Well, that was that RIP BlackBerry 10

In a way this is a sad day, I would very much like to continue to use my BlackBerry 10 Z10, it JustWorks(tm) for all the important bits, e-mail, calendar, phone, IM with BBM. QNX, Qt, C++ and Cascades was a joy to code with.

But, unfortunately the support has gone, no updates, BBM on BB10 is on life support (Channels I managed I can't manage anymore), browser hasn't seen an upgrade in ages and services that I could use trough the browser instead of native apps have started to require features that just isn't there.

So what are the choices then ?

• iPhone ? Never in a million years.
• SailfishOS ? Well, maybe, see next.
• Android ? For now. I prepared by getting a Sony XA2 to be able to perhaps move to SailfishOS when it is mature enough, but lets see if/when that happens.

I've been slowly getting used to Android, it has the apps, sure, but the polish and integration is just not there. E-mail app sucks, calendar is a mess (no native CalDAV support, like what the fuck??) and most of all I'm going to the miss the Hub. The concept of the Hub is so simple, but extremely powerful.

After almost 6 years (from summer 2013)! as my primary phone, I'm now saying goodbye to BlackBerry 10.

Thanks for making an awesome platform BlackBerry, but fuck you for abandoning it and your users.

A bit of progress on ScummVM for BB10

Got it building and running, there where some funny business with C++ libraries and alsa that for some reason didn't happen under the PlayBook SDK.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on BB10

Still, needs bit of work on the control side, especially on this small screen trying to point with a finger is quite hard.

Video of ScummVM running Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on running on a DevAlpha C (Q10)

Native ScummVM for PlayBook, progress

I was sick and tried to do something usefull at the time. So, a bit of hacking on the BlackBerry fork of SDL to add support for native gestures (Swipe down and and Back swipe "down-left to upper-right").

Swipe down is obviously used for the game menu access (F5 key) and back swipe for Escape to skip cut-scenes (ESC key).

It is pretty much ready for submission!

See below for a quick video on how the swipes are working in Sam & Max Hit the Road and Flight of the Amazon Queen.

ScummVM for PlayBook and BB10

Started to scratch an itch as nobody seemed to have done a proper native port of ScummVM for the PlayBook or BlackBerry 10 devices.

It runs and the games seems to work. Now what is needed is some way to handle left/right clicks, F5 and other keyboard shortcuts.

Native ScummVM on BlackBerry PlayBook

RetroPlayer 1.0.0 beta for BlackBerry 10

Very basic, but does what it is supposed to do. More at RetroPlayer project page.


The icon is horrible, I suck at those.

SID Player for BlackBerry 10

Looks like I've been neglecting my blog again... well, let us do something about that.

I've been planning on doing a SID player for a long long time already for BB10 devices but been a bit scary of doing the low-level audio stuff. No need for such under Linux devices thanks to gstreamer but BB10 does not come with a easy to extend media framework, you need to do everything yourself pretty much.

Got inspired to do something about it a couple of days ago and started with a simple test application using libsidplayfp and QAudioOutput. Works. So next was to use QSA instead as QAudioOutput is not supported on BB10. Turned out to be quite easy (thanks to my effort to get espeak-ng speaking).

A quick demo of my work in progress SID Player for BlackBerry 10

Y-Radio for BlackBerry 10 passed review

Now that was quick. The application review is done and Y-Radio is now available for download in BlackBerry World.

Download Y-Radio, YLE Radio application for BlackBerry 10!

Y-Radio BB10 version review issues

Don't know what the tester is doing but I've got it back now twice with a nice one-liner saying basically "No sound". Work for me so I wonder if the tester is doing something stupid like not having network connection ?

Anyway, submitted one now that complains loudly (in RED) if device is off-line, lets see if that helps.

YLE Radio application for BlackBerry 10

Onki for BlackBerry 10 is out (and an update is pending review)

A version of Onki, an Onkyo remote app, is now available for BlackBerry 10 devices in the application store.

Playing from a Network service

Tuner presets list

Actually it has been available for a couple of weeks already and I just sent a small update for review. The update adds an application cover that displays zone status, some minor UI updates and integration with the Now Playing interface.

Now playing integration

You can download Onki from BlackBerry World

Y-Radio coming to BlackBerry 10

An itch needed some scratching that resulted in me finally making and YLE Radio application for BlackBerry 10 devices. Goes by the name Y-Radio as the Jolla version.

This version is pretty basic, just a list of channels, play/stop button and quick access to channel web site(s).

Here is a quick intro video to the app:


Should be available in BlackBerry World as soon as review is done.

QtQuick friendly Onkyo ISCP remote protocol library

There are some ready made apps and code around, but none that was easy to plug into QtQuick or in library format so I scratched that itch myself for a change and wrote a simple library.

Still working on figuring out some of the more complicated commands like controlling network playback, but all the basic stuff is there. Will be in a git repo soonish.

Screenshot of test app below, UI is pure QML. (Yes it simple and ugly, it is a test app)

The ultimate ISCP commander!

And yes, this means there will be an application for Jolla and BlackBerry 10 in the near future.

fkLeffa got updated

My first ever (a for now, only proper app) application, fkleffa, for the BlackBerry 10 platform got some love too the last couple of weeks.

There is now support for more cinemas chains (well, basically all cinemas I know of that run the Markus Cinema system and offer the XML API interface). Supported are now: Finnkino in Finland, Forum Cinema in Estonia, Kino Artis in Estonia, Forum Cinema in Lativa, Forum Cinema in Lithuania, Eden Cinemas in Malta and SAMbíó in Iceland.

