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laurieny

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Build for C8

I know you have all been anxiously waiting for further updates about the status of the C8 REDFLY. Sorry it took longer than I had hoped to get an answer ? though I didn?t know you would be quite this invested. At Celio we have been working day and night, but I guess I thought other people were less obsessive...

;-)

We launched the new release (version 1.5) of the software today with added support for select BlackBerry 4.6 phones as well as Windows Mobile 6.0/6.1. Support for select Windows 6.5 phones will come out in a few more weeks, though fundamentally the support is there now, we just need some more time testing these late-arriving phones. In other words we will have another official release for that soon.

You will see UI changes with our new Control Panel in Windows as well as a new splash screen on the REDFLY, USB print support with the purchase of a JETCET driver, and a few more nice things, but in general the really significant changes are all ?under the covers? and predominantly focused on adding support for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 6.5. This involved adding support for alpha blending, a tricky scaler algorithm, etc.

We have also officially retired support for the original C8 with this launch. Of course, the C8 is no longer available for sale and hasn?t been for a year now. Due to technical differences in board design between the old and new models and the capacity of that FPGA, along with the overhead and cost involved in regression testing more than 75 phones on all three platforms, it was a business decision we had to make. And build 1.4.0.212 that people have now works just fine for all but the newest phones.

However, we do want to support our early adopters and their desire to adopt the ?latest and greatest.? In order to show our appreciation, we have spent a fair bit of development time the last few weeks going back to the older code base and re-compiling it to properly install and "fit" on the C8 devices. Though we?ve done very limited testing with this build, in general, the communication between the phones we?ve tried and the C8 devices seems to be working fine. Therefore, we are making this build available on a special ?magic? web page for those of you that would like it on an ?as is? basis.

Please note that unless you are a Windows user planning on moving to BlackBerry, or you are getting a new 6.5 phone in the very near future, there is no real reason to change what is working for you now, just to go to this build. Though I do have to admit that we did resolve the ?grey bar? issue to a large extent for 6.1 phones (still missing the gradient though) and because Microsoft fixed the underlying root cause, there is no soft key menu display issue in 6.5 phones. (Yes this build is pretty good to try with 6.5 phones too.)

To get the new version (1.5.0.286) today, go to http://www.celiocorp.com/008 to install it from a PC - not available OTA. One important note is that you MUST upgrade any existing REDFLYs using a Windows Mobile phone before you can try it with a BlackBerry phone! Until you upgrade the firmware to a 1.5 version, the REDFLY does not know how to talk to a BlackBerry phone. Once the REDFLY is updated to 1.5, then you can connect one of the supported BlackBerry phones (Bold 9000, Curve 8900, or Tour 9630) to it and try it out.

We do appreciate the patience you have shown here waiting for a response from me. Sorry it took so long, but we did have to go through some hoops to make this work -not like software development is a perfectly predictable animal anyway. Hope this special build will be welcomed by the people here.

Thanks,
Laurie

Director of Engineering
Celio Corp | REDFLY
 

anon159272

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Works great, and it restored my previously-bricked Redfly to full functionality! (This is the one that lost BT connectivity after the accidental early release of the 1.5 driver a couple of months ago and the subsequent failed downgrade back to 1.4.)

This is wonderful. And I now have a Samsung Intrepid too, so if I'm lucky even the My First Phone look will be gone too eventually (I used the Touch Pro to perform the 1.5 update...won't risk installing drivers on the Intrepid until they are officially out). I recall that the Redfly always worked much better with my lower-res Treo than it did with the Touch Pro because of the screen resolution similarities.

This build is very welcomed and I appreciate the effort that went into it on behalf of some of your earliest customers.
 

anon159272

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Update: after re-reading Laurie's note about this build being pretty good to try with 6.5 phones as well, I figured it was worth trying. This is pretty cool on the Intrepid.

Redfly C8 doesn't play nice with the Titanium/CHome interface (items are all garbled together). But coming from the Touch Pro I had forgotten how nice the Redfly screen could look when the icons and UI elements are properly sized (no more meatball mode/My First Phone). Everything looks fantastic!

Had one crash so far, tried to open a URL in Opera 9.7 beta 1, and the phone crashed. IE "6 on 6" works fairly well so far.

No shortcut to the Redfly control panel seems to be created in Start-Settings (or I'm not seeing it). You can access the control panel using the Redfly button on the RF itself, though.

Just thought I'd put that info out there. Now I'll have an option to bring a laptop or the Redfly again, very nice!!
 

Smart Guy

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I am one of the early adopters. I have a C8. HTC released 6.5 and I have my HTC Touch Diamond II (Topaz) upgraded accordingly. With this news, what can I do with my C8? An expensive paper weight?:evil::mad:
 

laurieny

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Apparently my post was too long to read...

This build has support for 6.5 in it also. We have tested the Diamond II and it still needs a few more tweaks, but if you put this special build on your C8, and get the new phone driver for Windows Pro phones from the regular page at http://www.celiocorp.com/install then you will be in pretty good shape. The Pure and the Tilt 2 and the Touch Pro 2 are all useable as well.

Not to get hopes up too far, but we have also come up with one more idea (I can't list how many different things we have tried already!) to address the font and icon size on the Touch Pro type phone as HTC has to date been unwilling or unable to make any adjustments on their side. If this solution works we may be able to get it in the 6.5 release.

