Nokia no longer manufacturing handsets in Germany?

According to the following Nokia press release, we may no longer see German-manufactured Nokia handsets in the market.

“NOKIA PRESS RELEASE January 15, 2008

“Nokia plans closure of its Bochum site in Germany Manufacturing to be transferred to other Nokia sites in Europe Espoo, Finland- Nokia today announced plans to discontinue the production of mobile devices in Germany and close its Bochum site by mid-2008. The company plans to move manufacturing to its other, more cost-competitive sites in Europe. As a consequence of the planned shift of production from Bochum to other European sites, Nokia also intends to discontinue other non-production activities at the Bochum site. In conjunction with the announced plans to close its Bochum site, Nokia is also announcing plans to sell its line fit automotive business and it is in negotiations with Sasken Technologies to sell the Bochum-based adaptation software RD-entity.  The planned closure of the site in Bochum is estimated to affect approximately 2,300 Nokia employees. Nokia’s decision to discontinue manufacturing in Bochum is based on the lack of competitiveness of the location.

Renewing the site would require additional investments but even this would not result in manufacturing in Bochum being globally competitive. ”The planned closure of the Bochum production site is necessary to secure Nokia’s long-term competitiveness,” said Veli Sundbäck, Executive Vice President of Nokia and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Nokia GmbH. “Due to market changes and increasing requirements for cost-effectiveness, production of mobile devices in Germany is no longer feasible for Nokia. It cannot be operated in a way that meets the requirements for global cost efficiency and for flexible capacity growth. Therefore we have to make this tough decision.” Nokia will start the consultations with the employee representatives as soon as possible in order to to reach a satisfactory solution for all parties concerned. The financial costs associated with this restructuring will be determined along with the consultation process and reported in Nokia’s quarterly reporting for 2008.”

How does “accessibility” fit into Nokia’s strategies?

These days, thanks to Symbian S60 screen readers, we’re allowed to use cell phones and take advantage of the latest enhancements which companies like Nokia incorporate into their cell phones. However, apart from the features screen readers provide, do you think Nokia is playing a constructive role in making the situation better? I think the answer to this question is at least partially manifested in a web site called Nokia Accessibility.

Set up by Nokia, this web site outlines the features Nokia incorporates into its handsets to help people with various types of disability. Under the section titled Vision, Nokia provides a list of features which have been either designed or tweaked with the visually impaired in mind. They are:

• Text-to-speech,
• Nokia PC Suite,
• Nokia Audiobooks,
• Nokia Conversation,
• Message Reader,
• Product manuals in alternate formats.

While Nokia deserves our praise in this regard, in my opinion a lot more should be done to improve the aforementioned items and features. For instance, the TTS engine Nokia ships with many handsets is inferior to commercial ones. Just take a look at how the Nokia TTS sounds when used with a screen reader like Nuance TALKS. True, some Nokia handsets have RealSpeak voices, but this is not the popular trend to equip each and every top-selling handset with an engine like this. Moreover, recent releases of the Nokia PC Suite are poorly accessible to say the least, and Nokia simply provides the following instructions to make using the PC Suite with Windows screen readers a smoother experience:

• Disable the autorun when PC Suite is loaded. (You can’t use JAWS or a screen reader with autorun on any of the devices.)
• To disable the autorun, press and hold the shift key while the CD is being recognized. Then choose “manually install” PC Suite with help from JAWS.
• When PC Suite finishes installing, connect the phone to the PC, go to Explorer, and find the third-party text-to-speech software installer.
• Install the text-so-speech application.

Yes, the typo also comes from Nokia! At any rate, I’m sure many of you have noticed that even installing Nokia PC Suite with its graphical buttons which must be labeled first is a pain in the neck.

Nokia Audiobooks and Nokia Conversation are new concepts whose material applications are not, currently at least, totally compatible with Symbian screen readers. Also, the PDF files Nokia provides for its products are accessible to Windows screen readers; however, they make use of graphics rather than text blocks to mention keys and hot keys, thereby preventing visually impaired users from reading them.

At the end of the day, I hate to be called an “accessibility hawk” by you. I’ve been using Nokia handsets for years, and I truly believe in what Nokia has done to help people with disabilities, and compared with other companies, it’s well ahead of the game. However, it shouldn’t stop here. As for software issues, I think Nokia’s Accessibility department should work with screen reader developers so as to release a product with fewer accessibility glitches. As a case in point, when 3^rd Edition Nokia handsets were made available, visually impaired users lost the ability to use their screen readers on a call, and it took more than a year for screen reader developers to fix this glitch, partially at least. And currently Nokia Search is inaccessible to all Symbian screen reader users. Here the bottom line is that screen reader manufacturers shouldn’t start work on a particular handset when it just reaches the market. In the first place, how long did it take for Nuance and Code Factory to release their products for 3^rd Edition cell phones?

What else do you think should be done to alter the current situation?

Introducing AppQLaunch

Have you read negative or disappointing reviews about Microsoft’s latest Windows release, Vista? Well, if all complaints are sound, Vista has a killer feature which allows you to press the Windows key, type the first few letters of the application you want to open, select it from the list by pressing Enter on the program you want, and it’s done! So cool, isn’t it?

