Hi Shawn,
I write only now because the hole conversation about the fundrasing and
porting finished in my spam folder. Anyway, as a passionat user of the
Loadstone app back on Symbian, and as a passionate user of android (and not
a developer), let me have my two senses on this. I hope that noone will get
offended, this is not my intention.
However, the problem with blind people is that they want everything
perfectly set for them, and when they think that they have it, they don't
want to see the cons of their choice, they see only pros. This has been the
case with the ios-android problem on all levels, by which I mean among the
developers, among the advanced users and among average ones. It was shone in
your statements too! For example, you talked about the unlocked android
phone. By talking about it, you actually said that an ios device has to be
unlocked by finding a workaround for that, and in case of Android, the word
workaround gives you concerns. So if you and all other ios fanatics out
there wanted to look on the things in a more objective manner, the things
would be easier. And here is some personal statistics, similar to the one
that Emanuel brought out by mentioning the school where he works. I am from
Serbia and I don't know many people who use IPhone. The first reason is its
price, the second reason is that it is a closed and limited platform: many
apps available on the App store you can not buy in Serbia, for example. I
know a hole lot of people who use android, and are happy to find the thing
you refer to as workaround rather than to buy a pricy, more limited thing
that apparently doesn't require workarounds. I had studied in Italy for 3
years, and people there had more Ihpones because of the standard of the
country. When I braught Android into attention as a possibility, I was
ridiculed. The final result, however, was passing of the most fanatic ios
users to Android, thanks to its fast growing accessibility and never ended
flexibility! So if the things were said in another manner, for example, if
the donation were for Android and not for ios, you could count on my
donation, and I know at least a few other people who will not! donate for
Iphone but wil be more than glad to donate for Android. The reason for this
is the behavior of the ios users towards the other platforms (you should see
my italian friends trying to justify the Ihpone 6 possibility to be bended).
And no, this is not only the matter of personal opinion, as you said before,
because if you base something so public as the fundrasing is on the personal
opinion and not on the facts, the fundrasing wil unfortunately remain on 0.
Again, I didn't intend to offend, I just wanted to illustrate the situation
in a most objective way possible. I hope to see my so far most favorite gps
app Loadstone for Android!
Best,
Miloš Pržić
Twitter: MilosPrzic
Skype: Milosh-hs
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Kirkpatrick" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Loadstone] Porting to Android
Thank you for the offer, this actually sounds like a nice little phone so
I'll give it some thought. Unfortunately phraises like "it's not very
comfortable with talkback" cause me concern. The more I read about
accessibility and the android platform the more of these phraises I keep
seeing. Things like:
If you change the default synthesizer ...
once you change the default home screen launcher ...
depending on device selection ...
and android version ...
some applications are accessible but ...
there's a work around for ...
Then after every ... there's an explanation of something that might work
or partially work.
I found someone I know that has an android phone so I'm hoping to at least
get a look at it in the next week or so to either confirm or deny some of
these things. I don't want to get in to a situation where I'm developing
for a device or platform that is only useful for loadstone or maybe not
even that. We made a similar mistake while developing loadstone for the
nokia phones. Most nokia phones were fine (for what they were at the time)
but then I was given an n97 mini for testing. This was a phone with a
touch screen and a slide out keyboard. The usability on this phone was
absolutely horrible. The combination of the symbian os, the touch
interface, and the support that talks had for it made the worst experience
possible. Ttechnically it worked and could be called accessible but
practically speaking the device wasn't usable for anything, loadstone
maybe worst of all. This phone now just sits on my desk and never got to
the point of being road tested with loadstone. The lesson learned here is
that there can be a very big difference between accessibility and
usability and a device that isn't usable just doesn't get used. If I'm
going to spend the time effort and money to develop for a platform then I
want to make very sure it's something I can actually use.
I'm glad to hear that development (at least eclipse) is accessible. This
would seem to put android and ios on equal footing in that area at least.
On Sat, 10 Oct 2015, Emanuel Boboiu wrote:
I have a Samsung Young phone which I can give you for free, I can send it
from Romania via Mail if it's possible. It is a 60 euros price, but it
has everything: wifi, GPS, memory ram one giga, like an iPhone 5, it has
4 GB internal storage and support a 64 SD card flash memory, I have here
one of 8 GB which I can put inside before sending.
Of course this phone is small and it is not so confortable with talkback,
but everything can be done with a little patience. Even Google Maps
works. You can use of course Google Maps APIs for free.
If you are interested, my e-mail address is emanuelboboiu at gmail dot
com.
Best regards,
Manu
-----Original Message----- From: Shawn Kirkpatrick
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2015 3:47 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Loadstone] Porting to Android
I keep hearing about these sub $100 android devices, so hear's a
challenge
for anyone, find a sub $100 android unlocked phone in Canada. The
hardware
would at least have to have a gps and enough memory to hold a reasonable
amount of map data. It would also have to perform well with talkback. I
look
forward to seeing what people come up with.
As for loadstone being a web app that's not what loadstone is all about.
The
idea is to have it work without a data plan or connectivity of any kind.
Of
course if you have connectivity even better for data loading and other
features but the basics will function offline.
On Fri, 9 Oct 2015, Kotian, H P wrote:
All
I am getting a feeling, there is a strong resistance porting to Android.
Nexsas devices are indeed pricy. But there are plenty of Android devices
which are Sub $100 which has the GPS and decent hardware to test the
developed apps.
Usability of Android devices gets a bit impacted by customisations been
done by vendors. However, they will not come in the way of testing a
developed apps.
Moto G is not pricy at all and they are Stock Android.
At any rate, the approach to make the appweb based would take care of
all the platform issues.
Do consider the developments on this line.
Harish Kotian
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