15 April 2012

My Nokia Blog

My Nokia Blog

fMobi updated to v3.0 – available at Nokia Store.

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 05:32 PM PDT

 

Going through some of the tips I missed during the day, this was sent to our facebook page and our tip here.

fMobi is now at Version 3.0.

http://jiikoo.com/2012/04/08/fmobi-3-0-enter-the-year-of-awesomeness/

With fMobi 3.0, we have made over 25 changes related to how it looks and behaves, the performance and overall experience. Here is a short list of added features and changes.

 

  • Widget for fMobi, a feature people have been asking for a long time. This is our first widget and we will make changes to it as we get user feedback.
  • Caching of almost all images which you see. We automatically flush the cache when needed but you can also do it manually.
  • Cover picture when you see someone's profile.
  • Optimization of whole interface for 20px font size. We want to gather user feedback if they like this font size and optimization or not and will change things accordingly in new version.
  • Ability to post status update to a particular list only. More privacy features coming soon.
  • New design for checkin and events page. We are also showing preview of your location in check in via Nokia maps now.
  • Code optimizations. This is a continues process and with each new version of fMobi, we are trying to make it faster and less taxing on RAM.
  • New design for chat which will also come for fChat in few days.
  • New design for pictures and albums.

http://store.ovi.com/content/167633

Widget below – I believe that homescreen is non standard, no?

Official screenshot

Source: jiikoo.com via Symbian-Developers

Thanks Upakul Talukdar and amoshydra for the tip!

Forbes: Nokia must not look back – stick with WP, return to Symbian/MeeGo Suicidal?

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:43 PM PDT

 

I’d be careful to post about such a story from sources not too familiar with the Nokia scene, but this writer from Forbes is actually All About Symbian (and now AAWP)’s Ewan Spence. I did not know he was writing at Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/04/14/nokia-must-not-look-back-as-they-shape-their-smartphone-future-2/

Anyway, he says that Nokia must stick to its guns.

Let’s look forward to what Nokia CAN do and not what Nokia should have done. Ewan suggests that if Nokia go for Android now, it would take a lot of time, well into 2013 before a competent Android handset from Nokia would reach the market, now with even less bargaining power with Google. He says it was an option looked into late 2010 but it was decided that would be a no go.

Perhaps, much to a surprise from someone so knowledgable about Symbian and prominent in the Symbian community, but Ewan says,

“There comes a time when code is simply to complicated to keep growing, and Symbian is long past that point.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/04/14/nokia-must-not-look-back-as-they-shape-their-smartphone-future-2

Perhaps to clarify, it might mean the amount resources necessary to attempt at being up to date. This rate of improvement is something that has to continue for the years ahead and Nokia decided Symbian could not be fixed at a quick enough rate, at least not as quick as going with another OS. Originally that other OS was NOT in fact WP, but Maemo, which got deprived by Nokia themselves, ended up turning into MeeGo and well now no more.

MeeGo is an excellent platform for hackers and tinkerers, but it is far from consumer friendly and unlikely to deliver multiple millions of handset sales month in and month out. Both Symbian and MeeGo are not consumer friendly and neither are not the long term answer

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/04/14/nokia-must-not-look-back-as-they-shape-their-smartphone-future-2

I don’t know about that. I think Maemo 5 would have been very friendly for consumers with some minor tweaks (the menu/multitask button being separated). Furthermore, I think Swipe UI is very consumer friendly. A few well placed ads teaching about the UI would show just how easy it is to use. Perhaps Ewan is talking about other aspects consumers want in their smartphone experience to be ‘consumer friendly’ as opposed to ‘user friendly’? It’s not explained so I can’t elaborate there.

Perhaps I would have to agre on Symbian. It wasn’t user friendly. Since touch was introduced on Symbian S60 (not UIQ) it was terrible and something we wanted badly addressed. For what ever reason, they weren’t able to change Symbian quickly enough to make it user friendly. We are only seeing FP1 now (which I admit, I’m really liking so far from the demoes).

