I recently read a blog entry at WOM World about making an external monitor out of your N810. Honestly I'm not sure why you would really want to do this. However it is something to do if your extremely bored. Well now that you are just itching to do this here is the link enjoy.
--SB
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
They learn so fast..
My children ages 2 and 1 are able to now use my gadgets with ease. I'm not 100% sure this is a good thing but just shows how times are changing. I still remember when cell phones came out that had a 2 line LED screen. Man that was amazing. You could see the entire number that was calling as well as the Caller's name, if you paid for that feature of course.
My son in this picture is playing with Mommy's Nokia N95 8GB and enjoying the DVD quality videos of himself. Every-time something beeps in our house he lifts his hand to his ear and says bellum, his version of hello. The point being technology does change our lives. For better or worse its here to stay and I'm happy to be part of it.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Why oh why do you hate me Mr. N96
I have been using the N96 for a couple of weeks now and I am getting more frustrated every day. The firmware release that I am currently stuck with, 11.018, is driving me mad. It seems to crash at least once daily and I have to yank the back off pull the battery to get it back up again. This is not something I would ever expect from a high end Nokia N-series device. Frankly I cannot believe they ever put a software version out this bad.
My previous phone was a N95-3 which I loved in every way. I then moved up to a N95-4 (8GB) which was even better. You would think the next logical step for a media junkie like myself would be the N96 right? Wrong! This smartphone has the potential however its problems out weigh all of the positive things it brings to the table. I send a lot of text messages and sending on this revision of firmware is painful sometimes. I select a contact select create message and wait and wait. Even the things you would think it would excel at such as viewing photos, lags like a low end device. When you are moving through the photos it takes 1 to 2 seconds for the image to properly render. On either N95 this would be a second max with thousands of photos on the phones memory card.
While these things are annoying I could live with them knowing they would be fixed whenever they actually release the firmware update to us NAM N96 users. One thing I cannot live with is the huge problems with 3g and wifi connectivity. At times it takes 3 times or more to get the connection to work to check email or surf the web. Wifi umm yea right, your lucky if you can get it to work at all. I have almost given up trying to use wifi to download my podcast and watch videos.
As most of you know I'm a huge S60 advocate so this is painful to write but paying almost $700.00 for a phone and getting this is a real disappointment. I am going to continue to hold out for a couple more weeks if I can. I want to see if the firmware makes it out to us NAM users. Beyond that I'm giving up. Come on Nokia help me out here please.
My previous phone was a N95-3 which I loved in every way. I then moved up to a N95-4 (8GB) which was even better. You would think the next logical step for a media junkie like myself would be the N96 right? Wrong! This smartphone has the potential however its problems out weigh all of the positive things it brings to the table. I send a lot of text messages and sending on this revision of firmware is painful sometimes. I select a contact select create message and wait and wait. Even the things you would think it would excel at such as viewing photos, lags like a low end device. When you are moving through the photos it takes 1 to 2 seconds for the image to properly render. On either N95 this would be a second max with thousands of photos on the phones memory card.
While these things are annoying I could live with them knowing they would be fixed whenever they actually release the firmware update to us NAM N96 users. One thing I cannot live with is the huge problems with 3g and wifi connectivity. At times it takes 3 times or more to get the connection to work to check email or surf the web. Wifi umm yea right, your lucky if you can get it to work at all. I have almost given up trying to use wifi to download my podcast and watch videos.
As most of you know I'm a huge S60 advocate so this is painful to write but paying almost $700.00 for a phone and getting this is a real disappointment. I am going to continue to hold out for a couple more weeks if I can. I want to see if the firmware makes it out to us NAM users. Beyond that I'm giving up. Come on Nokia help me out here please.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Goods of a Recession
All I hear around me is how bad things are with the economy. With all of the unemployment and families losing their homes. In these times you may be asking why I would write about the goods of a recession. To answer that question I would like you to dig deep and tell me how you actually feel during these times.
Today my employer gave me a gift that made me realize how important the little things are. This gift was a coffee mug with a pack of hot cocoa and a candy cane. This gift made me realize that the little things in life are what matter. I will take this home and my children will greet me and be so very excited that daddy has a candy cane. That very smile and instant of joy is what matters. Not my net worth, the car I drive, or the gadgets I have. All of these things are worthless.
