Symbian in Motion

As the battery on my N80 ran out of juice for the second time yesterday, I decided that it’s settled - I will be getting a new device this weekend. I’ve been toying with the possibility for about a week now but I had made the statement a long time ago that I would wait to see what new devices FP2 would bring before I bought anything else. Am I a liar? Yes.

The simple truth is that I came to the realization that the N80 simply does not suit my needs and expectations as well as another device might. Really? If I had started my S60 3rd experience with any other device I doubt that I would have the enthusiasm for Symbian that I do now. Simply put, it’s a beautiful device. I realized though that for my purposes and daily usage tendencies, it’s just not the right device.

On a fresh boot, I have 100-105 processes running (depending on what apps I have installed at the time) and about 13MB-14MB of free RAM. Thanks to all of the leaks I’m lucky if I have 11MB of RAM left after opening and closing a few apps and if I want to (for example) leave ProfiMail open in the background while I browse the web - well forget it. Beyond everything else, I just can’t cope with the battery life anymore. As I mentioned in the first sentence of this post, my battery actually died twice yesterday because I dared to listen to internet radio at work without leaving the N80 plugged in. So where do we go from here?

If I think about it - excluding the variety of third-party apps that I use, what are the main functions that I perform with my device?

1. Make/receive GSM calls
2. Send/receive emails
3. Browse the web
4. Send/receive SMS

Well from the looks of it, my device model starts with the wrong letter… I rarely take pictures or film video, I don’t watch video very often, I rarely open the music player or even MyStrands Social Player; so basically aside from web, the functions that the Nseries boasts aren’t on my daily usage list. To be honest, I would love them all to be on my list but with the N80 (and even with the N95) ‘convergence’ is still just a word. It would be great if an Nseries device could replace my digital camera, digital camcorder, portable media player, etc but the truth of the matter is that we’re just not there yet.

Will we ever get there? I think that we will (and maybe it will be Nokia that takes us there) but not any time soon. The quality, battery life, capacity and reliability are just nowhere near what we’ve become accustomed to with dedicated devices. Granted I have limited experience with the N95 since I’m still waiting for one, but I haven’t seen or read anything anywhere that contradicts my opinion. It can’t take crisp amazing photos like my 8mpxl handheld, it can’t shoot crystal clear video like my digital camcorder, it can’t play and store a tremendous amount of music like my iPod, and it surely won’t last anywhere as long as any of those devices on a single charge (ok, maybe the camcorder ;) ).

What the N95 is however, is a ‘gateway device’ that is one of several recent and upcoming devices in a “new breed” that will become the model to build on for future mobile devices. It is a glimpse into the future of mobile devices where true convergence will be a commonality rather than a marketing term. But that is a whole different post…

So this weekend I’ll be visiting a local shop to pickup my girlfriend’s new phone and the odds are pretty good that I’ll be walking out of there with a new device of my own…

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Last week I posted a ‘rant’ of sorts about the s60.com Applications Wishlist that opened a good dialog with Phil about the current state of the wishlist and gave us a bit of insight as to where s60.com will be taking it in the future. I think that everyone walked away from that post pretty happy with the outcome - the Wishlist is a tool that has the potential to be of great value internally (to Nokia) and externally (to third-party developers and consumers) and they are currently working on the next phase to help facilitate that.

Well we all know about s60.com’s enthusiasm when it comes to apps, but what about Nokia in general?

Earlier today I thought to myself, “If I was a brand new Nokia customer and I wanted to know about apps for a Nokia N80IE that I just purchased, what would I do?”. So being in the US I went to Nokia’s US site and took a look around. It was surprising to me how scarce any information on apps is! After about 20 clicks I finally came across the first mention of any kind of installable mobile software - in the support section. These were downloads for the SMS accelerator patch and the time-zone patch. No luck.

So I continued to click around. Maybe another 15 clicks later I found myself bounced over to the Nseries site where I found mention of my first app after five clicks - a tiny news blurb at the bottom of a page entitled “Gizmo Project on N80 and N95″. This lead me to the news section where Ricky’s post about Gizmo was highlighted and linked, along with a blogroll to the right and latest stories to the left.