Right now, Nokia are partnered with the third biggest mobile app economy on the planet – after iOS and Android, there is the Windows Marketplace. Assuming they did suddenly decide to walk away from Windows Phone and Microsoft without too much legal and monetary pain, there's nowhere left to go. A move back to Symbian or Meego would be suicidal.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/04/14/nokia-must-not-look-back-as-they-shape-their-smartphone-future-2

Does anyone have the numbers of revenue/profit generated by marketplace vs Nokia Store? Perhaps Ewan has narrowed this down to particular OSes. We know a significant amount of fragmentation exists at the Nokia Store as many different OSes are catered for. S40, MeeGo, Symbian, the latter of which can be divided into S60 3rd, 5th, S^3 and again some variants not working between S^3, Anna/Belle and the special case, E6 with its different resolution display. Perhaps with the new crop of Symbian, even with Qt, would make Nokia Store only fourth?

Perhaps explaining returning to Symbian or MeeGo only would be difficult, destroying any of the mindshare they managed to slowly gain back for Nokia through Lumia. Perhaps there can be a situation where all are available. Yes, maybe concentrate on WP as the main star of attraction whilst trying to regain foundation, but keep using Symbian and MeeGo to penetrate areas where WP cannot go yet. Ideally, even, market it too where WP is, but be clever about your marketing to make the consumer aware of the distinct experience from Symbian and MeeGo. Either way, the option for people has several Nokias in the mix. I can understand that Nokia are looking to tie people in to an ecosystem and that is much harder for Nokia to do in the long run if that is Symbian or MeeGo as opposed to WP Lumia. They may be confused with the general operation that’s markedly different between Lumia and Symbian/MeeGo.

Nokia is still very much in transition; getting their first WP out to market mid November last year, slowly (excruciatingly slow) expanding the markets where Lumia is available and now looking to finally get a lot more Nokia input with WP8 and possibly create devices such as W8 tablets to complement that WP8 handset. The new Lumia 900 is well received it seems, debuting in the US – we can only hope that a similar success trend will continue to improve for the rest of the world. The budget Lumia 610 could reach more places than previous Lumias could do to offering quite a lot more value for the price (though the starting price point is high, it could come down very low.) The Lumia 710 is £135 at CPW UK, 170-190 at other stores. The Lumia 610 might be a better option for Nokia as that offers a similar experience at a lower cost price to them – but I am concerned that there may be apps the 610 might not run. As far as I know, 99% are ok, even more so as apps are optimised to use even less resources. Numbers are small at the moment for Lumia, but there is a positive momentum moving forward.

Q2/Q3 are points in time to watch out for. Nokia has already given a warning that Q2 doesn’t look to be that good either. The mobile phone segment (next billion) as well as smartphones is taking a nosedive much quicker than anticipated. It won’t be until Q4 until we see any meaningful WP8 devices from Nokia, and again, not until 2013 until we see how those perform. But we might not have to wait that long to see if Lumia can start to gain traction. Q3 should be more than enough time.

Any Q4 devices from Nokia, however much of a superphone rumours claim, will have extremely strong competition from the new iPhone, SGSII and whatever HTC flagship appears then. It will be difficult to take customers already stuck in their respective ecosystems. Perhaps those who don’t pay for apps, e.g. stick to free ones, might be easier to persuade, as well as the still very large market for consumers NEW to smartphones. Q4 is a different battle altogether, one we hope Nokia will have sufficient ammunition to fight back. For now, I think it’s necessary for Nokia to see Q3 through.

Source: forbes

Cheers arts for the tip.

Oh, somewhat related.

 

Nokia shares are a Buy – Forget Symbian and focus on Lumia urge analysts at Jyske Bank…

…We are now in the middle of the transformation from the Symbian to the Windows Phone platform. It hurts and makes heavy demands on investor patience. However, we maintain our BUY recommendation for Nokia, as we expect the efforts to be fruitful….

…The only bright spot in connection with the announcement was that Nokia in Q1 sold more than 2m Lumia-smartphones compared to our estimate at 1.8m.

As already mentioned, we believe that Nokia's problems are primarily related to Symbian's weakened competitiveness.

