English Edition
其中的引用部分為 ifanr 的提問
你好，可以簡單介紹一下自己麼？比如你的日常工作，創建 Mobileways 有多長時間？
好的，我叫 Jan Ole Suhr，親戚朋友們一般叫我 Ole。1986 年我得到了自己的第一臺電腦，當時我 14 歲。那是一臺 Atari ST，我立刻對為其編程充滿興趣。編程很快就成了我最大的愛好，時至今日，它既是我的嗜好也是我的工作。
1998 年前後，我常在芬蘭渡假，手機也是在那時很快在芬蘭普及開來。當時我還是個學生，手機對我而言很奢侈，但我無法抗拒。1999 年我買了自己的第一部手機 Nokia 8110i，之後我立刻著手為它開發製作鈴聲和編輯運營商標誌的軟體。我為手機可以直接訪問網際網路感到萬分激動，覺得創業是個好主意。於是在 1999 年底，我創辦了 mobileways.de，主要開發、出售在線鈴聲編輯器。（譯註：Nokia 8110i 就是《黑客帝國》裡基努李維斯用的手機）
在新創的芬蘭行動網路運營商 Lobox Oy 工作一段時間後，我繼續投入到自己的事業—— mobileways.de ，專注於第一款 S60 手機 Nokia 7650 。自 2002 年起，我開始全情投入、專攻 Symbian 平臺開發。
可以談談你的家庭麼？在一些 tweets 裡，你提到自己需要照顧孩子。你有幾個孩子？有沒有因為要編寫移動類應用而犧牲了和家人共處的時間？還有就是你老婆會不會用 Gravity 和你聯繫？
我有兩個孩子，四歲的兒子 Lukas 和兩歲的女兒 Maja。我目前每周工作三天，我老婆也是，育女教子的任務基本上由我倆均分了，於是周末也就只有一天=)
自己創業的好處是我可以很容易地調整日程配合以上安排。而且我幾乎從沒接過合約工作，所以可以完全按照自己的意願進行編程。目前我把每一刻空閒都花在了 Gravity 之上。添加新功能，並從世界各地得到正面反饋實在是一種享受。
目前這種安排運轉得很好，但我想自己有必要多花點時間在家陪孩子。工作很有意思，但當你聽到你 4 歲和 2 歲的孩子說 「爸爸在哪兒？」 「他在臥室上 Twitter」 的時候，你會意識到自己已經犧牲了太多的時間。:-)
我老婆在用 Nokia E71，也常用 Gravity。這種感覺真的很好，事實上這也是她第一次用我編寫的作品（我之前的作品確實太專業化了）。
她對於社交網絡也很感興趣，比如說，她對 Facebook 的了解比我多得多。所以她在 Gravity 的改進上一直給我很多反饋。
和絕大多數 Symbian 平臺的應用軟體不同的是，Gravity 的用戶界面和用戶體驗非常高效且使人享受。有人說 Gravity 是所有平臺上可能存在的最好的 Twitter 應用。你的設計理念是什麼？
通常我在致力於開發某一個應用軟體時，我只有一個 「理念」：它一定要符合我的個人需求，而且我必須喜歡它的設計。
我對我的應用程式的 「外表」（用戶界面）相當挑剔。我可能會花幾個小時來對字體大小或顏色做微調，結果第二天仍然不滿意。
問題在於我只是一個程式設計師，並不是一個設計師或是 「圖形藝術家」。因為要一遍遍的試驗調整，一個應用程式的設計工作會佔去我相當多的時間。
我也不是一個 「設計範式」 的追隨者。我並不十分在意一個平臺（如 S60）的用戶界面設計準則。我只是希望這個應用看著好看，在視覺上讓人愉快。對此最好的測試方法就是，等你完成一天、一個星期或是一個月之後，再重新審視它。如果第二天你不喜歡，扔掉它，重新開始；如果一周後你不喜歡，那麼就要考慮大的修改；如果一個月後你不喜歡，也許只需要一些微調即可。通常我不會在一、兩天後討厭我的 「設計」，但是我會持續調整它們，只要我還受得了=)
神奇的是，直到現在我還是很喜歡 Gravity 的用戶界面——事實上它的界面時時都給我驚豔的感覺。這種情況從來沒有過，我必須承認這純屬運氣。（其中幾個設計確實是因一時的 「靈感爆發」 而絕非苦心孤詣）
製作過程中克服了哪些挑戰？有沒有即時通訊或其他應用的計劃？
