Nokia has announced that Nokia Software Update is now available from many Nokia local support web pages and that it's also now available in almost 40 languages. So far, over three quarters of a million people have updated their Nokia smartphone using the service. Kudos to their NSU team. Read on for the Nokia press release.
Read on in the full article.
750,000 isn't that many by Nokia standards, they sell literally a million phones every day.
It's great that they're offering this service though, I suppose most people just don't know about it and probably don't even know what firmware is. It's not like any manuals for electronics products ever mention firmware.
The "killer app" of firmware will possibly be OTA updates. Are there any Nokia devices that even support OTA updates yet?
It's not even that most people don't know about it but really that they couldn't care less about it.
No matter how manufacturers try to pack more and more features into their phones, the fact is that the vast majority of people out there just want a phone that they can use to make phone calls, send texts and maybe take a few drunken pictures with. If their phone lets them do that, then it's fine. If it doesn't work properly then they'll bitch about how crap the phone is and buy another brand next time. End of story.
Automatic OTA updates could help here but only if it's fully automatic, doesn't break any of the phone's features and of course doesn't delete any data on the phone. In other words, it won't happen any time soon judging by how messy the current firmware update process is (wipes all your phone's data, breaks dozens of applications on the phone - see the firmware v2 on the E61 which caused keyboard shortcuts to stop working in most applications including built-in ones - and even destroys your phone - see the E70 firmware update debacle).
For us geeks though, tiny minority of users, firmware upgrades are essential and i'm glad Nokia finally offers this service.
"No matter how manufacturers try to pack more and more features into their phones, the fact is that the vast majority of people out there just want a phone that they can use to make phone calls,"
I could be wrong, but AFAIK most firmware updates are to do with making sure the existing features work properly rather than adding new features.
If a firmware update reduces the chances of your phone crashing, it's probably something that everyone would want. 😊
Most of the times I've had to take a phone in for repairs, the fix has been to flash the new firmware, so I assume regular updates by me at home would have prevented most of these breakdowns happening in the first place.
You're right about automatic being the way to go, and it probably is possible although like you say the flashing process still needs work if that's to happen.
krisse wrote:Are there any Nokia devices that even support OTA updates yet?
N80 has one FOTA update and 6131 has this ability.
Actaully the N80 has FOTA, but it would be nice if Nokia adds this the entire N- and E series.
It would also be nice if the system would let users over-ride the operator limitations of firmware upgrades.
As far as Vodafone (in the UK) is concerned (and therefore the NSU), my E70 is "current" but I know I could benfit from faster orientation switching and better memory handling in Web. But with no propmotion of the handstet form Vodafone there are presumably only a (relative) handful of users - and therefore no "drive" to validate/verify/authorise (or whatever they do) the update.
Talking to Vodafone tech support is a waste of time - they don't understand the question - and don't respond to e-mails that are "too difficult"
Launch the application, see the nice logo.. and NOTHING happens!!
Nokia Software Updater ver 1.3.20 NOT working since a few weeks ago. If the idea of chewing CPU time and just display the logo - you have done it!!
Please FIX the problem, as many of your customers are screaming!!