The next steps
July 21st, 2006
Now that the launch is safely behind us and the Jaiku community is growing steadily, it is time to ask for feedback: What is your initial feeling about the service? How are you using it? Is something preventing you from using it? What is good/bad/ugly? And, especially, what would you like us to implement in the near future?
I do not want to spoil the fun by telling too much about our plans before hearing your initial feedback. However, we can already tell that since our Symbian Research & Development Division (SRDD) is slightly under-resourced (i.e. the lads are travelling :-) during the next few weeks, we will first focus on improving the Web site and implementing features that can be used without an S60 handset. In addition, we will make the installation process much simpler and port the client to the Symbian 3rd Edition (Nokia N80, E70 & Co). The deadline for the latter is still not fixed, but it is definitely high on our list.
You have posted extremely valuable blog comments and emails to bugs [at] jaiku.com. This was the key reason for us to release the service at such an early stage, so please keep them coming!
Tak Says:
I will love to use your apps on my cell but can’t use it because Nokia S60 is not available in Japan !!
Do you have any plan for BREW or other platform such as Java?
July 21st, 2006 at 2:51 am
Lars Pind Says:
Let me be the first, then.
I rushed to install the software. I think it’s a really neat idea, so I was enthusiastic.
However I also rushed for the uninstall instructions. Jaiku completely took over my contacts list, sorting in a way I couldn’t recognize, and I couldn’t call any of them, whether by clicking the call button or selecting call in the menu. Finally it drained my battery.
Those things are keeping me from using Jaiku currently, when they’re fixed I’ll give it a shot again.
But thanks for a really neat system otherwise.
PS! Nokia 6630.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:59 am
Petteri Says:
Tak: We are still figuring out the best way to extend the supported platforms and haven’t decided, which platforms we will support ourselves. However, most likely we open up the client-server protocol as soon as it is mature-enough; after this, e.g. an individual hacker or another company would be able to implement a “Jaiku-enabled” client (or add Jaiku-compatibility to their existing application).
July 21st, 2006 at 3:21 am
Petteri Says:
Lars: Thanks for constructive feedback! The current Jaiku client replaces the default Contacts application, but the behavior you describe above is not what it should be. Would you be able to e.g. send a bit more infromation to bugs [at] jaiku.com?
Typically (e.g. in my N70), the Jaiku client shortens the recharging interval about 1/3, i.e., instead of every three nights I need to charge the phone every other night. However, this depends on various factors such as the quality of the local mobile network - especially
2G vs. 3G makes a big difference (at least here in Finland).
July 21st, 2006 at 3:35 am
David Says:
Petteri, I was about to add a comment supporting Lars re battery life, when I saw your note about 2G. I’m currently travelling in very rural France and using 2G a lot (if I’m lucky!): battery life is very short and turning off Jaiku does seem to extend it.
July 21st, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Matt Says:
I’m sure this question has been asked, but are there plans for a Java release of your program? Most phones (not on Verizon’s network) in the US will run it.
I think it would be faboulous to be able to use this on my phone, and I am sure that my friends would be likely to use it as well. My only concern is that you have limited your scope to just one brand of phone and only a handful of models.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Elmer Says:
Hi, I really like Jaiku. One of those few things that just makes a lot of sense to have on a mobile.
I’m running Jaiku from an N90. It installed just fine, it runs and updates my cell info and profile settings as expected, but Jaiku doesn’t make any changes to the contact list. It doesn’t display ‘Jaiku Contact’, but simply ‘Contacts’, nor do I have the option to add a ‘Jaiku Nick’. I know the N90 is not on the list, but since it’s s60v2 I thought I’d just give it a try anyway. Hope this helps.
July 23rd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Matti Says:
What about Series80 version of the client? Hope it will be available soon to be able to use the client also during business days.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Imrahil Says:
My short comments:
1. should be an option to switch off auto launch Jaiku on mobile startup
(sometimes I need more ram memory to start other apps)
2. what about these numbers after start Jaiku?! there should be icons or something similar…
I think it’s, because this is beta version. Am I right?
3. should be a small tutorial “how to…” and keyboard shortcuts reference
4. if everything is stored on yours server, you should improve web info about me and my jaiku-friends
5. it’s very strange bug in window with more information about Jaiku-friend’s description or location
( http://www.imrahil.com/_temp/jaiku_bug.jpg )
6. in Jaiku-contacts when I press “center” key on normal contact I enter into details.. . but if I press this key on Jaiku-contact I suddenly exit… there only works “options -> show rich presentation” or left/right arrow key
7. what about Flicker web address in settings?
sorry for my english… i’m still learning :)
best regards,
Jarek
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Nikolaj Nyholm Says:
N80 (ie. S60 v3), yes please!
