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Nokia the Next Gizmondo?
An anonymous reader writes, "Yesterday Symbian announced that 100 million Symbian smart phones have shipped to over 250 network operators worldwide since the company's formation. According to a CNet article, however, Nokia phones running on the OS are actually worse than their non-Symbian predecessors. From the article: 'The fact is, Nokia's phones are in danger of turning from the iPods of the phone world into the Gizmondos — from devices dedicated to doing one thing well to jacks-of-all-trades that do too many things poorly. The S60 3rd Edition interface has received tons of criticism from veteran Nokia users for being far too complicated to use. It's great that there's new stuff to play with, but not so great that the old stuff, as in making calls and sending texts, has been made more complicated.'"
Side-talkin'?
It's getting worse and worse.
Most of the stuff on
..that people want phones in order to make phone calls?? Psh..
Speak before you think
Ummmm, no, Nokia won't be the next Gizmondo. This is because they make more than one phone. They make a whole range of phones, so if one model or family of phones doesn't succeed, it doesn't mean it will be the end of the company.
The stakes are high, the players are mammoth and everyone is making the same damned mistakes.
Today's smart-phones are actually very stupid; The interfaces are cumbersome, the features over-hyped while underperforming, the battery and performance problems legendary and yet, the mistakes are accumulating rather than being corrected.
In my opinion, the primary problem is that everyone is using the wrong metaphore for these phones. These phones are not mobile computers and should stop being treated as such. They are supposed to be lifestyle devices. Lifestyle devices need to be simple, elegant and stylish. The only manufacturer that has come close, IMHO, is Motorola with the Razor.
Nokia has some nice features, but as the article correctly posits, the interfaces are simply hideous.
Motorola has taken a shotgun approach and has such a wide variety of different offerings that it makes your head scratch. The Razor is a good phone, but it has yet to be seen whether Motorola knows how to parlay that into a spectrum of lifestyle devices of a higher generation.
Sony Ericson makes hideous phones, in my opinion. They may have nice hardware, but the software is simply terrible.
Samsung has a decent compromise in all categories and their phones are quite popular in Asia, but nothing stands out as outstanding.
Windows Mobile? You have to be kidding. I would rather shoot myself in the foot and use the blood to write on big signs that I hold up than navigate through a start menu on my mobile.
But alas, we are shown a possible beacon of light in the smartphone race. Can Apple offer us some innovation in the lifestyle smart-phone department? I certainly hope Apple teaches these other companies what style and simplicity actually are. A device that quickly morphs from one purpose to another, represents each purpose flawlessly and innovates outside-the-box. Simply the addition of iChat compatibility over WiFi would put the iPhone in a class by itself.
But anyhow, let the arguments begin.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
I want my DynaTAC 8000X back!
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
sorry its completely OT, but I had no other way of trying to work this one out.
4 4239
i was looking for some adware related info from a while back, and I came across this story:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/12/18
what i couldnt work out was why a new article had zero replies - till i checked the date.
31st December, 1969?!? Zonk, are you feeling okay? or is this some crazy slashdot bug?
Although the addition of Sybian maybe be a good idea, I can't help but wonder if the added functionality will impede the use of the phone. [NSFW]
I, for one, managed to get used to my very simple T100 even though the software does have a couple of terribly idiotic issues.
I don't know what to make of that. Obviously there are phones sold to end users by companies that, you know, sell phones. Vertical integration / vertical monopolies are, at least internationally, the exception rather than the rule.
I'm always reading the same biased opinions here in slashdot about the usability of mobile phones. I agree with symbian being pretty nasty to use, slow and ugly. The models equipped with symbian tend to be high end models, just get a series 40 nokia or a samsung and shut up already.
Are Americans again so out of the mobile phone business? Have the people at CNet ever really compared new Nokia "multimedia computers"? There's nothing so much different between S60 2nd and 3rd edition. 3rd Ed is a little improvement, only.
.. wasn't so much the sidetalking thing, but that someone at Nokia thought that the way forward with the N-Gage QD was to fix the sidetalking feature but remove two appealing features. So the new N-Gage QD did let you talk into it like a normal phone, but you could no longer play MP3s or even listen to game sounds in stereo. The former is a fixture on virtually every phone that costs more than fifty quid. Now if that same person is still making design decisions at Nokia, that's definitely not a good thing.
