20 August 2012

My Nokia Blog

My Nokia Blog

Lumiappaday #277: Asphalt 5 demoed on the Nokia Lumia 900 #XboxLive

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 12:15 PM PDT

This is just a demo of the game, Asphalt 5 on the Nokia Lumia 900. Not too keen on the accelerometer controls. I find them much too laggy in comparison to NFS (well underground anyway). Tap controls are much more responsive.

#277) Asphalt 5 

Price:  £2.29

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/20e77ac3-00c2-416e-8054-7d081afb73de

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGFMia1o5tM

Developer Blurb:

Get in, start up and punch it in the fastest dream cars ever created by some of the most prestigious manufacturers in the world.
Everything you've ever dreamed of doing behind the wheel is here on your phone.

Stop dreaming and get in!

THERE'S A DREAM CAR FOR YOU
Take a ride in over 30 of the fastest, most prestigious cars you've ever dreamed, from manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Audi and Ducati.

THE WORLD IS YOUR RACETRACK
Highly polished HD graphics let you see every detail and animation of the track as you speed over snow, mud, dirt and more in 12 beautiful locations around the world including St. Tropez, Aspen and Las Vegas. Discover hidden shortcuts and jump off ramps!

NEW WAYS TO PLAY
Challenge yourself to 8 different racing events including Drift Contest, Cop Chase, Time Attack, Duel Mode, Last Man Standing and Escape.

Full list of cars:
Audi R8, Audi TT-RS, Audi Q7, Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4, Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SV, Lamborghini Reventón, Ferrari 599 XX, Ferrari California, Ferrari F430 16M, Ferrari FXX Evolution, Nissan 370Z, Nissan GT-R R35, Bugatti Veyron 16.4, BMW X6M, Caterham CSR Superlight, 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS, Ducati 1198, Ducati Monster 1100s, Ford GT, Ford Shelby GT500, Gumpert Apollo, Kawasaki Z750, Kawasaki ZX6-R, Lotus 2-Eleven, Lotus Evora, Mercedes E Class, Mercedes ML 63 AMG, Mercedes-Benz S65 Black Series, MINI Cooper S, RUF 3400 K, RUF Dakara, RUF Rt 12

Rating:

Design: 9

Usability: 8

Performance: 8 

Price: 8

Nokia’s plans to be the ultimate “where” platform

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 05:40 AM PDT

WPCentral posted up about their interview with the VP of Location & Commerce at Nokia, Thom Brenner, along with Pino Bonetti, a Nokia Conversations writer. They asked about the future of Nokia’s location services, which seems fitting as that is constantly being pushed as the differentiating factor on WP.

Reportedly, Nokia’s mapping technology powers “four out of five cars” on the road, along with services from Flickr, Yahoo and Microsoft. WP8 will be seeing the platform expand, especially since it overtakes Bing as the integrated mapping solution on the OS.

WPCentral go extremely in-depth with their post, and if you have 10 mins, I suggest giving it a read over.

http://www.wpcentral.com/location-windows-phone-8-and-nokia-ultimate-where-platform

Source: WPCentral

Cheers Viktor Von D for the tip!

Review: Nokia Lumia 900 through my MeeGo-loving eyes

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 04:42 AM PDT

It is no secret I love the N9 and MeeGo-Harmattan. It runs such a versatile OS. It may not be the most developed out of the box, but you don’t choose it for that. The possibilities are endless. Enable developer mode, and install a few mods and the device is unmatched (except by the N900). But this isn’t to talk up the N9 (I’ll save that for later).

I am here to talk about my experiences over the last two weeks, with the Nokia Lumia 900. I’ll break it up into Hardware & Software. I did use it as my main device for the entire two weeks, only using my N9 to test some new mods I’d come across. When talking about software, I will also do my absolute best to remove any prejudice I have about WP (keeping in mind, I have used the Lumia 800 as my daily for over two months).

