The Nokia Guide

Should all S60 3rd FP1 devices get transition effects like the N81?

As you may or may not know Nokia has strangely blessed both the N81 and N81 8GB with FP2 –style menu transition effects with the latest firmware v 20.0.056. Let me tell you, these effects simply look great and adds a breath of fresh air to the now familiar UI. I do have to wonder however, why the N95, N95 8GB and N82 haven’t received such effects in their latest firmware updates. I definitely don’t think it’s the hardware as these devices even have the far superior TI OMAP 2420 chipset, something the N81 lacks and just like the N81 they are FP1 devices. A N82 with FP2 menu effects like the ones on the N81 could very well prove to be a capable (and cheaper) alternative to the N85. Have a look at menu effects on the N81 with the latest firmware v 20.0.056, shouldn’t the N95, N95 8GB and N82 receive such an update?

The Future is FOTA… again?!

In the “15 things I’ve wondered about the Nseries,” which I wrote 2 days ago, I asked myself what happened to FOTA and why isn’t it used anymore? Apparently it is still used, but not as often and not on as many handsets as we would think.  Some 6120 user for example pointed it out that they had performed such an update. But wasn’t FOTA (Firmware-Over-The-Air) supposed to be this big feature on S60 Feature Pack 1 devices? It seems like more S60 3^rd edition devices (Non-Feature Pack 1) devices supported and actually use this feature than the actual FP1 devices themselves. Think of the N80, N80IE and N73, all supporting and even frequently updating via FOTA.

Nokia seems to be making a new attempt at using FOTA by releasing the FOTA-only software version 11.043 for the FP2-based N78. The N78 update will not be available through the Nokia Software Updater application, but is available directly through the Nokia N78 and improves the stability with Bluetooth (headsets and car kits) and music (playback over a long time and content refresh). It will also include optimized Camera performance and Naviscroll sensitivity improvements, requiring a 2MB download. Nokia informs that “To get this software through your Nokia N78, click Menu > Tools > Utilities > Device Manager. Select Options > Check for updates and follow the on-screen prompts. Remember that you can also use Wi-Fi to download the update.”

After such a long time tt’s great to see Nokia using FOTA on a recent device such as the N78, but in my opinion the user should have options and in this case releasing a FOTA-only update to me seems like a big No-No.

In other FOTA news, Nokia has released OS2008 Feature Upgrade v. 4.2008.23-14 for the Nseries’ line of Internet Tablet. The great thing about this update is that again further OS updates will be made available over-the-air. User will automatically get notifications about the availability of OS updates in the status bar when new updates are provided or by manually checking this from the Application manager. Worth noting however is that again this will only work over WLAN connections, while updates via PC are apparently just being left out.

This to me seems like a case of giving more options to the user and to me leaving out updates via the PC seems like a not so good idea. So basically we would like FOTA, but we would love to keep updates via the PC.

What do you think? Should Nokia completely remove the option of updating via the PC?

Is Nokia Software Updater Caching firmware data?

Nokia seems to be working on the overall experience when it comes to software updates. The first fruits from their efforts come from the way the N82 retains user data, settings and applications after a firmware update or firmware reinstall. However it seems that NSU is behaving differently when it specifically comes to firmware reinstalls (reinstalling a firmware that’s already installed on the device.) I noticed the other day when I did a firmware reinstall on the Nokia N82 that the downloading part went noticeably fast: I have a 2Mbit connection at home, but that’s not enough to download 70-100MB files in seconds, which leads me to believe that NSU now caches the last downloaded firmware update just in case you decide to reinstall it. In a previous post here, I remember specifically asking for this as back than when you would reinstall a firmware it would download the data all over again. With fast connections it’s not a problem but I know quite a lot of people that still have a 56K connection and I know the horror of downloading 100MB over a 56k connection. (Believe me I’ve been there.) Caching the data is a smart and efficient. I applaud Nokia for retaining user data when it comes to N82 and the fact that it seems that now the firmware is cached, but we are far from the ideal as I believe that retaining the data after a firmware update should be made available to more devices, at least starting from the N95 classic and onwards. I would also like to see is the option of wiping or retaining user data and applications. Why? In some cases I would like to completely wipe the phone from my personal data, when for example I sell a device or when I would like to start from scratch. Currently there’s no way to wipe my N82 from all my data by doing a firmware reinstall or firmware update. In this case I was forced to use the good ol’ hard reset by pressing “3”+ “green dial button”+ “*” when the phone is starting. And lastly, the one that has been asked for as long as I can remember: Change logs!!! What’s wrong with putting the change log in NSU  so that you can see what has changed in the firmware that you’re about to install? Right now you have to go here to see what has changed. My big problem is that the info given here is very basic. I know that for some users this is enough, but some of us actually would like to get a detailed log of what has changed. Btw Nokia, with detailed I mean something like this. What better place to put it than in NSU? What are changes would you like to see in the process of updating your firmware?