Nokia's Series 60 phones are much better than this article is claiming. I have used them since the first generation (Nokia 3650) and never looked back. I currently own a Nokia E60 and use most of its features, including automatic email retrieving through WiFi, VoIP (it automatically logs on to my SIP provider when I'm home), and even navigation (TomTom), although for that I prefer my Windows PocketPC for its speedier CPU and big touchscreen. The new and improved user interface in the 3rd generation Symbian is also beautiful and much handier than its predecessors.
It's just stupid to say that these phones are bad because they try to do too much. Of course, they do a lot, and if you want a phone to simply call, then just get another phone! Even Nokia makes simple phones for both consumers (3220) and business users (6230i). I have used them both and hated them, they feel so awfully dumb after using a Symbian. Just simple features of Copy & Paste, or the excellent call log feature of the Series 60 phone makes it worthwhile.
These phones have their market, the same market that has embraced the blackberry when everyone was saying it was a chunky overpriced device. Nokia is the biggest mobile phone manufacturer in the world and it only stands to reason that they have a wide range of phones with something for everyone.
This article is no news. Since after the half of the 90's there has been a constant complaining about phones getting new features and them becoming harder to use. This is just one complaint more.
What I don't understand why the article writer wants to paint so grim image of where Nokia is going. Nokia is a very big firm with biggest selection of mobile phones. They have more advanced models that are the cutting in the edge and then they have simple basic models. They also have a very short product life cycle. What this means is that Nokia can try new things with their cutting edge models and if they succeed, trasfer the innovations down the line to other phone models, and if they fail, they just try again and again until they succeed. This is what the article author should have remembered. Nokia is not like other mobile phone companies, they don't play with just one card, they have massive collection of phones and if few phones flop, that doesn't matter because they still have a big collection of phones that work.
It should also be noted that this isn't the first time when a mobile phone is not a mobile phone but something else. I can remember the end of the 90's and my Ericsson R380e which was by the words of Ericsson not a mobile phone but a terminal. Actually that phone has been the best phone that I have ever owned. It's just sad that Ericsson didn't follow with the design but moved to a more bulky design, the P-series.
On a different note, Nokia's management doesn't have any other direction to go than make mobile phone more than a mobile phone. If they would just stop and say that these features are all that users will ever want, eventually chinese no name manufactures and computer companies would get them. There is only one path to Nokia and that is to make mobile phone more than a phone.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
(This is going to sound like an ad - so be it, I love the thing)
The only device I've seen that really makes is all work easily is the Palm OS-based Treos. Their phone functionality is excellent, the proven Palm interface continues to work well for the PIM tasks (and it's integrated very well into the phone and internet features), and you can extend its functionality with the interface scaling and still making sense.
The phone itself has no compromises. The PIM apps that support it are refined over a decade. Adding functionality is simple and straightforward.
Now, Palm OS has its warts - stability first and foremost (a phone should NOT crash - period), memory management a second. However, if you want a no-compromise smartphone, a Palm-based Treo is the way to go.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Nokia, and I own a N73 and it is a great phone IMO.
The article is pretty short, and it's main criticism is the fact that Nokia's flagship smart-phones (or as they say "multimedia computers") have too many features and aren't good at "one" thing. First, let's look at the market.
Phones are marketed to all different types of demographics, age groups, technological needs, price points, etc. Nokia, being one of the (if not _the_) biggest phone manufacturers on the planet, has a huge selection of phones that appeal to all kinds of different needs. There are the cheapo phones that make calls, send text and that's it. There's the mid-range that have some memory, include an MP3 player, and maybe have a decent camera too. Then there's the high-end ("N series") which are generally meant for high-end business users and tech-heads like your's truly. To claim that Nokia, as a company, is slipping into Gizmondo territory is either ignorant or wishful thinking.
TFA also makes claims about making calls and sending text messages with the new S60v3 being too difficult, yet provides no argument for "how?" or "why?". Using the N73 let me show you how "unintuitive" it is to make a phone call:
1) Type in the number
2) Press the green button on the left
As you can see, this is real rocket science not intended for every day cell phone users =). Ok, now let's take a look at writing a text message:
1) On S60v3 devices there is a small row of quick buttons on the Standby; one looks like an envelope with the caption "New text msg". Click that button.