Hardware:

First up we have the gorgeous design. I knew I would like it, as it is the same design I’ve fallen in love with on my N9. I have the Unicorn, but was lucky enough to have a Stormtrooper, so again, glossy white, WOW! The screen didn’t feel too big going from my N9 to the Lumia 900, but now I have gone back, my N9 feels ridiculously small. (Haven’t felt like this since I went from N8 to X6 for a day).

At first, I thought I wasn’t going to like the bezel, and the flat screen, but after a day or so, there were no issues whatsoever. Although, I would jump for a Lumia 900 with a curved screen. Maybe the next Lumia that is coming “soon”. Having an exposed USB port was handy, as it was easy to just plug and get on with tasks, however, I kept being conscious about putting it the right way in pocket, so nothing went in there.

I’m putting this down to the fact it was a trial device and had been used before me, but compared to my N9 and Lumia 800, the physical keys were a lot more compressed and I found it hard to push them. Although, something I will never not like is the having a physical camera key. Yes, I have Camerra installed, so I can use the vol+ as a shutter key, but it does not replace having a dedicated camera shutter.

The front facing camera on the Lumia 900 is amazing! It was one of the things I was looking forward to the most (along with the larger screen), and it did not disappoint at all. It’s clarity blew me away (even more so when compared to the N9′s FFC). The rear camera surprised me too, as I expected it to be sub-N9, but they were pretty equal.

Something that I also found to be quite annoying was the back button. I found it to “bleed” onto the screen. When using predominantly black-backgrounded apps, you could notice this significantly. It isn’t restricted to the one device, as I’ve heard others complain of it too. Also, compared to the Lumia 800, the soft keys seem yellow, not white.

The last component of the hardware I want to talk about, is the memory options. Admittedly, my N9 and the Lumia 900 I trialled, were both 16GB, although WP7 is limited to that, where as I could purchase the 64GB version of the N9 if I wanted to.

Software:

Moving on to the software side of things, we have the multitude of apps, unique live tiles and the fluidity that is WP. Setting up the device is easy enough, synching your contacts from the Live ID you use to sign in to the device. Having the same ID on my 800 and N9, all the contacts were synched across all three. I was surprised when my 800 and N9 updated themselves almost instantly when I changed a contact’s name.

After all the setting up was done, and I got the live tiles the way I liked, with all the apps I love, the experience was exactly the same as it was on my Lumia 800. There was no difference for me at all, it was like I was using the same phone in a way. The OS was really fluid. Venturing in to the marketplace, there was pretty much an app for anything I needed.

The social integration on the platform is a really awesome feature, and I love having Facebook chat, Windows Live Messenger and Text, all in the same thread, with that intelligent auto-switching based on the contact’s status. It is something I wish I had on my N9. The “Me” tile is handy, as it helps me see how many Facebook Notifications/Twitter Mentions I have, in a glance. That is the best way to describe live tiles, information at a glance. The N9 has it too, it is called the Standby Screen, and the Events homescreen.

The downsides of the OS includes a lack of a centralised notification system. Although Live Tiles is a solution, it isn’t a complete solution, as it is plain stupid to pin every app to the start screen, just to know when there are notifications. Bluetooth file transfer is something I have also missed when using a WP, supposedly coming to WP8. The lack of multi-tasking for me, as a self-declared “power user” was a huge element to get used to, especially trying to load web elements (Facebook notifications, Twitter feed, web page etc.) in the background.

I didn’t want to mention this, but at least for me (in no way do I represent the broader amount of user’s needs), the ability to extend the feature set of WP is limited, well, non-existent (unless you have hacked the OS). If something goes wrong, say like what happened to me where scrolling was buggy, and the Marketplace failed to launch, you most likely need to reboot to fix it.

With the N9, run a terminal command or 2, and you’re all set. Same thing with features. Due to the huge community following, the mantra of  “if it doesn’t do it, we’ll make it” has never been stronger than with MeeGo/Maemo. It may not have a billion apps, but the bigger ones are there, or very good alternatives. Plus, with the ability to run OSes like Android (via Nitdroid Project) and Debian (via Easy Debian), plus compatibility layers such as TizMee (Tizen), apps are irrelevant.