Also the UI got updated with easy access to todays shows (with date selection) and upcoming movie premieres.

fkLeffa is available, for free, in BlackBerry world!

BBM on Jolla update

My previous BBM on Jolla video mentioned that PIN sharing as QR Code didn't work as the camera was still unsupported in Alien Dalvik, the Android environment that Jolla is using. Well, the latest update 1.0.2.5 aka Maadajävri adds support for the device camera in Android applications and now you can share and read QR Codes from BBM. A short video demonstrating this BBM feature below.

Jolla vs BB10 video camera test

I did a small camera test the other day, Jolla vs Z10, filming a Full HD video with the same content. I did two tests, outside conditions and inside conditions.

Both these devices have about the same specs on the camera, 8 megabit Auto-Focus and none of the are marketed as any kind of super-über-DSLR-camera-phones so they should be on the same line in that sense.

Anyway, video below:


I must say, I'm a bit disappointed with the Jolla camera quality, hopefully it can be fixed with software updates. Jolla compresses also a bit more than the Z10.

BlackBerry BBM on Jolla device

BlackBerry BBM runs almost perfectly on the Jolla!

Use your favourite method to download the com.bbm.apk file from Google Play and transfer it over to your device, for example trough the browser or e-mail it to yourself. It should install and run just as you would expect on any android device.

I've just done some quick testing, but a couple of minor issues came up:

1. Needs to be running, background service does not seem to work. I don't know if this is a limit of the runtime on the Jolla or something else.
2. Reading of shared QRCode PINs using camera fails.

Need more proof ? Checkout this short video demonstraing chatting with a Jolla and a BlackBerry Z10.

Killing zombies on a BlackBerry 10 device from CLI

I'm porting a SDL based game to BlackBerry 10. The app does not yet handle the swipe-up + exit gesture properly and gets stuck in the background.

I don't know exactly what happens but the app is still running and I can't restart it and the app window  is also hidden from the task list view. Restarting fixes it obviously, but there must be a more sane way to kill it.

So what to do? The obvious way, ssh into it and running something like, say:

ps | grep appname
kill -9 

But nooo.. the paranoid people at BlackBerry has removed the QNX ps command from the BB10 Core OS.

$ ps
sh: ps: cannot execute - No such file or directory
$ which ps
which: no ps in /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

So now what? I did ask on the forums for some help, got a link to a application for slaying zombies, but that did seem a bit overkill for a simple thing like this, so a quick dive into the code slayer showed that QNX has a /proc filesystem listing all the processes. Obviously to make it a PITA the permissions are all dr-x--x--x

But here, a poor mans ps command:

for i in /proc/*/cmdline ; do echo $i; cat $i; done

Find the line that prints out the cmdline for your app and get the pid from the line above, kill -9 it and there you have it!

ICTExpo 2013, Helsinki

I was to the ICTExpo yesterday, the most interesting thing must have been these old computers that Tietotekniikan liitto had on display :)

TeleType KSR 33 (1963-1981)

Osborne 1, C64, Telmac TMC-600 and a Nokia MikroMikko

Also, I like to dabble with NFC and got myself a demo/testing pack with a NFC card and a USB reader (ACR122U).

ACR122U reader

This was also nice to play with, on display at Cubio:s booth, a BlackBerry Z10. (Should be available in Finland next month, price quote was a "very clear" 600-700€. I'd recommend getting it from Amazon or some other out-of-Finland shop for now.

Z10

BlackBerry 10 blog in Finnish

BlackBerry is very uncommon and unknown here in Finland, so I decided to start a BB10 development and news blog in Finnish. Lets see how it goes...

eSpeak on the BlackBerry DevAlpha

Had to write a suitable audio driver for eSpeak but after some frustration with OpenAL it started working.

So, here you go, a talking BB10!


I'll try to post the preliminary source for the driver soon.

Getting started with SDL on BB10 and the Playbook

BlackBerry provides SDL for the available for BlackBerry 10 and the PlayBook, with a nice touch screen helper library to make it easier to create touch screen controls with minimal or even no modification to original apps.

The instructions on how to use SDL after building everything is quite lacking on the web site so, I'll document my findings here for anyone else that is interested and also as a reminder for myself.

Anyway, start with cloning TouchControlOverlay and SDL from the RIM github repo. I won't go into the details here. And remember to source the bbndk evironment first.

Ok, now you should have the sources. Start with building and installing  TouchControlOverlay

cd TouchControlOverlay
make
make install

Next, building SDL. I prefer to use an out-of-source build directory, makes it easier to build for both BB10 and PlayBook from the same source.

$ mkdir sdlbb10
$ cd sdlbb10
$ ../SDL/configure  --prefix=/home/milang/bbndk/target_10_0_9_1673/qnx6/armle-v7 \
--host=arm-unknown-nto-qnx8.0.0eabi \
--without-x --enable-pthreads \
--enable-audio --enable-video-playbook \
LDFLAGS="-lscreen -lasound -lpps -lm -lpng14 -lbps -lxml2 -lEGL -lGLESv2" \
CPPFLAGS="-D__PLAYBOOK__ -D__QNXNTO__"
$ make

Install SDL

$ make install

Ok, now SDL is installed nicely. Next edit the bbndk-env.sh script and add

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=${QNX_TARGET}/armle-v7/lib/pkgconfig
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH

in the end of the file. Re-source it or set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH manually. What this does is enable pkg-config enabled sources to find SDL (and other software that uses pkg-config to get options). For example the SDL libraries that we will add next, SDL_net and SDL_image. But that will come in another post.