HOT: Large RockNScroll Preview

I have told you yesterday that I was honoured by Keynetik to receive “RockNScroll” as one of very few elected people to have a look at it even before the public release.
It is clear for me to present you all the features of this amazing application in this large preview and I really hope to succeed in fulfilling the quality of this application.
Don’t care if you don’t know anything about “RockNScroll”, I will start completely from the beginning.

What the Application is about

Accelerometer technology is currently amazing most of the users of current Nseries phones. The amount of available new concepts and new applications isn’t stopping.
The most famous developer of accelerometer using applications, Samir, has started the wave of accelerometer application with “rotateMe”, a wave which didn’t stop till now and won’t stop so soon.

Samir’s next project was “Nokmote”, the first application which brought motion input to S60 devices. “Nokmote” was actually developed for playing games and was simply too sensitive to work satisfying for menu navigation.

Shortly after its release, a video occurred on YouTube showing an application you could mistake as a “Nokmote” copy. However, only a little deeper glance showed that “RockNScroll” developed by the world’s leading motion input enterprise, Keynetik, is everything else than that.

“RockNScroll” is a single sensor based application providing motion input to latest Nseries phones like the N82, N95, N95 8GB and also the coming N96. That means you can control your phone only with movements without pressing any key, providing access to nearly all functions of an S60 phone.

The application is not only thought for menu navigation; it offers also a gaming mode bringing new gaming experiences in a similar way like Nokmote. Of course this is just a little extract of what this powerful software can do. Read on to discover more about its other features.

Control

“RockNScroll” gives you the possibility to navigate in the menus of your accelerometer supporting Nokia device by using different gestures. With little flicks of your wrist in the corresponding direction, you are able to move the cursor right and left, up and down.

Menu navigation consists of course not only of moving the cursor. “RockNScroll” supports a “Push gesture” which is used to confirm a selection and a “Pull gesture” for back or exit command. As you can see, Keynetik thought about all necessary possibilities to make menu navigation as comfortable as possible. It didn’t work with “Nokmote” like this, not only because of the high sensitivity, but also because of the lack of a “Back gesture”.

While navigating, you can hold the device in nearly every angle you like; the application adjusts itself to the phone’s position. Also an advantage in comparison to “Nokmote” which worked only in a certain angle.

The mentioned kind of controlling a phone works like this for the so called “Flick-Action Mode” which is thought for menu navigation. There is also a certain “gaming mode” providing perfect capabilities for gaming and scrolling long lists due to its higher sensitivity. The basic control is the same for both modes, but has also some differences I mention below.

Demo Video:

Settings

When you start “RockNScroll” the first time, you will see that the UI is kept very simple. The current settings are displayed in the middle. And when we are talking about settings – it is really amazing to see how many different ideas Keynetik had to personalise the application.

The first setting called “Accelerometer Polling” is responsible for the pursuit of “RockNScroll”. When deactivating this feature, motion input is turned off and the application runs hidden in the background.

It’s of course useful to have a shorter way to enable/disable motion input than switching to the “RockNScroll” application and using the options menu. A reason for Keynetik to add hotkeys executing “Accelerometer Polling” and the switching between the already mentioned two different modes. How the hotkeys are working is explained below.

“Notifications” can be enabled and disabled to give the user feedback what operations “RockNScroll” does automatically, e.g. little message boxes being displayed when switching from one mode to the other.

The next setting is responsible for changing between modes. The disabled “Game Mode” stands for the activated “Flick-Action Mode”, the other case should be self-explanatory. More about the modes is written below.

As I said, “RockNScroll” brings possibilities to confirm/exit commands with push/pull gestures. It might be useful to disable to disable this in some cases what can be done with this setting.

Furthermore, you can see that there is also an entry for the “Screen Orientation”. “RockNScroll” is not only an application providing motion navigation control, but also a full auto rotation software like “rotateMe”. More information below.

The settings are actually very nice. However, they focus all on the proper input process. Ordinary ones like auto start we know from Samir’s applications are still missing, but I am sure that Keynetik is aware of this lack.

Features

First I want to focus on the two different modes of “RockNScroll”. The “Flick-Action Mode” I have already explained is mainly thought for menu navigation. Nice balanced sensitivity settings result in a great motion navigation experience.

Still the “Game Mode” remains unexplained: As the name says, this mode has been added to provide users also an as good as possible gaming experience. This mode reacts much more sensitively, on a level which can be compared with ”Nokmote”.
Menu navigation is pretty hard with activated game mode, so it’s better to not switch into this mode until you have launched your desired game.

