Team Blog

When we read Engadget's open letter to Palm last month, we had quite a lively discussion about their findings in the office. Some of it we agreed with and hoped that Palm were already working on and some of it we thought was wide of the mark. But drop the Foleo, so close to launch? It's never going to happen!

So it came as quite a shock yesterday when we heard that Palm had cancelled the Foleo. It took a few minutes to sink in, but in the end we came to a conclusion: it was a brave move to make, and if the market feedback wasn't overwhelmingly positive then Palm being distracted from its core smartphone market trying to convince them about a new type of product was probably going to damage them in the long run.

That said, we are sad to see it go, and hope that it will be back some time. Being a PDA and smartphone company Palm had come up with the best integrated and most power-efficient Linux device I've seen anywhere. I did find the lack of a wi-fi accessible email client strange, but what it did it did very well, with good office applications, a nice photo viewer and a decent web browser combined with easy to use wi-fi.

We have been developing for the Foleo for about 9 months, and we have enjoyed the experience. The SDK was good, and having Linux behind it meant that you had a lot of options open in terms of libraries to use. Beyond that, the support that we got from the Foleo team was second to none. Hopefully Palm's smartphone Linux platform will be as good even if it's not exactly the same SDK. We have certainly gained a lot of experience by finishing two products on a Linux-based system, and we'll be able to use that knowledge for future Palm Linux smartphones as well as ALP phones.

Life on the edge is certainly interesting!

Astraware are looking for beta testers! Specifically, we're after people with Windows Mobile devices to help us with testing some exciting new games. Pocket PC and Smartphone users are equally welcome, as long as your device is Windows Mobile 2003 or later.

All our beta tests are conducted through our forums at http://forums.astraware.com, so you'll want to sign up to those first.

Apart from getting to play the games before anyone else does, one of the biggest advantages of being an Astraware beta tester is that if you help with the beta of a new game, once it's released we send the testers involved a free registration code for it - the more new games you help test, the more you'll end up getting for free!

One point to be noted is that all our beta testers must sign a non-disclosure agreement, and so you must be 18 years old or over.

Sound good? Visit the beta testing information page to look over the details, as well as instructions on how to get hold of the NDA and what to do with it!

Last night John and I took a trip down to London, along with WikiMonkey. The purpose of our visit was to do an interview with TalkSport Radio's Ultimate Late Night Show with Ian Collins. As you'll see from the picture, Ian was pleased to meet WikiMonkey, particularly as he's a big supporter of Wiki's cousins at the Orangutan Foundation. Ian's show has been known to be a little controversial in the past, so we weren't sure what to expect, but gadgets were definitely on the agenda for this one.

Ian's recently got himself a Treo 750 and has been keen to talk about his new gadget on air, so he invited us along to join in the chat. It was a general talk which covered a range of subjects including Windows Mobile, smartphone games, Treos, Astraware Sudoku, Girl Geeks, John's new HTC Touch, Facebook, Broken Sword, and whether co-host Alan Hyde should replace his Sony Ericsson P990 (we said yes)!

As Ian's show goes out nationally across the UK from 1am to 6am, we didn't stay for the whole show, but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and have promised to go back in the New Year to talk about some upcoming exciting game releases. If talk radio is your thing, you can also tune into Ian's show via the internet at Talksport.net - those of you in the U.S. won't even have to stay up all night to do it!

Not many people can get to say they work in an industry where the pioneers are still alive and kicking. Over the many years I have been involved in videogames I have had the honour to meet many of those originators; from EA founding father Trip Hawkins to the UK's own Peter Molyneux and of course Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, with many more along the way. A few weeks ago in Seattle I had the good fortune to bump into probably one of the true 'living legends' of the videogame industry - NOLAN BUSHNELL!

For those of you unfamiliar with Nolan, here is a quick rundown...

Nolan K. Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain. Bushnell has received a great deal of recognition, including being inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, receiving the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and being named one of Newsweek's "50 Men That Changed America". Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the video game industry... more importantly this is the man who brought the world PONG!

After a few seconds of stunned silence on my part (which anyone in the office will tell you, is a very rare occurance) I spent the next 30 minutes being regaled by Nolan of his viewpoints on the casual games industry ('cool'), the mobile games industry ('lots of promise'), Atari's past, present and future ('don't quote me!') and his new interactive entertainment restaurant called the uWink Media Bistro in Woodland Hills, California, whose concept builds off his original Chuck E. Cheese venture allowing diners to order food and drinks via screens at each table, through which guests may also enjoy games, movie trailers and short videos. After a little more chat about where the mobile side of things could segue into the uWink concept, we got interrupted by Jill (of Cake Mania fame) and a natural photo opportunity presented itself (and yes... that is me on the right grinning like an idiot!).

And Nolan's parting piece of advice, I hear you ask... "There is nothing in life better than good food, a beautiful woman and a great game design"... I am contacting the stonemason right now to make sure, that quote is spelled correctly on my headstone

We're all very excited here at the office as we have a brand new addition to the Astraware family. At 9.29 this morning, David and his wife Neroli, had a bouncing baby boy! John Richard Oakley weighed in at 8lb 15oz, and mother and baby are both very well.

It's been a bit of a wait as John Richard was several days overdue, but we're happy to welcome him now.

As David is our Chief Technical Officer, we'd expect nothing less than the first photo to be taken with his Treo and immediately uploaded to Flickr! We're sure you'll agree John Richard is really gorgeous!