2) In the To field you can type a number manually or just hop over to your contacts by Options >Add Recipient
3) type your message
4) Options>Send
Admittedly, writing a text message is a slightly more lengthy process than making a phone call, but you're typing on a numpad, so that is to be expected IMO. I think at the end of the day, it all boils down to what your needs are. If you want a simple user interface without feature bloat, don't buy a cell phone with a full blown operating system! There are plenty of *great* phones from Nokia that have simplistic user interfaces and do certain things very well. See the Nokia 6233 or Nokia 6131 for great examples of Nokia midrange phones that are highly functional (without feature bloat) and also extremely easy to use.
arcane for life
If people can't handle a S60 phone they should get a S40 based model instead. Its not like they are being forced to buy them. That makes about as much sense as saying that Apple forced you to buy that iPod.
I don't understand why there is always this whinging about phones on Slashdot. All companies make models ranging in capability from the plain old B&W screen ones to the full "multimedia devices". If you can't get the low end models from your operator then maybe you should switch to another one or buy the phone you want at full retail. Jeez, get over it already!
"Does too many things" is different from "too complicated to use". Until the Mac, computers were both. After the Mac, they've been accepted as at least sometimes simple enough to use, even though they do way more things than they ever did when they were "too complicated".
We need an iPhone ASAP. Did Xerox PARC demonstrate a mobile "phone" UI in the magic 1970s that Jobs somehow missed?
--
make install -not war
These complaints -- these phones are too complex, they're not lifestyle enough, they should be pretty and focus on phone calls -- look to me like they're based in the assumption that everyone uses their phone like the authors do. This is clearly not the case.
I've got a relatively early Nokia Symbian phone -- 7610. I've been enjoying using it for about two years now. I like that I can track mileage and manage my calendar on it -- it's critical to my success as a manager (yes, manager. I know, I know, four-letter word).
I'm looking to switch now to the Nokia E70 because of its full keyboard, because I'm working for a company where all your mail is piped into your Blackberry (and the E70 claims to be able to pretend to be a Blackberry), and I want to be able to manage my email and calendar on my phone and have this information pushed to my desktop and other people in the enterprise.
Look, I don't mind simple, elegant phones. The razr is one of the prettiest phones I've ever seen, and if I just wanted to make phone calls, it'd probably be the one I'd consider (but probably not get -- Nokia's traditional/series 40 menus feel much saner to me than Motorola's, and I hate clamshells). These complicated Symbian devices are *NOT* a good fit for people who are in the market for something they can use to make phone calls. I suspect that's one of the reasons why Nokia's starting to refer to them as mobile computers. But they're a great fit for someone like me, who doesn't want to drag his laptop everywhere he goes, and who doesn't want a separate PDA.
No, I love my N73 too, but there are several problems. I'm sure someone somewhere is going to post about how all they want to do is make a call, but that's actually implemented fairly well, although not perfectly. People who want to use the hardware to its full potential are the ones who will suffer! Here are some real issues I've found, and they amaze me:
I could go on and on with this crap, but in summary: The hardware is great, but I'm looking to replace every single official application that came with the phone. Oggplay already takes care of my music, and it's brilliant. I hope the application UI designers are out of a job by the time S60v4 comes out.
Although I must say the web browser really shines, to be fair.
My Sig: SEGV
Just curious - are these interface problems something that enterprising Python hackers might be able to fix by writing their own?
People who want "Lifestyle phones" are in a specific demographic. Maybe it's a large demographic, or maybe it's one of the largest demographics, but that still stands. Just because you want this for your phone does not mean everyone does! This is why companies like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc have a wide range of offerings to suit different needs. If you don't want a phone that works like a computer than for god's sake don't buy it! As you pointed out, The RAZR is probably one of the best "lifestyle phones" on the market, but IMNSHO the RAZRs UI is completely inconsistent, and was one of the hardest learning curves I've had for a midrange device in years. Of course, so many things about software and phone looks are personal taste, so I don't want to get into a pissing fight over who's opinion is the right one =).