In every respect, WP7 is a great OS for the majority of consumers that need the basic feature set on a mobile phone. For the more tech savvy users, there are several things that are missing. Hopefully, most of these issues will be rectified by WP8. We won’t need to wait long either, given Nokia World is around the corner.

Overall Opinion:

Taking in to account everything, and attempting to remove the prejudice I have of the N9, the Lumia 900 is really a great all-round device. It has great industrial design, the screen is amazingly clear and the perfect size, with good optics (front & back). If this device was mine, it may become my daily driver, simply for the FFC and the larger screen, and keep my N9s as a “nerd-toy”.

My recommendation to anyone looking at getting a Lumia 900 is not to buy one. Yes, you read that right. There is no point in buying the Lumia 900 at this stage of the game, as WP8 will be coming out shortly. Since there is no upgrade path to the latest iteration, purchasing now, in my opinion, is a mistake. Wait until WP8 devices are announced, and weigh up your options. Worst thing is to buy one now, and in a month regret it because there is something new. There is the WP 7.8 update coming, and that is great for those who already own the device.

For me, I’m content with my N9, for now.

Cheers to Nokia Australia and Fuel for the trial device!

MNB Reader Generated: Symbian or Android?

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 04:17 AM PDT

 

I got this email from someone called Parasaran Kumar his experience of Symbian Nokia handsets and how they stack up to Android. We’ve not featured him before at MNB Reader Generated. There is no edit to this, just some slight formatting.

 

Android or Symbian?

People will fall about laughing if I say Symbian, the dying mobile Operating System is better than the Android. The fact is, Symbian is better than Android as an Operating System. I personally tested Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and Nokia E7. To my surprise I found that the E7 with only a single core ARM 11 at 680 MHz was prompter while the Sony that packs a much faster 1.4 GHz Snapdragon was taking time to load certain applications. Booting was faster in E7 and multi-tasking on Nokia was mind-blowing.
What is so good about the Android?
 

Answer: Android has more eye-candy applications but it isn’t as fast as Nokia Belle when it comes to functionality and performance.
Now,
What is bad about the Nokia Belle?
 

Answer: Belle has a smaller amount of applications but it doesn’t lack the essential and well-known applications.
When Nokia released the 6600 phone way back on 2003, no other phone could overpower the 6600 until the release of the i-Phone which changed the epoch of the mobile world!
Now the question is
What is so special about the i-phones?
 

Answer: Touch response, huge collections of applications and its attractive User Interface (UI). Apple is user friendly to a convinced degree but not as easy as the Symbian.
When apple released the i-phone for the first time, people were charmed by its bar model without the keypad and its touch response. It marked the beginning of silky capacitive touch phones and that's where the Nokia began to grow fainter. Apple was not the only company that was responsible for Nokia's decline but Nokia itself was the main reason for its weakening. Apple was leading the race and Nokia was following. On 2006, the Symbian foundation came up with the Symbian UIQ which can be customised to user's requirement and still it remains as one of the best OS though it lacks applications and those sugar coated UI but UIQ has the apps that even most of the phones do not have today.Nokia was getting ahead and instead of improving on the UIQ they ditched the UIQ for Symbian S60. Many of the talented design engineers of the UIQ migrated to Google since the company did not survive the market. Every awesome designs and innovations in UIQ 4 were implemented in Android. And today Nokia is making a big mistake by ditching the Symbian. Nokia might have a great opportunity with the windows phone 8 (WP8) but it is the Symbian which gave the Nokia its flamboyant outfit.
 
At this instant, my question is
What do people want?
 
People do not get phones based on their requirement if that wasn't the case then basic models would have flooded the markets. People look for phones that have set a vogue in the market (Android and Apple). They require a million apps on their phone as if they use all of them and bar model without key pad which is the current trend. There are people who choose their phone based on their requirement and they are the ones who really do not utilise the full capacity of the phone. People who push their phones to or beyond limits are the ones who really know which phone is the finest and I have done this to all my phones including a Micromax phone. All smart phones have apps, the problem is that people are so indoctrinated with android/iOS mass manipulation, they have no clue that Symbian has all the important apps, and works perfect with them. People didn't know what a smart phone is until the release of Apple and Blackberry. It would have been wonderful if Apple and Blackberry were just fruits.
 
