InfoTart

I feel like doing more ranting today…

So I just read an article today on TabletBlog called “Teach Nokia Something,” and it got me thinking about the Nokia N810 device.

www.tabletblog.com/2008/06/teach-nokia-something.html

As all of my friends know, I used to work for Nokia. (I’m currently freelancing as a mobile UI designer.) Nokia is a great place to work for a lot of reasons, not least of which that you get to beta test new devices long before they’re launched. For example, I was an early recipient of the N800 device and filed a gazillion bugs & feature requests on it before it was launched. I also purchased a Nokia 770 with my own money shortly after it was launched in 2006 because it was such a cool and innovative product.

I love the concept of the N800/N810. A pocketable, infinitely expandable Linux-based computer! Plus, it’s extremely capable and a lot of fun to use!

Unfortunately, I think that the dream just hasn’t been realized with this device yet. And given the choice between a Nokia N810 or an iPod Touch, I’ll go with the Touch.

Holy cow! Did I really just write that? Oh yes, I did…

I think the N810 is missing several key features to really make it a strong competitor to the iPod Touch, which is in my opinion it’s target device to beat. The iPod Touch isn’t a true one-to-one competitor, but it’s the closest thing. And the iPod Touch has really raised the bar on what a pocket computer can be, leapfrogging the innovative N810 in many ways.

PIM FEATURES SUCK

Nokia has specifically resisted offering any competent PIM features on the device out of the box. They don’t want the press or customers to confuse the device with a Palm Pilot (ick!). Well, sure. I suppose that’s understandable. No one wants to buy a Palm any more and the Palm OS platform is dead. But at the end of the day, Personal Information Management (PIM) features like the Contacts, Calendar, and Address Book are core features of any mobile device. Purposefully under-developing those features is akin to giving your shiny new smart convergence device a lobotomy.

The fact is that convergence devices need to offer a platform-level mashup infrastructure with PIM features at the core. This is plumbing upon which third party software developers need to build innovative mashup-style products and services. All smartphone platforms offer Address Books with varying levels of open APIs (programming hooks) for just this purpose. Even the iPhone and Android have fairly open Address Book APIs! But the Nokia N8xx Maemo devices have an exceptionally braindead Address Book, lame ass email client, non-existent calendar, etc. The complaints about the native N8xx PIM apps ring loudly throughout the blogosphere ring.

And third parties have not really stepped up to the plate to fill in the gaps. The only company which was offering a competent suite of PIM applications for the early Nokia 770, Deja Desktop, discontinued its offering a couple of years ago. None of the other apps that are currently available on the Maemo.org download site qualify as suitable replacements.

Nokia, wake up and recognize PIM as the killer app suite for all of your mobile devices! It’s core infrastructure that, when well developed, makes your platform worthwhile to innovate on!

POOR MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCEThe Nokia N8xx devices offer a fairly poor multimedia experience overall. It lacks out of the box support for a variety of common (MP4 video) and obscure fanboy formats (like Ogg Vorbis). So when I rip my DVDs for my iPod touch in MP4, I can’t also play them on an N810.

What’s worse, the media player is ugly as sin. It pains me to open the thing and look at it long enough to even launch a video or music file. The experience also doesn’t hold a candle to the rich and fun experience on an iPhone/iPod Touch.

And BTW, I’m not fond of Canola, either. It’s really pretty, but still a product with unrealized potential. It’s still too buggy and unstable for my liking.

INSUFFICIENT MEMORY

The cheapest iPhone and iPod Touch devices ship with more on-board memory than a Nokia N810. Yeah, I know that the N810 is expandable to 8 GB, but the smallest iPhones/iPod Touches ship with 8 GB and go up from there. Up to 32 GB for the iPod Touch! The next N8xx needs at least 8 GB!

And what’s wrong with offering multiple devices where the only differentiating factor is memory? It’s in decisions like this that Nokia’s handset roots show through. Apple, the computer company, get it that you can extract lots more revenue from the market simply by offering devices with different amounts of built in memory. Nokia? Yeah, not so much. Nokia has only dipped its toes into the water with such a strategy by offering a couple of mobile phones with extra memory. Nokia, you’re not quite there yet in learning how to be a consumer electronics company!

NO BLUETOOTH STEREO HEADPHONE SUPPORT

I want an N810 to offer Bluetooth stereo headphone support (A2DP) out of the box. Yes, you can add it in as an end user with third party software while by muttering weird incantations under a full moon. But who does? The N810 needs to get to the point where a whole suite of brilliant apps and features are THERE, right out of the box! Then it will have more likelihood to become a consumer success. Hackers will always hack and it’s really cool to see what they come up with. But consumers never do. Consumers personalize; they don’t hack.