This recession has made me want to help others in need more than ever. Do I have much to give monetarily, of course not. But what if I gave a candy cane to others and they took it home to watch their children smile. That smile would spread to every family in need. Let us all take this time to sit back and realize that the important things in life are not what money can buy. Reach out and share kindness to those in need. You can't buy that.
Merry Christmas All,
--Sloan
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Why the N96 went back into the box..
I have been using the N96 for a couple of days now determining if this is the right phone for me. At first I didn't like it all. I have been so used to the N95 form factor that something thinner felt kinda funny in my hands. After playing with it for a while though I did grow to appreciate not having a huge block in my pocket. Form factor aside the S60 feature pack on this phone was pretty impressive. They have added a lot of eye candy and everything seemed to work okay.
It sounds like a win win right? Well yes and no. I'm a pretty heavy user of Nokia Chat so of course I attempted to install this. Guess what? You got it, the N96 is not supported. Okay huge strike in my book but lets move on. My next step is to install Nokia Messaging (Email). I start through the guided installation process on the website. I select my phone and it ask me this funny question. Is your firmware version 12.0.0.0 or above? Well of course its not. I have been trying to install the latest firmware on my phone from the first minute I booted it up with no such luck. For some reason my phone, unlocked/unbranded, is not able to find the firmware upgrade that I've been yearning for. This was my last straw. I got the N95 back out and it has become my primary smartphone for the time being.
Has anybody been able to pull the firmware for their N96 (NAM) yet? If so how in the world did you get it?
It sounds like a win win right? Well yes and no. I'm a pretty heavy user of Nokia Chat so of course I attempted to install this. Guess what? You got it, the N96 is not supported. Okay huge strike in my book but lets move on. My next step is to install Nokia Messaging (Email). I start through the guided installation process on the website. I select my phone and it ask me this funny question. Is your firmware version 12.0.0.0 or above? Well of course its not. I have been trying to install the latest firmware on my phone from the first minute I booted it up with no such luck. For some reason my phone, unlocked/unbranded, is not able to find the firmware upgrade that I've been yearning for. This was my last straw. I got the N95 back out and it has become my primary smartphone for the time being.
Has anybody been able to pull the firmware for their N96 (NAM) yet? If so how in the world did you get it?
Monday, December 15, 2008
Amazon Video on the N96
I recently transferred my first Amazon mobile video to the N96 to see how it performs. My first impressions were actually not that great. I kept having a problem with the decoding of the video. The screen would turn into a green blob of blocks and then recover on random scenes. I know it wasn't a problem with the video because I can watch it outside of the N96 and all is well. Overall the quality if great if they can work out these kinks.
I have only tested one video, "The Dark Knight", however I would guess that the overall experience will be the same for all videos. I have not tried to rip anything and move it over yet but I'm guessing it will all work like a champ just like the N95-3. The question is, does the Amazon VOD (and mobile download) have a viable solution for movies on the go for us Nokia owners? Anybody else out there trying this?
I have only tested one video, "The Dark Knight", however I would guess that the overall experience will be the same for all videos. I have not tried to rip anything and move it over yet but I'm guessing it will all work like a champ just like the N95-3. The question is, does the Amazon VOD (and mobile download) have a viable solution for movies on the go for us Nokia owners? Anybody else out there trying this?
Monday, December 8, 2008
First days with the Peek.
Last Friday I went to pick up a Peek to check it out personally, as well as evaluate its potential as a Christmas gift. I have been playing with it for a couple of days now and wanted to post my likes and dislikes of the device.
With the price tag at or around $99 you shouldn't expect a top of the line piece of hardware. On the other hand you should expect something that is going to last the abuse most mobile devices face throughout their life. Overall the Peek seems to be pretty well built for its price range but I do want to point out some possible issues a user may face.
The biggest concern is the rubber on the front of the Peek. The corners feel as if they could easily start to come up and eventually get caught in your pocket and rip off. This may take some time to do but I can almost guarantee you it will happen down the road. I'm not sure why they chose to go with the rubber front. I could understand possibly just the keyboard section but not the entire front.
