My Nokia Blog

The trip to Finland begins!
Nokia China: Nokia 808 PureView with Free tripod and USB charger
Dangerous Waters: Using Wazapp (unofficial Whatsapp Client) to Promote N9 Sales
My Dream Nokia: Nokia Lumia 908 with stunning Apollo WP8 concept slides!
Nokia 808 PureView priced at Saudi Arabia, 1999 SAR/346GBP/533USD
Lumiappaday #201: Sleep Bug Pro demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800
Video: Nokia N9 vs Samsung Galaxy SIII Startup Time
Weekend Watch: Ogre3D running on a Nokia N950
Video: Nokia Lumia Lab

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 05:00 PM PDT

Hey guys! Today (Monday 4th, Queen’s Jubilee day too, as well as hopefully some exciting E3 stuff this week) I’ll be flying to Finland. I may (hopefully) be catching some sleep now before an early start. It’s most likely a bus ride to Manchester Airport to Helsinki, arriving late afternoon. I’ll be settling in a bit and doing some exploring.

Tuesday is when it all begins as I’ll be making my way to the one and only Nokia House, the HQ at the heart of Nokia. Packing has been a little more hectic than expected as my housemates and I are also packing up the house as we’re moving out in the next couple of weeks or so (I will be Preston bound next year as that’s my Hospital base for clinical years).

I’ll be tweeting from @jaymontano right up until fastening the seatbelt up tomorrow. Hopefully I might be able to get internet on my phone whilst in Finland – T-Mobile’s highest data plan is 50MB for £10. 50MB lol. 50MB. That’s like a 2 minute internet surf.

In the itinerary you will see various parts of the Nokia team that we’ll have the chance to speak to. If you have questions for those particular people, please leave them here. I will collate them and ask them on the day.

There’s an interesting first session with a name from a team member I can’t mention yet.

I’ll try to get as much on video – though most likely with internet issues you may not see this until I return and process the videos. I’ll at least get summaries written up. Also, given that my recording instrument is my 60D, it has issues with 10minute video limitation and the fact that it randomly decides now and again to shut off recording midway (rather unreliable – must be monitored). I’ll have a back up audio recording at least to jot down the sessions.

Itinerary for Tuesday:

9AM to 10AM – Asha team: [I'll add the names once we're done]

10AM to 11AM – Gear: [I'll add the names once we're done]

11AM to 12AM – TBD

12AM to 1PM – Cafeteria lunch, also invited [[I'll add the names once we're done]], as well as social media girls.

1PM to 2PM – Technology marketing: [I'll add the names once we're done]

3PM > People Made design exhibit preview tour

5PM dinner with social marketing team >>

Wednesday:

9AM start at Nokia House, 1h meeting with Design

10AM: TBD

12PM >> sightseeing, at least Finnish Fortress (Suomenlinna), but need to consider weather.

6PM >> dinner

Wednesday:

I’ll be leaving very early in the morning, and will be back 9:30am in UK.

I’m super excited, yet somewhat nervous too. I’ve never been to a Nokia related event where I’m the only blogger person there.

Thanks to Vilja, Elina and Nokia Connects for organising the trip, especially working around my Uni schedule in order to make sure I was able to go.

Thank you to the Nokia people who are taking time out to speak with me/us on those dates

Finally of course, thanks to you guys out there the Nokia community, MNB Readers, friends, supporters who got MNB to where it is today. Thanks for voting for us. As a Nokia fan, the opportunity to go and visit Finland and Nokia House is just too surreal. It is an absolute honor and privilege to have been considered, let alone chosen to go. Thanks all!

Again, if you have questions you’d like to ask, please leave a comment below.

Current Question logs:

