Some hints to help you win big in the Competition

February 18, 2011 – 17:19

As the date for MobileDevCamp2011 is fast approaching (it’s next Saturday for those keeping count), we thought it would be a good idea to drop some hints that could help you win prizes that are available on Saturday.

First tip – DON’T build an iApp!
The winners of the iOS category last year ended up waiting for a pretty long time to recieve their prize(thanks to Apple for taking so long to release in Finland!)
Also, last year the iOS category had the stiffest competition with around 7 enteries for just the one prize!

Second tip – take advantage of the Thursday evening workshop and see just how far you can get in just a couple of hours with a new toolchain.
Use the time to experiment with another platform like bada, Nokia’s Qt Quick and QML, Microsoft Windows Phone 7

Third tip – if you can, install and configure the tools before Thursday

Forth tip – If you build something worthwhile or useful using Qt Quick and/or QML there is a good chance for it to be promoted in the Ovi store!

Fifth Tip – Try to have fun, this is in your spare time remember :)

By mike | Posted in information | Tagged , | Leave a Comment

Some timing information for this year

February 17, 2011 – 11:58

so with around a week left before the event, and everyone now having seen all the keynotes from this years MWC, it is about time we let you know some more details of the times.

On Thursday, we will announce the detailed rules of this years competition at 16:00.
We will then be at Aalto Venture Garage from 17:00 (5 PM) until at least 20:00, but if there is still interest it should be possible to continue later.
The idea for Thursday is to meet up and spend some time hackling on stuff, meeting other devs and swapping hints and tips.

On Saturday, the doors at Arcarda will open at 10:30.
The program for the main stage will start at 11:15. The main stage programme will conclude at 18:30 (don’t worry there are breaks and thanks to our generous sponsors there is also a lunch provided in the middle of the programme).

By mike | Posted in information, update | Leave a Comment

Well, THAT was some announcement

February 15, 2011 – 22:02

In case you were disconnected from the Intardwebs since Friday, you may have noticed that Nokia moved the goalposts a touch.

We are busy chasing everyone to see how or if they want to change their title or content, before we make the announcement of the program (to be as fair as possible).
In the meanwhile, you might want to sign up for the Windows Phone7 class.

By mike | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Want some free hands-on training for Windows Phone 7?

February 9, 2011 – 12:21

One of our sponsors Microsoft has arranged for a one of their top trainers Jani Järvinen to come and give an introduction hands-on workshop.

Jani describes it as:

Want to develop for something new? Try Windows Phone 7!

Windows Phone 7 devices started appearing in Finland in November 2010, and during these brief months, there has been a lot of interest in developing applications for this new platform. I’ve been working with different mobile platforms and their development tools, but find the tools Windows Phone 7 platform uses to be well integrated. Shortly put, the experience is smooth.

As an additional benefit, I can directly utilize the .NET based code – for instance written with C# – written for other solutions in my mobile applications. For many different application types, the main technology for Windows Phone 7 applications is Silverlight. You might have heard the name when it comes to web technologies, too.

If you are focusing on game development, try XNA. XNA is Microsoft’s .NET based game development framework that is suitable for writing games for not only the Windows Phone 7 platform, but also the PC and the Xbox 360. You can share your C# code between all these platforms, and develop to all these three pieces of hardware simultaneously.

If you are interested in Windows Phone 7 development with .NET and Visual Studio + Expression Blend, be sure to visit Microsoft’s workshop space, especially since this is the first time you can try the phones hands-on.

If you are ready for a new technical challenge, be sure to try Windows Phone 7 development!

Please sign-up for the facebook event so we have some idea of how many people are going to attend the session.

By mike | Posted in agenda, information | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Latest Speaker – Tomi Ahonen

February 6, 2011 – 19:46

So we have our next confirmed speaker on the list – Tomi Ahonen.

Tomi is internet famous for his blog posts of almost biblical length which are frequently an analysis of market number announcements and also his semi-frequent twitter storms :)

Actually, we chatted with Tomi when we met at MindTrek and asked him what he thought he could do for a more technical/developer focused audience, and he was very excited for the opportunity to talk about real examples of how developers/small enterprises had made money in recent years (not just iApps :) )

By mike | Posted in agenda, update | Tagged , | Leave a Comment

bada – a Vast Ocean of Opportunities

February 3, 2011 – 11:53

So, bada (always with a small b, apparently) is Samsung’s new mass market platform. Samsung’s vision is that bada is the “Smartphone for Everyone” – from the techy early adopters to the user who just wants a great phone that can run a range of applications.

bada exploits the experience and knowledge gained throughout the history of Samsung’s proprietary mobile platform, which was first used in 2004. It is written in C++ on top of C/C++ middleware, and bada apps are written using C++. bada also supports maps, Flash and Web technologies, and integrates Flash and WebKit support into its native APIs allowing easy inter-operation. The bada SDKs were first launched in May 2010 with version 1.0. Recently version 2.0 was announced.

bada is configurable over various hardware configurations and kernels. For example, the first bada phone, the Wave S8500, is very high end with a 1 GHz CPU and a variety of sensors, while some of the later phones use less powerful hardware. So they are affordable and thus more appealing to the mass market.