The feel of the device is slim and comfortable to use. If you have ever used an older Blackberry you will easily be able to move around on the Peek. The scroll is a bit slow but very usable. To select items you need to press the scroll in which is a bit hard to push. I'm hoping that by using the device daily the click will become much softer feeling. In its current state it actually leaves imprints of the wheel on your finger tip.
The selling point of almost any full QWERTY device is the keyboard. I'm sad to say that this is not one of the better keyboards I have worked with. To test the keyboard I sent 10 emails, 4 sentences or longer, along with a couple of text messages (more on this in a bit). If I had to use one word to describe the keyboard that word would be tiring. After typing those emails I found my fingers very tired. This is mainly because you have to press too hard on these rubber keys to get feedback. The worst key out of all of them is the space bar. It feels as if it is actually two buttons wrapped in one piece of rubber emulating a single wider button. If you press in the middle of this wider button more often than not you will get no response. If you are a quick typist on mobile devices with full QWERTY I think you will find your speed drastically slower on this device. For their market I don't think this will be huge problem. For people that are spoiled and used to Blackberry and possible the N810 you will find typing on this device very tedious.
To prove my point I handed the Peek to my wife whom could care less about mobile devices. I asked her to type up an email and send it. After a couple of minutes I asked her how she liked the feel of the device. Her first words were, "It was hard to press the keys". I think this says it all about the keyboard.
If you can get over the flaws with the keyboard the user interface is actually pretty good. You may find yourself asking can it do this and can it do that? More than likely the answer will always be no. The point being this device does exactly what it says it does. It sends and receives email in a timely manner. If you are a person that must know the instant an email touches your server then this device is not for you. For those of you, like me, that have learned you don't have to answer emails the second they come in it works perfectly. I was able to send and receive emails with ease after a painless setup. If you have your own domain hosted you will have to give the friendly folks at Peek a call. My experience with support was outstanding. That alone is worth staying with this startup in this day and age. Has anybody ever tried to resolve something with Sprint? Wow.
Let us move on to text messages. This is an area that I felt was a bit cumbersome and barely works. I was able to send and receive txt messages from my peek to my cell phone but actually using the feature was a pain. How many of you actually type in the full phone number of everybody you are texting each time? The trick is to send the text and then modify the contact that is automatically added to your contacts. Change the email address as the fully qualified messaging service. For example 15555555@txt.att.net. Either way it’s too difficult for something this easy.
Regardless of what seems like a pretty harsh review of the Peek I would recommend it to a friend that needs a very simple device to send and receive emails. While the texting needs a lot of work I feel that this will come as the device matures. The biggest thing is the keyboard. Please oh please upgrade the keyboard on these devices.
Pics and video will come soon.
With the price tag at or around $99 you shouldn't expect a top of the line piece of hardware. On the other hand you should expect something that is going to last the abuse most mobile devices face throughout their life. Overall the Peek seems to be pretty well built for its price range but I do want to point out some possible issues a user may face.
The biggest concern is the rubber on the front of the Peek. The corners feel as if they could easily start to come up and eventually get caught in your pocket and rip off. This may take some time to do but I can almost guarantee you it will happen down the road. I'm not sure why they chose to go with the rubber front. I could understand possibly just the keyboard section but not the entire front.
The feel of the device is slim and comfortable to use. If you have ever used an older Blackberry you will easily be able to move around on the Peek. The scroll is a bit slow but very usable. To select items you need to press the scroll in which is a bit hard to push. I'm hoping that by using the device daily the click will become much softer feeling. In its current state it actually leaves imprints of the wheel on your finger tip.
The selling point of almost any full QWERTY device is the keyboard. I'm sad to say that this is not one of the better keyboards I have worked with. To test the keyboard I sent 10 emails, 4 sentences or longer, along with a couple of text messages (more on this in a bit). If I had to use one word to describe the keyboard that word would be tiring. After typing those emails I found my fingers very tired. This is mainly because you have to press too hard on these rubber keys to get feedback. The worst key out of all of them is the space bar. It feels as if it is actually two buttons wrapped in one piece of rubber emulating a single wider button. If you press in the middle of this wider button more often than not you will get no response. If you are a quick typist on mobile devices with full QWERTY I think you will find your speed drastically slower on this device. For their market I don't think this will be huge problem. For people that are spoiled and used to Blackberry and possible the N810 you will find typing on this device very tedious.