/n
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Petteri Says:
Elmer: At the moment, I am also using Jaiku on N90 (due to an unexpected meltdown of my N70) and having the same problem, so you are not alone :) We’ll investigate this and try to fix the problem for the next client release.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Petteri Says:
Imrahil: All you comments are valid - the current Jaiku release is a very early beta and, as Jyri wrote, “there are still some rough edges” (somebody could also call them bugs). Concerning your point #7, the Flickr web address setting comes from the research client used as a basis for the current release, which does not use the setting.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Frangino Says:
Summarizing my post i’d like to have on the phone the avatar picture and an automagical background sync between contacts in my phone and in my web profile. Of course the battery usage must be optimized.
July 24th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Petteri Says:
Frangino: Your post nicely summarizes many of our key development targets: From the beginning, we have planned to implement your 1st (automatic buddy management, which we would like to take even further than you describe) and 2nd points (bring photos to the phone book). In addition, the service is far from being optimised in both power and data efficiency (your 3rd point). Your last point seems to be very important for both roaming persons and people in countries where network quality is suboptimal and/or data rates are high.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Henriette Weber Andersen Says:
I think the whole jaiku userbase should be open to browse - I mean I know around 5 people who has a s60 series phone.. so make it more community like, please !
also, it is draining my battery as well..
July 27th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Juhana Räsänen Says:
Hi, works pretty nicely after just a couple of hours of poking around the software! Came up with some initial observations: A minor usability feature in the client could be automatically picking up the typed presence lines and allowing to re-select them later from a list, thus avoiding to retype the commonly used lines. A minor annoyance is that as Jaiku hijacks the phone contact app, there seems to be no way to configure contact groups or group/contact specific ring tones in my 6680; this would be nice to have as Jaiku should certainly not have less features than the default contacts app…
Otherwise, thanks guys, great work!
August 1st, 2006 at 7:38 am
Juhana Räsänen Says:
A followup: I think one crucial feature usability-wise is that Jaiku client should be able to guess the current presence information as much as possible; maintaining the presence line by hand can get tedious at times. For example, a default time-based presence profile would help a lot, so that I could be e.g. “sleeping” from 11pm to 7am (at least I wish I could :) The presence line could be updated automatically by the calendar events as well. Furthermore, there could be an option to use the phone profile name as the default presence line whenever the profile is changed; this way you could create a couple of more descriptive profiles than “General” (e.g. “Freetime”, “Working”, etc.) and have your presence updated whenever you change phone profile.
August 1st, 2006 at 9:56 am
Petteri Says:
Henriette: What would be more important for you: opening up the Jaiku userbase or making Jaiku support a wide range of devides (so that all your buddies could use the service)? Our initial plan has been the latter, i.e., we would like to enable sharing rich presence between the handful of different (typically relatively small) groups one interacts with frequently.
August 1st, 2006 at 11:45 am
Petteri Says:
Hi Juhana! Thanks for the comments :) At the moment, we are figuring out whether we should keep on overriding the existing phone book or implement Jaiku as a separate application that would use and extend the data (i.e. contacts) of the standard phone book. Any opinions on this one?
We are planning to make the service more clever in guessing the rich presence of a person. Using descriptive profiles (”Eating”, “Sleeping”, “In a meeting”, etc.) is a great idea!
August 1st, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Juhana Räsänen Says:
About the client overriding/complementing the default contacts app: naturally there are pros and cons for both approaches. Overriding makes the app more easily accessible and makes sense too, as having your contacts listed in many different apps is not really that practical. On the other hand, if Jaiku shadows some of the features of the default phone book, that could be a set-back for some. Also the UI differences might disturb folks who have grown very used to their old phone book. Determining and implementing the good features/UI combination to keep everybody happy also becomes more difficult as you begin to support more devices from different vendors.
However, I think the best would be to make Jaiku such an excellent phone book app that noybody would think twice using it instead of the default vendor app ;-)
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Jyri Says:
Frangino: Thanks for the suggestions. I just posted a comment on your blog. I fully agree with you that the rich presence of contacts should be activated automatically on the phone and that there should be an option to display user photos in the contacts list. Regarding power consumption, we’re planning to implement a manual update mode so you don’t have to worry about data being transmitted in the background. Stay tuned for the next releases of the client!
August 7th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Olli Says:
How about the suddle option of a toggle to temporarily disable Jaiku Contacts and have the original thing? Four names on one screen is just too little when you are looking in a hurry.
September 1st, 2006 at 11:14 am
Petteri Says:
Olli: That would be a good feature (although we will in any case totally rewrite the UI to make it much more usable). Do you feel it is still a good idea to replace the original Phone Book or should Jaiku be a separate application that accesses the Phone Book contacts?
September 1st, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Teemu Says:
Olli, would you prefer one row per contact also for Jaiku contacts as a default, or do you think that it’s good enough if Jaiku contacts could take 2 rows, but others (bulk of your contacts) would take only one?
September 1st, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Karl Says:
My humbly major concern is that I do not have the choice of which contacts I want displayed in Jaiku. A majority of my phone contacts are not as tech savy as I thus I have a list of contacts displayed in Jaiku that I do not/nor never will use or contact via Jaiku. I would like the option of keeping my Jaiku contacts and phone contacts seperate or, at the very least, be able to delete from Jaiku without deleting from my phone’s contact list.
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm