Win a Resco News License by Talking about Your Needs

If you’re wondering whether or not Resco News can fulfill your RSS-related needs, if you’ve read my comprehensive review of this application, or if you’re simply trialing it by comparing its features with those of its rivals, you can win a free Resco News license by talking about the features you want to see incorporated into its future releases. What has prevented you from switching to Resco News? What doesn’t allow it to compete with its siblings? Is it user-friendly or complicated? Does it display something which turns you down? Use the “Comments” section of this article to send your opinion, criticism and feature requests.

Three Resco News licenses are up for grabs – courtesy of Resco, and the deadline is Friday, July 18^th. You can also send your feature requests in separate comments as you continue working with the application over the 14-day trial. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, July 22^nd. This is a good deal, isn’t it?

Symbian Foundation Anatomized: Was It Predictable?

Admittedly, today has been one of the most eventful days I’ve had ever since I started this blog. Let’s recap what we heard today.

1. Nokia wants to buy out all the shares in Symbian LTD that it does not already own. This means Nokia will purchase 52% of Symbian LTD shares with an estimated €264 million sum.
2. Nokia is taking this step to help with the establishment of a new alliance called Symbian Foundation.
3. Influential companies and operators like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO have accepted the foundation’s membership.
4. Membership of the foundation will be open to all organizations with an annual membership fee of US $1,500.
5. The new foundation will be born in early 2009 after Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian LTD is complete.
6. Symbian, S60, UIQ and MOAP Mobile operating systems will be combined into an open-sourced platform within two years.
7. The first handsets using this platform will most likely appear on the market in 2010.

Is such an alliance necessary?

The Symbian platform has been the most successful mobile operating system ever manufactured. In 2007, Symbian-powered smartphones represented almost 7% of all handset sales, and mobile devices based on Symbian currently account for 60% of the converged mobile device segment. Much of this eye-catching success can be attributed to Nokia and its world-renowned handsets. However, it is evident that the use of Symbian variants with handsets manufactured by other companies cannot be called a true achievement. On the one hand, other mobile operating systems such as Apple iPhone and MS Windows Mobile are threatening the dominance of Symbian. On the other, the open-source Android platform supported by Open Handset Alliance
– a venture initiated by Google – will power many handsets starting at the end of 2008. Now take into account the fact that companies like Motorola and Sony Ericsson have been experiencing noticeable slumps with Nokia’s ever-increasing lead. That is, while the popularity of the S60 platform – as a Symbian offspring – has been on the rise, its sibling, UIQ, hasn’t been enjoying the same degree of fortune among handset manufacturers and application developers. Consequently, the establishment of Symbian Foundation is a natural step toward being engaged in the fight which has been put up by mobile OS developers. And why not do it with an aura of respect for open-source application development and distribution?

What comes next?

No one knows for sure how this new foundation would conduct business. Even the name of this so-called consolidated platform isn’t known. One point is obvious: all handset manufacturers which are involved in the establishment of Symbian Foundation will continue using their dedicated mobile platforms until the common operating system emerges in 2010. More interestingly, many companies are members of both Open Handset Alliance and Symbian Foundation, so it remains to be seen how this binary membership affects their policies in the future. Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Broadcom, LG, Texas Instruments and so on are committed to both initiatives, and this might affect the Symbian/Android clash. Whatever the consequences, I’m dead sure consumers will benefit from the expanding number of mobile operating systems as time passes by, and Symbian will most probably remain a major player in the field. Any thoughts or comments?

Do These Suggestions Improve the Status of Signing Symbian Applications?

