I think anyone who thinks that all Nokia phone buyers are beta testers is somewhat deluded. I have owned my E90 for 18 months now, and have had no problems with it, and certainly do not consider myself a beta tester for Nokia.
Sure, Nokia have made some strange decisions, and their policy of releasing some software (ie. Internet Radio app), which only works on one or two models, is peculiar.
And Nokia's support for older devices is second to none; you try and get a firmware update from Palm for a phone that crashes whenever an incoming call is answered, then you'll see what beta testing is all about...
buster wrote:I think anyone who thinks that all Nokia phone buyers are beta testers is somewhat deluded. I have owned my E90 for 18 months now, and have had no problems with it, and certainly do not consider myself a beta tester for Nokia.Sure, Nokia have made some strange decisions, and their policy of releasing some software (ie. Internet Radio app), which only works on one or two models, is peculiar.
And Nokia's support for older devices is second to none; you try and get a firmware update from Palm for a phone that crashes whenever an incoming call is answered, then you'll see what beta testing is all about...
I guess you forgot about the E90 keyboard redesign or the battery issues with the N95. How about the slide issues on the N95, and N85, not to mention software issues? I guessed these slipped right by you. Regardless, the 300 plus pages on the Nokia forum about the N85 and 400 pages regarding the 5800XM tend to validate my points as do people inside of Nokia that say the same. Hopefully the Ovi store will fly but judging by Nokia's last few adventures, I would not get my hopes up.
Reason #6 is bogus.
In a developing country, you may not have access to a traditional computer, but somehow you do have access to the Ovi Store?!? How? Wifi? Unlimited mobile data plan? LOL! In the developing world, if you're rich enough that you can afford a smarphone with wifi, or to have a data plan for your phone, you can afford a computer.
sapporobaby wrote:I guess you forgot about the E90 keyboard redesign or the battery issues with the N95. How about the slide issues on the N95, and N85, not to mention software issues? I guessed these slipped right by you. Regardless, the 300 plus pages on the Nokia forum about the N85 and 400 pages regarding the 5800XM tend to validate my points as do people inside of Nokia that say the same. Hopefully the Ovi store will fly but judging by Nokia's last few adventures, I would not get my hopes up.
I suppose the question is; have you bought any phone in the last 5 years which had no, as in zero, problems. No, I thought not. I'm not excusing Nokia, or any other manufacturer for that matter, but to label all Nokia phone owners as beta testers is stupid, if not downright insulting. If Nokia, as seems to be the way with Palm, never released any FW updates, then I would possibly agree with you, but they do, and most (software) problems are eventually sorted out.
buster wrote:I suppose the question is; have you bought any phone in the last 5 years which had no, as in zero, problems. No, I thought not. I'm not excusing Nokia, or any other manufacturer for that matter, but to label all Nokia phone owners as beta testers is stupid, if not downright insulting. If Nokia, as seems to be the way with Palm, never released any FW updates, then I would possibly agree with you, but they do, and most (software) problems are eventually sorted out.
We are not talking about "oppsssss" mistakes. I am talking about hardware design issues. Software QC issues that have made it out the door. To ignore these as "which phone company has released a phone with no issues" is short sighted and apologetic. These are issues that Nokia should have caught in house. Not in a customers living room. Especially with higher-end, higher-priced phones. I have an E71 and I think the build quality on this phone is out standing. Feels solid in the hand and functions well. The E90 eventually evolved to this level as the first batches that came out were plagued with hardware issues. And you continue to go back to Palm. We are talking about Nokia here. If you want to discuss Palm I suggest: www.palm.com. I could care less what Palm does as Nokia is the company that gets my money, so I have the right to demand a bit more from them. So yes, I think Nokia is testing things out on its consumers. They almost have no choice. They are on a 6 month, conception to birth schedule and there is no way to get things right in this amount of time, but hardware issues should never leave the production floor. If you want to be insulted by what I said, then do so. I will take the word of friends inside of Nokia and other companies every day over someone that continues to talk about another company that has no bearing on this topic.
By the way, there are still N85 software issues that are not sorted, as a few 5800XM issues. Maybe you might trouble yourself to learn more about these issues in the Nokia forums as they surely will not be reported here.
The thing with this is, Nokia never seems to have its heart in these things for long before they start changing thing or just seemingly lose interest. Thats how it has always come across to me, and i've tried using all their different apps but the total lack of consistency between them made me vow never to bother with Nokia services again until they did.