My main point is that the "lifestyle phone" segment is covered by every manufacturer, as is the "PDA phone" segment, as is the "low end" segment, as is the "Music phone" segment, etc, ad infinitum.
arcane for life
I am a happy user of a S60-based Nokia N80. It's true that the phone is a bit more complicated than non-S60 phones I had before, and the battery hardly lasts for 48 hours (I just connect it to the power adapter every night - problem solved). But on the other hand, those other phones simply lacked features. The most important smartphone feature for me is the music player. On my previous phone, an S60-based SX1, I used Oggplay, but I never bothered to download it on the N80, because the N80s built-in player is really good. I also love the phone's KHTML-based web browser, which is really usable. Either with UMTS (a bit expensive unfortunately) or using a WLAN connection. And Nokia's podcasting application is very nice: I don't even have to connect my telephone to my computer in order to get new podcasts. When I am at home my phone can connect to the internet via WLAN and download my subscribed podcasts automatically. Plus there are thousand of nice little things that the non-smartphones usually can't do. For example they don't allow you to cut&paste. Or to take your own MP3s as ringtone.
Are there any alternatives? Well, of course I could buy a cheaper phone for less money. But then I had to buy and carry around a separate music player. I don't even have enough pockets in my pants to carry both. And a separate music player is combersome when somebody calls you. I also had no web browser, unless I would also buy a PDA (and PIE really sucks compared to Nokia's browser) or carry a notebook.
I simply don't understand their problem. After all nobody forces them to buy a smartphone instead of some cheap 100 EUR phone, if all they want to do is make calls and write text messages.
Nokia has some nice features, but as the article correctly posits, the interfaces are simply hideous.
I own a Nokia E series phone which I use among other things as an organizer. In my opinion the design of the E-series is pretty nice from a hardware standpoint. The phone is ergonomically well designed and compact. What most irritates me about this phone is not so much the complicated interface but rather the other thing the article pointed out which is **core features** that are either lacking or badly designed. And by **core features** I mean telephony, E-mail and SMS communications software and organizer software. My Nokia GSM phone now does indeed try to do too many things poorly. I would like to be able to postpone events with a couple of key presses not five or six, organize to-do notes into categories depending on which project they belong to, I would like not to have to jump through hoops to get a VPN connection to work and most of all I would like easy synchronization ability with all major E-mail systems to ship with the phone for free and a cross platform computer client software wouldn't hurt either since not everybody runs Windows. I had to download sync software for Exchange separately, it wasn't preloaded. Come to think of it the Exchange sync client wasn't even available until a couple of weeks after I bought the phone. My employer has now switched to Lotus and as is I can't easily sync my phone against the company Lotus severs, especially the all important calendar, and even if I could I still need the ability to easily set up a VPN connection where Nokia scores a big fat zero. Say what you will about Windows Mobile, my experience was that it was constantly crashing and usually whiped my phone clean in doing so but it didn't have half of the flaws in it's core features my Nokia phone has. Nokia is losing sight of the fact that people buy GSM phones firstly for Telephony, secondly for E-mail and SMS communications and thirdly for use as organizers. Everything else is a bonus.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
You should try using a Windows Mobile phone - the Dash or the Blackjack - before scurrying into your corner awaiting Steve Jobs' table scraps.
Thus anybody could easily modify the interface to meet their needs and usage habits. I'd buy a fucking open software washing machine if they'd only sell one!
If I purchase something, I want to be in charge of it. Probably why I love GNU/Linux.
I was following you 100% until you claimed the RAZR as an example of a phone that "got it right."
The RAZR is the worst example of form-over-function that I've seen in recent memory. The form factor is fantastic, but the user interface is horrid. It was clear that all of the work on the RAZR went into the slim and beautiful exterior while an interface was cheaply hacked together.
I had the sad occurance of my Nokia 3660 (running Symbian 60) dying on me, and I followed up the phone with a RAZR. I was stunned at the horrible inadequacies I faced when transitioning from the 3660.
I have a ton of contacts synchronized with my laptop. (Which didn't work properly with the RAZR, but I don't know that I would blame the OS directly, more like just poor support for the OS from synching software.) If you have say, 500 numbers in your phone and you want to look for Bob Smith with the S60 contact list, you just type say, "Bo" or "Smi" and there you'll be. With the RAZR, the best I could do was hit "S" to get the "Smith" and then scroll from there. (With 50 numbers in the S's, it was promptly a hassle.)
Most importantly was a core deficiency with text entry. They try the seemly intelligent method of determining likely words by the frequency that you have typed those words via T9. For example, "if" and "he" are the same numbers on the number pad. If you've typed "if" more often than "he", then 43 will give you "if". If you've typed "he" more often than "if", 43 will give you "he".