DESKTOP MEDIA MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

The killer feature of the iPhone/iPod Touch is the brilliant integration between iTunes on the desktop, the iTunes store web services, and the devices. One click and they’re all in sync! The Nokia N8xx series doesn’t necessarily need that level of integration. But it would be really nice if it were at least easier to manage my media collection on the device from my desktop! And that includes RSS news subscriptions too.

I’m sure there are more nits to pick here, but the day is getting on and I’ve got other work to do. And of course, this posting neglects to go on about all of the features I love about the device, such as the excellent browser and seamless Bluetooth connectivity for piggybacking on my Nokia E65′s data connection while on the road. The iPod Touch can’t do that!

BOTTOM LINE

I really love the Nokia N810 device and its siblings. But I won’t buy a replacement for my aging Nokia 770 until there’s a really competent alternative to my iPod Touch.

“Apple 3G iPhone is…”

• Going to save the world.
• Going to Nokia, LG, Samsung, RIM (BlackBerry), etc…
• The second coming of the greatest technology ever.

That’s all hogwash!

True, it’s an amazing little device that’s really fun to use. But it’s not for me — yet.

For one thing, the device lacks advanced Bluetooth functionality for sending/getting files and stero headphone support (A2DP). Why does this supposedly advanced device lack the ability to get rid of the headphone wires all together? Strange.

The new 3G device also lacks enough memory. My iTunes music collection is already at 19 GB and growing fast with each new CD or iTunes purchase. Not to mention that I’m slowly going through my DVD collection and ripping some of my favorite movies and TV shows to an iPod-compatible video format. The 3G iPhone has 16 GB of storage maximum.  *yawn* I’m waiting for 32 (minimum) or 64 GB (preferred) before I’d even consider switching.

I also am waiting to see what kind of apps will be created for the device. Since the device doesn’t appear to have native support for SyncML, I can’t sync my contact list from Zyb (www.zyb.com) to the phone. But on the good side, it looks like some third party software vendors are lining up to provide support for SyncML.

And don’t even get me started on the lack of Flash and Java support on the device!

I think it’s lame that Apple doesn’t support such “core” mobile software features on their phones when the other mobile platform vendors do!

Well, with the notable exception of Microsoft. Their Windows Mobile platform still kind of sucks and lacks advanced features, too… That’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, I’ll content myself with one of Nokia’s advanced S60 smartphones paired with a 32 GB iPod Touch!

Oh, and Sony Ericsson, I‘ll come back to the fabulous UIQ platform when you start making UIQ devices that work on American 3G networks. Same goes for you Motorola! The Z8 is a great device — but no WiFi and no US 3G??? What the heck?!?

Someone in my extended network on LinkedIn just posed this question, so I took a few minutes to write a response. I wrote a much longer article on this blog not too long ago on this topic:

Setting Up a New Unlocked Smartphone: www.infotart.com/blog/2008/01/05/setting-up-a-new-unlocked-phone/

So here’s my response to the LinkedIn question which I wrote this afternoon:

For me, it also depends on the phone’s operating system. I own several smartphones (either Symbian S60 or UIQ). As a mobile UI designer, I’ve also enjoyed spending time with Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm devices.

For me, personally, once I get a new phone, I always put all of my contacts on the phone. I use a free service from Zyb (www.zyb.com, now owned by Vodaphone) to sync my contacts to my devices. The device must have SyncML support, which includes most smartphones.

I use Google Calendar to manage my social calendar and I don’t need all of those events on my device’s calendar. The reason is that I set up Google Calendar to send me an SMS by default for all events about 15 min. before starting. (That setting is editable for each individual event.) But if I did want my calendar on my phone, I would use GooSync (www.goosync.com). GooSync also offers to sync your Google contacts.

One of the first things I do with a new phone is put my personal email on the device. I have Gmail, but don’t like the Java-based Gmail application. Instead, most smartphones support linking POP/IMAP accounts like Gmail into the phone’s native email app. That’s what I use with S60 and UIQ phones, and it works great!

Next, I put Google Maps on my phone. The features for Google Maps varies by operating system. It’s very rich on S60 devices, including getting location data from an external GPS receiver via Bluetooth (which is what I have in my car) or via cell tower. Hopefully those features are coming to UIQ soon, as I really missed it on my Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman phone. Google Maps has a few annoying quirks, but it’s free and works great overall.

I really like Fring (www.fring.com) on my WiFi-enabled S60 phone. I like being able to make calls over WiFi, as well as chat with friends on Skype and some other services.

Another good WiFi VOIP app is the Gizmo Project (www.gizmoproject.com), which has excellent integration with S60 phones as a native “Internet Call” service. The Gizmo Project is like Skype’s less famous (and not quite as pretty) cousin, but the VOIP calling features work great.

