Nokia Lumia Apps on Demand, Nokia’s New Challenge for Local Developers

After its Nokia Asha Apps Challenge, Nokia is back in challenging local developers to continue to be creative in Nokia Lumia Apps on Demand. If Nokia Asha Apps Challenge was intended for application developers in Nokia S40 platform, Nokia Lumia Apps on Demand is intended for developers of applications for Windows Phone platform.

Nokia Lumia Apps on Demand will not only involve developers but also the users. Users will be asked to provide suggestion or ideas of applications they want to be available on their Nokia Lumia smartphone. These suggestions will be accommodated in Nokia Indonesia’s Facebook Page. The recommendations will be collected until May 26, 2012.

Of all submitted suggestions, Nokia will choose the 3 best ideas and challenge the local application developers to realize the idea in application form. Reportedly, both the developer and idea provider will get the newest Nokia Lumia as a prize.

Continue reading Nokia Lumia Apps on Demand, Nokia’s New Challenge for Local Developers

KakaoTalk, It’s Not Just About Having Cute Emoticon

A month ago, Rama found a new messaging application called Line. Line was created by Naver Japan, a subsidiary of Naver. Still from the East Asian region, Beom Soo Kim, former CEO of Naver, now leads Kakao Inc. a company with a messaging application product named KakaoTalk. Just like Line, KakaoTalk also has cute emoticons.

As written in Kompas Tekno, KakaoTalk was released two years ago as the first messaging application after smartphone is launched in South Korea. To date, KakaoTalk has about 42 millions registered users with 8 millions of them come from outside of South Korea.

Different from WhatsApp, KakaoTalk uses ID as an identity. So user privacy is guaranteed because there’s no need to spread phone numbers to communicate with others through KakaoTalk. However, users are still able to add friends using their phone numbers.

Another advantage compared to WhatsApp, group chatting on KakaoTalk is not limited to a set number of members.

Continue reading KakaoTalk, It’s Not Just About Having Cute Emoticon

MetroTV Launched Mobile Application for Android Platform

Previously, Metro TV officially announced (via Twitter) that they have released a mobile application for Android platform and it is available for free on Android Market. And of course, the purpose of MetroTV mobile application launching is to allow mobile users to enjoy information provided by MetroTV.

MetroTV Android application is developed by Digital Metro Buana (PT Graha Digital First) – a company engaged in the television segment. This time we will try to review this application.

In terms of UI and UX, it can be understood by the users. Before running this application, make sure your Android handset connected to the Internet on order to update content directly from Metrotvnews.com.

In the ‘Menu’ feature, there are several news categories available. The three main features are ‘Video’ (to see the program that have been broadcasted on Metro TV), ‘News’ (news category comes from Metrotvnews.com content) and the last feature is ‘Live’ (for MetroTV live streaming).

When I attempted to try live streaming service, unfortunately this facility can’t be used in some Android handsets. Of course this feature can be modified to be easier for users for enjoying MetroTV program without sitting in front of the television (can be accessed via mobile). 😉

For DailySocial loyal readers who are curious about MetroTV application, it can be downloaded from the Android Market on this link.

Yahoo! Ends Support for Ten Mobile Apps

Some of you may have used Yahoo! Mim, a local version of Yahoo! Meme that was created in November 2009 as a blog platform or photoblog. Even though I’ve known about this service from Yahoo, I just found out that it had an app for the iPad. Unfortunately, Yahoo! Mim for iPad is one among ten Yahoo! mobile apps that will no longer be supported. The service itself however, will still be available through the website.

Aside from Yahoo!Mim for iPad, Yahoo! is also ending support for nine other mobile apps. These are Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone), Yahoo! Answers (Android), Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone), Yahoo! Deals (iPhone), Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry), Yahoo! Movies (Android), Yahoo! News (Android), Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone), and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone). Fortunately for Koprol, its mobile apps survive the cut.

Continue reading Yahoo! Ends Support for Ten Mobile Apps

Targeting Feature Phone Users Who Need Mobile Application, XL Blaast Is Launched

We heard many applications for BlackBerry smartphones, IOS, Android in our daily life. What about applications for feature phones, Java (J2ME) based mobile phones with the price below 2 million rupiah? Can the feature phone users who have limited budget enjoy the “luxury” to access the Internet and use a popular applications services variety?

Previously, Snaptu an Israeli developer has targeted such segments. Snaptu product was quite popular until it was acquired and being shut down by Facebook. Now we have Blaast. Blaast is originated from Finland and they intended to increase the users’ interest for their local application. This goal was warmly welcomed by XL Axiata as their operator partner. Thus XL Blaast is officially announced today. We have covered Blaast for several times, from the introduction to application development contest that have been conducted some time ago.

