Interesting things Nokia does

Even though I’ve lately just posted about my personal disappointments with Nokia products or software, I still don’t discount Nokia in any ways as a lost cause or company. They have and have had really interesting things bubbling under and future could be very interesting if they don’t drop the ball.

Open innovations and communities

Nokia has succeeded in creating vibrant and large communities with developers who learn, program and share their products with others. If you start to develop applications on Nokia platforms there is plenty of information, examples and other users from whom to ask tips and guidance. Nokia betalabs is another great example of community through which Nokia tests their beta software and services with the public.

However these efforts have not yet produced comparable successes to iTunes Appstore’s hits.

But seeds have been sown.

Python for S60

Python as a rapid prototyping and development language on your mobile? You must be nuts! And you were untill people made it happen and now Python seems like a really nice language to write small applications. Though Nokia is still working on how to distribute Python runtime in the future to phones Python is already an interesting tool, especially as Python is already getting interesting traction and ready made examples make your start much faster than ever before.

I’m not at all interested in writing applications in C for S60. Python apis make life much more fun.

QT for S60 and Python bindings for QT

Trolltech’s QT has been bubbling under for some time and ever since the first news about porting QT to S60 came, people have been waiting for to see it in action. Demos and previews have been promising – even though I haven’t had the interest to write C-code myself. I’ve been waiting for the package to become complete – Python bindings for QT to come available also on S60.

What is interesting with QT? Learn one library / environment and you can do development on Mac, Windows, Linux and mobile devices. Common base for all the desktop applications and easy to use QT widgets also on mobile. When they get the whole package together, it should be good.

Maemo

Linux based operating system for PDAs and phones. N900 will be interesting next release to test where Maemo software and devices might be going. Could Maemo be a serious challenger for Android and replace Symbian? You never know. However it seems that there are some very smart people working in Maemo division and atleast opensource community follows with interest releases and information that comes from Maemo division. Latest example is PySlide – opensource python bindings for QT.

So Nokia has great things bubbling under. It will be interesting to see what they make out of them.

Why my smartphone is not such a smart phone?

Lately I’ve really tried to get back to the mobile revolution bandwagon and enjoy about the opportunities that I have with my N95 8 Gb Smartphone. After all it is a true pocket computer with multitasking OS, GPS and what not – and these days I can write my own software with Python or Java to the phone. I’ve become really excited about all the possibilities!

However today was another big meh with Nokia software for me, as I tried to find interesting software for my phone. Just out of curiosity I decided to check what is new in Ovi Store and in Nokia Download!-application. I don’t quite get what is the idea with Download!-application these days if Nokia Ovi should be the place for everyone to get their fix on cool S60-software. If Nokia totally axed working Widsets service, why did it keep Download! alive?

Nevertheless I was happy to browse through Download!-list of applications, especially it seemed that there were widgets that I missed ( for example YTV-routeplanner ) and Facebook application, and finally Ovi Store application. Funny thing naturally was that none of those were to be found from Ovi Store.

However joy was very short lived as I started to test applications. YTV RoutePlanner did not work as it used to, there was login required to WidSets which naturally does not work anymore and anonymous usage had a broken captcha. Facebook-application just launched the webbrowser to Facebook. Ovi Store worked and seemed to be quite ok, though I did not find anything remotely interesting.

So even though I consider myself a hardcore user and really interested to try new things, there are only few pieces of software that I really use on my smartphone:

Camera + Shozu

Yeah, I like to take images and upload them. These days it seems that also Ovi works, but I am a long time Flickr user and not about to switch services. I had strange errors with Flickr-upload previously and was really frustrated untill uploads started to work with Shozu instead of Nokia’s standard upload features on Online share. As I just tested features again, they worked without any problems again.

Sports Tracker + Maps

By far the best applications from Nokia. Both are quite easy to use and have great utility. One gripe I have though, it is insane that Maps and Sports Tracker do not use same maps data. If you download maps with Maps loader, you will be suprised to see that when you start Sports Tracker that it needs to use data connection to download maps as you go.

Opera Mini

Better browser than the internal one. But then again browsing on small screen is quite pain in the ass.

Therefore most of the time I use my phone just as a 3G modem for my computer.