news about the "next billion" strategy (meltemi, qt, new class of devices)
if they'll also put the amazing microphone to the next Lumia models. Is Nokia going to have a suite of good picture and audio quality also in the WP range. Hopefully so, as those things are a synergy plus when put in to the same product. This hasn't been discussed or mentioned earlier. What I've heard is that Lumia is ready for the PV technology some day sooner or later, but as the HQ audio capturing is not a part of PV, will it come with the WP devices too?
what is happening on the tablet front (if anything).I'd also like to hear about the higher end of the Asha range
Batch of questions also available from here: http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/20/what-to-do-in-finland-ideas-for-our-trip-june-4-7-2012/
I want to know is why they cancelled the Nokia 600 and practically removed all traces of its existence. Not that it was a good device, but still. That stuff doesn't go unnoticed. Also, why don't they have global releases for software updates? Its the thing that annoys me the most. Especially since in Australia, many are still waiting for Belle
Could you ask if there will be more updates to the N9 after PR1.3?
- Try to get some confirmation, even if semi-official, about the upgradeability of the current Lumia line, at least the 800 and 900 to the upcoming WP8 – they should already know it by now, so put your +5 Diplomacy, +3 Appraisal hat on and try to get something other than `no comment`.
- As mentioned above, try to get some info on what should we expect from Nokia tablets, especially what system will they run on – Win8 full, WindowsRT, WP8?, some other OS?
- Do they plan to do inductive charging – imagine an N9 without even an USB port (and no buttons, no moving parts, nothing but a single piece of polycarbonate)!
- When, if ever, do they plan to update their Maps to include countries that were once covered and then ditched by the Navteq purchase – specifically Serbia in my case but there are a great many number of countries that are still off the list. This is more on a personal note, but it's a shame that my N95 did better navigating job in my home country 5 years ago (until Nokia suddenly changed the maps provider and then it stopped working, despite being still locally advertised as full Maps & Directions solution), and after all there are maps of Serbia, albeit a bit outdated, on Navteq's site.
- Do they plan to release a FCam-like API for the 808 PV so that us developers can tap into the awesomeness of its processing?
- Do they have some new designs in pipeline for both WP and non-WP phones, as so far they have been reusing the N9′s and to an extent C7′s design.
- Do they plan to create full-QWERTY smartphones, regardless of the OS in the future?
- Will we be seeing their aqua-phobic coatings on their devices anytime soon? What about stretchable electronics?
- Do they plan to implement the stand-by low-powered screen on their upcoming WP models (provided they are equipped with AMOLED screens, of course)?
- When is PR1.3 coming for the N9? Rumors say mid June, so they ought to be able to confirm or deny it without risking over-promising.
- Do they plan to expand on the PV tech by introducing either light-field sensors, or mountable/replaceable optics?
- How about pico-projectors?
Where’s the Nokia charger mat?

To Do/To Get:

Panda chocolate
Salmiakki Koskenkorva

Nokia China: Nokia 808 PureView with Free tripod and USB charger

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 04:00 PM PDT

A few days ago we heard about the Nokia 808 PureView in China coming with a free tripod and USB holder. My translator wasn’t working so I wasn’t able to confirm at the time. It still doesn’t so I’m hoping someone out there can add further confirmation to this.

http://www.nokia.com/cn-zh/products/pureview/preorder/?intc=na-fw-ilc-na-hero_home_top_teaser-na-home-cn-zh-1138316

Cheers Anthony for the tip!

Dangerous Waters: Using Wazapp (unofficial Whatsapp Client) to Promote N9 Sales

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 02:02 PM PDT

Nokia in Bahrain have apparently been pushing Wazapp (the unofficial whatsapp for N9 that isn’t even available in the Nokia store); as an official solution to Whatsapp on meego

“the wait is over go to Wazapp.im”

Alee Javed‏@_AleeJaved

@EverythingN9@tgalal this was at nokia store, in Bahrain. Glad to see wazapp being used to sell ‪#N9‬pic.twitter.com/IlAiypzK

I have no problem with Nokia trying to push the N9 sales; however promoting an unofficial client that’s not even available in the marketplace seems a bit “weird”; first off I doubt the whatsapp people are happy about their services being reverse coded to get access to the servers and what not, second Nokia has a VERY tight relationship with Whatsapp; first constantly promoting whatsapp over BBM with the “Drop the Pink Campaign”

Then preloading whatsapp on all S40 devices giving them cross platform chat out of the box, Personally I don’t know the extent of their relation nor do I know if there have been other moves to promote Wazapp through official Nokia channels but I think this is some murky water to be treading in.

*Note: they could easily jut put an ad “Inquire inside about whatsapp on the N9″ where the salespeople could fill them in; but banners and posters (whether spelled wrong or not) are dangerous.

Source

Thanks for the Tip Tangarr

My Dream Nokia: Nokia Lumia 908 with stunning Apollo WP8 concept slides!

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 10:40 AM PDT

I got an email from Andy Weir of NeoWin who has created a very long and thorough concept of what he thinks should appear in WP8. Sadly, I think he’s produced something that’s a little too awesome and no where near what we’d see in the actual Apollo. The device is not actually what this post is about. This is all about the WP8 concept.

There are 12 slides, discussed and explained at depth which I suggest you take a look at over on:

http://www.neowin.net/news/a-vision-of-windows-phone-8-and-how-microsoft-could-enhance-the-platform

I’ll briefly talk about some of it:

Very interesting set of live tiles. They’re mostly smaller, but can grow organically to display more information.

You can customise it, beyond simply just changing the colour theme. I like that the tiles themselves don’t have to be one uniform colour for the core apps (relying on you to customise it with your own apps to get colour).

The multitask view has the same linear swiping (I would prefer N9/N900 grid style) but now it has several options below (such as close all apps) and notifications at the bottom. I like that in WP, you don’t need to ‘close apps’ as the memory management means you never need to in order to save battery/RAM etc. But it’s nice at least to have that option.

This is the notifications page:

These are accessed by swiping down from the clock. I would also not mind having that left swipe from tiles so we would have the same N9 arrangement.