It sounds great until you use it in practice. In practice the interface to the RAZR is so damn slow that even an elementary student can type text faster than the interface can keep up with. When that becomes the case on a typical T9 system phone, it's no big deal. You learn that "he" is 43 and that "if" is 43# (were # is usually "next word"). So you can really go just about full speed, even though the interface is just trying to keep up.
Sudden with the RAZR this was impossible, because to the user the results of 43 (and other such common sequences) became nondeterministic! You couldn't type faster than the interface could render!
Coupled with very deep nested menus (no reason to take 7 nested menus to get to a commonly used feature), poor sync-ing (using iSync personally), and horrific text entry, I was fortunate enough to just straight up trade my RAZR away for a Nokia 6600. And while I agree that the newer versions of S60 haven't gotten all that much better and perhaps a little more annoying, nothing compares to the amazing inadequacy of the RAZR interface.
The current phones on my wish list are T-Mobile Sidekick (even as just a phone and nothing else, Danger have designed a beautifully easy to use interface) and the forthcoming iPhone (because I trust Apple's iBrand to make an efficient and effective interface).
For me now, software comes first. The RAZR was scarring.
I manage wireless e-mail for a small number of people (200). Our preferred carrier is Cingular and due to the wireless software we use, our options for devices are limited. We have a few Palms, but settled on the Windows CE platform. People that have a PDA-phone for wireless e-mail are instructed to *not* use the phone and instead use a company issued cell phone. Yup. Two devices. I would call PDA-phones bricks but that would be an insult to bricks everywhere. Our recommendation for the Cingular 8100 running WM5 is to soft reset the device every morning just so you have a chance to send/receive data. Nice.
Enter the Nokia e62. Wow! This thing is a real phone, and by the way, can also do wireless e-mail. It may be the single device that we deploy for phone and e-mail that we've been looking for. Yes, it is more complex to use than previous models because of the additional functionality, but people will only use what they need to use and I don't see the learning curve being higher than other PDA phones.
A better comparison would be to compare these new Nokia's to the similar products from the competitors, not to the earlier Nokias that are "just" phones.
I Love my A780 from Motorola. I think any device that has so many functions has some type of learning cure. Every time new things come out people complain about how hard they are to use and slowly but surely things get worked out. The A780 has an external keypad and is much like a simple phone when closed. Open it up to the touchscreen and you can do everything else. text to speech and voice dialing could use some tweaking but it's still cool to grab the phone in it's holster press the voice command button and say "check time" or "check missed calls" and have the phone talk to me without having to take my eyes off the road. The A1200, the sucessor to the A780 has the same functions without the external keypad...Why Why Why Motorola did you do that?
;-)
Someday it'd be nice to use Qtopia apps and such as there isn't much available for native Linux phone apps that run on Motorola EZX platform but it does support Java apps fairly well.
Once high speed connectivity at a low price or free with a cell plan becomes available, I think providers won't have the phones so locked down and you'll get more choices for what you can do or install just like a regular PC. Get support for penguin liberation front application repository on a cell phone and I don't think there'd be anything left you couldn't do.
anyhow, when I lost my Nokia 6620 and got my Motorola A780, I missed having the Symbian OS interface until I learned the new one and now I like it better. If change throws you that bad it must be a sign of old age
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Even so, the RAZR is far from perfect. My point is just that it tends, for me at least, to be quicker and easier than any other phone that I have owned (and I have owned samples from all major smartphone manufacturers).
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
In fact the best interface i ever came across wast the Siemens M35*'s. And it featured a stupid piezoelectric (iirc the tecnology, anyway same of the cheap alarm clocks) sound generator. Programmable melody (not so easy composer interface but easier than the cubase (!) integrated in some later siemens), so I had a loud and clear sounding tone which beats all the crappy low rate multichannel mid players of the following generation phones i tried. Pity it's bulky.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Actually, I disagree. I believe this "shotgun approach" is rooted in something much simpler than attempting to reach different market segments. It is simply the lack of any essential insight into how such devices should be designed to cator to all usage profiles seemlessly. The companies are clueless on how to achieve this and therefore have to resort to verticle market strategies to attempt to get coverage and compete in the different artificial smartphone categories. Even claiming that PDA Phone is a market category that makes sense makes my head spin. Perhaps stylus enabled phones are in a seperate class, but PDA Phones? Come on.