在 S60v5 上的用戶界面設計最大的問題是，那些手機對平滑 UI 特效的支持能力被嚴重低估。在 Gravity 中我開始通過 hack 來繞過限制，計劃將來再 「修正」 它。目前我仍在使用這個方式來實現平滑滾動，你們也許在 N97 或 5800 的全屏模式下已經看到，滾動可以比目前更平滑。
S60 的另一個問題是大量的 手機型號，它們用了不同的液晶顯示屏，不同的屏幕解析度，不同的字體等等。例如同樣的配色可能在諾基亞 N95 上看起來很好，但是在諾基亞 E61i 上幾乎看不清楚。
我們什麼時候能見到它們？
在 Gravity 之前，我開發了一個叫 WirelessIRC 的 IRC 客戶端。我想為它增加即時通訊功能，但一直未能成功。我不確定自己到底會不會去做一個即時通訊客戶端軟體。一個用戶界面類似 Gravity 的即時通訊軟體會很酷，但我不確定自己有這個時間和資源。
關於 Graivty 將來的新特性的藍圖？你能告訴我計劃列表中的前 5 項特性嗎？
目前我還沒有一個確定的計劃列表，但是我在計劃中有一些關於 Gravity 的重要變化：
1.) 最終解決滾動問題，並會有一個 「無限」 的列表而無需點擊 「 more…」（但是這需要較長的時間來完成）；
2.) 用戶資料視圖很快會有一次大修改；
3.) Friends 和 Followers 視圖將完全重寫；
4.) 圖片部分最終一定可以允許選取電話上的任何圖片，並支持上傳視頻或音頻文件；
5.) 「消息編輯器」 將被重寫。當編輯一條 tweet 時，你將可以選擇發送消息的目標帳號，添加 #hashtags 或事先編輯的信息（模板或草稿），縮短地址，添加圖片或視頻。
你會如何確定這個計劃列表呢？確定哪個是首位的，哪個其次，等等。
一般我是看 「心情」 來實現這些特性的——也就是說看我當時是否需要它們。當然，在收到大量很好的反饋後，我會選擇 Gravity 用戶中呼聲最高或是最急切需要的功能來先實現。
關於開發平臺
作為一個移動程序開發人員，你怎麼看待其它系統？比如 Android、webOS、Blackberry、iPhone、Maemo 或 Windows Mobile。
Gravity 開發之初我做的準備工作之一就是買了一個蘋果 iPod Touch。我嘗試了絕大多數 iPod Touch (iPhone) 上的 Twitter 客戶端，因為它們當中很多都是用戶界面簡約而強大的絕佳例子。我試著不當 fanboy，研究其它平臺，看看能否有所借鑑。
我認為 iPhone 是當前最好的移動平臺。我們這些 「移動專家」 在 2000 到 2001 年的夢想都被它實現了，當時用 iPAQ PocketPC + 摩託羅拉 GPRS 手機通過 CSD 和 GPRS 方式接入 WAP 網絡就是 「尖端科技」。iPhone 碾過 Symbian 等成熟的智慧型手機平臺並引領業界這個事實人覺得既有趣又悲哀。
但這不意味著 Symbian 沒機會迎頭趕上。我沒有傲慢、放肆的意思，但我覺得 Gravity 就是個好例子。這說明開發人員可以在 Symbian 上開發出和 iPhone 程序同樣有吸引力的程序。
Android 是另一個例子：一個非常令人激動的新平臺，力圖從零開始趕上 iPhone。
有沒有什麼計劃為這些系統開發程序或移植 Gravity？
我不確定到底要不要移植 Gravity，主要是由於我的資源有限、而且我非常喜歡 Symbian。如果移植的話，Android 和 Maemo 是目前的首選平臺。
Gravity 用戶們總說 Gravity 是全手持平臺最好的 Twitter 客戶端，甚至強過桌面平臺。你了解或關注過其它 Twitter 客戶端麼？是否也從中學到了一些？
我從 iPhone 的 Tweetie 上學到了很多。它非常簡單——基本上就是一個 Twitter 「瀏覽器」——正是這點讓它很特別。我認為它是 iPhone 上最好的 Twitter 客戶端（甚至比 Tweetie 2.0 更好），如果它可以後臺運行的話，可以算得上 Gravity 的有力競爭者;-)