The “Game Mode” works also well for scrolling through long lists like the track list of the music player. This is possible because “RockNScroll” is able to simulate long key presses which makes it easy to get up/down in a longer list by simply keeping the device at a tilt – another difference to the “Flick-Action Mod”. Have a look at the “Reliability” part to experience more about gaming with “RockNScroll”.

Considering the question how to switch between the two modes, we have directly arrived at the auto rotation feature.
As I said, “RockNScroll” supports also auto rotation like we know it from “rotateMe”. When turning the device to the left, the screen is rotated automatically.
The rotation feature is also used to activate the gaming mode: when switching to landscape mode, the “Game Mode” is enabled; switching back to portrait mode and the “Flick-Action Mode” will be enabled again.

Well thought through by Keynetik, this feature might be useful in most of the cases you are using “RockNScroll’s” motion input capabilities.

But in case you want to navigate in the menu in landscape mode, there has to be a possibility to switch the modes manually. You can do so by using the options menu method I have already mentioned or of course by using a hotkey. Pressing the pen key will change the current mode, confirmed by a message box in case one has the “Notification” option activated.

Like this, gaming in portrait mode and navigating in landscape mode are no problem. It’s still not solved perfectly, because you cannot disable automatic mode switching. However, I am sure that Keynetik will change this in the next beta version.

It would be too long to explain the reason here, but the “Game Mode” works different to the “Flick-Action Mode”.
You cannot use your phone tilted in every position automatically. However, the angle which is used as 0° layer is recorded after you turned your device to landscape mode. This position called “Homezone” is the position within which no commands are being executed. Tilting deviants will be construed as up/down/right/left movements, depending on the direction.

There is also a position close to 90° which doesn’t work properly, called “Deadzone”. The application hints at that with a little message box. You can redefine your “Homezone” by shortly disabling the “Game Mode” with a press on the pencil key, rearrange your phone and then reactivate the “Game Mode” with a further hotkey execution.

Accelerometer use wastes a lot of battery life. That’s why accelerometer polling is automatically disabled after locking the keyboard.
Unfortunately, you must reactivate “RockNScroll” manually after unlocking the keys again. A bug Keynetik is aware of and they will fix in the next version.

If you want to disable motion input, you can disable “Accelerometer Polling” by pressing “Pen + C”. 

Reliability

I must admit that I wasn’t as excited about “RockNScroll” as I am at the moment when I tried it yesterday. This has the one and only reason that controlling “RockNScroll” is not that easy as it looked like from the demo video. It really needs practise, a thing also Gene confirmed me when I contacted him.
At first I was disappointed about the irriability of motion input, but I practised and learned more and more how to use it.

“RockNScroll” needs short, but powerful movements to be controlled without errors. The more I used it, the more excited I got. After a while you are in control of using the application and discover the capabilities of Keynetik’s first Symbian application.

So make sure to watch the demo video and practise a bit until you capitulate disappointedly!

Menu navigation works pretty well, especially moving the cursor works very reliably and without issues. Confirming and exiting in contrast must still be improved: it’s sometimes pretty hard to perform the correct gesture that “RockNScroll” detects as the input the user desires. I talked to Gene about this problem and he promised to improve confirming in the next version.

It was a very good decision by Keynetik to add a certain mode for gaming. Perfectly balanced sensitivity provides even better gaming experience than “Nokmote”. I was really surprised because I expected “Nokmote” to remain number one in motion gaming, but input in “Game Mode” is executed much more reliably than with “Nokmote”. Furthermore, you can play in many positions, “Nokmote” supports only one predefined one.

Usage Examples

The UI of “MobiTubia” seems to be written only for using motion input!

The circle interface looks very nice using “RockNScroll”.

Using “Game Mode”, you can easily scroll through the long track/artist lists of the music player.

Scrolling through the gallery is also a lot of fun with “RockNScroll”.

Wishes for next Beta

- Better UI:

It doesn’t play a large role for the proper application, but Keynetik wouldn’t have done anything wrong in implementing a nicer interface. Well, that´s nothing important but would have been nice anyhow.

- Improved Motion Input:

Motion input is actually the main advantage of “RockNScroll” – it works very well, but not perfectly. Confirming and exiting is still hard - a point Keynetik is already working at.

Yeah, I know that I am grumbling on a high level.

