It was the best of phones – it was the worst of phones…

I want to start this review by saying three things:

• I got this phone for free – thanks Nokia!
• I’m an extremely demanding mobile user. I recognise that I am an edge-case; what I find annoying, you may not.
• I’ve tried to stick to actual bugs, not just “it does things differently.”

Sergeant Elop’s Lonely Phone Club

Imagine, of you will, you have just purchased a brand new copy of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on vinyl.

It is beautifully designed, an astonishing work of art. You play side one and it is sublime – perhaps the perfect start to any album.

The you flip the disc to side two – and it’s Justin Bieber. A screeching, horrible, tune free noise that damages your calm and makes you want to smash your stereo.

That’s the Lumia 800 from Nokia. It’s Finland’s first Windows Phone 7. It’s beautiful and infuriating in equal measure.

The Good

There is much to praise the Lumia – and WP7 – for. So much potential – and nearly all of it squandered. But, we’ll get to that… Let’s start with what I love.

Beauty Is Skin Deep

The phone is gorgeous. Like a futuristic pop-tart. Sleek, shiny, and midnight black.
It pulls off the incredible feat of being discreet and eye catching.
A pure monoblock. As enigmatic and attractive as the monolith from 2001.

There’s just one problem. We’re in 2011.

A Brand New Operating System

Windows Phone 7 is different from all other phone operating systems before it. Sure, it has icons, widgets, lists, long presses, swipes, and … you know what? It isn’t different. It isn’t a new paradigm. What it is, is gorgeous.

It’s a sparse and elegant experience. Fast and user friendly.

The “Metro UI” is really easy to use, gentle on the eye, and a clever way to organise a phone.

Speed Demon

This is one of the fastest phones I’ve used. It’s startup speed rivals that of BlackBerry. In day to day usage, I never found that it stuttered or slowed down – even while having several apps open at once.

Our Friends Connected

You can add in all your disparate social networks into your phone book. So, when you look up a contact, you can easily see their last status message, their Facebook photos etc.

Just like Vodafone 360 did years ago…

But, unlike 360, it works really well. It seemed to match up all my Twitter, Facebook, and address book friends without hassle.

Getting The Basics Right

Call quality was excellent. Good speaker phone. Fine reception. Basically, it works as a phone.

The camera is quick to focus and produces outstanding images.

Ok… ok… If you want to use it as a basic smartphone, the Lumia will do you fine.
It browses the web, plays music, links all your social networks together, and looks beautiful while doing so.

It is basically fine – until you scratch beneath the surface.

The Bad

I thought that the Nokia N8 was the worst phone ever made by Nokia. The Lumia may come a close second.

I’ve been posting a running commentary on Twitter of all the niggles I have with the Lumia.

Here are the highlights – and slightly more in depth explanations – of every bug and annoyance I found. I have suffered, so that you may not.

Let’s start off with a gentle one…

Aww! #WP7 has a skeuomorph for its save icon. http://t.co/4CFKklEz

29/11/2011 20:38 via TwitpicReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

That was the warm up. What would you say to a phone that you can’t switch off?

I have since discovered that this only happens when the phone is plugged in. Maybe I’m unusual but, before going to bed, I switch off my phone and let it charge overnight. I’ve had several WP7 fans say that I should switch my phone on to flight mode (go in to settings, scroll through) or switch my phone on to silent if I don’t want to be disturbed during the night.

There’s just two problems with that. Firstly – why doesn’t the phone tell me that I can’t switch it off? Secondly – it’s impossible to switch the phone on to silent.

Silence Is Golden

This may fall under the “just how I am used to it” school of errors, but bear me out.
On every phone I’ve owned I’ve had three sound profiles that I can toggle through.

• Ring and vibrate – what the phone is normally set to.
• Vibrate – when I want to be notified, but having a loud ring isn’t appropriate.
• Silent – I don’t want to be notified (I’m in a meeting).

With the Lumia, I can toggle between Ring+Vibrate and Vibrate. There’s no way to get the phone to go silent without diving through a maze of menus.

In fairness, this is a problem which has affected recent Android phones – but there are multiple (free) widgets which solve it.

Screen Issues

The screen on the Lumia is a mixed bag. When it’s displaying white text on a pure black background, it’s perfect. When there’s a white background, the screen seems – to me – to have lots of artefacts on it.

The Lumia’s screen is at its worst when dealing with greys, and solid blogs of colours. It suffers from lots of vertical banding which is really quite unpleasant.

I’ve scanned in the screen looking at a fairly normal grey image. While the scanner has overemphasised the problem (and my greasy finger prints!) you should be able to get an idea of how the problem manifests.

Browser Bugbears

Internet Explorer is a reasonable browser – but very buggy.

The URL bar keeps disappearing. I’ve had this a couple of times. The URL bar just vanishes when you’re using the web. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to bring it back.

Only two browsers have the URL bar at the bottom. #WP7 and Lynx.Right now, it's tough to say which is more functional...

03/12/2011 22:49 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

One more annoyance with the Lumia's browser. Scroll down a page, click a link, then click back - it dumps you at the top of the page. #WP7

04/12/2011 09:02 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Unbelievable! IE on #WP7 doesn't reflow text when you zoom in on a web page. The Lumia is quickly losing its lustre.

02/12/2011 06:46 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

The scrolling for the web browser sometimes stops responding.

Meeting You, Meeting Me

It’s really hard to accept meeting invites on the Lumia. On my Exchange email, it works perfectly. For some Gmail invites, I have to click a link and go to Google Calendar on the web. The Lumia doesn’t recognise .ics files – so there’s no way the email client can talk to the calendar.