To prove my point I handed the Peek to my wife whom could care less about mobile devices. I asked her to type up an email and send it. After a couple of minutes I asked her how she liked the feel of the device. Her first words were, "It was hard to press the keys". I think this says it all about the keyboard.
If you can get over the flaws with the keyboard the user interface is actually pretty good. You may find yourself asking can it do this and can it do that? More than likely the answer will always be no. The point being this device does exactly what it says it does. It sends and receives email in a timely manner. If you are a person that must know the instant an email touches your server then this device is not for you. For those of you, like me, that have learned you don't have to answer emails the second they come in it works perfectly. I was able to send and receive emails with ease after a painless setup. If you have your own domain hosted you will have to give the friendly folks at Peek a call. My experience with support was outstanding. That alone is worth staying with this startup in this day and age. Has anybody ever tried to resolve something with Sprint? Wow.
Let us move on to text messages. This is an area that I felt was a bit cumbersome and barely works. I was able to send and receive txt messages from my peek to my cell phone but actually using the feature was a pain. How many of you actually type in the full phone number of everybody you are texting each time? The trick is to send the text and then modify the contact that is automatically added to your contacts. Change the email address as the fully qualified messaging service. For example 15555555@txt.att.net. Either way it’s too difficult for something this easy.
Regardless of what seems like a pretty harsh review of the Peek I would recommend it to a friend that needs a very simple device to send and receive emails. While the texting needs a lot of work I feel that this will come as the device matures. The biggest thing is the keyboard. Please oh please upgrade the keyboard on these devices.
Pics and video will come soon.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Where is our appstore?
As Nokia World 2008 sadly passes by we had several great announcements and products to be drooled over. However all of these are not going to be as easy to use without a simply principle called an application store. I am not all that bothered by having to go and search for great S60 apps but to a new user that buys that $700 phone for the first time, well , that is a different story.
The great folks over at symbian-freak seem to be on the same page as me. What gives Nokia?
The great folks over at symbian-freak seem to be on the same page as me. What gives Nokia?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
What happens to the tablet?
As all of the news of the new shiny N97 flows through the web I can't sit here but wonder what is going to happen with the Nokia tablet lineup. The N810 has been one of my favorite devices now for over a year. I constantly hear from people what kind of phone is that, and as always I reply with a smile, its a internet tablet. Like most of you I plan on upgrading my N95 to the N97 come the US release date. I ask myself what would I need a tablet for now?
Video
My tablet has been my primary on the go video watching device even though my N95 plays the same videos using Core Player just as good. When it comes down to it I chose to use the N810 due to the screen size. With the release of the N97 I have a good size screen and equally, if not more capable, video playing device in an all in one device. Sure you can argue that the tablet allows me to play more formats using mplayer etc.. but honestly when it comes down to it I rip all my own videos and can put them in any format I like. Thus this is not an issue for me.
+1 N97
Audio
The tablet has been incredible as an audio playback device. With a large choice of media players for the tablet (Media Player, Media Streamer, Canola) its easy to find what works just right for you. The sound quality on the tablet is much better than that of the N95 that I use. My N95 is plagued with the annoying hiss and being an audiophile it drives me nuts.
The N97 appears to be on par if not better than the N96 as far as audio quality. The media player is reasonable and very easy to use. If they add support for flac playback then would put the icing on the top for sure. Again why would I need a tablet for audio playback when I have an extremely capable phone.
+1 N97
Internet
When it comes to internet browsing the clear winner in my book is the N810. Having the almost full internet in the palm of your hand is hard to beat. The experience is far from perfect and I could go on forever about performance but overall it wins. With the N95 the browser gets the job done but is not what I would call great. With the recent introduction of skyfire things change a bit but its still a long way from being ready.
+1 N810
Navigation
For those of you that have used the navigation on the N810 in the real world you know exactly what I mean when I say slow and inconsistent. I tried for several months to make my N810 the primary navigation device in my car. It doesn't work well enough to replace the N95/N97 with nokia maps or my stand alone TomTom.
