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Nokia 'Regrets' Withings Health App Backlash (bbc.com)
Nokia says it is "regrettable" that problems with its Health Mate fitness-tracking app have frustrated users. From a report: Nokia took over health tech firm Withings in 2016 and recently replaced the Withings Health Mate app with a Nokia-branded version. Health Mate has been downloaded more than one million times from app stores. But many users have left one-star reviews, saying the new app removed popular features from the Withings version and had technical issues. The company told the BBC an update would "integrate missing features." Before being taken over by Nokia, Withings made internet-connected health products such as weighing scales and air quality monitors, which provided data for the Health Mate app.
With all of the "data" these companies have collected one would assume the optics alone would be enough to not do this.
Removing popular features and causing technical issues is standard procedure at MSFT. I don't know why they're complaining. They're lucky they haven't been fired. Yet.
Usually when companies regret something, they don't regret the actual mistake. Rather they regret that their customers are unhappy. It's the same thing of doing something really bad, then being sorry because you got caught.
Why did they have to reinvent the wheel and not iterate on the already established tech? Loyal users appreciate consistency, and hearing about something like this will make people stop considering the tech in general. Appliances that do something properly, reliably, and consistently will become renowned and gain a favorable image and strong recommendations.
The general populace don't want gadgets and gimmicks, but appliances. Developers need to learn that. The constant UI reworkings, functionality being shuffled in and out, it needs to stop. It's frustrating and stressful. There needs to be a damn good reason and an equally good plan for shepherding users if there are any significant changes to things like this.
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Is that a new app company?
Astonishing and unheard of discovery! Free app we bundled app sucks! We regret it! To atone for this faux pas, please accept this updated version that also sucks but maybe not quite as much or perhaps in different ways!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Ass assers fuck app appers.
Wrong.
Nokia is independent and sold on the NYSE. Ticker: NOK.
Nokia sold their mobile device division to Microsoft, which allowed Microsoft to sell phones---and prohibited Nokia from competing for several years.
With the expiration of the non-compete agreement, Nokia is once again able to sell phones under their own name. This is why the Nokia 5 and 6 are modern Android phones. Stock, affordable, solid, quick but not flagship---traditional Nokia, if anything.
Fun fact: Microsoft sold its phone business to HMD Global, who now partners with Nokia. The prodigal son has returned, as the old Nokia division is working closely with its parent once again.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
App guy!
(superstar)
Another example of NEFTA
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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
so bad that I reverted to using the Apple Health App. Which is terrible indeed.
Fitness gadgets aren't covered under the Republican health plan..
Should be Writhings.
The phones were pretty good back in 2000 or so (still use a 6310, though it's getting a tad long in the tooth), then they just about invented the whole "smartphone" shtick... and fscked up so hard they lost it all. I really haven't been impressed with their software, though. It's like they just can't do that, to the point getting bought by redmond looked to them like an improvement. After redmond fscked up royally, even for them, with windows phone and the "kin" (bought up as "danger").
Then again, "app"s are typically fairly poor quality too, built on a whole shitstack of crap to boot. So yeah.
Not only the app (which is needed to use the devices, as they store and give access to the collected data) is much worse than the previous one, but they have also discontinued "Aura", the sleep sensor, leaving people that purchased it at a $300 tag with a lot of questions.
My Steel HR, a $190 watch that was also an activity&sleep tracker has stopped recording sleep data.
I was a happy Withings customer, and an old Nokia customer which liked the brand. Now I am not happy at all with the changes. I hope they take a U turn to this way of working and become customer oriented again.
Mr. Trump, Get off Twitter and do your job!
maybe failing at it, it's hard to say. But I'd guess they've had a bunch of feature creep over the years and they're scaling back some of the less used features. A product like MS Office with near 100% market share and a virtual monopoly can do the 80/20 rule (80% of your users only use 20% of your features, but that's OK because they don't overlap and everybody's got that one feature they can't leave your product for) but a smaller product just doesn't have the user base and capital to keep throwing money at features used by a small base. A sort of niche within a niche.
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I have a Withings scale and it worked with my Fitbit app well, so I hadn't used HealthMate in a while. My Fitbit broke (another /. article for sure...) so I was looking for the app on the store and it wasn't there. Somehow I found HealthMate, installed it, and it's damn near useless.
Now I feel great that I can blame Finland!
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
I'm surprised to see this story picked up by the BBC and slashdot, it seems like too niche of a product. Anyway, I ended up giving it a 1 star rating too. Firs they removed most distinguishing graphics so it looked like some text hanging in a white sea. Then they made the main point bigger and removed other bits of text (like the title, so you couldn't tell what the number was for). And then finally, what really irritated me, they removed the bit at the top that indicated it was connected and syncing with the device. What did they replace it with? Whiteness. Didn't even both moving the existing stuff up a bit into the space, just a white blank space where previously there was something useful.