But, worse is to come. I asked someone at Microsoft to send me a meeting invite to my Gmail account. While the invite worked fine on the web, the Lumia gave me literally no way to answer the meeting invite – as this video demonstrates.

Crapware

This is Nokia’s flagship phone – so you think they would have taken more care with it, wouldn’t you? As well as a buggy OS, they’ve filled it with… let’s just say “non-premium” apps.

I do like the fact that I can uninstall the bloatware on the Lumia. Goodbye Ministry of Sound (what?) and Sky "News".

01/12/2011 08:57 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

I think one problem with #WP7 is that it's caught between fun and serious. A BA app & Ministry of Sound. Xbox & Office. Feels conflicted.

01/12/2011 09:00 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Some apps, like this one from BA, need updating as soon as you switch on the phone. Sadly, you can’t click a button to update – you have to go into the app store.

The greatest opprobrium is reserved for TripAdvisor. I know that deals like this take a lot of time and money to organise – but they really could have done better than this pathetic effort.

One of the default apps on Nokia's flagship Lumia is... an iPhone app. Well done TripAdvisor. http://t.co/7tQPWEOf

06/12/2011 16:53 via TwitpicReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Still, at least they let you easily install the bloat.

Things Go Better When We’re Together

Microsoft may – or may not – be buying Nokia. One thing is for sure, they’re working closely together. What’s weird is why they’ve decided to duplicate some of the services on the phone.

The Lumia has both the Zune music store *and* the Nokia music store. Different prices in both. Different sign-in requirements for both. #WP7

02/12/2011 15:06 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Very impressed with the Lumia's music streaming over 3G. No idea if it's Nokia music or Zune, but it's free & high quality.

02/12/2011 18:17 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Just discover that the Lumia has Microsoft maps AND Nokia maps. Now that's what I call synergy!

06/12/2011 17:05 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Finally, Nokia seems to have its own app store. Once again, we see just how little Nokia care for UX.

Nokia Lumia: untested, buggy, & even its own app store looks amateur. Still, Facebook is hardly a major brand, is it? http://t.co/LeXonzxj

05/12/2011 16:53 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Paperback Writer

The keyboard is a very strange beast. It’s mostly fine, but has some oddities.

Lumia's keyboard is infuriating. Sometimes white on dark, sometimes the inverse. Jumps up to accommodate buttons which ruins touch typing.

30/11/2011 13:55 via WindowsLiveReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Latest Lumia niggle - the keyboard doesn't display a "next" button when filling in text fields. And "Lumia" isn't in its dictionary! #WP7

01/12/2011 07:51 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

The #WP7 keyboard tries to autocorrect the word "Google" into "Bootleg". That's a new one, spreading FUD via dictionary!

06/12/2011 07:41 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Weirdly, the word “Lumia” isn’t in the Lumia’s dictionary. So there’s a little red squiggle ever time you write it. Or other common words.

That said – the in-line spell check is very nice. I miss it on my Android – I think I first saw it on the BlackBerry many years ago.

My Baby’s Got Me Wrapped Up In Chains

We’re living in a post-PC age. Unless you’re Microsoft. You have to connect to a Windows PC to update software, copy across music and videos, change the BlueTooth name of the device, or even subscribe to podcasts.

What’s worse, is you have to install the Zune software if you want to get music or photos off the device. You can’t send via Bluetooth, you can’t just shove in a USB cable and drag them off. You have to install the 100MB behemoth that is Zune, restart your PC several times, fire up the software, wait for it to detect your phone, then let it sync before you can get your photos out.

Of course, you could email your photos off the phone – but the UI for that is terrible. There’s no way to select multiple images, so you have to attach each one individually.

Guess how easy it is to email multiple photos on #WP7?Android: Gallery, select photos, send.Lumia: Email, add, photo, select one. Repeat.

01/12/2011 10:58 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

It seems that any time you want to do something to your phone, you have to connect it to a PC running Windows.

Yay! There's an update for my Nokia Lumia!Boo! I have to connect to a computer to install it.#WP7

02/12/2011 22:36 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Unbelievable - the Lumia won't let me download an MP3 from the web. It'll play it, sure, but it's not saved anywhere. #WP7

03/12/2011 22:06 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

Let’s Talk About Text, Baby

Do you ever use read receipts for SMS? Perfect for seeing when someone has received your message. In every other phone on the planet, the read receipt is integrated in to the SMS app – so you can see at a glance which messages have been received.

With WP7, you get a long list of phone numbers which have received a message. It doesn’t even do the simple task of showing you the name of your contact.

No Thanks

I hope that what I’ve shown you is a litany of bugs, errors, gotchas, and foul ups. I don’t think any of the points I’ve raised are unfair. I like to think that I judge other phones just as harshly – see my treatment of BlackBerry and of iPhone and of Android.

For regular users, the Lumia is an astonishing phone, & #WP7 is a joy to use. For power-users, it will enrapture & disgust in equal measure.

03/12/2011 11:34 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

I know this is a brand new OS – but you don’t get credit for trying.

I want to make it clear that, like the iPhone, the Lumia is an excellent device; as long as you stay within its parameters. I'm an edge case

02/12/2011 07:45 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

I’m not giving up on Windows Phone 7. It is still a work in progress. There is a great deal of potential here – and I look forward to seeing what the future brings.

For the record, Lumia is a gorgeous device, the #WP7 interface is *mostly* amazing. It feels like the original iPhone; radical and limited.

