This is the second interview in the BBHub BlackBerry Developer Interview Series. This series will put a face to many of the software programs you know and love. Developers are often power users who have unique perspectives on the industry. Many are entrepreneurs with colorful careers in technology. This series will give you a glimpse into their worlds and their outlook on the future of the BlackBerry.The second interviewee is Paul Dumais from Idokorro. Idokorro has produced some very popular and quite useful BlackBerry applications including Mobile SSH (this one comes in handy for me quite frequently!), Mobile Desktop, Mobile Admin, and most recently Idokorro's Mobile File Manager. Paul also was a contributor to my book, BlackBerry Hacks.
Paul has agreed to answer questions in the comments of this post, so if something's on your mind, feel free to ask away!
If you are a BlackBerry software developer and think you'd make a good candidate for the interview series, drop me a line at davemabe at gmail dot com.
Dave: Tell us a little about yourself, Paul.
Paul: I'm Paul Dumais and live in Ottawa Canada. I'm the co-founder and VP of Software Development at Idokorro. I'm responsible for the technical and strategic direction of our products, establishing our roadmap and conceiving new products.
Dave: What BlackBerry do you use now and what PDAs have you used in the past?
Paul: Right now I'm using a BlackBerry 8100 Pearl. Personally, I prefer using BlackBerry devices with a full QWERTY keyboard, but the Pearl has such amazing new features that are not available yet on other devices. My first PDA was a Newton, followed by a Palm V which I received at the JavaOne Conference. Palm gave out a Software Development Kit along with the device to encourage people to develop applications for it – which I thought was a brilliant idea.
Dave: Why is the BlackBerry a good platform to develop on?
Paul: The great thing about developing on the BlackBerry platform is the built-in security features for application developers. The biggest problem when you're developing remote access products is to adequately address security and firewall issues. The BlackBerry is great because both of these issues are already solved so comprehensively before you even start developing the application. It also just makes for an easy answer when customers want to know how the application is secured. From a customer perspective, the configuration is that much easier.
Dave: Other than your own, name your three favorite applications for the BlackBerry.
Paul: I travel a lot for tradeshows, events and just for fun, and have found Google Maps to be very useful in helping me get around unknown cities. Spider Solitaire from Magmic is my favourite app for killing time on flights and in airports. Lastly the Chronicle Road app is pretty neat -- I love seeing where I have been and look forward to using the BlackBerry Pearl's camera for more mobile blogging.
Dave: What's your favorite trick or feature that you use on your BlackBerry?
Paul: Whenever someone gives a demo of a BlackBerry application to a large audience they usually use a device called an Elmo to project the image of the BlackBerry onto a large screen. A few months ago we had to do this, and I figured there just had to be a better way than holding your BlackBerry under a video camera. I was advised that the license agreement for the BlackBerry Simulator did not permit giving demos with it, so we had to come up with something else. So we came up with the idea for a Windows tool that would display the screen of a BlackBerry device through a USB cable. The way it works is it captures screens one after the other and pretty much displays the equivalent of a live demo. It means I can connect my laptop to the projector and everyone can see the screen of my BlackBerry. We call this tool the BlackBerry Viewer, and we are giving it away for free for now (contact sales@idokorro.com if you want a copy), but we have not developed it into a commercial product yet because it has many imperfections. I don't believe in releasing products that are not high quality, but it does the job for now. We are waiting for new API's from RIM that will allow us to improve it and make it into a commercial product.
Dave: What's the most important feature that the BlackBerry lacks?
Paul: One of the things that the BlackBerry really lacked was some sort of multi-dimensional input, like a touch screen or a D-pad, but this was recently resolved with the introduction of the Pearl. Now I think the next big thing would be to increase the display size, which is difficult to do without increasing the device size. I think we will probably see advancements in display size coming through innovations like roll-able displays and micro projectors.
Another aspect that needs to be improved is the browsing experience. The reality is that web developers write their websites to work with the most common web browsers in the world, which means IE, Firefox and Safari. In order for a browser to display sites properly, it really has to use one of these three rendering engines. It's an almost impossible task for someone to write a new web browser from scratch today and make it work for all existing sites, because everything out there was written for the existing browsers, their features and known bugs. The Nokia Series 60 v.3 devices have started using Safari as their web browser, and Windows Mobile devices use IE. From a web browsing perspective, if the BlackBerry wants to compete with these devices, my prediction is that they will have to start using one of the common rendering engines.
Dave: Where do you see the focus of third party programs for the BlackBerry going over the next few months?
Paul: Everyone knows that BlackBerry devices are getting more powerful with every model. The lines between desktops, laptops, tablets, UMPCs, and smartphones are blurring more and more, and we all know that eventually smartphones will be as powerful as laptops.
I think this is important when we think about what applications are coming. Idokorro has focused on network administration and remote access tools, and our newest products help blur the lines described above. Mobile Desktop, for example, lets you run apps from your BlackBerry that you'd usually run on your desktop. Say I want to do some online banking from my BlackBerry, but my bank only allows me to use Internet Explorer because of the complex JavaScript and DHTML. I just use Mobile Desktop to connect to my remote desktop, and then run Internet Explorer 7 right from my BlackBerry. Or say I need to fix a bug in some code or build a new version of an application; I can use Mobile Desktop to run the BlackBerry JDE and recompile an app right from my BlackBerry!
Dave: Thanks, Paul!
Paul: Sure, Dave.
Previous Interviews in the BlackBerry Developer Interview Series:
1. he mentions the amazing new features on the pearl that are not available on other devices. what features is he referring to? i am not aware of any.
Posted at 3:40PM on Oct 23rd 2006 by gary conrad