something like that be used to build an offline version with additional functionality?

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

What about something like:
http://pinta-project.com/

Looks like it might be portable.. or maybe:
http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/index.php?lang=en

Though that one may require the building of a few dependencies as well..

Re: CODERS: anyone with both Palm OS and Maemo app experience please respond!
 

I am familiar with Inkscape and like it very much! That would be very cool. It was the app I tried to use with Easy Debian and it was just too slow. Remember, I'm the guy that loves Firefox Mobile so I do have a moderate amount of patience!