01/12/2011 10:59 via ©Terence Eden SomeRightsReservedReplyRetweetFavorite

@edent

Terence Eden

For now though, avoid the Lumia. Wait until Microsoft fixes the bugs and until Nokia decides release a phone that they are happy with. Because, honestly, I don’t think anyone at Nokia can believe this is the best that they can do.

It’s a really great series, and I encourage you to listen to it.

At one point in episode 4, Stephen sings the Nokia ringtone.

So, here it is for your edification, and delight.

Feel free to set it as your iPhone’s ringtone :-)

All together now, “Derr-nerr-nerr-nerr Derr-nerr-nerr-nerr Derr-nerr-nerr-nerr Nerr!”

This is the story of how I hijacked stole hacked recycled it and, in doing so, prevented Nokia from having a serious PR problem.

E7 Poster

This is advert for the new Nokia E7. It really emphasises the tweeting capabilities of the handset.

Nokia’s marketing team have illustrated this by showing off a couple of tweets on the handset. One of which contains a Bit.ly short URL.

Here’s the close up… it points to http://bit.ly/CYRWP

Being the curious chap that I am, I thought “Ooooh! I wonder where that’ll take me? To some awesome Nokia competition page perhaps?”

So I typed it into my phone.

Yup – the idiots in Nokia’s marketing team didn’t register the bit.ly link!

So, it was a simple matter for me to pop over to bit.ly, create a short URL pointing to this site, then customise it to say CYRWP.

Malicious Use

If I were a scallywag, I’d have pointed the URL to an Android website, or perhaps one of the less-than-stellar E7 reviews.

If I were nasty, I’d have pointed it to a malware page.

If I were a criminal genius (which I am not) I would have pointed it to a page which asked for credit-card number, email addresses, phone numbers, etc of people intetersted in buying / winning the handset.

I’m closer to scallywag than evil mastermind – so I pointed the URL to this blog post. Hopefully this page will serve as a reminder to Nokia’s marketing team that you should….

Always check URLs before printing them on an advert!

Bootnote

Two other interesting things to note.

• The #hashtag in the pictured tweet isn’t hyperlinked. Tsk
• The URL “CYRWP” is an anagram of “CRY WP”. Are the Nokians in floods of tears over the death of Symbian and the coming rise of Windows Phone 7?

While undoubtedly cool, what amuses me about this game is why it has taken the gaming world so long to catch up with Symbian! Way back in 2003, I got my hands on the Siemens SX1. It was the first non-Nokia handset to be running Symbian. As well as “modern” features like GPS, web browsing, and apps – it also came with a very interesting game.

Mozzies

Mozzies was an award winning Augmented Reality game. Perhaps the first of its kind to make it in to a mass market phone. I can’t find any videos of it – so here are some screenshots.



From a presentation by Andreas Jakl.

As you can see, not markedly different to the iPhone / Star Wars game. Sure, the graphics have come a long way – but it’s still just tracking movement through the camera and accelerometer, and then painting shootable “baddies” on the screen.

Seven Year Itch

What annoys me about Symbian is that it has all these amazing and innovative features and then squanders them. I’ve never seen another Symbian handset with Mozzies on it. You’d think that an award winning game like that would be on every Symbian handset.

Another example. The N95 was technically superior to the original iPhone. Yet Nokia dragged its feet on using the camera accelerometer to power the screen rotation. Barely any updates came out for the the N95 series – any hope of using that as a platform to beat the onslaught on smartphones was wasted.

I don’t know whether it’s Symbian or Nokia or someone else who is to blame. What I do know is that Symbian has lost any technical lead it may have had. And that’s desperately sad.

The Dark Side

In researching this blog post, I came across a delightfully disturbing tale of a young man who had his phone smashed for playing this game.

Heriyono said: ‘ I was so engrossed with the mosquitoes, I became oblivious to my surroundings.

‘Then, I saw through the phone, a figure behind the swarm of mosquitoes heading in my direction but I thought he was just passing by.’

Heriyono claims the man then shouted: ‘Trying to take a photo of my girlfriend, is it?’

And he smashed the phone on the floor.

I do wonder how many more phones will be destroyed when people think they are being used to take photos. Or how many photographers will use game playing as a cover?

Perhaps it’s time to make a video app which merely looks like you’re playing a game…?

Failure 1 – Targeting

This version of the Tesco shopping app is only available on Nokia phones. Nothing wrong with that – Nokia are still the biggest phone seller on the planet. So why allow the advert to be shown to Android users?

It will annoy users, reduce your CPM, and make users less likely to click on adverts in future.

Failure 2 – Sizing

This is the full resolution on the advert.

(full resolution)

168*28 is barely enough to contain all the information you want to impart – let alone make it look attractive.
The Tesco logo is tiny and indistinct – the wording blurred and hard to read.

Failure 3 – Mobile Friendly

Here we come to the failure that we see so often. A lack of mobile friendly landing page.

Responsibilities

Guardian needs to make sure its ad-server are only showing adverts relevant to the user viewing the site.
The ad-server needs to make sure its adverts are scaled correctly for different phones.
Tesco needs to ensure that its advertising agency is buying advertising space correctly.
Nokia needs a mobile friendly page for non-Nokia devices.

Lost Opportunity

Just think what Nokia could be doing with this landing page for non-Nokia phones.

• Show off the amazing capabilities of the app.
• Display screenshots of the app.
• Tell the user which phones the app works on.
• “Don’t have a Nokia? Take a look at these awesome devices!”
• “Here’s a map to your nearest Nokia store…”
• “Get £100 off any Nokia device when you trade in your Android phone!”

You know the crazy thing? They do most of these things already!

If you try to download Ovi Maps on a non-Nokia – you get this page?