我不太喜歡 PC 上那些基於 Adobe Air 的 Twitter 客戶端，比如 TweetDeck 和 Seesmic。不用 Gravity 的時候我會直接用 Twitter 網頁版。在另一方面，我也在持續關注這些 PC 客戶端。有可能會出現一些 Gravity 值得借鑑的好功能。
Symbian 對於開發者而言是不是一個出色的平臺？
是的，Symbian 對於開發者而言是個出色的平臺。有很多關於 Symbian 如何難於開發的說法，我不認同。這些謠言八成是誇張和保護主義的組合。
webOS、Maemo 或 iPhone 會引領未來麼？
Gravity 啟動時，我希望創造最好的移動 Twitter 客戶端——很自然的我選中了自己的首選平臺，Symbian。我真的認為 Symbian 提供了開發 Twitter 客戶端的所有需求，絲毫不遜於 iPhone OS 或 Android。
公平地說我得承認 Symbian 的瀏覽器已不再出類拔萃，相對於 Android 和 iPhone 甚至是個缺點（比如當你訪問推中地址時）
關於國際版
有沒有中文版計劃？我們樂於提供幫助
這個問題我還沒考慮清楚。我之前從沒有做過本地化，得研究一下如何將它加入項目當中。而且 Gravity 目前的更新速度很快，在不斷添加各種新功能，我討厭看到只有部分翻譯的用戶界面，比如新功能顯示為英文，老功能顯示為中文。另一方面，我清楚在很多國家如果有對應的本地化版本，Gravity 會更加成功，中國就是個顯著的例子。
中國有大量類 Twitter 服務，你打算直接或間接通過 hellotxt 支持它們麼？
已經有中國的類 Twitter 服務聯繫過我，我也期待著能為它們提供支持。我得承認自己沒有回覆最近的一個請求，Gravity 的反饋讓我焦頭爛額。
你在使用哪款智慧型手機？偏向觸屏還是全鍵盤？
剛開始 Gravity 開發時我在用 Nokia N95 。這是個好選擇，因為 N95 內存很小。（譯註：它能用就說明別的 S60V3 手機也能用）
現在我最喜歡的手機是 N97。N97 和我的需求貼合的近乎完美。但最近我更常用 E71 和 E52。今天外出時我隨身帶著 E52 和 N97。
看起來全鍵盤更適合 Twitter，你會為 E71、N97 等全鍵盤手機做優化麼？
在今年 1 到 3 月，我主要使用 Nokia N95 進行開發，我很快就愛上了用 T9 輸入法進行基本的英文輸入，用它輸入英文的速度令人著迷。但用它輸入德語（我的母語）就大為不同。我覺得對於大部分年長的人，用 E71 這樣的全鍵盤手機來發 Tweet 或是簡訊交流是最好的選擇。實際上，E71 也是最為成功的 Gravity 手機，其次我覺得應該是 N97。
智慧型手機在逐步提供各類諸如 Twitter 這樣的 Web 2.0 服務，它們如何影響智慧型手機和網際網路？
我對任何對網際網路世界的預言都很懷疑。看過太多完全錯誤的預測。Twitter 本身就是一個很好的例子：沒人能想到它的成功，更不要說有所打算。
另外一方面，當我在 2006 年開始對 Web 2.0 感興趣後，我馬上就想要把這些服務移植到我的 S60 手機。我覺得很多的 Web 2.0 服務在手機上比在 PC 的網絡瀏覽器使用更為靠譜。
不過，在手機上引入這些服務，你往往要非常仔細。在我看來，完全複製一個網絡服務到一部手機上絕對不會成功。我相信在 PC 上使用網際網路和在手機上使用網際網路地方式完全不同。
關於商業和破解
破解的陰影似乎永遠籠罩在共享軟體之上。有人甚至說軟體破解會增加正版註冊量。你怎麼看這個問題？打算怎麼保護 Gravity？
我對這個問題的評論有些躊躇。不過我想你的假定是正確的：開發者永遠也不可能完全阻止盜版。開發者可以採取儘可能嚴密的反制措施，但不能影響正版用戶的體驗。
Gravity 物有所值，但中國用戶可能會覺得有些昂貴。你是否打算為中國之類的發展中國家提供區域定價？
這個問題我考慮了很長時間，將會拿出一個區別定價解決方案。我想中國會是其中的一個，還有印度、南非等等。