Symbian is a thing of Nokia's past. It would have been much worse to us if the sale of Lumia smartphones had lost momentum. Nokia announced that it will raise its investments in Lumia in order to develop more smartphones and launch them in several markets…

http://www.economy-news.co.uk/other-financial-shares/1390-nokia-shares-are-a-buy-as-focus-increasingly-turns-to-lumia-3443

There is momentum in Lumia. We can see the 900 doing surprisingly well in the US and it is something that could potentially happen in other places too (it must for Nokia’s sake). With Nokia Lumia now in China and devices like the 610 shipping soon, this momentum looks to grow more at the pace expected from this WP strategy.

Nokia Lumia 900 out of stock at AT&T?

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:30 PM PDT

 

 

We had received several reports that the Nokia Lumia 900 was out of stock – I wasn’t quite sure myself what the reasoning behind that was, whether demand, stocking issue or due to removal of the phones to update them with the data fix. Well news of that has reached all the way to TheVerge who also comment on how both the Lumia 900 has exceeded AT&T’s expectations as well as also being out of stock at major AT&T stores. Quite normally, they also question why it might be out of stock, to which the first few commenters seem to be a little too sensitive on.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/14/2948039/nokia-lumia-900-out-of-stock-att-site

Actually looking back at the comments for the Nokia Lumia 900 update fix, there is a surprisingly huge and overwhelmingly positive response from the majority of commenters there, both at Engadget and TheVerge.

This is so strange to see for me as a Nokia fan looking at how markedly different comments are regarding a Nokia story. I don’t check much on Gizmodo, but even their 900 story was oddly quite positive.

Pretty much a lot of the sites reporting the bug and how Nokia handled this were also quite favourable about Nokia. (All but one really. Looking at you, IBTimesUK, ‘dogged with problems’, ‘affect uk sales’, ‘not so great reviews’). BGR even went on to say that Nokia was appeasing an Angry mob, but gained life long loyalists. Honest about problems, accepting them and letting the public know, giving options to swap or get a software update that arrived 2/3 days early, with a good will gesture of $100 (that turned into an opportunity to get more customers as potential customers were also offered this until April 21st).

Looking at Amazon, it shows at least some good demand remaining at the top of the chart. Black more popular than the Blue which has dropped to 4th. The position of both may remain in higher ranking if they were set as one device. It is no longer in the top 100 of cell phones and accessories, but it was very good to see it debut at reach that list. Many new phones don’t.

This is really, again, just quite astonishing for a Nokia phone in the US of all places. It’s achieving something that even various other stronger brands will find it an achievement were they to repeat what the 900 is doing. I sincerely hope it is translating into solid sales.

Thanks mitun for this tip and thanks to others for the previous tip on this! Apologies, I cannot find those initial tips right now.

Video: Nokia N8 with Belle FP1 style multitasking and new browser – super fast N8

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:15 PM PDT

Well, well. It’s not the official FP1 Belle (firmware version still shows v111 at the start) but nevertheless, this custom firmware looks pretty good on the Nokia N8.

That back button action is so speedy, switching from menu and the last action. Scrolling of app icons now seems very fluid (even on this 680MHz kit). C memory is also quite spacious, 216MB.

I can’t seem to find a link for this in the description as to where you might go to try this firmware. Of course, being unofficial it is not something we would recommend. We’ll update if we find more info, but as usual, try at your own risk.

Update: http://www.smartphonepro.hu/nokia-n8-pro-edition-v7/ << Cheers Dave.

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Thanks SLAYER for the tip!

Video: HDMI out on Nokia 808 PureView – Instant picture from lock! Faster than WP or anything else!

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:00 PM PDT

Here’s another hands on at the Nokia 808 Event in India, this time by Bharadwaj – you may have seen his posts here before, and more recently you might have seen him in a post (remember this video?) Anyway, something different we can take here is the demo of the HDMI out, via the bigscreen app.

He notes that the background blur here is the first time in any camera phone they’re able to show a real bokeh effect. I’m sure the N8 was able to do bokeh on close up subjects, right?