Nokia really need to have a joined up strategy for how they deal with users who have competitors’ devices. Both the Guardian and Tesco need to do some quality control on their adverts and ad servers.

It starts well enough with an animated GIF.

The site it links to is http://music.nokia.co.uk/ – cleverly, Nokia redirect mobile users to a specific mobile version of the site.  That’s where it all starts to go wrong…

Viewport Is Your Friend

This is what the user sees on visiting the advert.  Better hope they’ve got great eyesight!

This is caused by having an obnoxiously wide graphic at the top – but also by not setting the viewport correctly.

In the <head> section of your HTML, you can define how wide the page should display.  You can set the width of the page to automatically be that of the phone with this single line of code.

 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/>

This will ensure your readers don’t have to manually zoom in to read the marketing message you’re trying to impart.

You can find more information about Viewport on Learn The Mobile Web.

Don’t Link To Non-Mobile Sites

On this mobile website – where do you think the links lead?

Not only do they point to large pages totally unsuitable for mobile – one of the sites requires Flash to work. Thereby further excluding millions of potential customers.

It’s one of the first rules of mobile advertising – don’t force your customers to download megabytes of unusable data.

What Are You Trying To Do?

Finally, what’s the point of this advertising campaign?

The main purpose seems to be to get me to download content on to my PC. An odd proposition for a mobile site, surely?

Given that it can’t be used by anyone without a Nokia phone – why is it being served to me?

If it is trying to entice me to buy a Nokia device so I can experience “Comes With Music” – why is it doing its best to treat me like a second class citizen?

Ask yourself this question – what are Nokia trying to acheive with this advert. Nokia’s effort doesn’t seem to offer any value or information for anyone. What a waste of time and money.

Nokia phones "running" Android

Is this just a hapless Photoshop mistake – or a sign of things to come?!?!?!?!

It’s a daft graphic designer – obviously. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the possibility of Nokia devices running Android seriously. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Nokia will never ship and Android powered phone – they’ve invested too much in Symbian and MeeGo for that. But Nokia devices will run Android.

A few years ago, I coaxed my Nokia N810 into running a prototype version of Android – NitDroid. The project has been resurrected by Stephen Hyde at NITDroid.com.

This latest video shows the Nokia N900 running Android’s FroYo.

Why Is This Useful?

Nokia coined the term “Mobile Computer” for its range of phones. Computers aren’t hermetically sealed consumer devices. They allow the customer to modify both hardware and software. You would be understandably upset if the computer you bought last year wouldn’t let you install the latest version of Windows, MacOS, or Linux. But that’s the situation mobile phone customers are faced with today.

The Android G1 has been abandoned by HTC and T-Mobile – much to the chagrin of customers.
The HTC Hero has only been grudgingly updated to Android 2.1.
Nokia left the N800 and N810 to rot. Nokia regularly stops development of its “mobile computer” software even when the devices are in active use.

Mobile phone manufacturers exist to sell phones. They don’t get any extra revenue for releasing new firmware. Indeed, the cost of developing, testing, and shipping new firmware is prohibitively expensive. Not to mention dealing with customer complaints when things inevitably go wrong.

We are finally in a position to change that mindset. Hackers (in the original sense of the word) are now able to create custom firmware for new phones. Take a look at the XDA Developer Forums. Almost every Android phone released can have an improved firmware running on it.

True, a significantly older phone may not have hardware capable of running bleeding edge code – but it’s enough to give it a new lease of life.

I’d love it if Nokia updated the N95 8GB firmware. The hardware is still incredibly capable.

In these tough economic times, it makes perfect sense to focus efforts on software, rather than hardware.

Look at the PS3 or the Xbox 360. A single model with firmware updates to increase its functionality.

Rather than tooling up a factory for a 6 month run of hardware – phone manufacturers should be looking to keep churning out a limited number of models of high spec phones for years. As manufacturing efficiencies improve, the hardware becomes cheaper and – like the PS3 and Xbox – cheaper models can be produced.

The PS3 came out in November 2006. Nearly 4 years ago. Can you think of a phone released four years ago which is still in production – let alone receiving firmware updates? The original iPhone was released in 2007 – it got a firmware update earlier this year but won’t be receiving iOS4. Also, you can’t buy a new iPhone 2G. Apple aren’t in the business of selling inexpensive hardware.

The Future

I predict – or rather, I hope – we will see the following pattern emerge. Either from Google or Nokia.

• An insanely expensive and over-spec’d phone will be released.  I expect in the £500 – £1,000 range.
• A public roadmap for its OS will be released – new features promised every 3-6 months.
• A guarantee that official firmware development will continue for at least 3 years.
• The OS will be sufficiently open to allow “homebrew” firmware to run.  Hackers will jump at it.
• The hardware will sell – poorly at first.
• As production efficiencies are found, the price will come down.  The hardware capabilities will stay compatible with older models.
• The firmware will progress based upon consumer need, manufacturer desire and what hackers manage to achieve.
• At around the 18 month mark, major new features in the firmware will be announced.  This keeps the MNO happy as they don’t have to subsidise the cost of new hardware for customers coming to the end of their contracts.
• At the 2 year mark, the next hardware revision will be launched.  More memory and megapixels – cheaper price.
• If the hardware is still selling, expect others to follow.

The fly in the ointment for this is continuous manufacturer profitability.  Apple, I understand, gets a cut of call and text revenue.  Google gets a cut of apps sold.  Microsoft and Sony sell licences for releasing games on their platform.

Would this “super phone” have to sell firmware updates?  Would MNOs subsidise firmware rather than hardware?  Would customers part-exchange  an unfashionably old phone for the latest model?

