Archive for category Applications
Nokia to Salvage Their Stake in Sports Tracker
Posted by David Hroncheck in Applications, Hardware, Other Topics, running on 2009/10/15
Thanks to Vaibhav Sharma of TheSymbianBlog, we had news yesterday from the Ovi Maps team that Nokia Sports Tracker Beta (NST) is “evolving” into a Maps component, called Ovi Journeys. I’ve been anticipating a move like this ever since Nokia made a statement that they would be “…giving Sports Tracker wings…” a couple months ago.
For those of us who have been following NST closely from the beginning, the last time the it’s developers (Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen) engaged their audience directly was about a year ago. Since then there’s been a virtual blackout, save for server change/downtime announcements. And yes, I am including the Polar for Nokia heart rate monitor experiment. In today’s fast-paced and crowded application market, many notable apps have been refined by developers directly responding to user feedback. However, if our guys at NST are listening, no one would ever know.
When Ykä and Jussi were last publicly asking about what NST users were thinking, it was surrounding the Nokia Vine Project. Those of us who had fallen in love with SportsTracker saw Vine as a probable successor to the sports-centric app. It made perfect sense when you considered the most universally applicable aspects of NST; Geo-tagging captured media along a recorded route. All the runners, cyclists and skiers using NST combined would be dwarfed by a well-impemented social geo-networking service using the same tools NST provides. Admitting this to myself, I was waiting for Vine to take over NST sometime soon in December 2008. Then, suddenly, Vine went dark and its embeddable tracking widget stopped working in January 2009.
February rolls around and Nokia announces NST will be adding heart rate monitors in a joint venture with Polar. Looking back, this had to be one of the worst handled bits of news for NST. Initially I was elated that my favorite app was not only showing signs life, but seemed to have more momentum than ever. The addition of heart rate stats confirmed NST as the king of the mountain. Packaged and promoted correctly, I saw NST as a potentially better athletic tool than anything Suunto, Garmin or Polar currently had. You got route recording, vital statistics, maps, camera, music, phone and everything else typical of a S60 device versus an expensive wristwatch with all kinds of accessories to buy.
So, what happened? The NST/Polar for Nokia (N79 Active Edition) announcement had an incredible public response initially. A cute YouTube video promoting the package gets hundreds of thousands of views. Nokia Beta Labs (NBL) Sports Tracker forum lights up as the most actively commented application. Questions came often and from everywhere looking for release dates. NBL moderators told us the NST devs were overwhelmed with their workload and would no longer be able to respond to questions, but that the team was “silently listening” to all feedback given. Eventually, we learned that the N79 AE and Polar for Nokia accessory was just an experiment, a test if you will. No details were ever given to the status of the project and NST’s devs became more silent than ever before. Only three test markets (NO, FI and ZA) would see a very limited release of the N79 AE and the Polar for Nokia accessory would only make it into the hands of a lucky few.
Then, on July 30 of this year came this announcement from Nokia Conversations: “Nokia is not killing Sports Tracker, but giving it some wings and will discontinue the Nokia Sports Tracker beta towards the end of 2009 migrating it to Sports Tracking Technologies…Given more breathing room, the Sport Tracker guys will be able to start developing other related sports apps.” 10 weeks later and we have yet to hear from our guys at NST about anything.
Back to the news which broke yesterday calling Ovi Journeys an “evolution” of NST.
I don’t care how you spin it, as good as Ovi Journeys sounds as a more practical implementation of NST’s basic tool-set, please don’t call it an evolution for the app. To the contrary, it’s the death of Nokia Sports Tracker Beta and is Nokia’s way of salvaging their stake in the popular app. An EVOLUTION for NST would be a more stable mobile app, adding richer workout analyzations and fitness calculators/tools to its web services and for it’s developers to re-establish open dialogues with their loyal users.
With nearly 3000 km recorded in the last calendar year alone (running only) using NST, tons of forum feedback, bug reporting, assisting other users, promoting the service and proud owner of a N79 AE, I’m self-qualified as a loyal user. How about some news from Sports Tracking Technologies? Please.
Beta Phrase Still in Beta Phase
Posted by David Hroncheck in Applications, Digital on 2009/09/14
I’m not sure when I first began using the term “beta” with my Nokias, but I think it was Opera for S60 Symbian on my Nokia 3650. However, I really ramped things up on the beta-front when I bought my E61. Back then (2006), I was excited for the E61’s connectivity, namely WiFi. Not for the most-used app’s like web-browser and email, but for VoIP calling which I had been using for years via PC. The E61 was one of Nokia’s first handsets to get WiFi and it was rumored that VoIP calling was possible on it, so I bit.
Not so fast. What it took a bio-chem engineer with little IT knowledge to get a VoIP account set up on that E61, months before a fix via firmware update helped everybody else, was countless hours of frustration and just as many handset hard-resets. Most importantly though, my quest to find a workaround led me to a whole new world. I began to see that there were lots of new developers with budding applications and tools which were designed to unlock the potential of my handset, be it VoIP or something else; A file browser which gave me access to previously hidden folders/drives, or a GPS logger, a scientific calculator or translating dictionary. No I didn’t need an “app store”, Google was fine.
Early 2006 there were hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny apps for Symbian and Java. Many of which used the term “beta”. I soon discovered that many devs never intended to finish their “betas” due to copyright and/or compensation ambiguities/workarounds. These were the “eternally beta” selections; Basically, these are mostly stable apps with flexible developers. And a SMART developer could apply user feedback to instantly help his fan base, or his “donation” pot, grow a bit larger.
