With Nokia's impending reorganisation, I started wondering what I'd do about the devices and visions from the current different divisions within the company. What would you do when integrating three separate hardware divisions? Read on for some of my thoughts...
Read on in the full article.
Wow, hiring Stefan would be a huge move...
I'd settle for most of the things you asked for. Their product lines are desperately lacking consistency. The hardware quality does range widely, and, as stated, the flagship devices need to be constructed accordingly. The software teams need to be locked in a room until everything is sorted out. There is NO reason for this current segmentation we see between not only product lines (E vs N...) but within the devices themselves. All S60vX FPX phones should support the same software. If the N95 has hardware accelerated video and the another FP1 phone does not, I'll be thankful the N95 has it, but it confuses the users. I was recently very excited to see the freshly released Nokia Internet Radio application only to discover my N73 was not supported. Now its not the same FP so I can understand this and I shall my have N95-8GB in a couple of weeks, but its frustrating seeing such things we, as users, have been waiting for, and then we can't use them.
Ovi and N-Gage are two HUGE opportunities for Nokia to really show the world why the are the worldwide leaders. Apple will come on strong, and Nokia will have to be on the top of their game to triumph. I have no doubt Nokia has the skills to do this, but they'll have to work together, and far more efficiently than I have seen (from my perspective) over the past year or two.
Nokia, you do so many things right, if you can pull together the last 10% you'll be unstoppable. Keep listening to your community, its your greatest advantage.
Yeah, you know what, hire Stefan, it'd be a risk, but he knows what hes doing. He'll tell it like it is, and thats something marketers have forgotten how to do. Not a single user nor fan will complain about the truth, the media might, and the shareholders will. But, in the end, your users are the ones who buy your phones and thats something even the shareholders cannot argue with.
Malaeum
Good suggestions, but where was:
* I would fix the appallingly complex and unintuitive software that just about everyone who uses an S60 device complains about. Set a real UI designer (or several of them, but for heaven's sake have them talk to each other) on a pedestal at Nokia HQ and demand that every application and feature on the system get his approval before release. Also demand that the UI gurus and application developers work out ways to integrate their applications in ways that make sense, so that web links opened from emails open in Web not Services, attachments and files I download from the web work always rather than sometimes, and we can do things like jump from a contact to their location on a map or check when I last called them.
If Nokia made their UI more intuitive, logical and consistent, plus maybe add a little bit of graphical glitz, then IMHO they wouldn't *need* to worry about Apple, 3.5G or no.
Also if *I* were OPK, a pet peeve:
* I would find whoever designed the email section of Messaging, and fire them. Out of a cannon. Why does it take several seconds to open an email? Why is it that the more emails in a folder, the longer it takes to select that folder in the folder list (we're talking a good ten seconds for 2000 emails)? Why, when I have manually connected to my server to read an email and now try to Disconnect, does it prompt me to disable automatic retrieval? Why does automatic retrieval disable itself (permanently, requiring me to notice and reenable it) if I'm in a tunnel for too long?
Apple will do just fine, bypassing the whole 3G and 3,5G.
And I am a Nokia E90 - no iPhones here - user😊
I would remove the artificial restrictions and allow E-series to have A2DP for exampe. Also N series have artificial restrictions which should be removed, like it is in E-series.
I would encourage the E-series team to fix the memory leak in the E70 and let the revolution in mobile computing happen.
Regards!
Aron
".......freshly released Nokia Internet Radio application only to discover my N73 was not supported............."
Thats one of the problems, Nokia have released S60 phones outside the N-series range that sometimes are better than N series devices, such as the 6120c. I always assume that if an N95 is supported then so is the 6120c and download anyway, in the case of the Internet Radio app it appears to run OK on the 6120c so try it on your N73.
S60 platform devices should be grouped as one series to provide a larger user base for the upcoming services such as Music Store. You cannot expect people to purchase new devices everytime a new service is launched. WM or Palm do not restrict services to certain devices..
And I would improve pc/mac integration apps, look at the isync model that apple have and give the user simple plugsin for the main apps that people use (outlook, ical, itunes, wmp, photoshop etc...) instead of bloated pc suite apps that duplicate (badly) existing apps we have on our pc/macs.
very good points, steve 😊
and i also couldn't agree more with what "sam stokes" said:
UI and USER EXPERIENCE, dammit!
just one little example, that really keeps my blood-pressure high:
why are you not able to implement even the most obvious features, like an automatic handling of data connections? like, having a connection priority list *on OS level*? if my WiFi AP is available, use it, if not, go to 3G, but DONT! give me only static or manual options! helooo? its the year 2007?!? that's just incredibly dumb and antiquated! when a freeware app like ShoZu can handle it, why can't S60 and all it's integrated applications since ages??
and there are many other such things, as most of you S60 users very well know.
so, do i really have to buy an iphone V2.0 as my next high-end 3G device to get hassle free and fully integrated UI and user experience, or will this finally be delivered with the new TOUCH OS? i hope i don't have to.
>I would remove the artificial restrictions and allow E-series to have A2DP for exampe
I think your wish is already granted, the E51 is listed as having A2DP.