The point here is reiterated – it’s not the megapixels, it’s what you do with it. It’s unfortunate that both naysayers and Nokia are arguing the same point, it’s just that the misguided naysayers have no idea that everything they’re supposedly promoting is embodied in the 808 PureView.

In the example, we are told that now we can get superior low light photos.

Note that this particular 808 has some photos as far back as November 2011, taken by a proto in the fall (Q3 time).

Something that is completely new and amazing to me is how quickly this is ready to take a picture. Now Windows Phone was the first to go with the quick unlock by holding the camera button. Next iPhone copied, followed by Android, e.g. HTC. The latter two requiring touch movements. The 808 is INCREDIBLY fast. Look how it’s just pressed and it’s ready. I love this feature. Although not too clear, note the movement of the finger motioning to press the shutter key when locked and how quickly the viewfinder is initiated. I love it! This outdoes all those slightly more fiddly quick launch options by touch. Wow. No wonder Ali was able to smoke WP. I want this phone now.

by  from nokiabuff 

Thanks Madratz for the tip!

Video: N9 Open apps and control music with gestures

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 06:26 AM PDT

Quick heads up – in a bit of a rush today…

This video shows the App ‘My Moves’ adding a new set of gestures for the Nokia N9.

You can see how with a two finger swipe, you can  skip track as well as opening apps by gesture.

 

by 

Thanks gen for the tip

Lumiappaday #151: Gerbil Physics demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800 XboxLive

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 04:28 AM PDT

This game is rather like Implode!, but with Gerbils. On the surface – demolish a structure of gerbils with bombs. It is much more colourful and you do get the ‘cuteness’ factor of Gerbils either praising or mocking you. The weapons act rather differently too, with the initial denotation being timed (as opposed to you setting it off) so the game play there is initially different. After a bomb has fired, you can continue to use more afterwards (as opposed to Implode! where you destroy everything in one go) This means to might have gerbils hidden away at other locations that you would also have to individually set an explosion off to get below the yellow line.

Don’t worry – the gerbils are housed in indestructible (no mention of breathable and whether it’s enough space :p) blocks so they don’t actually get harmed by the explosions. There’s plenty of levels to try in the trial mode.

#151) Gerbil Physics

Price: £2.29 (trial available)

Link:  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/f39aa61a-df00-4cff-90b8-afb58b53eec2

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Z8QFBeCb4

Developer Blurb:

 

Adorable gerbil destruction! Buildings formed of gerbils await destruction for your amusement using a variety of demolition tools. Use bombs, explosives and disintegrators to wreak havoc across multiple danger-packed worlds, earn Xbox LIVE Achievements and dominate your friends on the Leaderboards! A powerful physics engine ensures that gerbils respond to your mass detonations exactly as real gerbils might.

All is not well in the Kingdom of Gerbils! The King of Toads has imprisoned them in indestructible blocks for his evil pleasures. It falls to you to demolish the gerbil buildings and thwart the Toad King. Carefully plan a destruction strategy using disintegrators or just let rip with a barrage of powerful explosives. Complete levels cleverly or quickly to earn the elusive Wipeout badges and use your guile and intuition to earn Xbox LIVE Achievements. Multiple Leaderboards are available to show off your skills to your friends so you can bask in the glory of your explosive successes!

Gerbil Physics is suitable for all ages. Remember how much fun it was to kick down a sandcastle when you were 10 years old? This game is that feeling made digital. It is simple to play, has an intuitive interface, and is ideally suited to mobile gaming.

Gerbil Physics is a Windows phone exclusive ported from the highly rated and critically acclaimed Xbox 360 Indie game described by Kotaku as being “”as adorable as it is enthralling”". It has been wholly rewritten to suit the mobile platform, with a new state-of-the-art physics engine, glorious new art and animations, tons of cunningly designed levels and an awesome new theme tune.

No gerbils were hurt in the making of this game.