Enter Nokia Beta Labs. With a small handful of apps to begin with, including Nokia Sports Tracker and Gizmo for S60, Nokia seemed to have a brand new playground for me. Just don’t look up “beta” in any dictionary for its useful definition. No, Nokia Beta Labs is a beta project in and of itself and every application on their site comes with its own rules and stories which, too, are constantly changing. Some apps have devs extra curious to their user’s wants and needs, while other dev teams might be surprised to find out that their app is a part of Nokia Beta Labs in the first place. Regardless, I can’t figure why a dev team wouldn’t want to be all over their user feedback. Granted, as a Contributor of the Month recipient at Nokia Beta Labs myself, I have seen a heaping ton of worthless feedback. Yet amongst the noise you’ll find some fantastic ideas and realistic user participation/expectations… full of excitement.
So the term beta, as it historically applies to software applications remains as vaguely defined as ever: Use at your own risk, Use may be revoked at any time, May cause damage, May not be used in a production environment, May be eternally in beta, May not be used in your region. Beta may be a marketing tool; Spread the word, get’um hooked. Nevertheless, if it means unlocking my handset’s potential, with a chance to help mold an app or simply glimpse at what’s around the corner… If it looks like it will add functionality… Back up my phone and load it on.
If today’s beta projects ever had a shining example of what to do and how to do it, then it might be Gravity for S60 Twitter client. Near perfect execution by just one developer, Jan Ole Suhr of Mobileways.de. Conversely, perhaps the worst example of a beta-phase execution is in my beloved Nokia Sports Tracker; In 2007, it had no competitive counterpart. Now, its two developers, Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen, besides an occassional note about server changes/status and the rare app update are going to find it difficult to stand out after their separation with Nokia. Their style of, as quoted on the Nokia Beta Labs website, “Quietly listening” to feedback will have to change.
No matter what, “beta” should imply and encourage momentum, if not velocity, in ever-growing application markets. It should be the budding developer’s calling card and handshake.
UMapper Map of the Week
Posted by David Hroncheck in Applications, GPS, Hardware, Other Topics, routes on 2009/02/23
UMapper Map of the Week
Once more, I want to thank Andrei and the guys over at UMapper for recognizing my Nokia contest entry for their Map of the Week. They gave me the same honor a few weeks ago for one of my routine Sports Tracker workouts.
UMapper can be used by anyone for logging and embedding custom maps just about anywhere. I started using their service to embed maps of each of my workouts when I began this blog, and I like that I can choose from many different map providers, each with multiple viewing options. I also like that I can add graphics, information and media to my maps and see those changes reflected anywhere I have embedded a particular map.
All UMapper features are quite user-friendly, especially for WordPress bloggers via UMapper’s available plug-in.
-David Hroncheck
A Detour for Some Fun
Posted by David Hroncheck in Applications, GPS on 2009/02/20
A Detour for Some Fun
The guys over at the Nokia Innovations Newsdesk started a contest, “Track a Heart, Win a Nokia N79 Active”. They’re asking participants to use the Nokia Sports Tracker program, available for most Nokia handsets, to trace the shape of a heart on the earth. To enter, go to the Sports Tracker website and create an account, then join the group “Location Artists”. Install the Sports Tracker application on your Nokia mobile and start “drawing”. Your workout routes show up as a continuous line, what you do with that line can be artwork with some planning. Here’s a screenshot of my workout for the contest:
My workout page for the N79 Active contest
The planning for my entry too a couple hours using Google Earth. I first looked locally for the most natural heart shaped route, then I printed out the map for easier planning. The way the Sports Tracker application works requires your artwork to be drawn in one continuous path. So it’s not possible to stop your line and begin again elsewhere.
The way I’m using Sports Tracker nearly every day to record my training, I have become quite familiar with it’s features, mostly by trial and error. I noticed that any pause in satellite data would create a straight line (usually) to the point where the satellite signal is picked up again. I also have made mistakes by pausing the application mid-route when I wanted to register a lap instead. These issues and more were resolved a long time ago, but I thought I might be able to turn those problems into a technique for the “Location Art” contest; And it worked.
Once I planned my design, I mapped out a single-continuous route. For easier reference to my path, I saved all the key waypoints in the necessary order as landmarks within my Nokia Maps application on my mobile. I began a new workout at the first scheduled waypoint and, basically, connected the dots (waypoints) as I continued, always referring to the next landmark in my Nokia Maps application. The lines I drew which crossed over the tops of buildings and over water (though it is currently ice anyway) were made possible by pausing the Sports Tracker application at one waypoint then resuming at the next, resulting in a straight line.
Problems. After testing this technique a bit I set out for my first attempt. Sparing you the fine details, I failed. I completed the route, my heart rate high just from adrenaline, and I immediately checked the output. FAIL. My heart looked like a spider web. Not all my waypoints were successfully recorded. I just spent 4,5 hours biking 39,5km and it didn’t work. Oh, and I missed my first scheduled running workout since Christmas…Bad.
Success. The next day I headed out earlier with some ideas on how to insure a better result. Another 4,5 hours and nearly 40km later, I stopped the application and checked the output. It still was missing some waypoints that I had visited, nevertheless, the results were pretty good. Feeling rejuvenated from relief, I resumed my training program when I got home by running some hill repeats; Back to life.
No matter how I fair in this contest, I feel pretty good about having done this little project. I’m more familiar with my city’s streets and found some new shortcuts. I’ll also forever visually regard certain areas of my city relative to this project; “That restaurant is at the bottom of the seven“. Anyway, it was a rather fun detour Nokia provided me with this challenge.
Grand prize is a Nokia N79 Active, featuring the new Polar BT Wear-Link chest strap. Some runner-ups will receive the Polar BT Wear-Link chest strap, compatible with a new version of Sports Tracker on many Nokia devices. Good luck to everyone who enters!
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