The next author we’re going to meet is Dimaz Pramudya who was kind enough to share with us some details on his latest project – the Fuel My Car WP7 app. Dimaz also hints about his next WP7 app which we are going to keep an eye on.
Q1. Dimaz - please introduce yourself briefly (experience, interests, key projects, etc) and tell us more about the application you created - what are the key functionalities, major differences from other similar applications on the market, why do you think people would want to install this app on their WP7?
A. Hi everyone, I’m Dimaz Pramudya and I’ve been working in a number of industries in the past 5 years as a Technical Consultant. Few years ago, I was thrilled to invent SOAK along with few of my teammates, which we ended up winning the Software Design category for Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 in Paris. Fast forward to today, I am the founder of salenear.me, a website that allows people to find great deals near them on their mobile phones.
At around June this year, I created a WP7 application called “Fuel My Car”. In a nutshell, Fuel My Car is a social mobile application that one can use to find nearby petrol stations. The major differences from similar application are the great User Experience and the ability to find the near real-time prices for petrol stations near them which we achieve through a combination of fuel price feed from data agencies and the social interaction from the users.
Q2. What was the motivation behind creating this application? How did you get the idea?
A. I found it hard to find nearby petrol stations if I was driving in an unknown area. Also, I would love to know the fuel price in advance so that I can make my buying decision accordingly.
Q3. What were the challenges you faced when moving from Silverlight in/out of the browser to the phone environment?
A. The user experience is completely different. When you are building Silverlight in browser, chances are you will be connected to the internet 99% of the time. Where as in the mobile context, you can’t rely on internet connectivity. You may be online at one time, and offline the next minute because you are going through the underground tunnel.
Hence, when building a phone application, you should cater for the offline scenario and provide intuitive way to tell the user that they are currently offline.
Q4. Could you reveal some tip, some solution you used to work around a specific problem faced during the development of your application?
A. One of the tricky challenges is how to let the user know whether the application is in online / offline mode. I could just popup a message or stick in a label somewhere, but that’s not a great user experience. Then, the thought came to me. What if I “dim” the background image so that the users see a “greyish” background when they are offline and the full color background when they are online? From the comment I’ve got on my blog (www.dynamicslight.com), people love this sort of experience.
Q5. Have you faced any performance challenges with Fuel My Car? Was it hard to optimize your app so it may run smooth on the device?
A. I faced several performance issues mainly with Listbox and loading images. Luckily, David Ans (Delay) shared the code for DeferredLoadListBox and LowProfileImageLoader which solves my perf issue.
Q6. From a developer point of view, what are the challenges while working with the GPS? Is it easy to use the API? What could Microsoft do better?
A. Getting the right accuracy from the GeoCoordinateWatcher without sacrificing the responsiveness of the application. But apart from that, I’m pretty happy with the GPS implementation.
Q7. How do you see the future of WP7, and applications for WP7?
A. Looking at the growth of WP7 right now, I would see it takes off mid next year. Combined with the easy to use development tools, I think WP7 is a heaven for SL / .NET Developers.
Q8. What other ideas for next WP7 applications do you have?
A. At the moment, I’m finishing up the WP7 application for my new venture www.salenear.me The application enables bargain hunters to discover and search for great sales around them. Stay tuned for updates @salenearme
Q9. What is your opinion on the recent announcement by Microsoft on the future of Silverlight and HTML5?
A. HTML 5 is great if you are targeting the latest browsers, however you will run into issues if your users are using older browsers. Plus your development experience isn’t going to be as nice as Silverlight *yet*. I think by Microsoft going Silverlight for their WP7 really shows the great commitment on the platform at least for the next few years.
Thanks, Dimaz, for revealing more on Fuel My Car. We hope to meet again soon to discuss your Sale Near Me app.