Symbian in Motion

I am going to do my best not to get overly critical here as it seems like I’ve been ripping into Nokia a bit much lately. At the same time however, I would be remiss if I avoid posting about certain things because I might “hurt someone’s feelings”. After all, how would a company ever improve a product without criticism?

That said, the S60 browser has exceeded its useful lifespan. As harsh as it sounds, the internet moved forward and left Nokia’s smartphone browser of choice behind long ago. “Web 2.0″ is already a term so overused that many people are actually angered by it, and yet the S60 Browser just doesn’t handle new technologies well at all. Notice that “new” was written in italics.

Rather than go on and on about how Nokia should be embarrassed to call a device a “multimedia computer” when it can’t even handle a basic “Web 2.0″ site built on Drupal and jQuery, I’ll just show you what I’m talking about. The following is a Firefox screen shot of a great website I found this morning:

And now, that same page in the S60 Browser:

Mind you, it took three crashes before I could keep the S60 Browser open long enough to take that screen shot. This, by the way, was on my N95 8GB with about 73MB of free RAM.

Needless to say, the internet has changed A LOT since the S60 Browser was introduced and the browser simply hasn’t kept up. Only recently was Flash support added and this was after engineers had all but shunned Flash years ago. We’re at the point where a mobile browser built by the world’s leading handset manufacturer / Internet company should be able to handle a simple web service like Streetread with ease…

EDIT: Just to clarify, this is a “boiling point” post. My complaint is not that this particular site doesn’t work. Having Streetread crash on me seven times this morning was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. I visit several sites each week that either don’t work well in the S60 Browser, or don’t work at all.

No I’m not insane, calling for a mobile browser with desktop functionality. What I am calling for however, is a mobile browser from an Internet Company that sells more smartphones than any other company in the world… to handle basic web technology that has been widely adopted for several years already.

In typical Nokia fashion, it looks like the E71 has quietly started to hit the shelves here in the US. According to the E71blog, the Nokia Flagship Store in Chicago has already received its first shipment of E71s and has already begun contacting those on the waiting list. Apparently only the gray version is currently in stock and there’s no word on when the white version might be available. To clarify, we are indeed talking about the US version of the E71, aka E71 NAM aka E71-2, with AT&T-compatible dual band WCDMA (850/1900MHz). US 3G indeed! We gave a call over to the NYC to see what their story was and we were informed that there would be a “launch party” on Thursday evening. Basically, if you’re on the list you’ll get a call and you can head over to the store on Thursday to wait in line for your new handset. There’s also a second list for the next shipment but we assume that any no-shows will become available to people on list number two as well. So congrats if you’re on the list; $480 and you’re on your way with one of the hottest handsets that will come out this year. Everyone else should expect other retailers to start getting shipments in the next couple of weeks.

Read

(from my post on BGR)

Odds are pretty good that you’ve already read about one Nokia’s latest mysterious dedicated sites. You might have even experienced it for yourself. If not however, it’s high time you head over and Face the Task.

Face the Task is a site dedicated to the upcoming Nokia N96. Billed as Nokia’s latest multimedia computer, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the specs on this beast. With its Face the Task campaign, Nokia is giving everyone the opportunity to be among the first in the world to own the N96 (a numbered limited edition no less). So how can you get your hands on one?

Click through to the website and watch the six videos. These six video, by the way, are incrdibly well made to say the least. Once each video has been watched, the link at the bottom center of the page will be unlocked. You will be given two choices:

1. Enter to win: Answer one question and fill in your details to enter. Hope you paid attention dring the videos!
2. Donate to the WWF: By donating €759 ($1,208 at today’s exchange rate) to the World Wildlife Fund to benefit Red Pandas in Nepal, you will receive a special limited edition N96.

There’s a catch to number two above however. Since these special N96 handsets are limited in quantity, you’ll have to hit the site at just the right time in order to pick one up. The next opportunity is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 13:33 UTC. Benefit a good cause, be one of the first to own Nokia’s new flagship phone… Win, win.

All I can say is thank you, SEVEN. Since taking delivery of an N78 a while back, it has really been growing on me. At the same time, I never take it out of my house. Why? For one reason and one reason alone in fact: email. Among the many things I use a mobile phone for, email is very much at the top of the list.

Nokia’s OEM S60 email app has always been pretty bad and as far as my experience goes, it has never been worse than it is in my N78. IMAP idle simply will not stay connected. EVER. This means that I have to poll every X minutes. Since the email app won’t keep my connection alive, when I do get a new email notification I have to click on the new email at which point the N78 has to reconnect, download the message body and then open it. If I take too long reading an email the connection is dropped again and I have to go through the same thing all over again to read the next new message.

I get anywhere between 30 and 60 new emails on an average weekday and busy days can get well over 100. As such, the email issues on the N78 make it impossibly unusable. The solution I use (and love) on other s60 handsets is SEVEN’s beta email app but as of now it does not support FP2 due to changes made to active plugin support. Whatever the case may be, SEVEN has just almost-officially announced that it will release a new client this week or next week with FP2 support. Awesome.

If you are an email user and you don’t currently use SEVEN’s app, I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re already a SEVEN user with an FP2 device, keep your eye on the forum.

I just got off the phone with my sister and I have a great story that had to be shared. I think you’ll appreciate it…

So my sister goes to an AT&T store in Manhattan around 1:30 pm and waits in line to buy an iPhone 3G. As it turns out (and as has been reported), by the time she got inside they were no longer selling iPhones. They have plenty left but they cannot sell them due to activation issues. Whoops! So she gives her info to a rep and has them order one to be picked up in a few days.

During the course of this process, the AT&T rep happens to notice my sister’s current phone; an N95 that I gave her a while back. “Is that an N95,” the rep queries. “You know that phone is much better than the iPhone, right?”

Too funny. Here this guy is working for AT&T and he is supposed to be pushing AT&T inventory, obviously. The iPhone 3G is the hottest phone that AT&T will offer this year and he tells a potential customer that her N95 is ‘better’ than the phone she is trying to purchase! Of course he is allowed to have his opinion and in the grand scheme of things neither phone is ‘better’, but it’s still kind of funny.

My sister agreed with him and explained that she wanted the iPhone anyway. So what was his next question? “Umm, you want to sell me that N95?”

Here my sister is trying to buy a phone that AT&T can’t even sell to her due to technical difficulties, and instead she has an AT&T store rep trying to buy her N95 from her! After some preliminary negotiation they both agreed to think about it and discuss things further in a few days when her iPhone comes in.

Who knew AT&T was in the barter game? :)