Or will we be stuck with phones that are thrown on the scrap-heap by their creator in order to force us into buying the latest model?

One thing’s for certain.  Where there are hackers – there will always be updates.

Dead BlackBerry

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Due to a crazy taxi driver (are there any other kind) and a violent swerve, my BlackBerry Bold 9000 is no more. Bereft of life, it rusts in pieces, and other such Pythonesque metaphors.

Arse. I truly feel like I’m missing an extension to my body. There’s a symbiotic relationship which develops between a geek and his phone. It entertains me, informs me, keeps me on time and allows me to rapidly communicate with a variety of methods. In return, I feed it electricity, load it up with useful programs, decorate its skin and snuggle up to it.

I miss it so much.

Every Cloud…

Now’s a prime time to choose a new smartphone. So many new models on the market. Which to go for?

What I look for in a mobile

I’ve had many many phones. Some wonderful (Treo 180) some dire (Apple iPhone). I know exactly what I want and what I need.  For a device that I use several times an hour every single day, I don’t want to compromise on any aspect.  Perfection is what I demand.  So, what was it that made the BlackBerry Bold the perfect phone for me?

• Physical keyboard.  I do a lot of typing on the device.  I’ve used soft keyboards (Android, iPhone, Storm) and they just don’t do it for me.  Even with the haptic feedback, it’s just not the same for speedy typing.  I liked handwriting recognition on the Treo 180 and the Nokia N97 – but in terms of speed & accuracy a physical keyboard is a must.  More than that, it needs to be a good keyboard.  The keyboard on the N97 is dreadful – it feels like a cheap calculator.  The N810 has an awful layout and virtually no travel on the button push. I need raised keys and to feel a click so I can touch-type.
• Exchange integration.  I use my device for work.  Things which I regularly use my ‘berry for are were: email and calendar sync’d over the air.  Address lookup – if I meet Jo Blogs at work, I can type her name in to the address book and look up her email, phone number, address etc (if she’s in the corporate address book).
• The BlackBerry Enterprise messenger is also really useful.  I don’t use IM for personal use much any more – but work runs on it.  Sadly it’s basaed on Microsoft Office Communicator rather than anything open or useful.
• Quick start-up.  When you shut down a BlackBerry, it effectively goes into “suspend” mode.  I switch it on first thing in the morning and it’s on and receiving email instantly.
• Auto on-off.  At 2300 every weekday, my phone shuts down. So if I’ve forgotten to switch it off, I don’t get disturbed during the night.  At 0700 it wakes up and gets to work.
• Multiple email accounts.  I want to reply from 1 enterprise and 2 personal accounts.
• USB interface for charging.  Batter life isn’t massivly important and I’m never away from a power socket for a few hours.
• Compatible with Linux for charging, reading files, tethering.
• Speed dial, form factor, excellent hierarchical bookmarks structure.
• GPS & Mapping.
• Good browser.  I like the modern RIM browser – I know they’re moving to Webkit, but I don’t find the current one so bad.

Well, so far it looks like I’m going for a BlackBerry. Right.  Not quite.

What I hate about BlackBerry

• No front-facing-camera.  I like video calling. I’m the only one in the UK who does, apparently.  But with more 3G phones coming on to the market, I’m hopeful that more people will come round to it.
• Lack of updates.  It seems to take ages for any new developments to come out of RIM.  I understand why – you can’t fiddle around too much with business critical devices – but I like shiny new features.
• Speed. Perhaps it’s running OS 5.0 on the 9000, but everything seems a little sluggish.  I’m very quick with my fingers yet I often feel like the ‘berry isn’t working as fast as I am.  Once you’re running IM, SocialScope, Facebook and Weather at the same time and everything slows to a crawl.
• Camera. I like the flash and the geo-tagging, but the quality of images isn’t wonderful.  No focusing also impacts scanning QR codes.
• Video recording – low quality and sound is often out of sync.
• Calendar – only shows a single calendar. I don’t want my personal appointments on my work calendar.
• Media player. While it plays some .avi files better than Android, it won’t do .ogg or .flac, the interface is sub par.

The Android Intervention

With my dearly departed long gone, I’m reliant on my Android device. An HTC Hero.  It is a stunning device.

• Gorgeous screen, very responsive.
• Browser is good.
• The camera is great although sorely lacking a flash.
• It integrates with Microsoft Exchange reasonably well – although I haven’t got it fully working yet.

But – and there’s always a but…

• HTC. They are very unresponsive to customer queries. No software updates for the Hero, even though they’ve been announced.  Again, I understand the reasoning, but I don’t want to be stuck on Android 2.1 when 3.9 is out.
• Slow start up.  I don’t want to wait 60 seconds for my phone to wake up.
• Lacking in functionality – although it has plenty of add on software, some at cost.
• Lack of keyboard shortcuts.  I rely on these heavily – as described in my comment to The Really Mobile Project.
• Such tie in to the Google Eco-System.  If I ever want to leave Google, I’m not sure how the phone would cope.

Others

I’m big on Linux. Despite the slight disappointment with Nokia’s recent efforts, I’m intrigued by the N900.  I think I’d like to play with it for a day – especially the keyboard given the disaster of the N810 – before comitting.

I’ve tried a 3G iPhone running OS3.0.  It’s a toy and really not suitable for me.

Windows Mobile is… lackluster.  I can’t wait for Windows Phone OS 7.0 Mobile (or whatever they’re calling it today).  Besides, I don’t run Windows on my PCs – I can’t think of a reason to run it on my phones.