Let me clarify a point outright: I’ve never been a fan of the currently used “Open Signed” mechanism. Serious inaccessibility issues which prevent the visually impaired from using the system aside, I don’t think it can really play a role in preventing viruses and malware apps from being installed on S60 handsets. First and foremost, S60 applications are installed only after receiving a few confirmatory actions on the part of users, meaning users are in full control of what gets installed and what doesn’t. Second, currently there are a good number of self-signing tools floating around the Symbian ecosystem as a consequence of the restrictions imposed by the current “Open Signed” approach. These tools can sign almost all unsigned applications whereas the “Symbian Signed” mechanism allows for the signing of a limited range of applications. At any rate, I just read this interesting article which makes an attempt to offer a solution to this issue. The fact that these suggestions make it easier for end users to get their applications signed or installed more rapidly is quite promising, but I’m not sure how in effect S60 bloggers and activists can ease today’s restrictions, as suggested in the article. In my opinion, application developers (especially those who produce free/non-commercial applications) must be allowed to get their applications signed both free of charge and without any third-party intervention. Just my two cents worth …

Interesting Comparison of Mobile Vo-IP and IM Applications

While I was browsing the Talkonaut web site, I came across this brief table. Basically, the table tries to compare the free mobile Vo-IP/IM application, Talkonaut, with other apps of its ilk by demonstrating what each program can and can’t do. Fortunately the table is objective enough to be outlined below.

Comparison of mobile Vo-IP+IM applications

Feature/application	Octro	Nimbuzz	Talkonaut	Fring	Truphone	IM+ Skype	Gizmo5
1. Freeware	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	No	yes
2. VoIP over GPRS	yes	Yes	yes	yes	no	No	no
3. VoIP over WIFI	yes	Yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
4. Peer-to-Peer VoIP	yes, Jingle Audio	No, planned	yes, Jingle Audio	yes, proprietary	no	no	no
5. VoIP calls over GSM	no	yes, call-in	yes, callback	no	no	yes, callback	yes, callback
6. SIP calls	no	Yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes, callback
7. Gtalk VoIP calls	yes	Yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes, callback
8. MSN VoIP calls	no	Yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes, callback
9. Yahoo VoIP calls	no	No, planned	yes	no	no	no	yes, callback
10. AIM/ICQ VoIP calls	No	no, planned	yes	yes	no	no	yes, callback
11. Skype VoIP calls	no	Yes	no	yes	no	yes	no
12. SMS over IP	no	yes	yes	no	yes	yes, via Skype	yes
13. IM chat to Gtalk	yes	Yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
14. IM chat to MSN	yes	Yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
15. IM chat to Yahoo	yes	Yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
16. IM chat to ICQ/AIM	yes	Yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
17. IM chat to Skype	no	Yes	no	yes	no	yes	no
18. IM chat to Facebook	no	No	no	no	no	no	yes
19. IM chat to MySpace	no	No	no	no	no	no	yes
20. IM chat to Twitter	yes, over Jabber	yes, over Jabber	yes, over Jabber	yes	no	yes, over Jabber	yes, over Jabber
21. Multi-user chat	no	yes, proprietary	yes, Jabber standard	no	no	yes, proprietary	yes, Jabber standard
22. Custom/non-standard GUI	no	yes	yes	no	no	yes	yes
23. File transfer	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
Score	12	18	19	16	5	12	18

The following conclusions have also been drawn from the table.

• Only Octro, Talkonaut, Nimbuzz, Truphone and Fring can be considered as real mobile VoIP applications, which means they utilize data connections to send VoIP traffic over.
• Talkonaut is the most feature-rich mobile VoIP software currently available on the market.
• For those users who don’t need Skype support, Talkonaut can be considered as the best mVoIP solution.

Nothing can be said to damage the integrity of these conclusions, and Talkonaut is also a very good application if you exclude its incompatibility with Symbian screen readers. What’s more, who doesn’t need Skype these days? Furthermore, both iSkoot for Skype and IM+ Mobile Messenger – which aren’t true VoIP mobile applications – are absent in the list.

What else do you think could have been included in the table? Perhaps retaining the history previous chats? Do you know of any other applications which could have been listed?

