Peter Rukavina wrote a very cool hack for Nokia Chat and Plazes over the weekend. Using a jabber bot, you can request Plazes places based on your location. Of course the results vary based on user submitted data, but the idea is quite compelling and something I would imagine we’ll see more of when Nokia integrates Plazes into the budding Ovi suite.
To get started you simply add reinvented@ovi.com to your buddy list and you should then see something like this:
You can then make your requests and see where the places are on the map. You can even add these locations as landmarks which is quite handy as well. In fact the landmark makes it possible to roundtrip the data back to Nokia Chat if you share your location within your presence.
Nokia has just pre-announced that in September they’ll be recruiting for a new program called Nokia Pilots. Pilots will give those recruited the chance to impact future next generation products and services through advanced access and feedback. While there’s only a limited amount of information posted, I believe this will be a very big idea.
Nokia Pilots gives you a unique opportunity to get involved in Nokia’s creative process. Get an insider’s perspective by taking an active role in the development and testing that will help shape Nokia’s next generation of products and services. Your input and suggestions will help us develop new ideas that will be put into action as we strive to create the best products and services possible. Nokia believes that the best way to get better is by working together. [Nokia Pilots]
As you might expect, I’m very interested in getting on board with this program and believe I’ve got a lot to share. Getting involved in the vision for how the services work is huge! Nokia has stated many times that they are becoming an internet company through a suite of services which have really only just begun to go live. The conversation will only continue to evolve!
The Nokia E71 North American Edition (NAM) is finally available!
There was actually a special launch event tonight at the Nokia Flagship in NYC which I stumbled onto just making calls for availability. If you are interested it’s running for $483 plus tax. You might be able to find a better deal online through some other venues, but I’m really glad the price is below 500 bucks unsubsidized. My NAM edition arrives tomorrow and I’m looking forward to getting back into HSDPA with it ASAP.
Last week, Nokia Beta Labs released a very cool new application called Nokia Chat. As you might guess, Nokia Chat is an IM application, but that just starts to scratch the surface as there are also additional layers of presence and location. Unlike some apps you might have tried like Jaiku or twitter, Nokia Chat is about one to one communication and does not have a public room in which everyone’s discussions pass by.
Nokia Chat is Jabber based and to use it touch need to sign up or in using your Ovi sign-in. Your handle is then nickname@ovi.com and you can also add this account to your desktop IM client using chat.ovi.com as the server.
In addition to chatting with your friends and colleagues you can share locations as well using the GPS on your device. This is something you are fully in control of though, so rest assured that your actual location is not revealed unless you to choose to share. Nokia Chat integrates with the system landmarks and uses the familiar (or actual if you prefer) name in you presence line. You get to send you own location which provides a link to you on the map and is fully navigable from within your mapping app so you can meet up if you like – or simply just see where someone is hanging out. What’s nice about landmarks is that you can use saved locations from both Google Maps or Nokia Maps. When you open a location link, it goes to Nokia Maps …
Nokia has integrated Chat into the address book though it works as a tab within the application. On the N95 you move the rocker to the right and then switch into chat mode. On the E71, the tab is accessed by moving to the left, which gets you into the tab ui at the top of the screen. When chat is running it is also actually using contacts and I’ve found you need to keep both open in order to stay actively connected.
The GPS functions by searching on a user defined interval. 20 minutes is the default and that seems to offer a nice balance between actively sharing and managing battery life. It’s hard to tell exactly how long the connection is maintained, but from an offline state to connected your location can be shared within a matter of moments (less than 30 seconds including application start up) thanks to the use of landmarks as reference points and the speed of AGPS.
Nokia Chat has become my preferred mobile IM app. I would love to see support for additional IM services which would let this work beyond just Nokia handset owners. You can add Gtalk and other jabber service buddies, but connecting with AIM, MSN and Yahoo contacts would make it complete – even if those people could never take advantage of the Nokia specific features. I have found the application to be very lightweight and notifications for chats are easy to manage and not intrusive.
I’ve been playing with Nokia devices for a few years now thanks to the blogger relations program but the program has been focused on the Nseries line. This past week however, I received an E71 which has made me an instant Eseries convert. The E as you might expect stands for Enterprise which would lead you to believe there’s a corporate focus here and while that’s certainly a strong suit (ahem) there is nothing conservative here at all.