So if I had clicked through to the Symbian-Guru blog and read around for a short while, I would have finally learned that there are in fact applications that can be installed on my N80IE. I would have learned this of course, on a blog that is not affiliated with Nokia.

If you take a look at their list of phones on the Nokia US site, six of the first 10 devices listed run S60 3rd. Two of the first 10 are Internet Tablets, one is the 9300 and the last is the 7380. This means that nine out of the first 10 devices support enhancement by way of non-java applications.

What does it all mean?

Going back the the Nokia US site I still haven’t found any mention of the Nokia Software Market, or any apps for that matter. That’s not to say that this information isn’t there (maybe I’m not looking in the right place?) but if it is then it’s buried. Nokia is pushing all of these smartphones here in the US but they don’t even begin to explore the true possibilities of these devices on their site. Once again, wrong approach Nokia. Great, so now I’ve read about the N80IE and I know that it can browse the internet, take pictures and play music. So if I’ve never read about this device before, I’m basically thinking that it’s a $500 RAZR without the cool form-factor at this point…

Nokia needs to use the tools at their disposal to sell their products. A few three-sentence marketing blurbs about internet, Orb and Snapfish aren’t going to sell me a $500 device. Neither is this interesting little snippet found on the bottom of the main N80IE product page:

“Downloadable ring tones, games and graphics are not
yet available for the Nokia N80ie Device. Please check back.”

I’ve yet to come across a person who hasn’t walked away from me amazed after asking the simple question, “So what’s so cool about that phone?” - and I’m not even paid to market Nokias! God forbid I was, because then Motorola might actually have something to worry about…

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Ray of the cleverly named Yet Another Symbian Blog posted about a very cool looking app called 8motions. 8Motions is an app that integrates GPS mapping, tracking, geo-tagging, Flickr and buddy monitoring. That’s quite a reach for a freeware app! The bad news is that it’s a java app but I’ll definitely be checking it out in spite of that…

More important that the app itself, check out that sweet theme on all of Ray’s screenshots! ;)
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Can I tell you how much I’m loving GrandCentral? I first learned about it a while back on The PhoneBoy Blog and I haven’t looked back. I just wish they’d work out extensions and auto-scheduling so that I could add my work number.

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Have you guys seen screenshots from the latest version of Smart2go? I posted one in this thread on HoFo that Kevlarman and Phoenix SZ seemed to like. ;)

I bring this up really just to say to all you game developers out there that I would pay a million dollars (no, not really) to have the original Oregon Trail on my mobile…

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Several bloggers have been posting about the deal between Kodak and Motorola. Did I miss something? This deal was announced well over a year ago! Why all the sudden buzz?

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You should all check out the sweet little utility by SymbianGeek called SwissKnife9. The unsigned version is available on the SymbianGeek blog. SwissKnife9 is a simple but great little task/system information manager that let’s you kill tasks/processes and view a variety of information about them such as permitted capabilities and memory info. I hope the icon is fixed soon!

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The E-Series blog has a great weekly feature called “Friday Themes”. I’ve been meaning to do something similar from time to time for quite a while now but I just haven’t gotten around to it - until now that is…

To start things off, I’ll just run down a few of my all-time favorites that you’ve surely seen on this blog before. These three themes really put my brilliant N80 display to good use:

BlackOSX by Elton

This is probably my favorite theme of all time for S60 3rd. The graphics, the detail, the colors… All amazing.

Pearl Black by Alexx

This is certainly one of the most popular S60 3rd themes, inspired by an advertisement for a branded N80 that was never released. Simple, sleek, and I love it.

Vista2 by Alfa

This is an early S60 3rd theme but it is and always will be one of my favorites. Great graphics and very good design.

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And lastly, for a delicious little bit of irony that you may have already seen, US state Senator Carole Migden was involved in a car accident last week in San Fransisco. Migden’s vehicle struck the back of a Honda sedan when she took her eyes off the road to reach for her ringing cell phone. The driver of the Honda was transported to the hospital with minor injuries.