Suggestions for My Forthcoming Podcast Needed

Well, the title says it all. I’m planning to add a podcast to this blog. I’m sure many people prefer to listen to podcasts and find it more convenient. In addition, I can demonstrate how good my English is in spite of the fact that I’m not a native speaker! <smile>

At any rate, I’m looking forward to receiving your suggestions about this podcast. At this time and before making the final decision as to what should be included in each episode, I’d be glad to gather your opinions and recommendations. Should each episode reach you based on a pre-determined timeline or do you prefer random but frequent podcasts? Should I publish my product reviews as separate podcasts or should they also appear on this blog? I’m dead sure we’ll reach a deal at the end. The blog and the podcast will co-exist, and the podcast won’t replace the blog. On the other hand, it would complement the blog.

Nokia and the Missing Nseries Features

If you own a high-end Nseries handset like the N95, the N82 or the old but much revered N73, its multimedia capabilities might have electrified you time and again. After all, Nseries devices are known for their fabulous cameras, stereo speakers and multi-tasking capabilities. With the debut of each Nseries handset, Nokia does a good job of raising the bar. For instance, take a look at the upcoming N78 specs. It has everything you might need: a 3.2MP camera, a 1200 battery, extended playback capabilities and, last but not least, an FM transmitter. The same can be applied to the upcoming N96 which would make many people happy with its expanded video recording capabilities.

As an Nseries fan, however, I think these aren’t enough to create a perfect handset. In other words, Nokia should also go beyond the so-called multimedia-specific features in order to be able to convince Windows Mobile and UIQ users to gravitate toward Nokia handsets in general and toward Nseries smartphones in particular. What are these features, you might ask. Let me explain a bit.

A good keyboard, please

I’d be happy if someone can solve this riddle: why hasn’t Nokia built a single Nseries handset with a standard keyboard so far? Put differently, what’s wrong with, say, an N82 with a side-mounted sliding keyboard? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean all Nseries handsets should have QWERTY keyboards – many individuals might not like such devices. However, with so many customers and with such a wide range of Nseries handsets, it would be a good idea to equip a few of them with such a keyboard. Now some Eseries handsets do have my desired keyboard, but the problem is that they are either expensive (like the E90), or they don’t have the features you might like to use upon selecting a handset. Even the E90 doesn’t give you dedicated music keys along with the best camera and a 3.5 mm audio jack despite its astounding price tag. Furthermore, many Windows Mobile handsets offer on-device keyboards, so Nokia should bridge the gap in this regard.

To sum up, I’d like to see a few Nseries handsets with standard keyboards in the future. It’s up to Nokia to come up with a good design for such devices, but I don’t think Nokia would face difficulty achieving this goal given its ample experience with Eseries smartphones.

Micro-USB charging

I don’t necessarily want this feature to avoid moving a charger around, but it would be handy to re-charge the battery whenever I connect my handset to the PC via the micro-USB cable. Imagine being able to re-charge your battery when you transfer music to your handset or when you start updating your firmware. Again, I don’t think Nokia should bend over backwards to implement micro-USB charging in its Nseries handsets because the market offers a good number of accessories which enable handsets to be re-charged this way.

On-device document editing

Do you think those who buy expensive Nseries handsets don’t need to edit or proofread documents? I know that it’s perfectly possible to purchase a Quickoffice license to make Nseries handsets capable of editing MS Word and Powerpoint documents, but who wouldn’t thank Nokia for offering a full-fledged copy of Quickoffice with Nseries handsets? I don’t think all Nseries handsets should offer this feature, but offering a few devices with built-in document editing would generate a good deal of awe and admiration in the community. Even giving away a Quickoffice copy similar to what can be found on the E90 is enough to improve the status quo. This makes a lot of sense if we see an Nseries handset with a QWERTY keyboard, and Nokia can use something like OfficeSuite apart from Quickoffice.

Enhanced audio recording

Without a third-party application like ALON Mp3 Dictaphone, my N82 fails to record audio files in MP3 format. What’s more, the WAV files it records have a ridiculously low bit rate. These are, I believe, Nokia’s faults because Nseries handsets are already capable of producing artistic video files with a perfect audio quality. Now why can’t the built-in sound recorder produce high-quality audio files? Nseries handsets should be designed with audiophiles in mind, too. On the other hand, why can’t Nseries handsets record beep-free conversations when an increasing number of call recorders can remove beeps? Finally, don’t you think the rather old N93 shouldn’t remain the only Nseries handset with two microphones?

