Thursday, June 3, 2010

World Cup 2010 Application for Windows Mobile: The panoramic UX proof of concept is here!

worldcupapp

I’m glad to introduce you this small World Cup 2010 application for Windows Mobile, which has been entirely developed using the Compact Framework applying some UX concepts from Windows Phone 7 panoramic UI and spikes on fluent UI I recently worked on.

This app requires a touch-screen device with Windows Mobile and the Microsoft .Net Compact Framework 3.5.

As this is just a proof of concept, you can download it for free following the links bellow:

New version v.0.3.beta available!

English

Español

Deutsch

    Portuguese (NEW!)

      Brazilian Portuguese (NEW!)

      Français (NEW!)

      Chinese (NEW!)

      Features

      The features included are:

      • 64 matches with detailed info which can be browsed by group, date or play off stage.
      • 8 Groups details.
      • Play-offs chart
      • Manual update on-line which will got the following:
        • World Cup news directly from the FIFA.Com News RSS feed, including pictures and links for full reading in your browser.
        • Results for finished matches.

      The application can run in almost any Windows Mobile 5.x, 6.x touch screen device. It automatically scales according to your screen size and resolution.

      I’ll continue posting about the technology around this app. Stay tuned!

      Fixes on v.0.1:

      • Fixes an issue while parsing dates on some localized versions of Windows Mobile (i.e. Danish, German ROMs) which was preventing the app to run.
      • Recovery screen if any data inconsistence is detected after update. This is a very weird case, but the app will let you update and get a new set of data if needed.
      • News screen support for longer text resizing accordingly.

      Fixes on v.0.2.beta:

      • This version downloads the news directly from the Feeds sources, getting a faster connectivity and fresh information from FIFA.com.
      • Calendar shows July 12th for time zones where the final match will be played that day.
      • Small visual changes on Calendar.
      • Play-Offs: Fix on the games chart, which was showing a confusing wrong line-connection for Semi-Finals. The data was correct, but the lines were wrong. This version fixes that.
      • In some devices or orientations, the Play-offs chart was truncated. That issue is also fixed on this version.

      Fixes on v.0.3.beta:

      • All the v.0.2.beta fixes/changes.
      • This version doesn’t show the Recovery Page.
      • Fixes an issue for v.0.2. on a clean installation when the Images folder wasn’t on the XmlData folder.
      • Includes a new “Today section” allowing you to see the games for today at a glance.

      Localization:

      • This version is published in four seven languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Chinese and German.
      • Let me say thanks to Marcus Bauer, Matthias Engler, Carlos Paulo, Ayrton Vasconcelos, Thomas Michiels, Nick Käser and Kenn Zhang for their help on translations.

      Quick Troubleshooting:

      • If the app crashes on your device, please email me (jose@mobilepractices.net) the “errorfound” file located on the xmlData folder. That file has the error log so I can see what the problem was. This file will be deleted if you have a successfully synchronization, so please make a copy before sync.
      • The small portion of the next section visible at the right is intentionally there, to invite you to continue exploring the panorama.
      • I got some reports where the problem was related to the device running low of resources (even if it has lots of memory). This issue was mostly reported on Omnia II devices. I recommend you to take a look at the processes that are running on your device. A soft reset would help on those cases.
      • If you think the app is showing wrong times for the matches, please check if your device has the right time zone configured. If that’s not the issue, feel free to send me an email.
      • Any other issue you may have, don’t hesitate to contact me, because this piece of software is validating a UX engine that should be stable enough to be widespread reusable.

      Update (6/19/2010):

      Wow! The proof of concept was an incredible success. I got an amazing feedback and the awesome quantity of 35.000+ downloads. This was definitely the kind of feedback I was looking for.

      If you have read my blog posts, you should be aware that this is just a UX Proof of concept, and of course, I didn’t expect such a huge amount of downloads ;).

      I’ve changed the host server and the updating mechanism, so the client can consume the news feed directly from its original source (i.e. FIFA.com), keeping you with fresher news and simplifying the updating process.

      I strongly recommend you to install v.0.3 if you’re still using v.0.1.

      Thanks for such a wonderful feedback!.  Do you still interested on the technology behind this app?? Maybe you should start thinking on what application can you develop with this kind of UX, or maybe just how can you re design your existing app to provide a fluid experience. Stay tuned!

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