A story about a guy, his smartphone, his dogs and everything else in between.
Phone
The Final Nail in the Coffin or How Nokia made me dislike my Nokia E71
Jun 14th
Nokia has announced the Nokia E72 by briefly posting a video demo of the smartphone over at Nokia Conversations.
I understand that Nokia is a hardware company but its just wrong that they still show no software consideration for users of older handsets. 1st generation iPhone users will be installing iPhone 3.0 on Wednesday and will be reaping the benefits of the updated software along with their 3G and 3GS brothers and sisters.
So why can’t Nokia show their loyal users the same kind of appreciation? The Nokia E71x has proven that the Nokia E71 can run Feature Pack 2 (FP2) but Nokia has been reluctant to release such an update for the handset, claiming that Feature Pack 1 (FP1) was stable enough for business users and FP2 was untested in the business world.
Now that FP2 is heading to the business world, will the Nokia E71 see any kind of FP2 upgrade consideration?
As it stands, I don’t think it will.
What the Nokia E71x and the Symbian Foundation could mean for the E71
Mar 22nd
Being a hardware company, Nokia banks on consumers buying new handsets to generate revenue. If a newer software update comes out, more than likely it will be delivered on a new handset and not as an upgrade to your phone (no matter how closely spec’d your phone is to the newer one released). From instance, the Nokia E71 runs Symbian S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 and the newer Nokia E75 runs Symbian S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2. (Confused yet?) This model is different from Apple’s, who have similar handsets across a few generations and all updates are accessible by these handsets. One OS to rule them all, if you will.
I can only speculate that this may actually be changing in the Nokia camp. As an owner of the E71, I can only wonder if Nokia will be bringing the Feature Pack 2 OS as a firmware update to E71 handsets. I speculate because ATT is in the process of readying the Nokia E71x for sale. Although the E71x and the E71 share the same hardware, the handsets run different versions of the S60 operating system. The E71x runs Feature Pack 2 and the E71 runs Feature Pack 1. With no difference in hardware, it should not be technically difficult for Nokia to offer a firmware update to FP2 for current E71 owners. This does open the question to whether Nokia will use this opportunity to please loyal customers and release such an update for free OR alienate customers by charging for this update. Personally, I would pay for such an update. For a small price, I can easily infuse some life into my handset and will extend its life significantly. To be fair, as an iPod Touch owner I have paid for an OS update and I will continue to.
With the Symbian Foundation announcing their release plan for 2 releases of their platform each year, again I wonder if this indicates more software updates for handsets or Nokia’s need to push new handsets into the market.
With such frequent updates, one can only imagine a quicker maturity of these mobile operating systems which would indicate that users would be privy to these updates on their handsets.
I can only hope that this update does surface for the E71. It will be sometime before they design another handset as functional and aesthetically pleasing as the E71, so I will be holding on to mine for quite some time. Let’s hope they keep the OS current.
Nokia and UDP and what they can learn from the Apple-centric data model
Jan 20th
I had a disappointing experience installing the latest firmware update for the Nokia e71. Don’t get me wrong, the installation of the firmware went as described by the Software Updater. Unfortunately, there is still a lot left to be desired.
I backed up the phone appropriately. I sync’d my phone one last time with Outlook, so my contacts, calendars and notes were all saved. I also manually backed up any pictures, videos and documents that were on the phone. Since the Nokia e71 does not have User Data Preservation (UDP), the firmware installation caused the phone to reboot after installation and wiped the phone clean. The next time the phone started up, I was inputting setup information for my phone. This is something that I do every time I run a firmware update.
The bigger problem is that any 3rd party applications that I have installed are also wiped from the phone and the re-installation of these applications (such as Calcium, Worldmate and Nokia Mail), took almost 2 hours. This is a hefty amount of time to dedicate to getting my phone back in order after an update.
After using an iPhone for a phone, it is obvious that Apple has all of the other handsets beat in this area. All an iPhone user has to do to update their phone is to sync it before the update, run the update, and then sync it again after to transfer your information. The sync not only transfers your contacts and calendars but it also transfers your photos, videos and 3rd party applications that you’ve purchased from the AppStore. It’s a painless 3 step process: sync, install, re-sync. Your smartphone should be this easy to update!
The average user will not go through the hassle of having to reinstall applications manually on their phone after an update. They simply do not care. Sadly, Nokia hasn’t made it easier for those who do take advantage of firmware updates for their phone. And if you’re listening Nokia, let’s try to reduce the disparity amongst your handsets. I was once a Nokia n82 and that phone had UDP. UDP shouldn’t be a feature that you choose to deploy on some handsets and not others, this should be a STANDARD feature.
People are still mystified by smartphones. Lack of features such as UDP don’t help the demystification process either. If these devices are that cumbersome to maintain after a firmware update, the average user won’t care to install them. In addition, even the seasoned user would become wary of the process. I felt like going back to my iPhone after my e71 got wiped clean and I realized that I had to go through the entire re-installation process again.
Life with iPhone (told by a Nokia User)
Dec 14th
In the smartphone world, it’s quite easy to get lost in the wide selection of phones available. Are you a corporate email junkie? Maybe you’ll get a Blackberry to satisfy your email fix. Are you addicted to Outlook? Maybe you’ll get yourself a Windows Mobile powered smartphone. From form factor to operating system, there are many variables to consider before choosing your smartphone.