Now that Nokia introduced Maps 3.0 I can't see why the tablet would even be an option for navigation. I can easily see using my N97 as my primary navigation device for car, motorcycle and on foot.
+1 N97
User Interface
I cannot officially talk about the new N97 touchscreen but from what I read the screen is sensitive and easy to use with your fingers. The N810 is great and I love it but its not the most responsive touch interface I have used. I had an iPod touch for around 6 months and the difference between the two was huge.
Maemo and S60 both offer very different user interfaces and both have great features. Personally the S60 interface is a bit cumbersome and can take some time to get used to. However once you learn it you can navigate very quickly and get anything you need to do done very quickly. Maemo has a unique interface and I find it very simple to use. Maemo is biased towards using a stylus which sometimes can become annoying. My main issue with maemo is the inconsistency between applications. Having to use the stylus for this and then use your finger for that can get a bit old. A more consistent guideline for UI design on maemo would be a huge help. Make the buttons bigger folks ;-). Bottom line I cannot say one or the other is better.
Conclusion
If Nokia wants me to keep both devices they are really going to have to step up the tablet line and make it something that just knocks our socks off. I don't know if I can justify buying another device that does almost the exact same thing just because its cool anymore. What are you thoughts?
Video
My tablet has been my primary on the go video watching device even though my N95 plays the same videos using Core Player just as good. When it comes down to it I chose to use the N810 due to the screen size. With the release of the N97 I have a good size screen and equally, if not more capable, video playing device in an all in one device. Sure you can argue that the tablet allows me to play more formats using mplayer etc.. but honestly when it comes down to it I rip all my own videos and can put them in any format I like. Thus this is not an issue for me.
+1 N97
Audio
The tablet has been incredible as an audio playback device. With a large choice of media players for the tablet (Media Player, Media Streamer, Canola) its easy to find what works just right for you. The sound quality on the tablet is much better than that of the N95 that I use. My N95 is plagued with the annoying hiss and being an audiophile it drives me nuts.
The N97 appears to be on par if not better than the N96 as far as audio quality. The media player is reasonable and very easy to use. If they add support for flac playback then would put the icing on the top for sure. Again why would I need a tablet for audio playback when I have an extremely capable phone.
+1 N97
Internet
When it comes to internet browsing the clear winner in my book is the N810. Having the almost full internet in the palm of your hand is hard to beat. The experience is far from perfect and I could go on forever about performance but overall it wins. With the N95 the browser gets the job done but is not what I would call great. With the recent introduction of skyfire things change a bit but its still a long way from being ready.
+1 N810
Navigation
For those of you that have used the navigation on the N810 in the real world you know exactly what I mean when I say slow and inconsistent. I tried for several months to make my N810 the primary navigation device in my car. It doesn't work well enough to replace the N95/N97 with nokia maps or my stand alone TomTom.
Now that Nokia introduced Maps 3.0 I can't see why the tablet would even be an option for navigation. I can easily see using my N97 as my primary navigation device for car, motorcycle and on foot.
+1 N97
User Interface
I cannot officially talk about the new N97 touchscreen but from what I read the screen is sensitive and easy to use with your fingers. The N810 is great and I love it but its not the most responsive touch interface I have used. I had an iPod touch for around 6 months and the difference between the two was huge.
Maemo and S60 both offer very different user interfaces and both have great features. Personally the S60 interface is a bit cumbersome and can take some time to get used to. However once you learn it you can navigate very quickly and get anything you need to do done very quickly. Maemo has a unique interface and I find it very simple to use. Maemo is biased towards using a stylus which sometimes can become annoying. My main issue with maemo is the inconsistency between applications. Having to use the stylus for this and then use your finger for that can get a bit old. A more consistent guideline for UI design on maemo would be a huge help. Make the buttons bigger folks ;-). Bottom line I cannot say one or the other is better.
Conclusion
If Nokia wants me to keep both devices they are really going to have to step up the tablet line and make it something that just knocks our socks off. I don't know if I can justify buying another device that does almost the exact same thing just because its cool anymore. What are you thoughts?
JavaFX Launching December 4th, 2008 and..