The styling is awesome – metal, sleek and shiny. The build quality is the best I’ve seen with the exception of Nokia’s 8800 which was designed as a luxury device. The E71 makes my Blackberry Curve feel like a toy by comparison.
The E61 and E61i which I’ve also used are the prior generation of this device and yet aside from the QWERTY keyboard there’s very little in common in experience so far – and that’s a very good thing! I actually loved the E61 when I first purchased it a few years back and was excited to try the E61i which enhanced the original with a slightly refined body and a camera. Both however, simply did not have enough memory to multitask and I found the batteries was easily drained by mid-day running push email. I had the opportunity to switch over to the E61i from the BB Curve but had to return to the Blackberry after a short time due to a weak battery as well as issues staying synced with Exchange. Exchange sync has been fixed thanks to the free Mail for Exchange updates and the E71’s battery is a whopping 1500Mah – the same as the Nokia N810.
As you can see in the above shot the E71 is between the Curve and iPhone in shape and size, though it’s thinner in both thickness and width than either device. It feels amazingly solid feeling in your hand and easily slides in and out of your pocket as you need it.
I think the more logical comparison of the two is the Blackberry since that’s really the target for a device like this but there’s not much to compare. I’ve always found Blackberries to be very strong in wireless sync and speed between messages and while the prior E61 series were not stellar here, the E71 is super quick. Aside from the speed, I’m running a ton of apps concurrently and using gobs of data on both cellular and wifi simultaneously. Handy Taskman reports 61MB of free memory on boot which easily lets me do anything I can imagine with the E71. I typically run two push email accounts, Nokia Chat, Jaiku, the browser with multiple windows and have the Music Player open. On my commute I’m listening to music or podcasts over A2DP. I’ve found in the past week that my usage of the Nokia Internet Tablet has gone from several hours a day to only a few minutes … The E71 can handle just about anything.
While the E71 has a very solid qwerty keybord, the software also includes predictive text which works better than other systems I’ve tried (NIT and BB). Anything you type can be added to the system dictionary and is then available anywhere you need – whether in a note or even in a form field within the browser. I’ve added at between 50 and 100 new words if not more since starting out. The text prediction works with contractions, but for some reason does not add a period after a double space. Hopefully that can be addressed with a software update. The keyboard layout seems far more optimized that the E61 as well. It’s easy to reach key punctuation and symbols without having to hunt around or use the character shortcut key.
The Browser has received a nice boost on two fronts. I discovered fullscreen mode immediately and have not looked back. This elimiates the soft key shortcuts and page titles to maximize the page view. With a double press on the left soft key you are at the menu for bookmarks setttings etc. A single tap is handy to see how much of a page has loaded since you can’t see the loading bar in fullscreen. I would love to see the fullscreen mode drop back to window view when a page is loading and then back to fullscreen on completion so you never had to guess what was happening. I’ve actually suggested this to “some people” and hope it makes it in on a software update schedule. The other key detail here is that new windows spawn when opened from other apps or via an active standby screen shortcut. I love this one. It’s seriously annoying to lose your place when coming over from an email link and having a new window open instead is the same way I use my desktop browser.
In software, there’s a nice dictionary which can serve either as a traditional dictionary or if you download (for free) additional languages you can also use it as a translator which could be quite handy when traveling in another country. Otherwise the on-board software is as you might expect from S60 though for some reason Access Groups are no longer on board. This was a handy way to package both cell and wifi AP’s together in a single stack. I really hope this returns. The new Nokia Chat beta application actually has a nice facility for selecting multiple AP’s by type for access … perhaps this is a new direction for things and will make it’s way in to the rest of the system as well.
The E71 is as close to a QWERTY Nseries as I think we might see. It does everything a high end Nseries does with though lacks Carl Zeiss optics and automatic auto-focus (press T when the camera is open). The 3.2mp camera does a fine job – not great, but substantially better than most phones. From a multimedia angle, music, podcasts and video are all fine. Sound is fine for my daily needs and while video looks great on this screen, the consistency in framerates are not at the same level as what I’ve experienced on the N95. Though I can’t say I necessarily expect the same level of entertainment access with an Eseries.