And my point is that "lifestyle" should not be a segment at all, but a firm basic requirement of any phone. I can see the need to specialize in certain respects (e.g. power tool phones for developers, engineers, scientists, high end camera phones for photographers, high end media phones with huge batteries for travelers, stylus phones for MBA PHB types, etc...) - however, all of them should resonate style, simplicity and resonance with stress-free living (e.g. lifestyle). Currently, I don't really think anyone has this right. I am holding out some hope that Apple will give us all a clue as to how next generation handheld devices should integrate with our lives. [ crosses fingers ]
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
'cos someone's doing it
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=camerphone&s=int
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Until the Linux phone we all dream about arrives.
S60 has
http://forum.nokia.com/python
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Right on. I would imagine that the faster processor alone would have been an amazing improvement in user experience.
I don't know if you have noticed, but most of the Motorola phones released around the same time as the V3 (i refuse to call mine a RAZR) had nearly identical interfaces. Hence, they didn't sacrifice the interface for from-factor. They made a kick ass form-factor and put the same interface they had already built and ready-to-go.
Even the internals of the phone (having played around with p2kman and PST) are similar.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
As a long time Nokia fan, I just switched this week to the HTC TyTN (Cingular 8525) which is (and I'm sorry to say) a much better phone. My 4 phones were a Nokia 6230, 6682, 9300, and then E62. I went from S40 to S60 to S80 and then back to S60v3, but none of them really were able to fill the needs of what I wanted in a phone. Everyone values different things in their phones; some want a handset that will just make phone calls whereas some want a handset that will do everything, but pretty much everyone requires 3 things from a phone:
The sad thing is that Nokia used to have all of these issues figured out, and were probably the best. Lately though they have fallen behind in the last 2. The last phone that I had, which is currently Nokia's flagship, the E62 seriously lacked a fast enough processor to handle what Nokia/Symbian's OS was asking it to perform. Just trying to write a text message to someone would take 2x as long as on my 6682 which was not only S60v1 phone vs the new S60v3, but it lacked a QWERTY keyboard. Just clicking ont he address book on the E62 would take 5 seconds sometimes to load.
With the last issue, Nokia is soooooo close. Although I liked the form factor of the E62, it was lacking many of the features tha twold be expected for that type of phone. There are many examples that I can think of, but most of them center around it's compatibility with Microsoft Exchange. The E62 is supposed to be the first Nokia phone to commercially support Microsoft Exchange 2003's Direct Push technology, but compared to setting this up on a Windows Mobile phone, you have to jump through some serious hoops. The E62 lacks a useful and easy to use certificate system and since certificates can't be installed over email, bluetooth, sms, or even placed as a file on the device; they have to be set as an MIME type on a Webserver and then downloaded through the built in web browser as a *.der files that is in base64. In order to make this work I had to do a ton of certificate conversions using OpenSSL, but in the end the certificate worked with the phone. Once I upgraded to Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007 though it was a completely different story. Outlook 2007 requires that you use the Exchange 2007 certificate generator when using "Outlook Anywhere" (RPC over HTTPS), if you require it to check the SSL certificate for the principal name (i.e. msstd:contoso.microsoft.com). If you use alternate DNS names in your Root cert which Outlook 2007 requires or else it will give error messages, then Outlook 2007 will work fine, but the cert is then incompatible with the Nokia phones. I tried Certificates with alternate DNS names on both the Nokia 9300 and Nokia E62, and neither actually used the certificate (you would always be prompted that you were visiting an unauthorized site when you would go to OWA). How is a phone that is supposed to be a corporate focused phone supposed to work, if it can't even read a wide variety of SSL certificates? BTW, my HTC TyTN, Cingular 8125, and Cingular 2125 all had no problem reading the certificate (all Windows Mobile 5 phones).
In the end the Window Mobile 5 phones now beat the Nokia phones in pretty much every category. The only category that most would question would be stability, but I would counter that by saying that my Nokia 6682 and Nokia E62 crashed all the time (definitely more than my WM5 phones). I really hope that the Symbian OS gets some huge improvements very soon, because otherwise they may lose any chance they have at gaining back previous respect they may have had. I think that if the Symbian OS focused more on open source features like better IMAP support, fast and easy to use menu's, and solid compatiblity/stability that they would then have a winner.