The store presentation of apps is more Metro like. I guess here it’s getting a little too busy in some places.

This one’s a very cool addition. They’re not just adding a feature of ‘screenshots’ but making a useful, user friendly feature of it with scrapbook.

I am not sure the implementation will work, “push and hold camera hardware button”…wouldn’t that activate the camera? Easy to fix. Two button combo – volume down and camera.

Well, Andy Weir:

One thing I would wish is to have touch buttons that are part of the display, as seen in

#49: Nokia Lumia PureView 920, Windows Phone 8 Concept

The only thing that disappoints me is that MS and Nokia are too far into WP8 and that their phones may not be anywhere near as exciting looking as this. Please prove me wrong Nokia & MS.

If you’ve read this and want more info, go check out neowin. These are merely half the slides and none of the actual explanation to them. Go, go, go!

Source: neowin.net

Thanks Andy Weir for the tip!

Nokia 808 PureView priced at Saudi Arabia, 1999 SAR/346GBP/533USD

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 06:56 AM PDT

We got this screenshot from a magazine showing the Nokia 808 PureView, priced at 1999 Saudi Riyal, equivalent to 346GBP/533USD. It sits in the brochure next to the SGSIII, priced higher at 2499SAR.

Cheers Ahmed for the tip

Lumiappaday #201: Sleep Bug Pro demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 06:55 AM PDT

Sleep Bug Pro is an app that can help you sleep. It does this by producing some ambient sounds, of which you have various scenes from fire to forest. I find it particularly useful having some tinnitus (ringing in your ears). When it’s really quiet, I get bothered by that ringing in my ears, so I welcome the ambient sound that cancels that out.

Each of the scenes comes with additional sounds that you can mix in (e.g. in fire, you can add the chirping of the cicada or crackling of the wood as it burns). A useful feature is having a timer. I set mine to about 2 hours – after that, the app stops playing. Play the sound either through headphones or in built speakers. I like using the Play 360.

#201) Sleep Bug Pro

Price: £1.49

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/apps/a8b77a19-5b17-490a-984e-7b98a3cd09e3

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv8Ia4QzTbw

Developer Blurb:

Sleep Bug is finally available on Windows Phone Marked with a PRO version. With 8 extra scenes and no ads you will enjoy Sleep Bug even more.

Sleep Bug Pro is the ultimate sound mixer that produces ambient scene music with random sound effects.

Thanks to the powerful built in sound generator Sleep Bug Pro sounds realistic and will give you many hours of quality sleep.

For the best user experience, please listen with headphones.

Features:

+ 19 different scenes to choose from (dreams, weather, horror, fire, beach, river, sci-fi, music box, city, jungle, zen garden, train, airport, underwater, outback, winter, white noise, classical & forrest)

+ Customize each scene with realistic sound effects

+ Digital Clock (12/24 hour)

+ Sleep Timer

Check out the new webpage: http://www.sleepbug.net

Changes in version 1.8

-Added support for 256MB devices

-Fixed some bugs

Rating:

Design: 7

Usability: 8

Performance: 9

Price: 8

Video: Nokia N9 vs Samsung Galaxy SIII Startup Time

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 02:25 AM PDT

Start up times are tests that have been done for a long time. They rarely mean anything now for the end user as the phone is always left on. It’s nice to have a quick start up but it’s not essential, especially when the rest of the phone is quite speedy.

On that note, here’s the Nokia N9 (2011) against the Samsung Galaxy SIII (2012). Now we know showing the Nokia Lumia 800 before that the N9 does have a longer start up time than normal.

http://mynokiablog.com/2011/12/11/video-start-up-times-nokia-n9-vs-nokia-lumia-800-vs-iphone-4s/

Sadly, in the comments we can see insults that this is just ‘Nokia being slow’. We have already shown Nokia Lumia starting up twice in the time N9 takes to almost boot up once. But it’s not just N9. N8 starts up faster, I’m guessing my N97 too. It was a good indicator of improvements with the successive firmware updates that start up times got faster. My N93 was one of the fastest with about a sub 20 second start up (though it was more important on older Symbians that crashed a lot and needed a restart to fix the freeze).

by adrianisen

Weekend Watch: Ogre3D running on a Nokia N950

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 12:38 AM PDT

In this video, we have the Nokia N950 with something called Ogre3D. That’s an open source 3D graphics engine: http://www.ogre3d.org/.

Some problems are noted with textures but other than that, it’s shown to work pretty well

My first attempt at getting Ogre3D working on the Nokia N950 and N9 MeeGo phones. There’s still some problems with textures unless they’re in a very specific format (no bigger than 128×128, with an alpha channel), but as long as that’s taken into account it works pretty well.

by Elleomea

Video: Nokia Lumia Lab

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 12:31 AM PDT

Came across this video on Vimeo called Nokia lumia Lab. It’s a kind of a mish mash of cool stuff the the Lumia branding ever present. There’s some showcase of phones going on.