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Today we have discontinued POCKETbliin downloads from our site. During
the past month we have been publicly testing bliinGPSXS and we think
we have found a worthy follow up in it.
We started POCKETbliin to offer you a seamless experience for creating & navigating
bliin content. All of the bliin features were embedded in this application
(photo Shares, Trips, Friends, Bookmarks). The drawback of this was
the portability to the multitude of handset makes and models that
are out there. Screen resolution, camera triggering, keypad layouts
all
of them needed different installer .JAR files. We were not always
sure that what we put out, was actually working because we could
not always
physically test on all the devices. The user feedback on our forum
is testament to this.
So we decided to take a different approach, one we had already started
with bliinGPSXS for desktop computers: bliinGPSXS for handsets.
The
challenge: create a single version software for sending GPS-location
only leave all other features in the handset browser. This is where
m.bliin.com comes in.
bliinGPSXS for handsets can be downloaded from m.bliin.com or from
bliin.com. Once installed and started it will ask for your username
and password. Beyond this the application is pretty straightforward:
when a connection is made with our server and when enough GPS satellites
are found for a fix, you are Live!. Choose: options > web and
your phone-native web browser will start to take you to m.bliin.com.
Other features in bliinGPSXS:
- : for selecting your GPS device:
internal, Bluetooth or com-port
- : to set your location
send interval: 15 sec, 15 minutes, manually
- : sends bliinGPSXS to
the background so you can continue using your standard handset functionality.
Does not work on all handsets:
NOKIA S30’s and Samsungs are known to not support background
applications.
We believe we have found a better, more robust and simpler user experience
in this solution. We are curious to see receiving your feedback.
NB:
POCKETbliin users can continue to use their software. You can also
use POCKETbliin in combination with m.bliin.com if you want.
This new release makes a start with
enabling MapView on POCKETbliin. If you go into the menu (press 0),
select view > mapview, POCKETbliin will load a map from OpenStreeMap.
Depending on the bandwith of your carrier, this may take a little
time. Beware: we have noticed that OpenStreetMap is bussy implementing
their
newly received Dutch streetmaps from AND (for more information on
the read here). You may recieve
quite white returns, untill full import is done. Similar to Radar view,
POCKETbliin will show Shares as blue dots and other Users as green
dots. Distances between you and other content is marked in meters or
km's.
Also we fixed a bug that made switching GPS devices irratic. We hope
this is solved now for most models. Keep us posted.
Another much anticipated feature is T9 implementation. If - while typing
on your keypad - you hit Case Change, you will get your phone native
Text Input box with T9 fast typing. We hope you enjoy it. New features in this version:
* .
View location of Shares & Users on OpenStreetMaps.* .
Fast phone native text inputs.
* . We removed the Radar Circle
as it sometimes obscured a Share location. You can read the distance in
the top right corner.
This new release comes in combination
with the new trip playback feature on bliin.com. You must download
this release to lock your photo Shares to your Trips. Older versions
will record your Trips, but photo Shares are not locked to them.
Also, with this new release you can upload Shares while Idle. We are
watching you, don't abuse it, keep it real ...
New features in this version:
* .
your Shares are now locked to your Trips in playback mode.
* you
can now upload Shares while in Idle mode.
* if
you now scroll through the content on your main screen, in the top
right corner we display the distance between you and the POI.
:
* . should now
finally be solved. removed a background clipping mask with transparency
that
was obviously no fun for the N. you can now change GPS device (internal,
external) & username as much as you like.
Idle Use on bliin! No longer depending
on GPS only
We are super excited about this new release. Bit by bit the features
on our roadmap are coming together. As of today Idle Use is in place.
In other words: now everybody can bliin, even if you don't own - or
simply forgot to bring - a GPS. How does it work? Simple: a new tab
'bookmarks'
now resides in your My Pane on the bliin.com website. Here you can
create & manage
your personal location bookmarks. Click on the map and label your location
(home, work,
Jason, etc). Hit the 'go there' button to make yourself seen to other
bliin users. Your user popup will display your Idle location in blue.
And
now the magic: when POCKETbliin (V0.9.13) starts up without a GPS attached
... hit Idle. A list with your bookmarks will show. From here you can
activate a bookmark and your user icon will be placed right there. Once
you're there, you can enjoy bliin.
New features in
this version:
* . Users without GPS
devices can now enjoy bliin. You will be static in one location and you
cant
record a
Trip, but hey you can make yourself
visible to others. see also: http://blog.bliin.com for help on the web part of
this.
* . Radically altered
the startup sequence.
Net module & GPS search have be pulled to the front and separated better from
other processes in the app. Should be more stable and more direct.
* . more quickly; improved the smoothing
process to be more coordinate up-to-date and direct.
* .
You can now view User profiles in POCKETbliin and you can view User location
in POCKETbliin on
OpenStreetMaps.
*. We have added some code in
POCKETbliin which scales down you're photo Share on some phones e.g.: NOKIA N95,
before
uploading.
Should
drastically
reduce
your upload-time and
data-traffic.
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:
* Visibility
settings to be double checked for Users & Shares cross browsers.
Visibility settings do not yet work in the browser environment.
* When
adding a bookmark on website all other content should disappear from
the map (Shares, Users, etc)
* allows
sending Messages to Users directly; in stead of via his Shares.
* you now have a Comment/Message
preview pane and goto button to view in detail.