告訴你一個故事：當你們（ifanr）在中國的第一批團購活動開始之時，有些 Nokia 等公司的員工要求我免費為他們提供 Gravity！還有一個關於 Gravity 定價過高的討論，發起人在倫敦工作生活——西方世界最大、物價最高的首都之一。這是一個詭異的世界，還能說什麼呢？
總之，我覺得只有多樣化定價才公平。但我目前還不確定具體實施細節。
可以透露一下 Gravity 的銷量麼？你是否對這個銷量感到滿意？
我還沒有決定是否以及如何發布銷售數字。不過我可以說自己對銷售的成功感到受寵若驚，現在可以只靠 Gravity 一個軟體的銷售過活。希望這個狀況可以持續一段時間，以便讓我繼續擴展、改進 Gravity。
為 HelloTXT 以及其他中國專有服務提供支持？
HelloTXT 還在計劃列表上。至於中國專有的服務，我需要一些反饋，關於到底哪個服務最重要或者最適合。我還需要一些文檔翻譯的幫助，這些服務的文檔都是用中文寫的，Google 翻譯讓人無法理解;-)
像支持 Twitpic 等服務那樣直接上傳照片至 Flickr？
Flickr 在開發計劃之中，已經進行了一部分。
延伸閱讀：
Gravity@Janole 通訊：關於 OAuth 驗證的好消息
關於 Gravity 的新動向，MiniTalk with @Janole
Gravity 推出重大功能升級：RSS 閱讀
小範軟，大貢 獻：Gravity 上了《福布斯》
最強 Twitter 範軟 Gravity 使用集要 1.1（補充了 API 部分）
English Edition At Page 2
中文版
ifanr: Could you introduce yourself a bit? What’s your day job? How long have you been working on Mobileways?
Jan Ole: Okay, I’m Jan Ole Suhr. My friends and family call me by my second first name, Ole. I』ve got my first computer in 1986 when I was about 14 years old. It was an Atari ST and I was immediately intrigued by programming it. Programming quickly became my main hobby and until today it’s both a 「passion」 and work.
I had been on holidays in Finland for a couple of years already, when mobile phones were suddenly getting common in Finland in about 1998 or so. Being a student at that time, a mobile phone wasn’t fitting my budget, but I couldn’t resist. In 1999 I got my first mobile phone – a Nokia 8110i – and I started to develop a ringtone composer and operator logo editor for it. I was excited about the idea that a mobile phone could be used to access the world-wide web and thought that starting a (small) business might be a good idea. So at the end of 1999, I founded mobileways.de – mainly working on and selling an online ringtone composer.
