If your smartphone is all about personalisation, why is it that we are left with the manufacturer's default choice of applications in the firmware? Years ago you checked the memory size and radio frequencies, now it's interrogating the firmware load-out. It's a given that no matter what Symbian OS product comes out, there are caveats in the review as to why application (a) was left out while application (b) made the cut. With the example omission of Podcasting from Nokia's recent Eseries smartphones, I've been musing...
Read on in the full article.
Surely that's what SW Update should be for. Why don't they just dump them in there??
Nokia should just put the missing apps on, preferably, SW update and also the Ovi Store, that way it is easy and users don't have to worry about whether this or that model has what apps preloaded.
The traditional approach is old fashioned.
I uninstall apps I don't want. N-Gage is a good example, I consider them to be clutter.
The Podcasting app seems to be the black sheep of the Nokia apps, as it's often the first app to get cut, despite being incredibly useful. And it never seems to get cut for technical reasons, but because Nokia don't view it as relevant to a certain type of device; I mean, surely no-one who owns an E-series device could want to listen to podcasts.... could they...?
Although making it available for download is one solution, because of the fragmented way Nokia release their apps, there's never one version which is compatible with many/most/all devices, which can make finding an installer which will work an unlisted device very tricky.
Simple - no podcasting no internet radio no purchase. I regard these applications as the most useful way to pass the time when travelling on business. Seriously looking at RIM because they are available as standard add on items. Sorry E72 but you do not provide what I want.
Spooner
Surely you have posted this on http://ideas.symbian.org/ ?
Nice idea
I have actually submitted a similar idea but as to the browser:
http://ideas.symbian.org/Idea/View?ideaid=2541
I agree with this article. It actually got me thinking about the Nokia Internet Radio on the N97. We know it doesn't work, yet it still shows up under N97 apps in the Ovi Store. Has anybody gotten it to work yet?
Allegedly the Symbian OS is open source. So where is the source code for the podcasting application and other utilities? If the source code was available, we could compile and install the missing apps ourselves.
By contrast, last weekend Google has released the source code for Eclair. The sources for Cupcake and Donut have already been available for quite a while. Between Google and Symbian, who's the evil one here?
With the E-Series, it seems to go deeper than not just supplying the applications. It would appear that the Music application on the E52/E55 actively filters out any files with a genre tag set to "Podcast"!
Having the E-Series and N-Series does not match with reality that the problem here. Business people like to listen to podcasts and they even go home and like to take photos and make videos of their families and friends. N-series owner also have jobs.
It's just stupid Nokia - sure make phones that have different costs - build quality, features but loose the annoying series idea.