* you can now manage your
Contacts on bliin.com
* you will recieve Inbox notification
also on User Messages and you have Message management tab in Inbox.:
* improved
GPS coordinate sending: if you're not moving, POCKETbliin will not
send new coordinates to server ... untill you change position again.
:
* add
Contact icons to Contact Users on bliin.com & POCKETbliin
* Visibility
settings to be double checked for Users & Shares cross browsers
Below a screen shot of POCKETbliin Inbox notification flow:
1. Live screen with red Inbox notification icon.
2. Inbox with Share Comments (blue share icons) and User Messages
(green user icons). User icons with blue-heart-dot are your contacts;
blue-heart-dots with green aura are Live Contact Users. Below it
a preview of the message with Goto button for details.
3. User details page with User Message ...
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* You
can now add users to your Contact list. Once you have made a user your
contact you can always see weather he is Live or Not Live. If your contact
is Live, POCKETbliin will give you the distance to him.
* When
you view a Share you can now hit the Map Tab to get a street map with your
current location and the location of the Share. We are using the OpenStreetMap.org maps,
check it out it's phantastic.
* In
your Inbox you now see if the comment is a User or Share comment. Also
Contact user icons are shown.
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* When
you now start up an older version of POCKETbliin on your mobile then the latest
version on our server, you will recieve an "request to update" message.
If you
choose Yes you will be directed to the POCKETbliin download page for mobile.
If - some NOKIA models - you recieve an error message: Invalid .jar file, or
Download unsuccesfull, this is because our midlet is not yet signed. Please download
the latest software from the site and install to your handset.
:
* where zero's behind
the comma where ommited, making some users fly from Heerenveen to
Utrecht with 23.499km per hour.
Nice for a speed record, not nice for dependibility. Thanks to skatebiker.
* where
you could only change USER/PASS or GPS device once or it would no
longer store the latest data.
* username/pass wasnt
always working; does now.
The second release of POCKETbliin
communicating with our new back-end. More features have been added, more
bugs fixed:
* .
Was already in place now with Inbox notification and comments are marked
as read when clicked.* .
Truly new. You can now switch you Visibility AND the Visibility of your
Share to Private. Private means: only visible to yourself - NOT to anyone
else -
* . N95
now supports also External GPS Devices. For all of you who want to save
battery live on the handset, or are just not happy with the embedded
GPS chip ;)
* .
As said before, we cant make Sony Ericsson & Orange World a happy
couple. We have a seperate POCKETbliin-SonyEricsson-K800iO.jar available
for
download for those poor sods ... like
me ;)
The first full release of POCKETbliin communicating with our new back-end.
We are very excited about this new release and hope that you are too.
If
you have an older version of POCKETbliin installed on your mobile you update
to our latest version; your older version will no longer
communicate with our new back-end. Download POCKETbliin from http://bliin.com
and bleutooth it to your handset or point your mobile browser to http://mobile.bliin.com
for OTA download.
(even though we personally think the GPS module is not that strong ...
)
* . Now all comments
made on your Shares will apear in your POCKETbliin Inbox. also comments
on comments that you have made will be shown there.
clicking a comment will point you directly to the Share that's commented.
* :
you can now make Trips. Trips are recorded coordinates over time. You can
make a Trip and share it with your friends. Trips are archived and accessible
via the Trip button in the My section. Photo's - if shared within a Trips
- will show as part of the Trip when you view it.
*: we've added the SUN to the LIVE! interface.
now you can find your wind direction. bliin is now effectively also your
compas
...
* :
Most functionality is now mappped to keypad buttons ... A small summary:
0 == Menu, 01 == My section,
03 == GPS, 04 == radar off .... you get the picture
... ?
:
* again improved the GPS bluetooth pairing
sequence. more efficient, faster finding/
testing devices
* improved
GPS connection. more readout of coordinates, more accuracy of location & smoothed
location
* Share uploading chuncked to server.
Resolves max upload size at once by some carriers
* fixed Nokia no clear button bug. Nokia
6233 had no 'clear' button. is now solved
:
* Some Sony Ericsson phones still stop
sending position updates when going to sleep; you're not Live!
* Share
upload is too slow with some SE phones ... chuncking & SE
JAVA are no happy couple
* Commenting on Users with POCKETbliin
is possible but notification is yet missing
* Mark Comment as read. Comments in
POCKETbliin are not marked as read. Use web client to purge Comments
All your feedback is appreciated. Please goto our forum for
postings and more.
with kind
bliin team
Last release before moving to new backend
architecture. freeze of functionality and bugfixes.
* quick new build aimed to test peer
users in POCKETbliin mainly. peer users can now be clicked and
viewed.
* added automatic
build // release information
output in the About section (access by typing '0' and '9')
* added OTA downloading software via
http://mobile.bliin.com
This release adds two new screen resolutions
to the download stock: 176x220px and 352x416px. The latter serving some
exotic Nokia
handsets
like N95 and E60.
* fixed an ugly bug which made
'uploading Shares' crash the application - completely corrupting the
UI.
* added 5 button for show log. if
you have any trouble the log gives a comprehensive report ... at
least for us
This release adds a new screen resolution to
the download dock: 240x320px serving a range of Sony Ericsson and Nokia
handsets.
* improved GPS pairing sequence.
was buggy in 'testing devices' sequence. caused app to crash.
* radar is
more economic. still heavy on especially Nokia's batteries (why ?)
more
economic sending / receiving data. still quite heavy on traffic. waiting
for transfer to new back-end for further optimisation.
This
is the first release of POCKETbliin for beta testing. Available for
a number of Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones with resolution 176x208
pixels
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