One last function to note which I’ve honestly barely used is the ability to switch modes. The idea here is that you get one device with multiple personalities. If you want work messaging on until the weekend and a focus on your personal stuff after hours and on weekends, you can press one button and switch over to a more personal (active standby) view. I’ve been running both email accounts all the time – I guess I’m too Type A not to just leave it all going all the time.
In general, the E71 is one helluva solid device. The only thing missing here is 3G support for the US, but that’s coming …and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
BBC is running a very cool piece on the Supermarket of the future. You scan your items as you go via your phone’s bar code reader and then the phone’s software generates a single bar code to total everything making it quick on the checkout side as well. You can even choose to pay via NFC or a biometric finger print reader!
The whole thing is shown running on a Nokia N82 and uses custom software specific for the store which looks like it’s a European Costco.
I find Google’s choice to release an iPhone web app version of Google Talk a very interesting choice. It’s less than two weeks until we see some true applications for the iPhone and this release clearly highlights the limits of the current browser functions. When you switch away from the window, you become unavailable. It’s rather self-defeating as it negates any presence opportunities and forces chat into a very task based activity which is awkward. Most of us leave chat running in the background all the time ..
I tried the site on the N95 while on the train and it was not detected. There does not appear to be a /i version either for the moment and the iPhone URL does not exactly work.
What’s really interesting though is how different Google’s approach is for Android. After installing Android on the Nokia N810 last night I noticed that there is an xmpp service running ALL THE TIME. While this will clearly connect you to the Google cloud and your services it will also open up some very interesting presence and communication opportunities.
.
Android seems like it will have chat and probably presence as a core service.
The study published yesterday highlights how consumers are most interested in messaging – text and email, before additional features and functions like a and having a camera. From an application perspective people only tend to install around 6 things. If chat is a core service it could do some serious damage to the sms revenues carriers love and certainly be quite the kickstart to changing consumer behavior.
It’s not clear yet who will be buying the devices when they arrive aside from the early adopter types, but it’s pretty easy to see how IM could replace a good portion of your current text needs. I currently get news alerts in addition to the usual exchanges with friends over text. If there was an always on IM option running as a service on my connected device, I’d be all over that instead.
Flixwagon has released a big update today! They’ve also opened the service to anyone now from the previously closed beta. You can sign up here.
Notable enhancements:
Share on Twitter and YouTube directly from phone: you can share individual videos on twitter and YouTube directly from your device, as well as customize the message or titles. All you need to do is add your Twitter or YouTube account details on Flixwagon.com, and then you can customize posts directly from your phone.
Detailed sharing from device: on your device you can now easily choose which specific groups (friends, family, etc.) can access your video. Make sure you set up your contacts, groups, and alerts first on flixwagon.com and you can start sharing flix with them on the fly.
Digital Zoom-in and zoom-out.
Post messages back to chat. You can send IM messages back to the video chat room, making chats around your video 2-way. This is especially useful when you want to respond to your viewers’ comments without interrupting the video or audio in the broadcast.
Change title: you can now change the video title directly from the phone while broadcasting. This is great when the ‘right’ headline comes to you while you broadcast (and can help more viewers discover your broadcast while you’re still broadcasting live).
Choose between delay or video quality: in the preferences section you can determine whether your broadcasts will be optimized for the shortest delay, or highest video quality.
Almost three quarters of mobile phone users cite text messaging capabilities as the most important feature when purchasing a new handset, according to a consumer survey conducted by mobile solutions provider Access Systems Americas and independent research firm Amplitude Research. Given a list of 19 different mobile features and services, 73 percent of consumers cited texting as the most critical data component–cameras were second with 67 percent, followed by mobile email (63 percent) and web access (61 percent). Music (34 percent) and video (33 percent) also featured prominently in the poll. Conversely, only 0.5 percent of consumers said battery life plays a role in their phone purchase, with voice activation earning just 0.33 percent.