I did notice that exact situation. They all blow. It's still an example of an extremely poor interface. The fact that they put an existing crappy solution shoe-horned into a sweet form factor further illustrates the case.
"Slapped together" doesn't necessary mean "from scratch" or even "for the specific purpose."
I'm not a mac guy. So I'm not up on the latest mac rumors. But the following it 100% real.
I was sitting in a cafe quietly eating my food and this guy was sitting at the table behind me talking with a female friend. He was saying that he tests products for mac and is waiting till early 2007 to buy the new mac phone. He said the thing is really cool for several reasons. He said it has no buttons only a touch LCD screen. When you hold it a certain way it acts like a cell phone. When you type the numbers on the lcd screen the screen shoots this pulse of warmth under your fingertip so you have this sensation of touching a real button. When you rotate it the screen changes to an iPod music player. Rotate it again and it turns into a PDA. I can't remember if the 4th side had a unique functionality to it.
I've been dying to see if anybody's heard of this device. It definately has the "wow" factor that is typical of Apple products.
Moto RAZR? Have you actually tried to use it or are you just speaking from the marketing pictures? No, really???
/. crowd.
1) RAZR (pebl, k1, whatever... any recent moto it seems with the positive exception of E770, they all are the same shit) is not a smartphone. far from it. It don't even attempts. That would be fine, actually - not everything has to be one.
2) It actually couldn't be called a phone ether - you are expected to be able to call from a phone, not fight with the interface. On the other hand it probably is doing something good - teaching the great American nation about the virtues of the patience (while waiting on your phone, what a progress).
3) Oh, and for the sake of it - re qualify to be a j2me software engineer. You will gain a lotta new insights into reasons why motorola sucks that are a bit too technical (in example their KVM implementation... oh my) for general
I have a N80 right now.
The main UI is okay, although very slow. The settings are completely incomprehensible. Sometimes you go to an item and it says "this setting is set in prefs > blah > blah > blah", instead of taking you there. Worse yet, the specified path doesn't even exist, it's incorrect.
Oh, and the battery lasts me two days, even if I don't use WiFi or UMTS. My W810i went 7. And the phone crashed on me in the middle of my last call. And it takes like 40 seconds to boot back up.
They're terrible. Every time I use a new Series 60 Nokia, I hope it's okay, and it's not.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Our workplace got a bunch of E62's and the users couldn't swap them for Blackberries fast enough. Nothing worked as advertised, was too complicated and slow. They're basically "bloatware" which is sad seeing that they had the lead in the phone market until recently.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I've got a Nokia E70 (Symbian 3rd Ed.), and I find it spectacular. I've owned S40 Nokias and Motorolas previously.
I own an N91, and I live in Germany. The number of times I've been tempted to drive 7 hours so I could stand on Norwegian soil and punch a bonified Norwegian in the face, on behalf of Nokia, is too many to count. Yes, I could have bought a different phone that worked better. The problem is, I bought the Nokia N91 expecting it to work as advertised, or at least reasonably close.
For the writer who claims his interface is simple, consider this. I want to return a call to someone who called me. I press the "Talk" button, the phone asks me if I want to dial the number I just pressed "Talk" on. If I press "Select" it asks me if I want to call, save, or message the number. If I then select "call" it asks if I want to make a video or normal call. If I select "normal" it then confirms I want to call the given number. Worse yet, it can be assumed that if I'm in the call menu, as opposed to the message menu, I intend to make a normal phone call. None of the options to get me to a normal phone call are the default, so I always have to scroll to it.
There is also the fact that many of the menu options have absolutely no description in the manuals (online or otherwise). Or the options that require the user to enter the same exact setting in two (or more) menus in order for the phone to recognize them. The countless options that you can "modify" where the only modification option is "exit"... The battery that doesn't last 10% of the advertised time, or the PC software that doesn't install properly (or uninstall for that matter)...
Nokia does get major points for allowing you to update your firmware at home, on your own PC. Seriously. If only they'd tell you what they fixed (admit there was a fault?)... They could also mention what the latest firmware version was before you wasted your time downloading and installing it... Sure it is just 15 min to download and install, but if the firmware was the same version you already had, you just reset your phone to the factory settings for nothing, and now can spend 2 hours resetting all of the elements that it doesn't backup when you do a full backup.
Nokia has a great marketing department. If only they'd let the engineers see some of the marketing literature a day or two before a phone gets released.