Rating:

Design: 9

Usability:9

Performance: 10

Price: 9

How to get $100 Free At&t credit When you Buy a Lumia 900 – Even After the Data Fix

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 03:58 AM PDT

Earlier Jay posted that Nokia has already rolled out the software fix for the crippling data bug that has struck some of the Lumia 900s; that’s great news but for anyone who has been holding out on buying one you should REALLY get one now. Here’s why, anyone with the Data issue (or actually anyone who already purchases a Lumia 900) is eligible to receive the $100 as well as the option to replace their phone for a spanking new one UNTIL APRIL 21ST. The issue is however that all At&t stores are out of stock of both the Cyan and the Black Lumia 900, the reason? they’ve been sent back to Nokia for “re-flashing” with the latest FW that includes the data fix; it’s unclear when they’ll be back in stock or if these devices will actually be eligible for the $100 offer. Therefore your safest bet is Amazon which has both colors in stock  for $49.99.

*Bonus tip- you should be able to switch your Lumia (be it Black or Cyan) for a white one if you like once they’re released on the 22nd free of charge.

Amazon Links:

Black: http://bit.ly/HyiSMb
Cyan: http://bit.ly/IlpGdV

VIA

Nokia Russia’s Amazing Nokia Lift videos going viral, in most viewed YouTube.

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 02:10 AM PDT

When we first found the obscure Russian Amazing Everyday, I didn’t know what to expect. How amazing was a lift supposed to be?

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/10/amazing-nokia-lift-police-angry-birds-and-girls-well-done-nokia-russia-best-amazing-everyday-video-evaarr/

The first one I saw was the police one and that was hilarious! Then Angry Birds and then finally, the guys’ favourite, the girls – or as some comments put it – the lift to heaven.

I really like the contrast of either mild/scary/unknown to the sudden fun, exciting, funny, entertaining surprise that came afterwards. The Angry Birds one was just fun all the way and so did not have that contrasting surprise. It was something that could possibly cater to everyone, kids, men and women. Good three pronged approach.

Now it’s on the YouTube most viewed, being seen by people who are not just Nokia fans. Great endorsement for Nokia Lumia. This, Dear Nokia Australia/Belgium, is Amazing Everyday.

Over 2 million combined views so far.

WP8 coming October? Nokia Apollo Phones due shortly after September’s Nokia World?

Posted: 14 Apr 2012 01:13 AM PDT

The Finnish Tabloid Italehti.fi is reporting that the next update to Windows Phone – Windows Phone 8/Apollo is expected in October.

http://www.iltalehti.fi/digi/2012041315447510_du.shtml

Nokia World is taking place, September 25-26 :) . That should allow Nokia, like before, to already be shipping products in time for mid October release. Please, please, please have the phones ready very soon after announcement.

Incidentally, Samsung are also said to be producing WP8 products, also due in October. The significance of this is not so much competition (SGSIII in WP8?) but more confirmation of the date.

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_confirms_windows_phone_8_devices_in_the_second_half_of_2012-news-4090.php

Is it good right now for Nokia to have competition in WP? Yes and No. No in that it would make it super easy for Nokia to just be the only one selling WP. But who wants to be the biggest fish stranded in a puddle – let alone a pond. Nokia is already the big fish for WP but that body of water – the consumer base is microscopic. Nokia has shown they can take control and lead WP, but they are still very much in need of the assistance of other partners. Whilst WP is still no where on the radar for most people, Nokia needs to have HTC and Samsung assisting the brand image of Nokia’s Lumia platform, WP to get this accepted into mainstream. Samsung may take a percentage of total Nokia sales, but isn’t it better to have a significant fraction of something huge than to have the all of something incomprehensibly small? Where would Android be if it was ever just HTC from the start? Now it’s an option for everyone, and now it’s strong enough, Google can afford for Samsung (who came after HTC) to keep making sales and profits whilst the others don’t. Who knows how long Samsung will stick around when their Tizen is ready. Perhaps eventually if Nokia gets strong enough they can also leave WP…and maybe HTC gets back both systems and everyone is more or less happy.

Sources: iltalehti.fi and gsmarena

Thanks Janne and Sonny for the tips
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