Sun Microsystems has announced that their newest addition to the java family will go live on December 4th. This new addition is known as JavaFX. Being a java developer you would think I would be extremely excited about this release, however I honestly am not. Have you ever heard the phrase "too little too late"? Sun has been focusing so very hard on this new technology when in all honesty its been done and the winners are clearly already out there.
Flash seems to be taking over everywhere on the web. The most popular sites seem to be all using it to stream video to people all around the world. YouTube, Hulu and almost all network television stations use it to broadcast their content. Not to mention the addition to flash on mobile devices such as Nokia smartphones (S60, Maemo), Windows Mobile and several other PMP devices its clearly got the lead (Sorry iPhone your the sore loser).
Microsoft has released what they are calling Silverlight and it has a big following already. It is not as big as flash but it seems to be gaining ground. Some of the big names using Silverlight are Netflix which just adopted it to for their "watch instantly" feature. You can view other implementations by looking at their showcase.
Where does this leave JavaFX? I don't know about you but I haven't heard of any services planning to use JavaFX? Honestly I hope I'm wrong because I'm a big supporter of Sun and Java but this doesn't look like a smart business decision in my books. What are your thoughts? For me I'm sticking with my continued support for the jMaki project where they should have put their resources to begin with.
Flash seems to be taking over everywhere on the web. The most popular sites seem to be all using it to stream video to people all around the world. YouTube, Hulu and almost all network television stations use it to broadcast their content. Not to mention the addition to flash on mobile devices such as Nokia smartphones (S60, Maemo), Windows Mobile and several other PMP devices its clearly got the lead (Sorry iPhone your the sore loser).
Microsoft has released what they are calling Silverlight and it has a big following already. It is not as big as flash but it seems to be gaining ground. Some of the big names using Silverlight are Netflix which just adopted it to for their "watch instantly" feature. You can view other implementations by looking at their showcase.
Where does this leave JavaFX? I don't know about you but I haven't heard of any services planning to use JavaFX? Honestly I hope I'm wrong because I'm a big supporter of Sun and Java but this doesn't look like a smart business decision in my books. What are your thoughts? For me I'm sticking with my continued support for the jMaki project where they should have put their resources to begin with.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Nokia World 2008 Or Bust?
If you haven't heard yet Nokia is planning to release some world shattering news regarding a mobile device. Or are they introducing a new service, maybe a lunchbox who knows. The one thing we do know is that Nokia has been tight lipped about this and thus far nothing has leaked and we are only hours away. Typically at least one leak is out there on the internet and rumors start flooding from that. In this particular case it appears that Nokia did something right by only including the need to know people related to this project and threatened them short of their life to keep this a secret. Either way they did something right and the hype is building for those Nokia fanboys.
I have been searching all day looking for a leak but as stated above none can be found. I personally think they will be releasing not only a new N-Series device but a new service that makes this new device stand out from the crowd. With the development of the OVI Suite and several other new purchases I think they have come up with some new type of device/service that allows us to communicate like never before.
As for me I am hoping and praying for a new tablet with a SIMM card that allows me to transform my do it all device into a phone so I can for the first time only carry around one device for a change. Other rumors are they will release the new N-Series touch screen that has been in the works for some time. Doing this could be risky business. If they don't get it right this time they may lose those S60 fans that have been waiting on moving to another platform. However if they put out a device with a new service that wows even those Cupertino, CA folk then we have a winner on our hands. These days it seems like the only ones being highly creative and innovate, that we hear about in the mainstream, are apple and apple. At least this is what the response you would get asking any non techie, "What is the best smart phone on the market?". As for me I would preach Nokia and S60 because I can do things with my N95 that the "other" phone couldn't dream of. I take a ton of pictures and video of my family and post directly to ovi all from my phone. I can stream live video (QIK, Kyte) to anybody that wants to watch. Sending SMS/MMS, email and more with ease. And the best of all I can do all this from any unlocked phone that I can afford. The problem is there is no sex appeal to it and as we all know sex sells.
So with that said I'm lifting my glass to Nokia for this hidden gem they are planning. I just pray that it stand up to all the hype they are getting. Plus I've been good this year, as far as you know, and I need to ask for a new shiny device. Wow me Nokia please oh please wow me.