They used to make good mobile phones, but that was 5 years ago. Now their products suck. I bought N70 and this is the worst phone I've ever had. The cheap plastics were already scratched after one week of use. After one month paint of the middle control button was already off. I also have to mention that the phone tend to open in the pocket, and since there is no lock feature for the sliding thing I make unwanted calls all the time. Moreover, the symbian OS often crashes. One day it just stop logging my calls and this feature didn't work until I took it to service centre. I used nokia for 4 years because of the quality and since they quality is terrible now, they just lost one customer. The N70 is the last Nokia mobile phone I've bought.
This shows that you should only buy phones where you, as a user, can choose to download 3rd party software to replace any part of the phone software pertaining to the user interface and apps. And this, without any obligation for the developer to have to register his app with the phone maker and/or telecom operator.
:-)
This way your phone will become more and more usable following the advances of all the smart developers in the world.
Actually, you do not want a smartphone. You want an open phone where you can install the work of smartdevs
For instance, I am fully satisfied with my SE P900. It is symbian, but I do not use any of the built-in apps that I replaced by much more usable ones (hint: the latest one is Mandala IT, http://mandalait.com/). And I do not see myself upgrading my phone hardware for the next years, as my phone gets better and better all the time this way...
I really want to be there to watch it first hand.
...which I believe also runs Series 3 on Symbian. While the phone is mechanically very well made and robust, and the software does everything, the human factors are a joke. Buttons that rely on the touch screen are too small and one is constantly hitting the wrong function. There is little consistency between applications - and of course, the thing crashes all the time. If you want an example of how to do smart phones right - try the latest PalmOS based TREOs. The 680, while lacking a good camera, looks like a good move for sensible business people who wish to avoid the MS rout and don't like Nokias. All said, we many have said on this post, when Apple do a phone, it will be a phone done right. We hope! Incidentally, got any questions on your device, post them at the beta version of FONEBOX.COM.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
. . . just to clarify. In Japan, for example, Symbian is sold with the MOAP environment.
I am a Symbian employee though what I say is purely my own opinion:
The fact that firmware updates are freely available for the newer Nokia phones is a fairly new phenomenon and has a major effect. Problems are being dealt with swiftly.
Symbian is a much much more powerful operating system than it's competitors and it's really quite sophisticated inside. The pressure on us employees to get things right simply gets more and more tremendous. We don't do everything - not device drivers for example because the hardware isn't ours, after all - but the product delivered to our customers (the phone manufacturers) is very good and enables them to deliver amazing products like the N95 which will change ways of living. A shitload of kewl work has been put into v9 for your pleasure and it has bedded down so you will see it wipe the floor with it's opponents.
That's my personal opinion, anyhow.
Cheers.
This is all just my personal opinion.
I haven't kept up with the mobile phone market since I got my 6210, which has exactly the features I want out of a mobile phone (plus WAP, but I think I can handle that amount of bloat ;). However, UMTS is going to become the new standard Real Soon and there might be a time when I have to get a new mobile.
My question is: Is there a 3210/6210 equivalent that dows UMTS? My requirements are:
- Candybar form factor. Everything with moving parts is too damn fragile. See next line.
- Somewhat rugged. I want the thing to be able to survive a one meter drop.
- No camera, no media player, no nothing. As little functionality besides phone calls and SMS/mail as possible.
- Bonus points if the phone doesn't have a big fancy color screen because it doesn't need one.
- Also bonus points for low price. I can live off a 15 EUR prepaid card for a year, thus I have no use for phones that are so expensive you can only afford them together with some kind of plan.
Essentially I want a UMTS-based mobile telephone with SMS functionality and nothing else. Even though I like multifunctionality in some devices, I perceive telephones as tools rather than computers - they have to work, be simple and do what they do exceptionally well. A phone that does not match these criteria is just a bad crossbreed between a PDA and an UMTS modem.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Seduced by a list of features, I just got myself a Windows Mobile smartphone. Huge screen! Skype! Opera! Wi-fi! I could barely contain my excitement.
Till I discovered it has a few other features we all know and love from desktop versions of Windows - slowdowns, crashes, bizarre UI...
Razor? 'Lifestyle device'? Oh come on, It's a pretty phone but the software sucks bigtime. Sony-Ericsson runs circles around pretty much all motorola phones I tried.
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