After a short period of time in a new economy startup (Iobox Oy, Helsinki), I continued with my own venture, mobileways.de and concentrated all my work on the new Nokia 7650, the first S60 based phone. So since 2002 I am fully dedicated to Symbian.
Also, could you tell us about your family? In some tweets, you mentioned you have to take care of kids. How many kids do you have, and did you sacrifice family-time while working on mobile apps? Does she（your wife）use Gravity to communicate with you?
I』ve got two kids, my 4 years old son Lukas and my 2 years old daughter Maja. I’m working three days a week, basically sharing the childcare with my wife, who’s also working three days a week (yes, that’s making a one-day weekend then =))
Being self-employed makes it very easy for me to adjust to this work-schedule. Also, I’m almost never working on a contract basis, so I can freely plan my time for programming all by myself. Right now I am working every spare minute on Gravity. It’s so much fun adding new features and getting positive feedback from all over the world.
So far, it’s working well, but I think I need to cut back soon and be more with the kids on those days at home. It’s really funny, but when you hear your 4 and 2 year old kids say 「Where’s daddy?」 – 「He’s twittering in the bedroom」, you realize that you might already sacrificing too much time 🙂
My wife has a Nokia E71 and is using Gravity a lot at the moment. This is really nice and actually the first time she’s using one of my applications. ( The apps I』ve done before were too specialized anyways. )
She’s also very much interested in social networks and for example knows a lot more about Facebook than I am. So she’s giving a lot of feedback how to improve Gravity.
Unlike most Symbian apps, the User Interface and User Experience of Gravity is most enjoyable and effective. Some say it’s the best twitter app any platform could possibly have. What’s your design concept?
There’s usually only one 「concept」 for an application that I am working on:
It must fit my personal needs and I have to like its design.
I am very picky with the 「look」 (user interface) of my applications. I can tweak a font size or color gradient for hours and still not being satisfied with it the next day.
The trouble is that I am just a programmer and by no means a designer or 「graphics artist.」 Working on the design of an application takes an awful lot of time for me, because it’s all trial and error over and over again.
I am also not a fan of 「paradigms」. I don’t really care about user interface guidelines of a platform (like S60.) I want the applications to look good and be 「pleasing to the eye.」
The best test for this is to look at something you』ve done after a day, after a week and after a month. If you don’t like it the next day, throw it away and start again. If you don’t like it after a week think about some major modifications. If you don’t like it after a month, you might need only slight modifications.
Usually, I don’t start to dislike my 「designs」 after day or two, but I stick with modifying them as long as I can bear with them =)
Strangely, with Gravity I still like the UI – I am actually amazed by Gravity’s UI from time to time. This never happend before and I must admit that part of it is just pure luck. (A couple of my design decisions were actually 「accidents」 and not planned at all.)
Have you met some challenges during the development of Gravity? Did you conquer to achieve that?
The biggest problem with the UI design on S60v5 (N97, 5800) is that those phones are incredibly underpowered for smooth UI effects. In Gravity I started with a 「hack」 to get around it quickly and planned to 「fix」 this hack later. I am still using this early days hack for the smooth scrolling and as you probably seen in fullscreen mode on the N97 or 5800, scrolling could be a lot smoother than it is right now.
The other problem with S60 is the vast number of different phones with different LCDs, different screen resolutions, different fonts, etc. A color gradient can look extremely good on the Nokia N95, but the same gradient is bearly noticable on the Nokia E61i for example.
Any Plan for IM or other application? When will we see them？
Before working on Gravity, I developed an IRC client named WirelessIRC. I wanted to add IM to it, but never succeeded. I’m not sure if I ever will create an IM client. An IM client with a Gravity-like user interface would be cool, but I’m not sure if I have the time and resources for it.