That’s exactly the idea behind developing a free app for S60 3^rd Edition phones called “AppQLaunch”. Basically, you install the program (preferably to the phone memory), assign it to one of the soft keys or move it to the main menu from the Applications folder, run it, press Key 1 to select the Refresh option, and that’s all about it. Just type something like “BL” to activate “Bluetooth”, and “RA” to activate “Radio”. Very efficient and time-saving.

The program is developed by Yohanes and can be downloaded here. Do you like it?

N73 ME new firmware update

I’m sure many of you know the popular N73. Here I also have an N73 Music Edition and do love the device. Although not yet available to my region, the N73 ME firmware was updated to V4.0750.31.2.1 a few days ago. While I currently don’t have access to a ChangeLog, I’ve heard that the new firmware makes the device much more responsive. It may well have been equipped with Demand Paging! Anyway, I’ll be posting the ChangeLog here as I get it. And, BTW, it’s nice to see Nokia not forgetting older devices which used to get the limelight a while ago.

The need for a feature-rich native file browser

 

 

Imagine purchasing a new copy of Windows and then having to buy a so-called “Windows Explorer” for it. If this makes you laugh a little, you should grind your teeth when the same is true regarding S60 Nokia phones.

It’s really odd to buy a cell phone (like the N82 or the N73) and then make an attempt to locate a powerful file browser for it. True, there are a few free or cheap high-quality file browsers, but, in my opinion, users shouldn’t be forced to use them when Nokia can and should take one of the most basic features of using an operating system more seriously.

So, Nokia, come on and incorporate the superb features of yBrowser and other file managers into the native Symbian file browser.

Nokia Audiobooks updated on Dec. 21st

 

If you are a big fan of listening to audiobooks on your cell phones and have been wondering which application to use for that purpose, come take a look at

Nokia Audiobooks.

It allows you to read audiobooks on your Symbian 9.XX phone in a compressed format. You can also create bookmarks in your books, and I think it’s a great start for both Nokia and avid book readers.

The program works relatively well with TALKS, although if you have a few books on the phone TALKS might remain silent in the book list. This will be taken care of soon. Also, the Audiobooks web site allows you to download the Audiobooks convertor for PCs, and the program itself is under constant development based on user feedback. The latest update was posted on Dec. 21^st 2007 and provides the following fixes:

• Bookmarks are now sorted correctly, previous version was sorting them in order of creation, correct sorting is in order of appearance in a book.
• When keylock is activated, sleep-pause is not activated anymore
• Supports finnish language in UI.

Happy reading!

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Nokia, please stop banning Iranians

I didn’t want to start one of my early posts this way, but what I saw last night terribly shocked me.

In Iran many people tend to buy Nokia cell phones because “nokia” is always associated with high-quality products. Yesterday as I was trying to access the

Mosh

Web site to download Ybrowser for my N82 I received the following error message:

“Country block: This service is not available in your area.”

Now, Nokia, I’m really interested in knowing why on earth you’ve decided to take such a harsh stance towards Iranians. This is not the first time I’ve seen such a thing. Few days ago I tried to modify my subscription to “Nokia email services”, and, to my surprise, Iran wasn’t in the list of available countries.

This will harm Nokia’s reputation in the long run and, above all, only affects Iranian people not the so-called intended target of these sanctions. So please, Nokia, remove Iran from your blacklist! I’m just hoping to not be banned as I access Nokia Software Updater!

My N82 is here

OK, the waiting game is over and I finally have the N82 in my hands!

It took a long time for the N82 to reach Iran, and I’m glad I can make use of its fabulous features. Over the next few days I’ll be reviewing the device, so stay tuned for my posts. Also, do let me know if you think I should focus on a particular feature of the device. More later . . .

What is Mobile Space?

“Well, there are a whole host of blogs which talk about different aspects of using cell phones over there; so what is this one trying to achieve?”

I’m sure many of you will think about this as you read the title of my blog. To answer your valid question, however, I should talk about myself a little.

I’m 26 years old, live in Tehran, Iran, have an M.A. degree in Language Teaching Methodology, and currently work as an IT specialist for the visually impaired for the Iranian State Welfare Organization. Needless to say, I’m also visually impaired.

Now back to the discussion. This blog aims to cover the following issues:

• The latest developments related to the Symbian operating system,
• Newly made available cell phones and accessories,
• Screen readers for Symbian-based cell phones,
• Device reviews,
• Tips and tricks,
• And more . . . !

I’m a big fan of Nokia phones and have also used the following cell phones over the past few years: Nokia 6600, Nokia 6630, Nokia N73, Nokia 5700, and Nokia N82. So it’s obvious that throughout these posts I’ll put my best foot forward to come up with feasible suggestions to make using Nokia multimedia computers a more pleasurable experience. Both sighted and visually impaired hand set users may want to visit my blog as I’ll be updating it quite frequently. Your comments are always welcome!