Browser War Resumes

After testing the new template in the Opera Mobile browser we had originally decided on at the beginning of the project it soon became clear that we needed to revisit the browser war and evaluate our earlier decisions. While Opera Mobile was originally selected due to the apparent high level of support in the first HTML5 geo location tests we performed it has now become evident that this has come at a sacrifice as Opera displayed poor support for CSS3 and hence the beautiful UI I have generated is virtually unusable.

This has led us to re-explore some of our earlier options looking back on Mozilla Firefox 4 for Android which has now matured to its first release candidate, we also took another look at the default Android browser. At first glance Firefox rendered the UI almost as well as the default browser only the button gradients were missing and the transitions between pages.

While Firefox offers a great solution now that Opera is off the cards, we were keen to maintain all the visual beauty of the JQuery Mobile framework and set out to find a new geo location test that worked in the default browser. After some investigation we manage to accomplish this task and how achieved full compatibility and can now make use of the power WebKit Android browser. Below are some screenshots demonstrating just how different the new template looked in the Opera Mobile browser.

We're tablet ready and honeycomb looks sweet.

Here's a sneak peak at how the new interface will look in the new tabbed web browser of Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

New Coat of Paint

The new look and feel has now been finalised. it's designed to render device displays as small as the iPhone all the way up to table sized devices of 1024px and higher.

Mobile Framework Implimented

To optimise usability within mobile web browsers we have decided to implement a mobile browser framework called JQuery Mobile. While JQuery mobile is still in development stages at the moment it provides a stable enough platform for our intended use. What you see in the images below was all achieved using this new framework in very little time.

Now Tweeting All New Posts

We are now tweeting all our new posts to http://twitter.com/VirtualBuilders thanks to Twitterfeed! The service works by aggregating the RSS feed from this blog and posting the title, a truncated description and a tiny URL link to the post on our twitter page. Please be sure to follow us and be notified of any new developments.

Mobile Application Prototype

With the new test bed device in hand we commenced development of the mobile application prototype, after only a few moments an oversight in the available screen resolution suddenly became apparent. Although the devices high capacity display outputs a resolution of 480x800, websites are handled by the mobile browsers at a default resolution of 320x480.

This still allows for ample real estate and only required a slight re-jigging of the design. Below are screen shots taken within the Firefox web browser under the Windows platform, but more or less represent the current output on the mobile devices.

Meeting today with Music staff re mobile project

Today Adam and Steve talked to us about their question sets for the phone project.

Venue questions:

- structured around venue clusters, max of 3 venues per venue? Possibilities: Brunswick, Northcote, CBD, Fitzroy, St Kilda

- issues with access to PAs, desks etc, have to coordinate with venue owners. Will need to scout first to make it as easy as possible


Historical/current treasure hunt questions:

- AC/DC lane, Cherry Bar, Arts Centre etc. perhaps use a paper workbook as well for text input, as pr the construction project?

Next we took this to the students themselves (thanks Steve for that obvious suggestion). In a room with around 15 gathered music students, we gauged that the group seemed to be keen on the mobile idea in general, as well as a prize. They were keen on exploring venues and Melbourne's musical history in the CBD, as well as perhaps looking at music shops and studios.

Steve and Adam will get back to us in 2 weeks with a list of questions once they have formulated and tested them on a dummy run themselves.

Sony Xperias are evil, don't buy them, get a Samsung Galaxy S.

After researching which phones were the best for our purposes, we came to the conclusion that the Sony Xperia was ideal.
Until we actually bought a few from the 'Phone Supermarket' down the road in Barkly St, and took them home to play with. This ended up being a wise move as we could then return them easily, which would have been a hassle if we got them online.

They are nasty, nasty pieces of work, not just bad but offensively so.

The Android operating system has been beaten up so badly it can no longer function, you start software and there is no way to actually quit. Neither is there a built in way to stop the programs running(you need to download an extra app for that, which I couldn't even manage to do).

My camera worked sporadically(the button to take pictures never actually worked, I had to change it to touch the screen to take shots) and I spent probably three or four hours just trying to get things working.

The software that installs on your pc to manage the phone is even more annoying, with a terrible interface and things like status bars which don't actually reflect your status, they just flash(similar to some microsoft programs).

It drove me mad, and Stefan had similar issues with his phone.

The next morning we returned them for the Samsung Galaxy S, which although a little more expensive has proven to be a great phone - everything just works out of the box. We also have had some difficulty with so-called 'unlocked' phones still being locked to a specific network.