About Gravity, any blueprint for Gravity’s coming features？Would you tell us the top 5 features on the list?
I don’t have a fixed To-do list at the moment, but there are a number of important changes that I’m planning for Gravity:
1.) finally fix the scrolling and have an 「unlimited」 list without a 「more …」 mechanism (but this will take long time to implement.)
2.) The User profile view will receive a major overhaul soon.
3.) The Friends and Followers view will be completely rewritten.
4.) The Image section must finally allow you to select any picture from the phone and also offer you to pick a video/audio file for uploading.
5.) The 「message editor」 will be rewritten. You should be able to select the accounts where to send the message to, add #hashtags or precomposed messages (templates/drafts), shorten URLs, add pictures or videos right when creating a tweet.
How do you determain your to do list? I mean how do you decide what feature would be top and second，and so on?
Usually I implement the features depending on my 「mood」 – if I want them right now or not. However, with all the nice feedback coming in, I try to work on what’s most requests or seems to be most urgent for the users of Gravity.
About develop Platform
As a mobile app developer, what do you think of the other mobile OS, like iPhone, Android, etc?
One of the first things I did when starting to develop Gravity was to buy me an Apple iPod Touch. I』ve checked out most of the Twitter clients on the iPod Touch (iPhone) platform because many of them are just great examples of a easy but powerful UI. I am trying not be a 「fanboy」 and check out other platforms to see if they are better and where I could learn from or copy from.
I think the iPhone is the best mobile platform at the moment. It’s what all of us 「mobile professionals」 dreamed of in the early days of mobile phones in 2000 and 2001 when we only got WAP via CSD and GPRS and teethering a iPAQ PocketPC with a Motorola GPRS phone was 「state-of-the-art」. It’s funny and sad at the same time that the iPhone just ran over established smartphone platforms like Symbian and now leads the whole industry by such a large margin.
But this doesn’t mean Symbian couldn’t catch up quickly. Without being impudent or arrogant, I』d say that Gravity is an example for this. You can create applications on Symbian that are as attractive as applications on the iPhone.
Android is another example: a new platform that’s very exciting and trying to catch up with the iPhone starting from scratch.
Do you plan to come up with apps or port Gravity to other platforms?
I am not sure about porting Gravity – mainly because of my limited resources and because I like Symbian a lot. If I’m porting, Android and Maemo are the top candidates at the moment.
Gravity users always say it is the best twitter client compared with clients used in other mobile platforms，even among destop applications. Do you know and focus any other twitter clients？or would you learn from them？
I』ve learned a lot from the original Tweetie twitter client for iPhone. It’s very simple – basically just a Twitter 「browser」 – but that’s what’s making it special. I think it’s the best client on the iPhone (even better than Tweetie 2.0) and if it could run in the background it would be a strong contender of Gravity 😉
I don’t like the Adobe Air based PC Twitter clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic so much. When I’m not tweeting via Gravity, I just use the web interface. On the other hand I am trying to keep up with the developments on those PC clients. There are a possibly some nice features which are worth considering to add to Gravity.
Is Symbian a great platform for developing an ideal client？
Yes. Symbian is a great platform for developers. There’s a lot of talk about Symbian being difficult to learn and such. I don’t think this is true. Those 「rumours」 are probably just a combination of bragging and protectionism.
do you think you can make it on Symbian？Will webOS，Maemo or iphone lead the future？
webOS、Maemo 或 iPhone 會引領未來麼？
When starting with Gravity I wanted to create the best mobile Twitter client – and of course I picked my platform of choice, Symbian. I do believe that for a Twitter client, Symbian can deliver all that’s needed and doesn’t stand back from the iPhone OS or Android.
To be fair I must admit that the browser on Symbian (S60) isn’t state-of-the-art anymore and that’s probably a disadvantage over Android and the iPhone (when you’re visiting links from a tweet.)
