So, here's what I think of blogplanet after a few weeks of using it.
First, the likes. I like that I can blog from my phone, and send pictures with ease. That's it.
The dislikes are rather more extensive! Blogplanet is slow to start. This I guess is because it's a java application and none of them are exactly speedy. Next up: menus. Most of the menus are completely daft with nonsensical options. Take for example the exit menu - if you click on exit, you get a choice of "No", or "Options -> Yes / Options -> Exit". Other applications let you exit immediately, or have Exit under the options menu, which feels more intuitive.
Pictures taken from within blogplanet suck. The quality is really low and so is the size. I read somewhere that this is because java apps don't have direct access to the phone's camera or images directory. Well, if this is the case, time to write the application in native symbian if you ask me (easier said than done, I know, but still - mobile picture blogging is a killer app, so sort it out!).
There's no way to set the title in a blog entry, that I have found. But then, I have that complaint with mozblog too.
You can't upload an image and a blog entry at the same time. You have to take a picture, upload it, then link to it in your blog. Not great if you decide that you want a picture after you've started to blog. The only way to add images after the fact is to send the entry, then edit and send again.
All in all, too many annoyances. I won't be registering the software, I'll just delete it and wait for a better mobile blogging tool.
Posted by savs at June 18, 2003 12:31 PMBlogPlanet is in a rather early stage of development. Some of the things you asked for will be implemented at some point. Planned enhancements are: Support for titles on MT blogs, optional confirmation dialogs and an easier way to take a pic, write some text and send both in one action.
J2ME gives the developer only very limited control over the UI. That's why the confirmation dialogs on Series60 phones (eg 3650) look so strange. On other phones (eg. Siemens S55), you have Yes and No directly on the soft keys.
The poor picture quality is the biggest problem of the program, but again, this is due to the bad(?) implementation of the Mobile Media API and cannot be influenced by the J2ME developer. This limitation will hopefully be overcome in new phones or even future firmware versions.