The Access survey also reports that 39 percent of respondents have added new applications to their handsets, with just over 21 percent adding six or more new apps. Forty-two percent of respondents cited stock tracking applications as the most necessary, followed by sports teams/game trackers (36.6 percent), business applications (10.3 percent), productivity apps (7.5 percent) and utilities (4.8 percent). Almost 40 percent of respondents said they use their cell phone for “alerts,” e.g. traffic, weather and stock market updates. Nearly 30 percent of respondents said they use their phone for banking transactions or to check account balances. [FierceMobileContent]
Messaging (txt and email) is the clear leader in what consumers want along with a camera… It’s easy to see how a device like an iPhone or a Blackberry with qwerty functions make it simple for people to select. Clearly those devices along with most others offer a host of additional capabilities, but people are installing only a few key applications.
It should be interesting to see what effect the iPhone applications store has on this once the initial frenzy cools out. My take is that we’ll see quite a few of the same types of applications and that there’s likely to be some fatigue after people get over the fact that they can even install something on the iPhone.
The latest S60 update (Feature Pack 2) supports firmware over the air and today I had a chance to test it out. Using a wifi connection I was able to check and then download the update which then proceeded to reboot and update my device as shown.
I manually checked for the update via the Device Manager application (Tools / Utilities) which took care of the rest. Unlike previous efforts to update my phone, I did not have to have a SIM card inside and there was no worrying about bumping the cord.
I’ve written a fair bit about the N78 recently and wanted to note that the US 3G (NAM) edition is available! I’ve yet to have the pleasure of HSDPA on this device and can only imagine how much better the experience this will bring, The N78 is really an very powerful device in a slim little package.
After using it for a couple of weeks, it has really grown on me. The only thing missing for me is 3G and that’s finally here for my US friends. The N78 runs S60 Feature Pack 2 (S603.2) and offers considerable ease of use enhancements as well as some cool new tricks like Remote Disk Sharing and Home Sync.
The N78 sells for $560 which places it in the upper middle end of the N-Series line, but like all devices it’s completely open – and ready for whatever you might imagine.
I think it might be more likely that men are installing applications and in particular a new browser while women are perhaps more content to use the experience provided by their handset manufacturer or carrier. It’s hard to really know but the only way Opera can even report this type of data is based on who downloads, installs and registers their software. via Mobile Entertainment
You may have noticed that Google updated Search, Reader and iGoogle for mobile … The iGoogle page has been around for a while though not named iGoogle. If you’d signed into Google, you were able to personalize the start page via mobile which was nice, but now there’s an easier way from your desktop. (thanks AAS)
Reader has been enhanced via the iPhone URL for a while now and I enjoy that view on my N810 as well as the various handsets I tend to use. This morning, I noticed that the old default (and crappy) view has been altered to be more like the iPhone version though …not quite as nice. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll see that you are probably within the Classic view. Click on Mobile instead and you will have access to the richer iPhone view which as discussed previously works great on S60 and on the Maemo Mozilla Browser. The new enhancements work great too … I can now share with note or email from within the mobile view on both platforms which essentially gives me (and you) a full featured mobile reader. Another tip is to hit # and the view zooms out one level which gives you more on screen. Enjoy!
There’s no need to wait for Apple to flip .Mac into MobileMe to take advantage of your iDisk via mobile …
The Nokia N78 as well as other Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2) devices all have the capability to connect and use remote drives via a feature called Remote Disk. I’ve added my Apple iDisk from my .Mac account and can stream music and video over wifi. I’m sure it would work over 3G as well if 3G was accessible on my device and at my house.
If MobileMe doesn’t float your boat for your iPhone sync needs, don’t worry. Funambol are on the case, big time. Funambol provides open source push email, contacts & calendars for everyone — on a huge range of handsets. [SMS Text News]
While this post is not really about the iPhone it is the standard for experience and should be mentioned briefly. I’m sure plenty of people will be willing to debate the feature end as well though given the device is still playing catchup with hardware, I’ll leave it at that.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve received two new N-Series devices, first the N82 and more recently the N78. While the N82 handily beats the N78 in specs, I find myself enjoying and choosing to use the N78 more. Part of this is that it’s a new gadget ,but as I’ve thought about it it’s really the updated S60 OS. Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2) really is a terrific update. There are many subtleties as I discussed in my overview and it’s hard to go back – not hard to use, but I am quickly growing accustomed to the new way it’s done on Symbian and not looking to revert. I am still carrying choices around – N78, N82, N95 at the moment but find I am even skipping over the 3G N95 for the moment to get the better experience from the OS.