What else is out there?  Bada? Doubt Samsung call pull it off.  Pre? I want to like Palm, but it’s restricted to a single device and only on one network. Symbian? Hopefully it will be resurrected but after the disasterous N97 and the abandoned N95, it’s dead to me.

Choices

I think it boils down to three phones.

BlackBerry 9700

Bold 9700

This is the “safe” choice.  It’s the next model up from my smashed 9000.  I know it does everything I want.  I like the idea of replacing the trackball with a touchpad.  Good that it’s got the new standard USB charger, even if I’ll need to buy some new cables.

On the down side, it’s a bit boring.

SonyEricson Experia X10 mini pro / Motorola Milestone / Droid

My Android choice.  Has a keyboard and avoids HTC.  I don’t know how hackable it will be.  Given it’s one of SE’s & Moto’s first forays into Android, I’m concerned about how committed they’ll be to the device.

Would really like an Android with a decent keyboard – there are just so few of them about.

Nokia N900

Nokia N900

The outside choice. I generally love Nokia hardware – but their software sucks.  As innovative as the N810 was, they really dropped the ball in providing updates to their original Maemo software.  I’m slightly wary about how well this will be supported.

The keyboard looks ok, but the oddly placed space bar puts me off, as does the lack of ergonomic consideration.

Your Opinions

I’d love to know what you think.  Which phones rock your world?

This blog is a personal comment and does not represent my employers, Vodafone Group.  Nothing in this blog should be considered an official position on any phone, platform or manufacturer.

A Kick Arse Advertising Campaign!

That’s pretty strong stuff. For those of you with poor eyesight, let’s zoom in on the significant detail

Oh no they didn’t!

In the UK, I’m unused to seeing adverts which directly mention their competitors – let alone attack them. But in other parts of the world it’s quite common. Personally, this sort of advert amuses me – but I do wonder how many people will find it childish and unbecoming of a global business. To say nothing of the fact that by mentioning your rival, you’re giving them free publicity.

So, with a humdinger of an advert – this is bound to lead on to an awesome site. Probably with downloadable video showing how cool the handset is, maybe some lush product shots, at the very least the basic stats on these E72 bad boys. Right?

Wrong

Advert Destination

Oh. Is that it? It’s just dumped me on the “Business Phones” page. A page which doesn’t even work well on a mobile browser. Hey, Nokia, I know the BlackBerry’s browser isn’t the best in the world – but there’s no need to rub it in!
On top of that – there’s no link to the E72. If I can be bothered to search for it, this is what I get.

Desktop E72 Page

Again, a non-mobile-friendly page which doesn’t seem to say much.

It Doesn’t Need To Be This Way

With a bit of judicious searching, I finally found my way to Nokia’s mobile formatted E72 product page.

E72 Page

This is the page that the advert should have linked to. Yes, it’s a bit dull. No, you can’t buy the phone directly from here. But at least it goes directly to the product and focuses on its features.

It Really Doesn’t Need To Be This Way

As good as that page is, there are some obvious failing. No product shots, no comparison with BlackBerry (the main thrust of the original advert), no links to buy the product.

The daft thing is, Nokia has some wonderfully designed mobile-friendly product pages.

Nokia's 5800 Page

They even – get this – have phone numbers so you can order one of their products. It’s hardly a revolutionary idea – let your customers give you money – but it’s totally absent from the first advert.

Call Me

There are a whole mish-mash of different visual styles on offer.

N900 Page

It’s probably enough to give Nokia’s branding team a coronary – but there’s no denying that these pages are visually interesting, and offer much more information in a much more engaging way than the E72 page.

N97 Page

Conclusion

Where to start…?

• Make sure your MOBILE advert links through to a MOBILE FRIENDLY page.
• If you’re a mobile phone company – this is doubly true.
• Follow up on your advert’s promise.  If you say “This product is better than Brand X” – show that.
• Make a visually appealing site.  This WWW medium isn’t paper.  You’re not charged extra for printing in colour.
• Let your customers buy your product.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  Add a phone number or an email address on there if they can’t buy directly with their phone.
• Provide as much information about your product as you can.  This is your chance to wow your customer.  Plain text and small images just won’t cut it.  Again, you’re not being charged per printed page – so go nuts.  If you can, offer some video content.
• Finally, and this is a biggie, link directly to your products page.  If I’ve clicked on an advert for a Gizmo XYZ, don’t take me to Gizmo Corp’s front page – take me directly to what I’ve said I want to see.

These are really basic points – yet we see big companies fail to deliver again and again.  Mobile advertising is big business, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at this advert.

Here’s how to make a successful downloads platform:

1. Make it easy for your customers to buy things.
2. …er….
3. Nope. That’s pretty much it.

So, here’s the front page of the Ovi Store.

Count the errors

Here’s every error I can find on the above the fold page…

1. Incomplete titles. “Star Trek Noki”? Surely “Nokia”? Looks sloppy and unprofessional.
2. Poor descriptions. “Ringtones In Cinemas Now!”? Ringtones aren’t in cinemas. Is that one ringtone or several I’ll be downloading? If you don’t tell me what it is I’m getting, why would I download it?
3. Ratings. Why would you put unrated (or rated zero) content at the front of the store? You want your killer apps there.
4. Search. Why do I need to click through to search? There should be a text field and button there, not a link.
5. Colour differentiation. Using white and then light grey doesn’t help customers easily scan across the page. A darker shade would help.
6. Menu bar. Is there an order to it? Is there a reason it splits haphazardly over three lines? The longer the menu – the less space for content. As it is, it’s a pretty poor use of space.
7. No Nokia branding. I know they’re trying to promote Ovi as a brand – but no one knows about it yet. The use of the Nokia logo would really help customers trust the store.

