After much expectation in the user community, the Nokia N95 just got its Flash Lite 3/Web runtime firmware update. Although not as big an update as v20 was (which introduced demand paging and transformed the speed of the device, remember), v21.0.016 is still a major firmware and well worth installing. More details and screens below during the next few hours...
Read on in the full article.
finally! 😊
Come on N82 upgrade.
No maps 2.0 or locater?
is it worth it to upgrade, just to watch youtube videos.
how much faster is the java start up time? i can't test this, i left my N95 at home, on a business trip.
symbiandisciple wrote:is it worth it to upgrade, just to watch youtube videos.
You couldn't do that before in emtube?
Can someone explain to me why firmware is so extremely hardware specific? I was under the impression that an N95 used similar logic hardware, and the "peripherals" like the battery, lens cover, RAM and radios were the big changes between them. Could Nokia be so dumb as to release totally incompatible hardware from one sub-model to the next?
Yes, I'm using an N95-3, and very happy overall with it, but I have to live with a few strange bugs (mostly WiFi lockups) that don't seem to be much of a priority, at least going by the number of upgrades the N95-1 has received.
Come on, where is the N82 update?????😡
I'm very unhappy with Nokia - N95 users have had 3 firmware updates since the E90 had its -still glitchy - firmware update in October. We paid loads of money for this device and seemingly Nokia don't give a stuff that it has no end of bugs, no demand paging, erratic bluetooth support and - ridiculously given its perfect screen resolution - NO FLASH SUPPORT. Do Nokia not have an obligation to provide US with updates too?
The updates in this current Nokia N95 firmware provide features that would be far more useful and enjoyable on the E90's screen, and it can't be that hard to integrate them.
Very disappointed:frown:
Apparently, An E90 firmware update is imminent. By which I mean days, not months. No idea on the new revision number, but I'd guess at v8.x
I gave up using my E90 because I was fed up with it crashing in Web, but I'll probably switch back when they fix the problem in the new update.
The E90 has a firmware with flash 3 on the Nokia RDA.
I really hope you're right. I was always of the impression that the more you pay for a service or product the better the support. This doesn't seem to be the case with the E90. If the flash on the N95 works in the same way as on the N95 8gb then it's really quite limited given the qvga resolution. Its integration - as i said - would be much better implemented with a display four times the resolution and much more RAM.
I really hope you are right steve. The E90 was suppoed to be an upgrade for me but I have to confess jealousy that the common-as-muck N95 hogs the much-needed development time we need for our E90s, meaning our wait is all the longer
Damn you Nokia
This doesn't mean a release is necessarily imminent though to be fair. The N95 had firmware with Flashlite 3 on the RDA months ago, leading everyone to think its release was imminent. That was four months ago.
Two things:
1) Does this include User Data Preservation in this firmware, and if not, why not?
2) WHERE'S MY BLOOMIN' N82 FIRMWARE UPDATE?
Seriously, we are seeing another update for the N95 to add to the already, largely hailed as highly successful v20 update, when the N82 handset is still running pretty much like the old Nokia N95 on version 11 - that is slow, buggy, unstable, poor gallery speeds, and worse - Predictive Text that won't learn your words, a la 6120c earlier firmwares!
Where's the blooming N82 update Nokia?
😡
leoni1980 wrote:I really hope you're right. I was always of the impression that the more you pay for a service or product the better the support. This doesn't seem to be the case with the E90.
leoni1980 wrote:Damn you Nokia
Now that 3 of the 4 n95s models got flash 3 and possible for e90 too, what about the n81s, n82 and e51? Those are the only fp1s left with wifi.
Maybe n95-3 will join the n93 club.
N95-2 will probably follow, they are doing one device at a time, watching the result..
Hmm. I wonder if N95-3 users will ever get a real firmware update? Or has Nokia switched its attention to the N95-4 and N95-1? I'd like the faster camera and Flash.