Now if I had a second SIM card … I’d absolutely be using the N95 for the faster data access and tethering capability. That’s a considerable expense though and a luxury I’ve yet to convince myself I need.
The Nokia N78 arrived last night and I charged it up and started to play after getting the kids to bed. I’ve found that the N-Series line is similar to BMW though instead of 3/5/7 we have 7/8/9. The 9 series tend to be all around experts, while the 8s are more like category stars and the 7 series generally provide much of what you get across the board, but perhaps a slightly lower spec. I don’t mean this to take anything away from the N78. The N73, which the N78 seems to be designed to replace has been one of my favorite devices in the N-Series lineup.
After less than 24 hours use, the N78 impresses. It’s the first N-Series with USB 2.0 and the first Nokia with an FM Transmitter. You’ll also find 3.2MP Autofocus Zeiss optics, WiFi, GPS, geo-tagging of photos etc etc. There’s ample system processing speed and the updated operating system (S60 Feature Pack 2) offers some improvements that are sure to make S60 more approachable to a first timer, though may actually take a bit to adjust to as an experienced user. The keyboard is highly compressed and honestly it feels a bit small to me. The N82 has very small keys, but they are well spaced and easy to use while the N82 has a unique key formation that while easy to use is just a tight fit. Overall the device is feels nice in your hand. It’s lighter and thinner than the N82, though they are both about the same length.
Feature Pack 2 adds easier access to what’s running, shows the clock deeper in the system and adds a few other tricks like Audio Themes, timed Profiles and vertical standby layout. You also get an alphabetical list when adding applications in the shortcut list which sounds obvious but seems to be random in OS releases until now. I’ve also noticed that when the N78 syncs with PC Suite, sync occurs in the background and you only see a small icon near the battery meter. A very nice addition is the use of access point priorities / groups which let you define an order of connection types to get the best you have (WiFi or cellular) through a single point. This was previously only seen on E-Series devices though it’s simpler here. It’s been a while since I’ve used the S60 mail client for any period of time, but I configured my Gmail as IMAP and have to say it’s far more responsive than I recall. I’m not sure this is FP2 specific, but I think messaging has definitely been boosted.
The unit I have is the N78-1 which is the EMEA release meaning I don’t have 3G for the US. This is a bummer, but I don’t have 3G at my house anyway, so I’m hardly missing it at the moment. The camera is uncovered which is a bummer, but something I’ve become quite used to as well on the N95-3.
The back cover is seriously challenging to removed compared to other devices and I actually already broke, yes broke, the pull tab. I’m hoping it’s still relatively easy to get access underneath as my SIM is in there … Otherwise the device is solid.
In my usage, I’ve found GPS acquisition to be super quick – less than 10 seconds. The UI is snappy, though the Navi-Wheel can be tricky. I tested the FM Transmitter last night with the BH-903 headphones and was very pleased to see that the connection worked meaning I won’t have to deal with A2DP drop-outs, though it was not as loud as the bluetooth audio …
I’ve done a walk-through video as well which should give a good sense of what the device is like to use as well as a comparison to other recent Nokia N-Series Handsets like the N82, N81 and N95 and even the N73 for good measure.
Yes I know the iPhone has no keyboard, so let’s just put that to the side….
There are however plenty of other devices that can take advantage of the excellent work that’s been done on the updated mobile UI which do have keyboards … like the Nokia N810 which runs a Mozilla browser and the N95 which has the S60 Webkit browser. The more I’ve used the latest Google Reader the more it’s clear that a very wide array of devices could be using this and why not add just a bit more functionality to enhance it that much more.
I’m thinking the N810 could probably get this going through a greasemonkey script … Anyone up to the challenge?
I love this device … I have an E61i handy, but the reduction in size and enhanced OS and build look stunning! Syncing with all my work stuff never hurts either …
If AT&T does get this it will continue to carry the leading devices with the 3G iPhone, Blackberry Bold and Nokia E71. I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of these devices … but it’s going to be quite the choice!