Great article, Steve - encapsulates most of my thoughts and explains why I'm currently using a TyTn II despite being a former Nokia devotee: for all the vast plethora of models to choose from there isn't one that spans the work/leisure divide as well as the TyTn and that's because Nokia compartmentalises the services on its smart devices despite them all using the same OS.
I'd add...
- PLEASE make the E61-format phone Steve suggests but maybe this time remove the line in the design brief that starts 'think of the ugliest creation ever dredged from the depths of the human mind' and MOULD the thing to the user so it fits the hand and doesn't jab those of us who hate belt loops in the thigh all the time.
- Why won't E-series devices support ngage? I can understand the future phones will include gaming-specific keys but why not let business users into at least some content: I don't spend a fortune on phones just to write reports.
- Symbian makes one OS that has to cope with hundreds of smart devices. This makes the UI unwieldy and inconsistent. Sit down with Symbian and map out your hardware evolution for the next, say, 12-4 months and ask for an OS tailored to that - or even one for numbered and one for smartphones.
- Don't get too hung up on Touch: if you just follow your brand will start to lose its core values of converging solidity and reliability with innovation. Touchscreens that work are great but only if the rest of the device is geared to making the most out of them: don't just slap a touchscreen on a device because you think it will sell.
- You pioneered harddrives in phones. Just because the model concerned wasn't great doesn't mean this was a bad idea. There's a market for mass storage in a phone and if harddrives are cheaper than flash at 60/70/80GB scales, go for it.
Thanks for that Steve. I wish you would have come, but at the same time I don't think you would have liked what you got out of the conference itself.
If it wasn't for the amazing networking and chats in the hall and cafeteria that happened, then Nokia World would have been a waste of time.
>> I wish you would have come, but at the same time I don't think you would have liked what you got out of the conference itself. If it wasn't for the amazing networking and chats in the hall and cafeteria that happened, then Nokia World would have been a waste of time.
Yeah, when it comes to the Symbian Smartphone Show in London, my brain switches off after the first 30 mins of keynotes and I revert to walking the floor and finding the really interesting stuff (and people) out first hand. 8-)
<i>I'd insist on a base specification for all S60 phones, with GPS, 3.5G data...</i>
Amen.
I would also introduce index-based menus (<i>a la</i> WM), which makes menu navigation <b>much</b> faster.
"I'd insist on a base specification for all S60 phones, with GPS, 3.5G data and the aforementioned media codecs and 3 megapixel a-f camera."
Well.. Technology evolves over time. How could you possibly lock in these "minimum requirements"? There are also these nasty things called "price points", "bills of material costs" and "margins"...
S60 phones are not being made for _S60_ users. They are being made for _users_. And increasinly for the mass market. Most (?) users don't give a hoot whether their phone has exactly the same base specs as everybody elses.
No, you miss my point. With a base spec such as I described (GPS, 3.5G data and the aforementioned media codecs and 3 megapixel a-f camera), extra services and software could be released and made widely available in the full confidence that everyone could run them. Location based stuff, barcode scanning stuff, video stuff, the list goes on.
I don't think I missed your point. My point is that your wishlist of specs is 1) pretty cutting edge right now 2) a thing of the past in two years time. Technology evolves constantly, and IMHO you cannot lock "basic specs accross all S60 devices" in place.
Nokia would need to hugely improve its marketing. Compared to Apple, the value of passionate user community is not understood by Nokia at all while the prevalence of Apple fanbois as tech writers by now filling all media with iPhone stories has grown by now to be a strategic risk to Nokia. Long term work to create Nokia-friendly media, empower Nokia fans around the world to be better heard, and publishing about Nokia has been profoundly neglected. Check an average bookstore in the U.S. and compare what you find about Symbian/Nokia vs any other mobile O.S. not to speak of the iPhone. Read mobile magazines and see how Symbian always has nearly the least extensive coverage among platforms compared and usually the most luke-warm treatment as an alternative.
In software there is a long list of things to fix. The viability of S60 as a software platform is currently much smaller than the market reach and volume of S60 would lead one to assume. There are many reasons including platform fragmentation and this not hidden from SW (see comments earlier in this thread), Nokia's obsession on selling access to APIs via expensive Forum Nokia deals, the Symbian Signing practice hugely discouraging creation of freeware critical in increasing mindshare of a platform, API and binary incompatibilities between OS versions and devices, exotic tools and programming conventions, poor support beyond Windows for development platforms (Linux, Mac), lack of programming environment support (open C is a start but much more is needed), lack of online communities widely known to S60 user base as a common source of 3rd party apps such as freeware and commercial demo/beta versions (Ovi could help in theory), lack of web based tools and communities to show how to truly integrate Nokia apps with the web, lack of interest by Nokia or carriers to facilitate access to 3rd party apps, missing S60 marketing (venues, magazines, books, sample apps, online efforts), etc. Yes many of these areas have seen some effort but they are pretty tepid compared to the S60 revenue and number of S60 users, and what competitors esp. in the U.S. are doing.
I didn't mean 'lock' - I'm talking about establishing a minimum spec etc.
Right, but wouldn't the "minimum specs" also have to evolve constantly, in a continuous way?