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06/06/2002 Interview with Gavin Maxwell- author of Wassup and 'Teach yourself Palm Programming in 24 hours'
Why did you create Wassup and what plans do you have for future enhancements? (Hi-res+, custom backgrounds?)
I created Wassup after playing with an Ipaq a few weeks ago. The "Today" screen on the Ipaq was one of the few things that actually made sense about the device. In terms of future enhancements I have a list of requests from users as long as my arm... they include a bunch of things including the two you've mentioned. Watch this space...
What PDA do you use and why?
I currently have a Palm m515 because I used to work for Palm, Inc here in Australia (developer training, relations etc). The Clie NR70's will be here very shortly though. I played with one last week and fell in love with the screen - it's a beautiful device, plus the industrial design is quite imaginative!
You have written a book called 'Teach yourself Palm Programming in 24 hours'- is that really possible?
It's not 24 elapsed hours, more like a few hours a day over a couple of weeks. And yes, I truly believe you can learn the basics in a short period of time. It's the rest of the stuff that takes all the time. I've been programming Palm OS devices since the Pilot 1000 came out, and I'm still learning!
What's the best Palm application and game you have used by another author?
Best program: TimePlace 4 by Christopher Hunt rocks!! Best game: I'm currently playing Tak Tik from Kickoo - it's a very nice program. Well done Daniel...!
You are Clie World's first Australian interviewee- how popular are the Palms and Clie's in your country? Do you have the same sparsity of accessories etc. we suffer from in the UK?
Actually Chris Hunt lives in Australia too, however his origins are closer to your own. Anyway, yes we do suffer from a lack of accessories down here too. There are only 2 specialist stores that I know of, and they are both about 800 kilometres away in Melbourne (I'm in Sydney). Palm OS devices are quite popular down here, we have quite an active User Group (www.auspug.org), and there are a large number of Palm developers (around 3500 at last count).
Which person would you most like to meet and why?
Douglas Adams - but I'm not prepared to die to do it! I just loved the Hitchhikers Guide series - he was a brilliant man who knew how to take life with a grain of salt.
What one feature would you like to see in future PDAs?
I want to see every device have Bluetooth built-in. I'm not a fan of "all-in-one" devices, I want to be able to use my T39 (Bluetooth/GPRS) with my handheld, without having to worry about add-on bits...
How successful has Wassup been so far and has it met your expectations?
The first night I sat and watched the PalmGear stats tick over at about 40 downloads a minute, it's slowed a little since then but I'm very happy with the response and the feedback from people. I mostly wrote it for myself, and later decided that others might enjoy it also. I also have a fulltime job as a Palm developer (www.syncint.com), so I'm not reliant on income from Wassup.
What's the best piece of feedback you have received so far concerning Wassup?
I've received a lot. Probably the most useful was the idea to incorporate an inactivity timeout into the "auto launch" facility. That way if your device has just turned itself off and you were reading email, when you turn your device back on you don't get switched into Wassup.
Do you have plans to make other Palm programs and if so can you hint as to what they might be?
I'm already working on some stuff now in my spare time. One item started as a Wassup enhancement - but it might actually make sense as a standalone application. I don't want to say what it is, but I had to dig out my maths textbooks to brush up on my trigonometry for some of the user-interface!
Thanks Gavin- interesting interview- if you want more details on 'Wassup' or Gavin's book 'Teach yourself Palm Programming in 24 hours' please visit Pocket Science.