The Intrepid still needs more adjustments, but again that is why we didn't say that this build supported 6.5 and we are going to keep working a couple more weeks on this. But those are now just phone-side changes, this firmware has the base functionality for that OS already added in.

Glad to see it worked well for you Haus!

-Laurie
 
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The Liaison

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I'm a BlackBerry guy to the core but I respect everything about 6.5. And all of your touch screen devices. My line up would be BB/Android/(WinMo[touch] & pre)/Nokia/iPhone
 

jwebb56

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Laurie, nice post. In it is the first time I read that the phone driver we need to use is not the one included in the conditional release build. That is probably the cause of some random freezes I experienced when I installed the conditional release on my phone and C8.

One other thought on the C8 and its demise. Is there a way Celio can offer a reasonably priced upgrade to make it compatible with the C8N? What I'm thinking is a swapping of the main circuit board to the one on the C7 assuming that it'll drive the C8's screen. Or some other technically feasible option that your engineers devise.
 

BengtBeier

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Laurie, One other thought on the C8 and its demise. Is there a way Celio can offer a reasonably priced upgrade to make it compatible with the C8N? What I'm thinking is a swapping of the main circuit board to the one on the C7 assuming that it'll drive the C8's screen. Or some other technically feasible option that your engineers devise.

I'd second that.
 

badersk

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The the current driver messes with the volume control on the Tilt2 (Touch Pro 2), but otherwise the special driver does make the C8 work with it and it still works with my Tilt.

Kraski the firmwar update is built into the driver. Just load it on a WM6 6.1 device and then connect to the Redfly
 

anon159272

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Then I must be blind. No problems finding the RFP file. But where is the RFF link? :confused:

The firmware update is baked into the RFP file and the process is seamless (or it was for me). Took 2 seconds for the phone to connect, tell me the RF needed a firmware update, and then it just took care of it. Much better than the old system of FW updates.
 

kraski

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The firmware update is baked into the RFP file and the process is seamless (or it was for me). Took 2 seconds for the phone to connect, tell me the RF needed a firmware update, and then it just took care of it. Much better than the old system of FW updates.

Definitely. I'll play tonight, after work.
 

kraski

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The the current driver messes with the volume control on the Tilt2 (Touch Pro 2), but otherwise the special driver does make the C8 work with it and it still works with my Tilt.

Kraski the firmwar update is built into the driver. Just load it on a WM6 6.1 device and then connect to the Redfly

How does it mess with the volume? Also, the Tilt 2 came with WM 6.5 & my Redfly is a C8N. Sounds like there are still issues. Laurie? Colin?
 

laurieny

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Celio Corp is willing to offer C8 customers a discount on an upgrade to a new REDFLY if they are interested. Just send me or Colin(cjk) a private message and we can work out the details.

However, I think it is pertinent to this discussion to point out that we ARE going to continue adding new models and features to our product line. We constantly get requests for things like touch screens, bigger form factors and Wi-Fi support-not to mention daily requests to support every one of the 9 different mobile operating systems out on the market today. To do that we would have to build new hardware obviously. The C8 model may have been the first model we released, but it won't be the last.

Buying technology is always a tricky thing--it rarely stays still for very long. The important thing to look at is this: does this product help me today and how much am I willing to pay for that benefit? Our hope is that an instant-on, lightweight, long battery-life device that has no additional costs for a data plan, software or maintenance but that lets you leverage the power of your existing smartphone is a valuable proposition.

We are trying hard to balance good business decisions with sincere customer support and we are sorry if we have made some of you angry. While I understand that not everyone here shares this belief, Celio does value its customers and hopes that they will continue to come along with us as we progress.

Thanks,
Laurie
 
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laurieny

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Now to kraski's question - yes! - there are still issues. That is why we have not released 6.5 support yet and you see no mention of it on our website. I just shared with the forum users here that it is "mostly" there. At lest, the firmware side of the equation is in, and if you hook up a 6.5 phone to the REDFLY with 1.5.0.266 firmware or later, then it will talk to the phone and mostly work. A couple more weeks for us to work out some more of the kinks and there will be a new build for that.

Thanks,
Laurie
 

kraski

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Now to kraski's question - yes! - there are still issues. That is why we have not released 6.5 support yet and you see no mention of it on our website. I just shared with the forum users here that it is "mostly" there. At lest, the firmware side of the equation is in, and if you hook up a 6.5 phone to the REDFLY with 1.5.0.266 firmware or later, then it will talk to the phone and mostly work. A couple more weeks for us to work out some more of the kinks and there will be a new build for that.

Thanks,
Laurie

OK. That clarifies it. If it's really only going to be a couple of weeks, I can wait a little longer. Thanks, Laurie.
 

badersk

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How does it mess with the volume? Also, the Tilt 2 came with WM 6.5 & my Redfly is a C8N. Sounds like there are still issues. Laurie? Colin?

Kraski and anyone else listening I loaded the special driver on my tilt and upgraded the firmware on the C8. Loaded the new regular driver on the tilt2 and when I try to adjust the volume via the rocker switch the screen flakes out and won't adjust. I had to go in to settings and set the volume that way. When I uninstalled the driver everything was fine.
 

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