About international version
will there be a chinese language version？（surely ifanr.com will help you)
I’m not sure about this yet. I』ve never done localisation and will have to check how I can add this to the project. As I am moving very quickly at the moment ( adding new features every now and then ) I would hate to have partially translated UIs only where the new features are in English and the old are in Chinese for example.
On the other hand I understand that there are a lot of countries where Gravity could be much more successfull with a localized version – China being the most prominent example possibly.
there are a huge number of users for Twitter-like services in China, would you support them directly or support them throught hellotxt?
I』ve been contacted by other Twitter-like services from China already and I am looking forward to add support for them. I must admit that I haven’t replied to one of the last request still, as I am just overwhelmed by the feedback for Gravity.
what smartphone are you using? do you prefer touch or qwerty one?
I initially used my Nokia N95 when starting to develop Gravity. A good choice, because the N95 is limited by the low RAM.
Currently my preferred phone for Gravity is the N97. It’s actually close to perfect for my needs. But recently I started to use my Nokia E71 and E52 a lot more. When I’m on the move today, I am taking the E52 and N97 with me.
It seems that qwerty phones are more suitable than others for twitter, would you be optimized for qwerty phone such as E71, N97?
When working with the N95 as my main development phone in January-March, I quickly learned to love T9 for entering (basic) English texts. It’s amazing how fast you can type with T9 when using English. It’s not working at all when trying to enter text in German, my native language, by the way.
I think for most older people, qwerty phones such as the E71 are the best choice for tweeting or SMSing. Actually, the E71 is the most successfull Gravity phone, and I think the second is the N97 already.
All kinds of web2.0 application like twitter are going into smartphone, how will them effect smartphone and internet world?
I am very sceptical of any predictions in the internet world. I』ve seen far too many forecasts that were utterly wrong. Twitter itself is a nice example: no one could have thought about it’s success let alone planning it.
On the other hand, when I got interested in web 2.0 in 2006 or so, I immediately thought about 「porting」 it to my S60 phones. I think many web 2.0 services make more sense on a mobile phone than on a PC web browser.
However, you usually have to adapt the service carefully for a mobile phone. A one-to-one copy of a web service to a mobile phone will never succeed in my opinion. And I believe that there will always be a difference between using the internet from a PC and using it from a mobile phone.
About Business and Crack
seems that Crack has always been with Shareware. Someone even say crack version would promote registration. What do you think? what would you do to try to protect Gravity?
I am hesitant to comment on this. However, I think your assumption is correct: you will never be able to stop piracy. You need to take as much counter measures as possible, but without annyoing the legitimate users.
the price for Gravity is worthy. but to Chinese may be a little pricey.would you provide a local price for deveoping countries like China?
I』ve been thinking about this for a long time and eventually I will come up with a 「solution」 for differentiating the price. I think China would be one case, but also India for example and South America as well.
I can tell you a story: at the same time when you were starting your first bulk order for ifanr from China – a developing country – I was getting requests from employees of companies like Nokia for sending them free copies of Gravity! There was also this discussion about Gravity being overprized started by someone living and working in London, one of the major and most expensive capitals of the 「western world.」 It’s a weird world. What else can you say?
So after all, I think it would only be fair to have a variable pricing. I am not sure how to implement this yet, though.
would you tell us how many copies saled so far？are you satisfied with the number？
I haven’t decided yet if and how I』d release my sales numbers. What I can say though is that I am completely overwhelmed by the success and currently can live from the sales of Gravity alone. I really hope that this will continue for a while and that I am able to extend and improve Gravity.
HelloTXT or support other dedicated services from China?
HelloTXT is still on the Todo list. For the dedicated services from China I would love to get some feedback from you as to which service would be most important or best to start with. I』ve checked on service a couple of months ago and figured that the documents were in Chinese, so I might need some translation help when the automatic translation by Google fails to reveal something meaningful 😉
upload picture to Flickr just like twitpic?
Flickr is planned and partly implemented already.