Another noteworthy bada feature is the seamless integration of service APIs into the platform. Services include social networking, buddy lists that allow users to share real-time information with their friends, shopping and commerce APIs, maps, location and points of interest, remote content management and even weather services. This is all out-of-the box and can be integrated into third-party applications. These services use the cloud and, for instance, allow easy access to third party social network services like facebook or twitter.

You can get all the development and test tools for free and find reference information such as API documentation, sample code, training videos and blog posts on the bada developer site

Of course once you have finished developing your bada app you can publish it on the Samsung Apps store.

All of this is relevant as Samsung is pushing hard to be the top mobile phone company in the world. Remember, Samsung currently ships some 40 million phones a year in the midrange, touch-phone category. That’s a large mostly un-tapped market of users.

By mike | Posted in information | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Applifier Making Move To Mobile?

January 27, 2011 – 11:02

Tuomas Rinta, head of R&D
from Applifier is taking part to this years Mobile Dev Camp as one of the speakers. Tuomas will join the panel discussion about monetizing mobile apps. The big question is “how ready is mobile for big business”. Last year one of the companies represented at Mobile Dev Camp was Rovio, who have shown us that they are certainly ready. Applifier has not yet publicly confirmed their plans around mobile but it’s certainly the next logical step for the network. The active involvement with Mobile Dev Camp and public recruitment plans indicate that something is cooking. iOS and Android developers should definitely take a closer look at the open positions .

Applifier is one of the sponsors of Mobile Dev Camp this year. Applifier is a Finnish startup helping Facebook game developers get more traffic and users. Applifier has more than 55 million monthly active users and they have delivered more than 10 million clicks.
Their business idea is pretty simple. Each member of the network embeds strip of advertisements to their game. Strip has 5 slots for advertisements. Every time someone clicks on the add the owner of the game gets free advertisment clicks from the network. Developers who cant earn enough clicks from network can buy clicks. That’s how Applifier makes money.

If you want to find out more, join us on 26th February

By Kai | Posted in information, update | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Have you signed up yet?

January 25, 2011 – 12:57

So with just over a month to go, have you signed up yet?

One change this year is that as a number of people spent quite a lot of time on the day getting their environment up and running, or just trying to figure out the basics of working with the environment, we thought it would be good to have a “warm-up” evening to do this instead (if you still want to hack something together on the day there is nothing stopping you doing that as well :) )

So, the nice folks at Aalto Venture Garage are going to host us on 24th of February.
Sign up on either Facebook or Linked-in

By mike | Posted in information, update | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment

Your first chance to see bada in Finland

January 24, 2011 – 18:38

Following what seems to be our tradition of getting briefings for the latest mobile platforms (last year it was Windows Phone 7), this year we have managed to get Samsung to come and tell us about bada.

bada: The Next Wave

This talk introduces bada and gives an overview over the technical platform as well as the whole ecosystem to publish, sell and promote bada apps. Important release milestones and achievements are highlighted and a pre-view to the new bada 2.0 version together with developer opportunities are presented.

This talk will be given by Manfred Bortenschlager, you can get more information about Manfred here

As Manfred’s office is in Staines, we should probably not ask him to many questions about Ali G :)

By mike | Posted in agenda, information, update | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment

The last prize is received

January 17, 2011 – 15:11

Receiving an iPad
So with Apple FINALLY releasing the iPad in Finland, Marko was able to give the prize (of an iPad for those that do not remember) to Dennis from Klooni Games

Marko is the Managing Director at MK&C, a 15 person consultancy that specialises in Cocoa Development. This back ground gave him the insight to be both a Judge and to help those that were just getting started (For example, Kristoffer Lawson’s FacePalm idea was built during the afternoon with help from Marko).

KlooniGames is two people currently; Dennis Belfrage (who does the Apple stuff) and Petri Purho (founder, and main developer).
The game that Dennis built for the competition was based on some libraries and concepts that Petri had already built.

The guys explained that the idea behind KlooniGames was to explore new, experimental and interesting game ideas and interaction methods.
They aim to build a rough prototype in approximately one month, then get feed-back from some Alpha testers. If this feedback is positive, the really hard work of making the game user friendly, having good error handling etc starts. This, they said, takes much more time (up to two years!).
As such they are constantly testing new ideas, and asking for feedback. As each game is so different, there is no scientific way to tell if the reaction will be posative, so real user testing is needed.
Their current focus is on desktop/laptop systems as there are just more of those around that can run the prototypes.

One of Petri’s early games Crayon Physics Deluxe, is selling, so they are able to continue the quest to make an awesome game of their own, rather than having to work for someone else just to make a living.

By mike | Posted in update | Comments (1)
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