I have been searching all day looking for a leak but as stated above none can be found. I personally think they will be releasing not only a new N-Series device but a new service that makes this new device stand out from the crowd. With the development of the OVI Suite and several other new purchases I think they have come up with some new type of device/service that allows us to communicate like never before.
As for me I am hoping and praying for a new tablet with a SIMM card that allows me to transform my do it all device into a phone so I can for the first time only carry around one device for a change. Other rumors are they will release the new N-Series touch screen that has been in the works for some time. Doing this could be risky business. If they don't get it right this time they may lose those S60 fans that have been waiting on moving to another platform. However if they put out a device with a new service that wows even those Cupertino, CA folk then we have a winner on our hands. These days it seems like the only ones being highly creative and innovate, that we hear about in the mainstream, are apple and apple. At least this is what the response you would get asking any non techie, "What is the best smart phone on the market?". As for me I would preach Nokia and S60 because I can do things with my N95 that the "other" phone couldn't dream of. I take a ton of pictures and video of my family and post directly to ovi all from my phone. I can stream live video (QIK, Kyte) to anybody that wants to watch. Sending SMS/MMS, email and more with ease. And the best of all I can do all this from any unlocked phone that I can afford. The problem is there is no sex appeal to it and as we all know sex sells.
So with that said I'm lifting my glass to Nokia for this hidden gem they are planning. I just pray that it stand up to all the hype they are getting. Plus I've been good this year, as far as you know, and I need to ask for a new shiny device. Wow me Nokia please oh please wow me.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Nokia Email Service Beta Come and Gone.
Nokia recently announced the availability of the email service, push mail for the rest of us. I was very excited, setup my account, and was off to the world of push email by Nokia. After using the service for around 2 weeks here is my 2 cents.
Installation
The process they have for installing the email service is very straight forward. You go to http://email.nokia.com, sign up for an account, and Nokia services sends you a SMS message to your phone with the link to download the software. While I would have much preferred to just OTA installation this was easily and worked seamless for me.
Interface
At first glance the UI was nice with floating icons and nice graphics. I really appreciated the new mailbox screen where the messages where sorted by date and very easy to find. While the UI was nice it wasn't without quirks. For starters if you went into the folders to view a different folder and click back then hide it will actually take you back to the main email screen again instead of hiding the application. After doing this several times over the trial period I found myself annoyed when attempting to hide the application in the background.
The performance was par with the new user interface. When I give it the par rating its because of one thing. When working from the home screen and you click the inbox to go view your current messages it take an extended amount of time, while viewing a blank screen, for the emails to display properly. This is an area that needs to be improved greatly for success with the product in my opinion. With competition now very strong in the and ease of use of the blackberry, and yes even the iPhone mail something like that will simply not cut it for the enterprise crowd.
Accountability
Having come from blackberries to S60 I had high hopes for email. Honestly its not that great at the moment. I would say it gets the job done and that's all that matters to me at the moment. When it comes to all that the N95 has to offer I gladly trade sub par email for what I call life features. This leads me to my next point with Nokia's new email service. A person like me who depends heavily on email from multiple accounts, well, requires multiple accounts. This feature is currently not available and led me to switch back and forth between messaging and Email (Nokia's email service app). Come on Nokia! Please add the ability to use multiple email accounts with the service. Have some accountability.
Push Me
The new buzz word these days is push email. As stated above I came from the kind of push, blackberry. When I heard that Nokia was thinking about getting into this game for the consumer ( yes I know about E-Series) I was excited about the impact this would have on my N95 usage. Well, they got the push part right but that's about it. What about move delete etc? In my usage I found myself very frustrated by the fact that if I deleted a message on my device it did not delete it on my server. Typically you would think of a email service to truly sync your usage on your account. For example if I read a message on my N95 I would like it marked read on my server. Most of all when I reply to a message I want the reply to be placed on my sent messages folder and the message marked as replied. I might have assumed to much but I thought this would all be in place. Hopefully with future releases these changes will be in place. In my opinion the icon named sync should be renamed check email for the trial period because that's all it does.