Migden of course, voted in favor of a state bill that fines drivers for talking on their cellphones while driving. I’m glad that no one was seriously injured but mmmmmm - taste that irony… ;)

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UPDATE: I didn’t realize how many versions there were out there, but the BlackOSX theme I linked wasn’t the version I liked the best. I found it though and the link has been updated. :)

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Aside from the OS, there’s one thing that all S60 3rd devices have in common - they’re valuable! Besides the monetary value, our devices store tons of important information, files, pictures and more that I for one would be lost without! Beyond personal data, devices are becoming more and more integrated with many aspects of life (don’t say convergence, don’t say convergence). As Dameon and others have discussed in various posts, what happens when you lose your device? Well my second favorite Symbian Guru has made recovering your lost or stolen mobile much more likely with their awesome app Phone Guardian.

Phone Guardian is an extremely useful security tool for S60 3rd devices. Simply put, it is a tool that locks all use of your device in the event that it is lost or stolen. Beyond that, maybe you don’t want people browsing through your gallery or messages. Phone Guardian can also password protect any and every app in your device so that only you can access them! I know that this feature alone will make a lot of people happy…

The first task once Phone Guardian is installed is to set your private password. DON’T FORGET IT! This is the password that you will use to access the app to change settings, and to lock and unlock your phone. The app itself is password protected (as is the uninstallation) so that not just anyone can access it and adjust the settings.

The best way to go through this app is to just run down the feature list, so we’ll start at the top. The first option in the main interface allows you to enable or disable the app as you see fit. Once enabled, the Phone Guardian process runs in the background consuming a minimal amount of RAM, and of course it autostarts. Next you’ll find the Lock Mode option. This allows you to lock your device when the SIM card is changed, when you send the lock SMS, or in both instances. The lock SMS feature allows you to send a specially formatted SMS to your device (from any mobile) that Phone Guardian will automatically detect and once received, your device will be locked until the password is entered or a similarly formatted unlock SMS is received (yes you can lock and unlock it remotely - could be a nice tool for parents ;) ).

The next feature is the Alarm which once enabled, sounds an audible alarm when the phone is locked. Beneath this setting you will find your Lock Message which to me is of the utmost importance. Add a message about a reward! In this day and age, your best bet in getting your phone back if lost or stolen is to offer a reward. If a thief sees this message, once they realize that your phone is basically useless to them they will likely try to claim that they found your phone in order to collect. If someone genuinely does find your lost device, a reward for returning this priceless possession is certainly a nice gesture.

The next two fields allow you to enter two mobile numbers that will receive an Alarm SMS in the event that your phone is locked (as a result of a SIM change or remote lock SMS that you send). This SMS will have some valuable information including your IMEI and IMSI to report to carriers for blocking, and the number that sent the SMS (useful for identifying the thief if they changed the SIM) along with the cell IDs registered by the phone at the time the SMS was sent (useful for authorities to locate the device).

Lastly you will find an Autolock option that will lock the device automatically after an amount of idle time that you configure, or you can disable this feature. Note that autolock will not generate an alarm SMS of course.

Beyond the option to change your password, the main function found in the Options menu is the Protected Apps list. This gives you a list of every app on your device and allows you to choose which apps should be password protected. Selected apps will not be accessible until the password is entered.

Symbian Guru offers a free five-day trial for this great app but if you ask me, US $12 is hardly a tall price to pay for an app that really does help protect your $300-$800+ investment. Version 1 can be found on their site now but from what I understand, version 2 is very close to being released and adds some great additional functionality.

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Carnival # 74 is now up on Martin’s Mobile Technology Page and it is sure to keep you busy this week. Check out last week’s best posts from all of your favorite bloggers and some that you might not know about yet!

One of my favorite posts this week is this great post by Tomi Ahonen about his views on the effects that the iPhone will have on the mobile industry. The dialog found within the comments after the post is just as riveting!

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