…and breathe…

Let’s assume we’re reckless enough to click on “Star Trek Noki”. What do we find?

Oh dear...

Let’s take this from the top. Don’t forget, this is the Nokia Ovi Store’s FIRST link. This is what they really want you to buy.

1. Where’s the description? What exactly am I buying? It turns out, this is the product placement tune in the new Star Trek film. Some descriptive text would help. I thought it was going to be the film’s theme tune!
2. The description – such as it is – appears half way down the page. Why do I have to scroll to see what I’m getting?
3. Photos? Why do I need photos of a ringtone? Why are there “more” photos when there’s only the one?
4. The product photo is, essentially, black. A bit of colour to liven up the page wouldn’t hurt.
5. The review – why isn’t it in English?
6. Are the related links Games, Videos, Ringtones? Some context would help.

I clicked on download and got a blank page. Once I refreshed the page, the download started.

Huh?

Files should be named. It makes it easier for the user to find in their filesystem, it looks more professional when downloading.

So, I play the file and what do I get

Real professional lookin'

Add some fracking ID3 tags! It makes it easier for the user, it looks more professional and it costs the supplier nothing!

Gah! Fine. Ok. I’ll go back to the store and grab something else. I click back and am presented with this monstrosity.

Where do we go from here?

Nothing. Not even a page telling me how to get back. How is this meant to encourage me to buy more? This page should thank me for downloading. It should encourage me to buy more. In this case, I’d expect to see more Star Trek merchandise that Nokia want to sell to me.

Contrast this with the N-Gage download from the N-Gage site.

Much better

Once my download is completed, I get sent back to a nice page which lets me continue enjoying the store.  Nokia have this technology for Ovi – but not in the Ovi Store. Bizarre.

Last, but not least – registration. I know that Nokia has to have a registration process – they don’t have an MNO’s advantage of seeing a customer’s phone number. They also don’t have an associated account which they can reuse – like Google or Apple.

Oh… No… Wait… They do. I’ve registered for a Nokia account, an Ovi account and a Mosh account. I don’t seem to be able to use any of them with Ovi Store. NIH syndrome?

To be fair, the sign up process isn’t too bad. Apple could learn a lot from it.

A pretty good sign up screen

The only criticisms I have are the “Mobile Number” field should be masked so the user can only enter numbers. I also think that a captcha is a bit of an overkill on a mobile site.

Good to see that the example number is from Ofcom’s reserved range.

Overall, this is a step backwards for Nokia. Mosh and the original Ovi were quite good. This is just a mess.  By my count, there are at least 25 basic mistakes just from going to the front page and downloading a ringtone.

25 mistakes in 3 clicks.

[Disclaimer. In the interests of fairness, I work for Vodafone. Specifically looking after Vodafone live! a direct competitor to Ovi. The thoughts expressed in this post are my own and not those of my employer. I have nothing against Nokia; I kick up as much of a fuss about Apple and BlackBerry too!]

They’ve just announced a new app store – Ovi Store.  This is to replace the broken mess that is Mosh, N-Gage, Download and the current Ovi.  Why do I get the feeling that there are several fiefdoms within Nokia all working against one and other rather than working together?

So, let’s take a look at the new service.

Nokia Ovi Store - Wow!

Wow… just wow. A blank page. Not even a “coming soon” message.  Lest you think I’m using some kind of shonky phone, I’m on a Nokia N95 8GB, firmware 20.0.016, in rather good HSDPA coverage.

You’re supposed to be able to get to Ovi via the “Download!” application. I don’t think I’ve used “Download!” since I first got the phone. On the surface it’s a nice little App Store. If Nokia given it some love and attention, it would have got the recognition it deserved as the first integrated app store. As it is, it was left to die.

...please wait...

After 5 minutes of waiting for the “Download!” store to finish “Processing” I got bored. After 15 minutes nothing more had happened so I tried to cancel. Turns out you can’t, so I rebooted the phone.

Never mind! I’ll try going through the regular Ovi site.

Can you spot the store link?

No link to their brand new store. Hmmm…. odd…. Maybe I have to sign in to see it. Yes, that sounds plausible.

This isn't looking good...

Ok, a dodgy certificate isn’t the worst error in the world. It’s one of those things that says “We haven’t tested our site and we really don’t care if scary error messages put off our customers.”

In any case, the sign in service doesn’t work.

Ovi Error

Ah… Well, let’s try again…

It just gets better and better

Right. So the site has no links and it doesn’t work. Perhaps I imagined the Ovi Store launch? Let’s check the Internet Oracle that is Google…

There's something there...

Google has found it! It must be there. Ok, so there’s still a dodgy certificate – but I can’t wait to start spending money with Nokia! Here we go!

Oh. Just another blank page.

So, there you have it, folks. The word “FAIL!” is overused, I feel. How about we agree to replace it with “NOKIA!”?

So, when I heard that some clever hackers had ported Google’s Android OS to the N810, I leapt at the chance to reinvigorate my sadly neglected Internet Tablet..

There are various tutorials on the web, but here’s my quick & pain free howto for people running Ubuntu. This is based on the instructions from the Nitdroid Homepage and the InternetTabletTalk forums.

You will need…

• A Nokia N810 (this should also work with the N800 and the N770)
• USB and Charging cables.
• A computer running Ubuntu (or most other flavours of Linux)
• A working Internet connection.
• NERVES OF STEEL! (Not really, it’s very simple to reflash the N810 if you do mess up.)