CEO and Co-Founder Blaast, Joonas Hjelt along with XL Director of Technology, Content & New Business, Dian Siswarini, introduced XL Blaast service to public in Kempinsky Grand Ballroom. Unlike the service that we’ve already known, Blaast isn’t just an application. Blaast is a “platform in the platform”. We can use Blaast to access popular applications like Facebook and Twitter, playing light games, and read the news in various media services – including DailySocial. All summed up in one service platform that store all the applications in cloud.

Continue reading Targeting Feature Phone Users Who Need Mobile Application, XL Blaast Is Launched

Local Apps, Market Opportunities and Marketing Activities

I’m doing blog walking rituals and found an article on TechCrunch that makes me think about the local made application. I won’t discuss about the points discussed in the article, but the article reminded me that there are many applications out there and they all fought to get users, both locally and internationally.

When we are talking about local applications in particular (especially those targeting local user in Indonesia) the article also indirectly reminded that local application also has a fierce fighting journey, not only in international markets but especially in the local – Indonesia market a well. I also feel that the usage applications ecosystem in Indonesia is still immature and still on the early stage.

Continue reading Local Apps, Market Opportunities and Marketing Activities

Nokia Indonesia’s Strategy for NFC Adoption

Several days ago, I wrote an article about Near Field Communication (NFC) application and its correlation to the adoption of its application. The article was written for a couple of reasons. The first reason is the introduction of new Nokia handsets called Nokia 600 and Nokia 700, and both of them support NFC. The second reason is the emergence of two local applications that rely on NFC; Menoo! Tap Tap and Smash Mania.

Last Monday, I was invited by Nokia Indonesia to attend a media briefing for the introduction of Nokia’s new handsets. I’m not going to discuss about the gadgets here, I am more interested in the application development and Nokia’s strategy to make NFC technology popular among mobile phone users in Indonesia.

NFC on mobile phone is not only available on Nokia, but Nokia provides the biggest support for local apps. Nokia has been touting NFC on its devices for a long enough time, at least since 2006, however, the market has just woken up to the technology recently. Irwan Hermawan—Nokia Indonesia Product Manager and Narenda Wicaksono—Nokia Indonesia Developer Manager went through a number of points regarding NFC and its adoption.

Continue reading Nokia Indonesia’s Strategy for NFC Adoption

mTransport DIY : An Application for Transportation Info in Yogyakarta

Few days ago, I got the information that Department of Transportation, Communication, and Information DIY officially released an application dealing with transportation information in Yogyakarta as called mTransport DIY for Android platform. This application developed as collaboration between Department of Transportation, Communication, and Information with Gamatechno.

From the UI, this application reminds us to an application in iOS. There are six quite complete features about transportation in Yogyakarta. The first one is Dishub Update (the news are officially from Department of Tansportation, Communication, and Transportation), city bus lane info, TransJogja lane, train schedule, airplane schedule, and CCTV for monitoring Yogyakarta’s traffic in some spots.

Talk about the technical aspect of this application, on city bus lane info and TransJogja lane, the schedule is made statically. In addition, on train schedule, it scraps from official site of PT KAI, unfortunately the back-end information about detail schedule and ticket price on PT KAI official website is so poor. For airplane schedule information feature, Gamatechno recaps it from all Adi Sucipto airport schedule by making their own back-end. In addition, they only use CCTV service form Department of Transportation, Communication, and Information, which are only on 7 spots in Yogyakarta, to monitor Yogyakarta’s traffic.

Continue reading mTransport DIY : An Application for Transportation Info in Yogyakarta

Kaskus For iOS Still Needs Fixing, It’s a Bugs Galore

Collaborating with Apps Foundry, Kaskus as the biggest Indonesian Forum launches its official application for iOS universally and compatible for iPhone and iPad. With a minimum requirement of iOS 3.0, I’m sure it will still function properly on older version handset such as iPhone 3G or even first generation iPhone. Apps Foundry is known as a leading application developer with products such as Scoop for iPad.

I don’t remember when was Kaskus launched an application for iOS but the current one is already version 2.0, where according to the iTunes page, besides additional support for iPad, this new version claim to have fix various bugs and more enhanced performance. Previously, Kaskus already had several application for multiple platform like BlackBerry, Java and Symbian.

Continue reading Kaskus For iOS Still Needs Fixing, It’s a Bugs Galore