By admin
28th April 2010.
13:31
Category Archives: applications
When we work together with operators we often together add or tweak functionality specific to that operator, its partners or a specific consumer target group. In the XPERIA X10 we have in some markets made special integrations of this kind into Timescape and Mediascape. In the example that Gustaf describes in the video below you see a cooperation made with the operator Telia in Sweden. The service integrated is the Spotify music streaming service (www.spotify.com) which is a great success here in Sweden. The integration makes Spotify appear as an online music service in Mediascape and songs played through Spotify shows up as event tiles in Timescape. There are of course other things made on other markets so this is just one example.
If the sky was the limit – what would you ideally have integrated?
Finally an update on the question of Equalizer for Satio and Vivaz. As some of you might know one important feedback from you the readers of this blog has been that you want an equalizer in Satio and Vivaz. Since I got this feedback and saw your engagement in the issue I’ve worked quite a lot with trying to make that happen. As it turned out it unfortunately hasn’t been possible to add it in an integrated way in a software update. However some real hero colleagues of mine decided to try to build it as a separate application instead so I’m now delighted to at least offer a kind of solution for those of you that have been missing an equalizer.
For most markets there is now an free application called “Equalizer” available on PlayNow in the music category under applications. This equalizer will give you the following different options: Off, Classical, Jazz, Dance, Party, Pop, Rock, Spoken Word, Loudness, Mega Bass and Treble Boost. As I understood it it will equalize all music played in the phone, also the setting it makes is global and stay there if the Equalizer application is closed and also even stays after rebooting the phone. There are two important notes though: First of all this application needs the latest update to work on Satio (on Vivaz it works on the launch SW of course) and also since it’s a separate application it needs to be started separately when you want to start using it i.e. it’s not included under options in e.g. the music player. When an equalizer setting has been chosen it should stay even if the application is closed or the phone rebooted.
I’m well aware that it would have been even better to have a fully integrated equalizer and I’m sorry that we don’t have that. Still I hope that this solution will work for those of you that really feel that an equalizer has been missed a lot.
Here are some screenshots and a short video I shot to show you how it works. (Sorry for the shaky video – I didn’t have my tripod in the office today so I had to navigate the Satio with one hand while filming with a Vivaz with the other hand)
Already from day one the X10 has been my daughters favorite. It’s something about that big capacitive touch screen and the UI of X10 that apparently makes it very intuitive to use. There’s really huge amounts of apps and games for kids on Android Market and over time Stella has gotten some favorites which you find in the list below. Please add your tips among the comments if you have suggestions on more apps for her to enjoy!
It all started with me downloading an app called Toddler Lock that does just that, locks everything except the screen which makes colorful symbols and fun sounds when touched. However this app had a “loop-hole” which she found within minutes. If you long press on the center button it still brings up the Android recent apps list and from there she started multitasking 
So now she has taken one of my three desktops for her favorite apps and she plays around with them using the recent apps button to multitask between them.. pretty amazing how quickly kids learn new stuff! She even made an almost historic quote a few days ago -”Oh No! Dad has re-flashed his phone again, all my games are gone” – Quite a little mobile phone geek for being 2 and a half..
So here’s the list of apps and games she’s playing with right now. (For more information about each app and the brilliant developers behind them just click the links)
Toddler Lock was the first one. It’s still great but has lost a bit of here attention now when she’s found more advanced stuff, I guess she’s getting old already
Zebra Paint has been a favorite for a long time now. It’s basically a digital coloring book where you choose color and then touch paintings to paint. In this one she’s also learnt to use the submenu button, choose “new” and switch to another painting. You’ll see it in the video below. As you’ll see she sees it as a game where the goal is to fill the entire painting with one color before going to the next. I guess she’s more competitive than creative 
Farm Animals has a grid of a few common farm animals and when clicked the phone makes the animal sounds. Simple but great fun for Stella! I especially like the cool design of the animals.
Monkey Kick Off was her favorite for a long time as well. A very simple (and well-known from browser flash-based gaming) game where you just tap the screen at the right time to make a monkey kick a ball as far as possible. This is also very addictive for us grown-ups!
Kids Paint is a simple painting app where the brush change color and apperance for every new line, very simple but Stella enjoys it a lot! You see her using that a bit in the video as well.
Abduction is a very good game that has beautiful design and uses the accelerometer. Stella thinks it’s a bit hard to play but really loves that Cow that plays the lead role in it. Definitely fun for her dad as well!
Touch! 4Kids is a rather simple game where different animals and stuff come flying across the screen and you need to touch them before they pass by. Great sounds and has a toddler mode which makes time restrictions etc go away if it’s too hard.
Touch Cat is the most recent new one she likes. It’s basicly just a picture of a cat on the screen and when you touch it the phone vibrates like a purring cat. This is probably the first one we really disagree about, I don’t really see the point but Stella enjoys it a lot.. I guess age does matter
As said I’m blown away by how fast she’s learning new things I download for her and it really has made me think a lot about the level of intuivity this platform has. It almost feels wrong telling her not to touch the screen on our PCs and Macs at home now since I guess most gadgets will actually have touch screens when her generation grows up. She was also quite frustrated with her grandmothers K810 over the holidays when nothing happened when she swiped the fingers cross the screen.
Here’s a clip showing her playing around a bit, it’s been quite a while since I shot it though so some of you might notice the X10 she uses has rather old SW and I can assure you that Stellas technique have improved quite a lot since then as well
This tutorial will show you a bit on how browsing through the installed applications on X10 works. What the menu looks like, how to use widgets etc. There really are tons off applications available for Android phones and when you start to browse through them you really get inspired to find more of them and update them when new versions arrive. When I recorded this video e.g. the Spotify app didn’t have a widget included. It does now, since a few days ago, and that widget has got a fixed spot on my right desktop now – I love it!
Of course there are other things that you might to see more about of so as usual please give your feedback on what you want future tutorials to be about.
I saw in some of the earlier comments some questions on how to organize applications in the main menu. The main menu isn’t, as far as I know, really customizable, rather the apps are all there in alphabetical order. The desktops however are highly customizable and you can also add folders etc.
As always – please remember that this is pre-release SW and HW and things might change until launch.
My friends over at the Sony Ericsson Developer World Youtube channel have made another video where they use the X10 to demonstrate a cool app available on Android Market. The app is an augmented reality app called Layar. I’ve tried it a bit also and think it’s a really cool thing. It really makes you think further on possibilities with mobile phones and gives a somewhat sci-fi “futurish” feeling
There’s a huge amount of different layers for it developed already and the community around it is amazingly innovative.
You can find more to read about the app and the different layers at www.layar.com