Everyone must understand a basic difference between Hardware, Operating System (OS) and Performance. It is not that a phone with 1.2 GHZ dual-core or a quad-core will never freeze or a phone that has a 500 MHZ will always get stuck. If a phone executes well (booting speed, loading of apps and UI) even on a processor that has less than 800MHZ, that is called performance. It is the job of the Operating System to make them perform even on a low configured Hardware. Most of the android phones have good performance because of its hardware but none of the Androids will work as effective as Symbian on the outdated ARM processor with less than 800 MHZ.
 
Windows Phone 8 might be the future for Microsoft but definitely not for Nokia. I am not imparting that Nokia will not succeed with WP8 plan but I don't think they can be big enough like Apple or Google is today, and if they stick with MeeGo/Symbian plan they can be success like them. Nokia has put itself in an awkward position by negligence of care for their Operating Systems.
I recommend Nokia to develop devices with the latest hardware similar to the Galaxy SIII. Imagine a Nokia with 2 GHZ Quad-Core that runs on the updated Symbian, with new 4 million updated HD apps and has 41MP camera sensor. Sounds groovy right? It is high time that Nokia should stop the monotony and invest time in applications and on Research & Development.
 
I still didn't forget the days when Nokia released the 6600, N-gage QD and the N-series. None dare to overthrow these models. It had limitations but people were happy with its technology. I still operate my Panasonic TV with 6600 but unfortunately we cannot do it with the present-day phones. Nokia can probably work on the late technology Infrared (IR), phones with touch plus QWERTY keypad and on N-gage apps. Nokia can invest more on R&D and reward the developers for each of their creations instead of ditching the Symbian. Nokia should also work on ground-breaking technology like the Nokia 888 concept. I completely appreciate the heroic and daring attempt of Nokia for not aiming at Android. Nokia should always remain unique and legendary as it is, always.

MyDreamNokia #64: Nokia Lumia 707 WP8 concept with unconventional curves

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 04:08 AM PDT

Here’s a very unconventional design from Edgar Mkrtchyan. It’s certainly no generic rectangle with curved corners.

here is my latest work, Nokia Lumia 707.
The idea of this secretion is once again your comment “pebble” (on my first concept), but this time with no straight lines! And on top of that I wanted to feminize this concept for women.
Characteristics are expected, nothing extraordinary for a mid-range;)
The only thing I still have not found a solution, it is the volume keys that are currently missing on the concept, because of the curves, I still do not know how …
In the meantime, my next concept has a qwerty keyboard and photos come with a short video to show the creation of the concept;
MNB1 MNB7 MNB8 MNB9 1 MNB10 MNB11 MNB2 MNB3 MNB4 MNB5 MNB6


Ex-MeeGo Boss recruited by HP for new Mobility sector

Posted: 19 Aug 2012 01:17 AM PDT

The Verge are reporting that they have been tipped about an internal memo from HP. The memo is reportedly to have come from Todd Bradley, announcing the creation of a new Mobility business that will be responsible for bringing “consumer tablets” to the market. Ex-MeeGo boss, Alberto Torres, will be heading up this new sector, reporting directly to Bradley.

This is another example of MeeGo talent being found companies and projects outside of Nokia. First we saw the ex-staff start-up Jolla, a company that will actually see them continuing their great work. There is also CloudberryTec, started-up by ex-Nokia and MeeGo staff. With Torres being in charge of this new division, will we see some of the Nokia influence coming through? It is quite annoying that Nokia is losing some of the greatest minds (greatest as defined by me), and losing them to competing companies.

Only time will tell if dropping MeeGo, even for “future disruptions” was smart, or not. Will it raise the same argument that we heard when Maemo was killed: “If only Maemo had been phased in to take over Symbian, Nokia would have been on top”, only, will it be: “If MeeGo-Harmattan had have been used, instead of going ll out on WP, would Nokia still be selling phones”. Let’s hope they still last

Source: The Verge
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