The difference with the iPhone/app store etc is that people buy into the whole 'eco system' where everything is standardised, itunes is simple to use as well (it's the only programme on a computer besides a web browser my mum can use), you download something, plug your phone in and there you go, done. But you can also hire movies, watch tv shows and buy music etc. Apple have the luxury of not having to think about lots of different hardware which goes in their favour i suppose.
Nokia have taken a step in the right direction in that S40 handsets can use the Ovi service (they should do seeing how many S40 handsets they sell).
But, and its a big one. Unless they bring absolutley everything they do into Ovi and make it simple then I can't see 'Joe Public' bothering, let alone some of the more tech savvy people. Whats the point in having Ovi store if you then have to go to the N-Gage store as well to buy a game?
For me, maps, contacts, calanders, email, music, ngage, app store, chat, the lot including PC Suite (which I can honestly say I have used about twice in all the years I have been using Nokia handsets) wrapped up in a front end like (and not saying this for any reason other than looking at how successful it is) iTunes, then I would consider using it.
One reason why Ovi Store is important for Nokia: Apple. Apple came and showed how the content business should be handled. However the fight is not over and Nokia _has_ to respond, first by opening a music store and second, app store. But the problem that Nokia faces is that Apple has the intiative in this war. Whatever Apple will present next, Nokia has to follow, and copy with pride.
sapporobaby wrote:And you continue to go back to Palm. We are talking about Nokia here. If you want to discuss Palm I suggest: www.palm.com. I could care less what Palm does as Nokia is the company that gets my money, so I have the right to demand a bit more from them.
I was simply pointing out that Nokia perform better in this respect than some other companies. I must admit, if I was as unconvinced by Nokia as you seem to be, I wouldn't continue buying their products. On the one hand, you say that they use all owners of their phones as beta testers and how cr*p their App Store probably will be, and then you imply that you won't buy anyone else's products.
And no, I was not in the least bit insulted by your remarks, merely somewhat puzzled...
I hope Nokia also introduces a PC client (a la Itunes) for the store. A pure mobile only store will not come close to the iphone+itunes experience.
buster wrote:I was simply pointing out that Nokia perform better in this respect than some other companies. I must admit, if I was as unconvinced by Nokia as you seem to be, I wouldn't continue buying their products. On the one hand, you say that they use all owners of their phones as beta testers and how cr*p their App Store probably will be, and then you imply that you won't buy anyone else's products.And no, I was not in the least bit insulted by your remarks, merely somewhat puzzled...
I did not say that Nokia was incapable of producing quality products, I said that they seem to be more interested in getting releases out the door first, with QC and better testing taking a back seat. Don't believe me, go look in the forums and see what people are saying. Not to mention again, that several people inside of Nokia say the same. Only time will tell if Nokia can rebound.
I generally have a quick read through of licenses or terms of service. This paragraph from section 6. Licenses jumped out at me:
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However, by submitting Material to the Service you grant Nokia a worldwide non-exclusive, assignable, fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual and irrevocable license to use, copy, publicly perform, display, distribute and modify the Material, and to prepare derivative works thereof, or incorporate the Material into other works as well as sublicense the same.
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This gives Nokia carte blanch to do what they like with your data. Sell it, use it in marketing, whatever. Furthermore, if you decide to close your account, you can't force them to delete your data. They can continue using it how they like.
They could have your contacts, photos, files, dairy, notes and anything else you sync with them.
It has put me right off - and I think Nokia should be asked to justify it.
Nice catch. Nokia surely needs to explain this. Makes me think that Nokia took a page out of the Facebook playlist.
In short, this sucks.....
Unregistered wrote:I generally have a quick read through of licenses or terms of service. This paragraph from section 6. Licenses jumped out at me:---
However, by submitting Material to the Service you grant Nokia a worldwide non-exclusive, assignable, fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual and irrevocable license to use, copy, publicly perform, display, distribute and modify the Material, and to prepare derivative works thereof, or incorporate the Material into other works as well as sublicense the same.
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This gives Nokia carte blanch to do what they like with your data. Sell it, use it in marketing, whatever. Furthermore, if you decide to close your account, you can't force them to delete your data. They can continue using it how they like.
They could have your contacts, photos, files, dairy, notes and anything else you sync with them.
It has put me right off - and I think Nokia should be asked to justify it.
*Every* social network/service that I've ever seen has similar or worse terms. I just checked Yahoo!'s/Flickrs and Facebook's for example and they are essentially the same.
Don't know if anyones noticed, or how long its been like this, but the Download! has had a fairly large change recently. Loads more apps, sections than it used to have.