Wrap Up
After two weeks I cut my trial short due to these problems. I found myself very frustrated having to manage my email in multiple places. I know this service is in beta so we will just have to wait and see what the future holds for the Nokia email service. I hope improvments are made because I for one see heavy usage of something like this. This is my 2 cents take it or leave it.
Installation
The process they have for installing the email service is very straight forward. You go to http://email.nokia.com, sign up for an account, and Nokia services sends you a SMS message to your phone with the link to download the software. While I would have much preferred to just OTA installation this was easily and worked seamless for me.
Interface
At first glance the UI was nice with floating icons and nice graphics. I really appreciated the new mailbox screen where the messages where sorted by date and very easy to find. While the UI was nice it wasn't without quirks. For starters if you went into the folders to view a different folder and click back then hide it will actually take you back to the main email screen again instead of hiding the application. After doing this several times over the trial period I found myself annoyed when attempting to hide the application in the background.
The performance was par with the new user interface. When I give it the par rating its because of one thing. When working from the home screen and you click the inbox to go view your current messages it take an extended amount of time, while viewing a blank screen, for the emails to display properly. This is an area that needs to be improved greatly for success with the product in my opinion. With competition now very strong in the and ease of use of the blackberry, and yes even the iPhone mail something like that will simply not cut it for the enterprise crowd.
Accountability
Having come from blackberries to S60 I had high hopes for email. Honestly its not that great at the moment. I would say it gets the job done and that's all that matters to me at the moment. When it comes to all that the N95 has to offer I gladly trade sub par email for what I call life features. This leads me to my next point with Nokia's new email service. A person like me who depends heavily on email from multiple accounts, well, requires multiple accounts. This feature is currently not available and led me to switch back and forth between messaging and Email (Nokia's email service app). Come on Nokia! Please add the ability to use multiple email accounts with the service. Have some accountability.
Push Me
The new buzz word these days is push email. As stated above I came from the kind of push, blackberry. When I heard that Nokia was thinking about getting into this game for the consumer ( yes I know about E-Series) I was excited about the impact this would have on my N95 usage. Well, they got the push part right but that's about it. What about move delete etc? In my usage I found myself very frustrated by the fact that if I deleted a message on my device it did not delete it on my server. Typically you would think of a email service to truly sync your usage on your account. For example if I read a message on my N95 I would like it marked read on my server. Most of all when I reply to a message I want the reply to be placed on my sent messages folder and the message marked as replied. I might have assumed to much but I thought this would all be in place. Hopefully with future releases these changes will be in place. In my opinion the icon named sync should be renamed check email for the trial period because that's all it does.
Wrap Up
After two weeks I cut my trial short due to these problems. I found myself very frustrated having to manage my email in multiple places. I know this service is in beta so we will just have to wait and see what the future holds for the Nokia email service. I hope improvments are made because I for one see heavy usage of something like this. This is my 2 cents take it or leave it.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Happy July 4th.
I hope everybody has a wonderful July 4th celebration. Above pictured is my son riding on a tractor. Life just wouldn't be the same without our offspring. Have a great rest of the weekend.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
N95 tuff little @#$#
I have committed a sin. I have dropped my N95 directly onto pavement from about 3 feet. It was not a pretty site. I was getting out of my car and forgot my phone was in my lap. The next thing I know my phone is falling and I hear smack!!!! I look down and my phone is in at least 3 peaces. As the panic hits me I realize that luckily I would be able to peace it back together. It seems that when it hit the pavement it caught the bottom left corner and popped off the battery case, battery alone with the back slide of the entire phone. With a little push here and pull there I was able to peace it back together.
Once I had it all back to looking normal, minus the huge gash in the corner, I attempted to power it back on. To my surprise I see that beautiful Nokia logo spash on the screen followed by the tones I thought I would never be happy to hear. While this lesson taught me several things not to do it also shows how tuff these little guys are. Thank goodness for decent plastic of this guy would have bit the dust and I would have been a very unhappy camper. Until next time.
Nokia Push Mail Service?
I don't know about you other Nokia heads out there but I've been dying for a replacement for my blackberry push style email. While the native client is okay it lacks a lot as far as details go. For instance there is no date/time in the view which can be annoying at times. Have my dreams been answered with the new up and coming push email service from Nokia. Head over to Darla Mack's blog and have a read and find more details.
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