Not just the E90, its not the case for any product at Nokia. Look what they did to the n93. They simply abandoned the very expensive phone just because it did not have volume sales. Their attention to a product is driven only and only by the volume revenue it can bring
I think the problem is that most people don't know what firmware is and never bother to do firmware updates.
If that's the case, then the only way most people get new firmware is if they buy a phone after its first firmware update. With popular models like the N95 this is obviously happening, lots of people still buy the N95 over a year after it hit the shops so new firmware versions have a clear mainstream market.
If a model is no longer shipping in huge numbers though, then most people are unlikely to ever use new firmware even if it's made available, so companies often just don't bother.
The way to solve this problem would be to make people aware of firmware in the same way they are of things like 3G or camera megapixels, so people would expect firmware updates included in the price of paying for the device.
At the moment though firmware is still a relatively obscure concept. Nokia doesn't help matters by calling it "software", which is somewhat confusing.
I was always of the impression that the more you pay for a service or product the better the support. This doesn't seem to be the case with the E90.
You're buying a product, not a service. When you buy a phone, the phone maker generally gets a one-off payment and nothing else after that, so there's not really much incentive for them to develop the product's firmware further except to fix bugs.
It gets even worse. You and I might expect firmware to be part of the usual customer support, but as I said above most people don't even know about firmware. Customer support to most people means fixing or replacing the phone when it breaks down, which is what the 2 year guarantee does, and that same guarantee applies to all Nokia models. Guarantees don't say anything about providing a stream of updated features, and most people don't expect them to.
Until firmware updates become a big selling point for phones, it's always going to be one of those more obscure topics that only technology enthusiasts like us worry about. We have to educate the public if we want firmware to become a major issue.
here comes the obligatory n93 owner complaining.
I just feel frustrated everytime some nokia phone gets an update.
We want in on the Fun Nokia! can it be so hard, to give us one last final firmware update and make the n93 awsome again (mine crashes all the time, especialy on wifi).
Also since our smartphones are "multimedia computers" why don't we get a completly knew operating system every few years (and can uprade our RAM)?
shadamehr wrote:Two things:1) Does this include User Data Preservation in this firmware, and if not, why not?
Nope, had to do a restore afterwards 😡 The most annoying was a bunch of unused themes that became corrupt. Only way to get rid of them was to reinstall each one then remove them afterwards.
Now to figure out how to get Youtube to automagically go straight to the main web site rather than the crappy little mobile version with crappy video quality and then have to scroll down to the main link. Maybe it's a bit too soon for them to detect the new N95 firmware.
OK upgraded and to date have had to re-install:
The one thing I've seemingly not got to work is Conversations - the betalabs addon to Contacts. This just does nothing - as if there is a missing dll.
Thus the question: has anybody else had the same problem?
For full youtube just select to view the full HTML vesion then save it as a bookmark. Yu can even link directly to youtube as a shortcut this way.
Sometime within the next 10 years (!) opera mobile 9.5 will be released, which will have the ability to show itself as a desktop browser and therefore stop the problem of being diverted to mobile sites. It also has full flash lite 3 support
The one thing I've seemingly not got to work is Conversations - the betalabs addon to Contacts. This just does nothing - as if there is a missing dll.Thus the question: has anybody else had the same problem?
it sounds like you are forgetting to install the internet services pack file along with the conversation file. then once you do install both, you go into your contacts app, and tab once to the right, there are your texts. make sure to leave this app running by using the exit button. do not press the red end key to close contacts, or it will be slow to open next time.
Seems they've upgraded the barcode reader too..
the camera flash doesnt work after update to v21. has anyone encountered the same problem?
YAY! The call log bug is still there! Thanks Nokia!
"it sounds like you are forgetting to install the internet services pack file along with the conversation file." Yes that was right - problem of re-installing the .sis files without properly re-reading the instructions.:frown:
Krisse, thanks once again for bringing some sense of perspective and calm to all the unbelievable moaning..