So here’s the HOWTO:

1. Back up any files you want to keep from your N810. We’re going to be wiping it clean.
2. Remove any SD cards you’ve got from the N810.
3. Make sure the battery is fully charged.
4. Create a folder on your computer called “Nitdroid”.
5. Download the following files (or newer if available)
6. The flasher – this allows you to flash the hardware (you may need a different version if you’re running 64bit or PPC).
7. The Android filesystem
8. The Andoid OS
9. Connect your N810 to your computer via USB, switch the N810 on.
10. If you haven’t got it already, install and run gparted.
11. You need to create 3 partitions, the first must be FAT32, the third must be ext3 with a minimum size of 128MB. See the picture for an example.
12. Take a note of the device name – in this example, it’s /dev/sdb
13. We need to mount the ext3 filesystem we’ve created – go to the command line and type
    

    sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb3 /android

    Remember to change /dev/sdb3 to whatever your device is actually called.

14. We now need to go to the “/android” directory and extract the filesystem to it. At the command line, type
    

    cd /android

    Then
    

    sudo tar -xjpvf /home/$USER/Desktop/nitdroid/rootfs-nitdroid.tar.bz

    Remember to change $USER to your username – or change the whole path to where you downloaded the nitdroid files.

15. Once complete, you unmount the filesystem by typing
    

    sudo umount /android

16. We’re ready to flash! Hurrah!
17. Turn off the N810, unplug it from the power and USB cables.
18. We need to make the flashing software executable so type
    

    chmod a+x flasher-3.0-static

19. Plug the N810 into the USB cable but leave it switched off.
20. Run the flashing software (yes, with the N810 turned off) by typing
    

    sudo ./flasher-3.0-static -f -k zImage-nitdroid-n8x0 –enable-rd-mode -R

21. You will see the following message
    

    flasher v0.9.0 (Jan 19 2007)
    Suitable USB device not found, waiting

    This means that the flashing software is looking for the N810.

22. On the N810, hold down the “Switch” button (The one which looks like two overlapping squares, just under the camera). With the button held down, push the power button.
23. You’ll see some messages on your PC’s screen indicating that the device is being flashed. Let go of the buttons.
24. Wait.
25. Wait a little while longer.
26. Have a biscuit to calm your nerves.
27. It should be over and done with in less than a minute.
28. Once it’s complete, unplug the N810. Power it off, then on again. You should see this screen.
29. It takes about 5 minutes for the first boot to complete. If it takes substantially longer than that, read the troubleshooting section.
30. TADA! You now have Android on your N810.WiFi works – as do the keyboard and touchscreen. At the moment, sound, BlueTooth & GPS don’t. There are a few random crashes, and the performance leaves a little to be desired. Much like the original Maemo software!

Troubleshooting.
If it all goes wrong, here’s how to get your N810 back to the latest official firmware.

• Download the latest official firmware from http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N810.php
• Plug the N810 into the USB cable but leave it switched off.
• Run the flashing software (yes, with the N810 turned off) by typing
  

  sudo ./flasher-3.0 -F RX-44_DIABLO_5.2008.43-7_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

  Remember to replace “RX-44….” with the name of the latest software.

• You will see the following message
  

  flasher v0.9.0 (Jan 19 2007)
  Suitable USB device not found, waiting

  This means that the flashing software is looking for the N810.

• On the N810, hold down the “Switch” button (The one which looks like two overlapping squares, just under the camera). With the button held down, push the power button.
• Wait. You will have a factory fresh N810 in a matter of minutes.

Enjoy!

Take the recent n-gage launch. N-gage was a flop when it originally launched several years ago. It’s absolutely critical for Nokia to get this relaunch right or else they face a T5 like PR failure.

But Nokia being Nokia, they’ve fallen at the first hurdle…

I’m going to take you through the process that a brand new user has to go through to get the software.

First failure,

The user has to click the n-gage icon that has lain dormant on their phone since its purchase. Nokia has no “push” marketing to users – they expect the user to visit them. That’s assuming that the user hasn’t already deleted the n-gage app from their phone.

So, the user clicks on the app and goes to update the software.

Second failure

No automatic redirection to download the app, not even a clickable link. Please try and remember his URL and type it into your phone’s browser.

Third failure
So, you type in the URL and get this…

What’s the point of this screen? I’m here to get content, not read your blog.

Fourth failure

What phone do I have? You tell me! Use automatic device detection so people don’t have to remember the obscure model number you’ve given the phone.

Fifth failure
So, you start downloading and wait

and wait

The download comes in at a whopping 7MB! There’s no indication on the site that it’s such a weighty download. The UI doesn’t tell you how big it is and how long it will take. 7MB takes an age to download – even on HSDPA – and if you’re on a pay per MB deal, you won’t be happy watching the download going on and on and on.

Five failures. Five barriers to entry before a customer even gets to pay Nokia for their games.

Come on Nokia, you must do better.

The N95 has always had an accelerometer (the device which tells it which way up it is) but it has only ever been used to stablise photos. What a waste!

The N95 was realeased in March 2007 wherease the iPhone was released a few months later in June. However, the iPhone’s rotating screen was known well in advance of release. With several firmware updates for the N95, it’s shocking that it takes a 3rd party developer to release such a compelling UI upgrade.

The N95 8GB is also missing this functionality – despite being released as an “iPhone killer”. The new Channels service from Nokia Beta Labs has auto-rotate built in – but still no word on whether a future firmware upgrade will include a native roatate function.

I’m not a big fan of the iPhone – but I hope it lights a fire underneath the other manufacturers and gets them to raise their game.