Instant messaging

I am still testing which instant messenger would work best for my needs, and would like to get a decent Twitter application too, but feel hesitant to pay ten euros for something that I don’t use all the time. I’m now starting to test Nimbuzz, which should give me MSN and Google talk to the phone – will blog about my experiences. Quick test showed that it worked. Another question is what is it like to use it on daily basis.

Conclusion?

I like the hardware of my Nokia N95 8Gb and all the possibilities it has. But in reality my smartphone is not that smart thanks to the software. I do envy little iPhone users who can do loads of more with their phone, and do it at ease.

Nokia 3g Booklet

Nokia made a big splash by releasing information and really slick marketing video about coming product. Throughout the internets people noticed the news and twittered about it onwards. However there was critical information missing – including pricing – to actually make something about the announcement.

After reading some commentary( among others http://gizmodo.com/5344095/nokia-booklet-3g-netbook-packs-gps-3g-hdmi-andwindows#comments ) I laughed out loud for a very poignant comment left to Gizmondo’s article ” Welcome to 2007, Nokia.” from user Samifumi.

Specifications seem interesting and promising, most interestingly 12 h battery life and sturdy looking design – but they come with a big question. Does premium design come with premium price? Patching up rumors to rumours it seems that the netbook could be priced around €399 or something else, naturally depending on subsidies given from mobile operators who might bundle booklet with unlimited dataplans. Operators like Saunalahti and Elisa in Finland are already doing that with existing netbooks – pricing dataplan and netbook bundle around 30-40 euros per month. Could Nokia’s Booklet bring something new to the equation for endusers and to the company’s bottomline.

Nokia’s stellar supply chain management and existing sales channels with operators, possibility to bundle handsets and netbooks to operator is interesting from the business perspective, and if priced right machine could get pull from the market. But there are numerous questions about the future. While discussing with Mikael about the Booklet, he immediately commented about the prospects of hardware being outdated quickly – especially as competitors in computer business have had really quick turnarounds in their lineups.

I love my 13″ MacBook, which is my main computer that I carry with me everywhere I go. If price is right, I might be tempted to try the Booklet. Even more if would work perfectly also with Linux.

Nokia N97 – promising start, needs lots of work to be good

On our trip to Lapland and back I had the opportunity to see and try out the much waited Nokia N97 phone. And was not thoroughly impressed, even though I saw promise in the phone.

First of all I have to say that in many cases Nokia is really trying to drive the mobile innovation, even though it seems that Apple reaps most of the benefits and fame on smartphone-front. N97 fails or comes short exactly in the area where Apple shines, usability and user experience. Since I switched to macs I have lost some of my geek nerves as these days I become frustrated with devices and programs that are not intuitive to use or fight against usability idioms I have learned or become used to. First feel with N97 was not that bad or horrible, but it felt very Nokia – something you don’t brag about or show to your friends as you might do with numerous iPhone features and apps. But N97 is clearly best and most interesting S60 Phone from Nokia and with few updates it might become excellent, if not now – hopefully in future generations.

There were lot’s of things that were good: Nokia maps worked nicely with large touch screen, flipping through photo gallery worked also well and … and I forgot the rest. I remember giving the phone back to it’s owner quite fast as the quick test drive did not immediately make me want one. “Meh, I’ll wait for the next generation or get iPhone or .. or ..”

I might feel differently about the phone if I had had it for longer time, personalized it for my needs and really used new features like widgets for web services I use. However customizing the front menu and general usability made me not to want to invest more time to testdrive the phone yet. Like I said, the phone has promise and can build on top of strong hardware features that Nokia has bunded into the phone.

Nokia still has great, great possibilities with their phones and software, if they get their stuff together. iPhone clearly sets the bar for comparison, but as we all know the iPhone ecosystem has lots of problems – most clearly the dictatorship that Apple controls about applications that are allowed into the ecosystem. Nokia’s platform is truly open and has interesting technological features, but it seems that people don’t yet get the best out of the platform to produce constantly world changing applications again and again.

iPhone development and ecosystem is in it’s own league, but at the same time Android is picking up speed. Nokia really needs to get their stuff together and capture mindshare from developers. If you look at developer materials for iPhone or Android, you can see and feel that development on that platform could be fun. Nokia has so much different software platforms, features and different phones that developers can feel themselves overwhelmed on where to start and how to start. Atleast I know that I do feel like that.

Looking forward what happens with smartphones next year. If nothing interesting comes along, I will try to continue living with my N95 8Gb – though there is not many days when I wish that I would have an iPhone.