I love the concept of JoikuSpot Light (www.joiku.com) which turns your S60 phone into a wireless Internet WiFi hotspot! Since I also carry an iPod Touch around, I can enjoy my email and web browsing on a bigger screen on the iPod Touch. The beta version worked only so-so with my Nokia E65, so I’m hoping that the recently released full version will be working better.

Another Internet access utility that I’ve heard lots of great thing about is Psiloc Connect (http://connect.psiloc.com). This handy little utility helps ensure that your WiFi enabled phone connects to WiFi points when they’re available rather than eating up data on your cellular plan. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s very high on my “next to try” list.

It turns out that many of my friends have accounts with Twitter, this fun little “micro-blogging” service that seems to have captured the hearts and minds of the digerati. I first heard about it after the South By Southwest conference last year when it burst onto the scene, but resisted creating my own account at the time.

Well, I finally took the plunge and created my own account on Twitter yesterday. So far so good — two days into it and I’m still doing it! Look me up at: www.twitter.com/AnthonyHand

If you’re on Twitter already, let’s be friends! My ID is AnthonyHand.

I’m hoping that my fascination with this shiny new toy lasts a bit longer than a month…

A friend of mine, Zach Braiker, started a fun and cool semi-regular dinner club called the Rubber Chicken Social Club. At a recent meet up, I met three gals who Twitter like crazy and write for a cool blog called Our American Shelf Life. Amanda, bless her heart, pulled out one of those Flip Video Cameras and they insisted on interviewing me about the Apple iPhone and mobile user experience. How cool is that!

Hey! I listed InfoTart on the Blog Catalog, if you follow that site:

www.blogcatalog.com/directory/personal

Went to a friend’s house in Medway today for a little barbecue/get together. Had a great time out in the countryside, and their place is beautiful.

After our late lunch, Sue made espresso using their stovetop espresso maker –just like the Italians do, apparently. And I have to say that the espresso really was amazing! (Of course, putting light cream in mine I’m sure just made it that much better… yum!)

So now I’m thinking that I need to get a stovetop espresso maker, as well. After all, they start at around $30. Cheaper and better tasting than those new espresso makers!

And of course, I went onto Amazon.com and found this gorgeous, sleek Bialetti one for $45 instead. And with Christmas not for another 7 months or so, I’m thinking that I need to do a little early shopping…

Neil Gaiman spoke at MIT last night, the first in a new Julius Schwartz lecture series from the MIT Comparative Media Studies program. My friend, JP, is an avid reader of quite a number of different genres, including comics and fantasy, and was lucky enough to score tickets. The lecture sold out way in advance and had somewhere around 1300 attendees!

Mr. Gaiman was a brilliant speaker. It was my first time seeing him speak, and one is never sure whether good authors are also going to be good speakers, but Mr. Gaiman was fantastic. He was funny, charming, witty, and incredibly comfortable in front of such a large audience. He spoke a little about a few of his books, but the main part of his lecture was on the connection between hardcore pornography and musicals, which was then extended to define genre fiction in general, including westerns and fantasy.

Read more about Mr. Gaiman’s MIT visit in his own words at his blog:  http://journal.neilgaiman.com

My friend, Chris, is going to a “No Pants Part” tonight, so we stopped at the Garment District in Kendall Square to see what kinds of fun costumes they might have. And as anyone who’s ever been to the Garment District know, there’s more fun to be had wandering around the giant store seeing what kinds of crazy old (and some new) clothing they randomly have in stock than anything else.

Along the way, we happened upon a stash of these great hats and Chris tried one out. Awesome! He can totally pull off that look.

In the end, Chris settled on a gladiator costume for a pretty reasonable price. Let’s hope the party turns out well. And if he’s lucky, a pretty girl may ask him the kilt question.

Ryan Landry is up to his theatrical mania again. This time, the crazy Landry ride is called “Whizzin’” and is based on The Wizard of Oz. Needless to say, this is an 18 and over crowd only.

There’s a good review of it over at The Edge Boston, so I’ll spare y’all my feeble attempts. Suffice it to say that the show was a lot of fun. I went in there not knowing what to expect, except that I would laugh my ass off and gasp multiple times at the outrageous humor. Happily, Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans didn’t disappoint.

After the show, a few of the cast hung out with a giant Vagina Dentata, letting audience members get their picture taken in it with Glenda for a donation of $10. I took a snapshot on my Nokia E65 camera phone of some random guy posing for his picture. Hilarious! (And honestly, I have no idea who this guy is…)

So if you haven’t seen it yet and you have an appreciation for Landry’s peculiar brand of gender-twisting, culture lampooning, outrageous humor, get your tickets today! And don’t forget that extra $10…