To put it in a nutshell, I believe Nokia does a good job of catering to customers’ varied needs with its Nseries and Eseries handsets, but a lot more should be done to create feature-rich handsets if Nokia wants to gain more market share and force existing users to stop thinking about migrating to other mobile operating systems. The nice point is that Nokia has everything it needs to implement the aforementioned features.

My Ideal E90 Successor

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about buying an E90 Communicator. As a Symbian S60 heavyweight, the E90 allows us to take advantage of its built-in QWERTY keyboard, WLAN capabilities and GPS chip. It also provides A2DP, a powerful 1500 battery, a MiniUSB port, and high-quality stereo speakers. Nonetheless, I just decided to hold off until another Eseries handset comes out to address the following issues.

 

• The E90 doesn’t come with a 3.5 mm audio jack, meaning I can’t use my wired headphones with it. Given its rather hefty price tag, I think this should have been added.
• The E90’s display firmly touches the keypad when the handset is closed. I’m a bit concerned about the damage this might inflict on the display, and am wondering why Nokia engineers didn’t elevate the rubber cushions in the corners of the lid to avoid this.
• The E90 doesn’t come with the small charger which you get with the N82 and the N95. The E90 would become a much more portable communicator if it had a miniaturized charger.
• The E90 doesn’t have a physical camera lens protector/shutter, and I don’t want to see the precious 3.2-mp camera lens damaged.
• Last but not least, the E90 has been out for almost a year and I’m afraid Nokia might introduce its successor shortly after I get mine.

Do you think my reasons are valid, or am I being too picky by ignoring the myriad capabilities of the E90 and focusing on these shortcomings?

The App. Manager Needs an Overhaul

It’s true that the Symbian S60 operating system has come of age over the past couple of years; however, not all areas of the OS enjoy the same degree of maturity. For instance, the App. Manager has remained pretty much unaltered. With handsets like the N73 and the N80, one had to wait for ages in order for the App. Manager to open, and this has improved with FP1 handsets such as the N81, the N82 and the N95. This improvement aside, the App. Manager on the N82 resembles its sibling on, say, Nokia 6630.

 

How should it be modernized?

First and foremost, the list of applications inside the App. Manager should appear in the alphabetical order. The users should also be allowed to alter the appearance based on other factors such as “installation date”, “application size” and “extension type”, e.g., SIS vs. JAR. Second, the application list should become navigable by typing the first letter of the desired application. It’s a headache to move up and down in the whole application list to pinpoint a specific program. Third, it would be a handy feature to be able to password-protect the App. Manager, especially if your concern is the protection of your application. And last but not least, the App. Manager should be enhanced so that it can display the application list more quickly. If, for instance, you open the App. Manager on an FP2 handset, go to the Settings window and close it, it would take few seconds for the App. Manager to re-gain focus. Anyhow, what else do you think can be done to make using the App. Manager a smoother experience?

The New Nokia Software Updater is an Annoyance on Vista

How many times have you experienced the feeling of frustration when all technological enhancements do nothing but nullify your efforts? This has happened to me a few times, but I just had the first incident of that sort in the arena of smartphones. To be more specific, the interaction between the smartphone world and the PC world created this first but familiar feeling.

Two days ago I got the news of the release of a new firmware update, V20.0.062, for the N82. As I reported it here, I decided to update mine in 24 hours in order to make use of its fabulous features and bug fixes. I updated my PC Suite to V6.86.9, connected my recharged N82 to PC Suite, brought up Nokia Software Updater, and was told that I had to get the latest NSU release or I wouldn’t be allowed to continue. Having been a good listener, I downloaded the latest NSU release, installed it, restarted my Windows Vista Home Premium to be on the safe side, and repeated the previous steps all over again. So far so good.