- More settings:

Keynetik has implemented nice options, however the little but anyhow important ones like an auto start feature are still missing. Sensitivity settings would also be nice.

Conclusion

I really expected a lot from “RockNScroll”, because the videos looked so promising. And I must say – Keynetik didn’t disappoint me. After testing the application quite some time, I came to the conclusion that “RockNScroll” is far and away the best accelerometer application which has been released.
Motion input works like a charm being able to keep it under control. Gaming is raised to a much higher level when playing games with “RockNScroll”, an even higher one than with “Nokmote”.
The user can reconstruct all features which have been added, every feature is useful and has its “raison d’être”. Two different modes being exactly customised for the function they are developed for are working in a totally different way, but the result for menu navigation and also for gaming are the same – they work amazing!

I could go on swarming about “RockNScroll” for pages, but I will stop here. In my opinion it is indeed the best application which has been released since a long time.

However, nobody is perfect and also “RockNScroll” not. My wish list for the next beta includes improved motion input; it works well but not perfect, more settings and a better UI. But you must consider this is a BETA version.
Having this result in the first beta version of an application developed by an enterprise which never used Symbian as platform, is actually more than we could have expected.

Well done, Keynetik!

At this point, I want to mention once again that “RockNScroll” will be released VERY soon, maybe even today.

Addition – Content of “RockNScroll’s” Manual

After installing RockNScroll, keep your device in portrait (vertical) orientation, locate RockNScroll under Applications and run it. When the application comes up, it will display current settings including:

1. Accelerometer polling: ON/OFF – ON status indicates that RockNScroll is in active mode (awake – polling accelerometer). OFF status indicates that RockNScroll is in passive mode (sleeping – not polling accelerometer).
2. Game mode: ON/OFF – ON status indicates that the device will respond to tilt commands. OFF status indicates that the device will respond to flick (motion) commands.
3. Push/Pull: ON/OFF – ON Status indicates that the device will respond to Push/Pull commands. OFF status indicates that Push/Pull commands are disabled.
4. Screen Orientation: PORTRAIT/LANDSCAPE – Indicates device orientation.
5. Notifications: ON/OFF – ON status indicates that Notifications are turned on. OFF status indicates that Notifications are turned off.

Press the menu key to get out of RockNScroll GUI.

RockNscroll Commands:

• When you start RockNscroll in portrait orientation the default mode of operation is flick-action. When you rotate your device to landscape orientation the mode of operation will switch to game mode and if you rotate the device back to portrait orientation the mode of operation will switch back to flick-action.
o Flick-action requires a flick of the wrist
o Game mode works from tilt.

• You can manually change modes of operation in any orientation my pressing “Pen” key on Nokia N95. This way, while operating in portrait orientation and in flick-action mode you can press “Pen” key to switch to game mode. And, while operating in landscape orientation and in game mode, you can press “Pen” key to switch to flick-action mode. You can use this feature to reposition device while in game mode. Press “Pen” to get out of game mode, change position, and press “Pen” again.
• To put RockNScroll to sleep (disable accelerometer polling) or to wake it up (enable accelerometer
polling) you can use “Pen” + ‘C’. The application needs to be running for “Pen” + ‘C’ to work.

RockNScroll Options:

1. Accelerometer polling option gives you an ability to force RockNScroll to go to sleep or wake up. Accelerometer usage in Nokia N95 consumes a lot of power and we recommend putting RockNSroll to sleep when not in use to conserve power.
2. Game Mode is designed to use continuous tilt commands, which works well for gaming, scrolling through lists (contacts, music, etc.), web browsing, navigation, etc. It is very sensitive, requires precision, and is very vulnerable to motion interference. Turning OFF Game Mode switches RockNScroll to flick-action mode, which is meant for menu navigation and general phone operation.
It requires a flick of the wrist to move the highlight up/down/left/right. Since flick-action mode relies on force, it can be used in any position, it is not as sensitive, does not require precision, and is not as vulnerable to motion interference.
3. A) Push gesture mimics select or enter command. It can also be used to answer phone calls.
B) PULL gesture mimics exit or back command. It can also be used to turn on/off loudspeaker while on call.
4. Notifications are disabled by default. You can enable them from the options menu in RockNScroll.
It’s recommended to enable notifications to familiarize yourself with RockNScroll.
Screen Orientation is updated automatically by rotating device from portrait to landscape and back.
Dead Zone is a position close to 90 degrees in which game mode will not operate.