For me, I needed a smartphone that handled my email needs, had a qwerty keyboard and didn’t make my pocket look like I was happy to see you. Being comfortable with Nokia handsets (previously owning the Nokia E61, Nokia N82), the Nokia E71 was my choice and I was satisfied with it’s feature set (qwerty keyboard, gps, wifi, 3G).
When I decided to start developing applications for the iPhone / iPod Touch, I thought it would be wise to get my hands on a used iPhone (1st Generation). In order to acclimatize myself to the iPhone experience, I decided to spend the Christmas holidays with just the iPhone.
How has the experience been so far?
Here is what I miss about my Nokia E71:
- The keyboard: as small as it was, I miss the tactile keyboard for rattling off quick emails and messages
- Push email: Nokia’s Push Email service isn’t perfect (hey, it’s still in beta) but it did a reliable job of getting my email on my handset. Integrated hotmail support was also a plus.
- Worldmate: Living in Michigan has made me weather conscious. I set up Worldmate (www.mobimate.com) to read out weather reports to me twice a day and I definitely miss it.
But with the bad comes the good.
Having been using the iPhone for about a week, here are some of the features that I do enjoy.
- AppStore: Apple has set the bar on centralizing and distributing applications for it’s mobile handset. I can easily jump into AppStore and search for games, tools and productivity apps whenever I feel like it.
- The Touch Screen: There is a learning curve when you move from a tactile keyboard to a touch screen device. Once you overcome that, using the device becomes a joy. Tapping, sliding and pinching all become fun finger gestures on your phone’s screen.
- Games: I will always say that the mobile market was neglected as a viable gaming platform…until now. Nokia tried with N-Gage and then tried again and still haven’t nailed it yet. The same goes for blackberries and window mobile handsets. Although the iPhone doesn’t have it’s killer iPhone game yet, my hours spent playing Bejeweled 2, Frenzic and Scrabble rival my time spent playing on my Nintendo DS and my Sony PSP.
- Photo App: Using images and pictures as wallpapers and contact images is a breeze. Anyone coming from a Nokia E-Series background knows it takes some needlessly convuluted menu navigation to get these things done.
For now, the experience has had it’s ups and downs but is positive overall. As my “weekend” phone, the iPhone hits a sweet spot of productivity and entertainment. After I post this from the iPhone Wordpress App, I’ll load up Bejeweled and see if I can’t beat my high score!
Why is there no single login for all of my Nokia Web Services?
May 12th
As an informed consumer and a gadget lover, I was definitely happy when I got my Nokia N82 in January. It is a powerful device: 5MP Camera, GPS, Wifi and 3G and N-Gage compatibility made it the device that I needed.
As I continue to learn more and more about my phones many abilities, one thing does baffle me: why is there no single login for all of my Nokia Services. I have signed up for Share on Ovi, N-Gage,Nokia Sports Tracker and Mosh and I have to remember every login for each of my Nokia Services. If the hardware device is supposed to unify my end-user experience by giving me all of these great features, why am I encumbered on the software end because I have to remember logins for multiple services.
For each of these services, all of my login information is stored on my phone. I can easily login from the N-Gage client with a few key presses and the same goes for Ovi and Sports Tracker and Mosh. The agony comes when I am on my PC and I need to venture into Ovi, for example. I understand that each service is different but if Nokia is building communities around each of these services, why can’t they intersect for the users who use them all (or use more than one) and why can’t a user login with ONE username and password for all of these services.
I am JadedMoon on Ovi, jadedmoonstudios on Mosh, jadedmoonstudios on Sports Tracker and JadedMoon on N-Gage. With one single login, I could just be me on all of my favourite (yes, european spelling) Nokia Web Services.
I got FIFA 08 for the N-Gage for free !
Apr 20th
I am a big football fan. I watch it more than I play it but I think I play the video games more than I watch it. I stumbled across an article on the Symbian Weblog said Nokia was giving away 15,000 free licenses for FIFA 08 on N-Gage.
I was overjoyed until I realized that the offer did not extend to America and was limited to Europe. Nokia, in future, do recognize that your product base is growing on this side of the world (not everyone is in bed with Apple and rocking and iPhone) and you need to show us some love too !
Initially disappointed that I could not secure a license for FIFA 08, I selected the United Kingdom as my region and got my activation code sent to my sister’s phone in London ! After scribbling down the 3-line URL and checking it twice, it failed when I used my N82’s browser but I was successful in downloading the license onto my pc. Go Firefox !
So regardless of what happens on this week during Manu’s match against Barcelona, I can relive Manu’s glory on my cellphone, anywhere, anytime !
Mobile Codes
Apr 14th
Ever since I got my Nokia N82, I’ve always wondered about the utility of the Barcode application. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers generating Mobile Codes for their websites but other than that, I haven’t seen much utility from it.
The Barcode application utilizes your Nokia’s camera to "scan" the barcode and extract data that is embedded into the barcode image.
If you have the Barcode application on your phone, you can scan this barcode to link to jadedmoonstudios.com
You can also check out Nokia’s mobile code site here.
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