The new firmware update for the N82 is about 99.4MB, and I spent about 3 hours on downloading it. I had to go to a computer center to gain access to a pretty decent ADSL connection as I don’t have one at home. Anyway, as the file was downloaded, Nokia Software Updater started copying the downloaded data to my N82 and told me to wait for approximately 15 minutes. I waited for more than 45 minutes but the 15-minute waiting time was on the screen without any signs of progress. As I was thinking about the next step, Windows Vista displayed the following error message and put a damper on my thought:

Microsoft Windows

Nokia Service Layer Host Process has stopped working

Windows can check online for a solution to the problem.

Check online for a solution and close the program

Close the program

View problem details.

Feeling as petrified as you might imagine, I closed the error window, killed Nokia Software Updater via the task manager, and tried to start the poor N82 which seemed to have been hit by a disaster. I was unable to get the phone rebooted until I removed the battery, reinserted it and tried again. The N82 rebooted with the old V11 firmware release, and I was over the moon!

Having experienced such a huge problem, I was still determined to update the N82. So far I’ve tried five times and have received the very same error message. My extensive web surfing indicates that I’m not the only person experiencing this issue because many users are grappling with the latest NSU release on all variants of Windows Vista. Does Nokia suffer from a paucity of Vista alpha testers? All I can say at this moment is that I’m a bit frustrated due to the fact that neither do I have an XP machine to start from scratch nor do I have enough time to go to a computer center which provides ADSL connections for a fee. This is also a bit strange because the previous NSU release used to work quite well with Vista.

Last but not least, the whole experience has taught me a trick. When you download a firmware update for your Nokia handset, its related files are stored in the following directory on Vista:

C:\Program Data\Nokia\Nokia Service Layer\A\nsl_service_module_00001.

As I’ve copied the folders inside this directory to a different location, I guess I can now wait for a new Nokia Software Updater release, copy these folders to their proper place after reinstalling the new NSU release and shun downloading the whole firmware update. My claim is based on the fact that at this time and with each update effort, Nokia Software Updater doesn’t download the whole firmware before the error window pops up – it just checks for the update and skips the download phase because the needed files are already on my hard drive and haven’t yet been transferred to the N82. Only time can tell if my so-called discovery is worth rejoicing.

Have you experienced the same problem on Vista? If so, have you resolved it? I’d be glad to know how.

The New N95 Classic Firmware Release and User Data Preservation

When Nokia released firmware V11.0.117 for the N82 back in January, everyone was happy to see the debut of User Data Preservation (UDP) which meant it was no longer necessary to reinstall everything into the phone memory after updating the firmware. At that time many people, myself included, thought it would become a standard feature of all future firmware releases on FP1 Nseries handsets. Now it’s interesting to find out that the latest N95 Classic firmware release, V21.0.016, doesn’t come with UDP. A friend of mine who just finished updating his N95 also told me that he had to reinstall his applications altogether into the phone memory.

The obvious question is why Nokia hasn’t made UDP a part of this firmware release. Are there any software limitations at work? I don’t think so because the N95 has a lot in common with the N82 as both are FP1 handsets with analogous features. Is a lack of ample time to be blamed for the absence of UDP? Again I don’t think that’s the case because Nokia could have managed this over the 2-month span after the release of the N82 firmware update.

If software technicalities and timing issues are ruled out, we should pinpoint the cause somewhere else. In my opinion, Nokia purposefully distributes new features when it releases firmware updates so as to avoid making a certain handset stand out in the crowd. So, for instance, when it releases a new firmware update for the N95 8GB and enables Flash Lite 3 for that handset, the software engineers do their best to keep it away from the N82’s firmware release. Yes, the N82 will most likely get Flash Lite 3 support soon, but it could have gained the title of a Flash Lite 3-enabled handset back in January. And, clearly enough, the same strategy can be observed when Nokia manufactures new handsets. The N95 8GB has a better battery compared with the N95 Classic but doesn’t come with a physical camera shutter, the upcoming N96 has a 950 BL5 battery with its array of features, and the N82 offers a better battery compared with the N95 Classic but doesn’t offer music-dedicated keys.

At the end of the day, will User Data Preservation be bestowed on the N95 Classic? There exists no technical obstacle to prevent it, but that will take some time.