A software update V21 for N95-1 soon-to-be released?

A new software update for the classic N95 (N95-1) seems imminent as a screenshot showing the new firmware has popped up on the Howard Forums. No idea what has changed, but the firmware update is dated October 10 2007. One thing I know for sure, Nokia is going to have to add lots of new stuff in the firmware like the Search, N-Gage and key press bug, this is will come down to one huge file to download. Will keep you posted….

Nokia N81 updated to version 10.0.058

If you have an N81, you just might have to fire up Nokia Software Updater as there’s a new firmware update. My N81 came with version 10.0.035 and the updated software updates things to 10.0.058. The download itself is about 86MB and includes improvements in WLAN performance, memory transfer and camera stability.  I’ll be reporting back as this firmware should improve performance, as one of the things I complained about in my N81 First Look was the very slow transfer of data over the USB. On another note, why isn’t this available as a FOTA download?

Nokia N800 updated to OS 2007 edition v. 4.2007.38-2

A new software fix is available for the N800 Internet Tablet. This update brings OS 2007 edition to version 4.2007.38-2 and includes a fix to avoid SDHC memory card data corruption. The N80 Software update page says that: “This new release provides a software fix for a bug which may have appeared while copying large amount of data over-the-air or from external SDHC memory card to internal memory or vice versa. In some cases the downloaded data may have been corrupted.”

As always this update includes previous fixes and features, but doesn’t add anything to the previously added features: “There are no other changes to previous release v. 4.2007.26-8 that included Skype client support, Adobe Flash 9 browser plug-in an up to 8 GB memory card support among other improvements.” Head on over to the Nokia N800 software update page to get the latest copy of Nokia Internet Tablet Software Update Wizard.

Adobe Launches Flash Lite 3

Current S60 3^rd edition devices are still stuck with Flash Lite 2 which I think is equivalent to version 7 of Flash used on the desktop. Despite the pre-N95 rumors we still can’t play the more advanced flash content out there like Youtube.  Today good news comes with the announcement of Flash lite 3 which should help to play the more advanced flash video content, but I’m not sure what this means and if the full-blown Youtube will be playable at all. Nokia certainly has the horsepower to do it, especially if the N800 is any indication. That device with its full Flash 9 support has the same OMAP2 used in the N95 or N93i and enough processing power to keep up with just about any Flash video. So S60 3^rd devices certainly have the horsepower to do it. To me this announcement brings more questions than answers. Adobe has announced that this will find its way in next gen Nokia phone, does this include the N81 or N95 8GB? Will current phones get this update through a firmware update? Will we the full-blown desktop content ever be playable on mobile devices? Doing a quick check on Adobe’s site doesn’t reveal any download links, but in the “Key features” they talk about “Improved web browsability with support for most Flash 8 content”.  That certainly seems like good news as most content out there is using Flash 8. I guess we’ll have to just wait and see on this one. They also mention FLV support which might be another big plus. There are tons of services that allow you to convert Flash content into the FLV format for offline viewing. More info can be found here and here.  Also have a look at the press release.

DivX Mobile Player 0.89 Released

The guys over at Allaboutsymbian are reporting that a new version of the free Divx mobile player is out! The latest version 0.89 is is a Beta release that will expire on 1-Apr-2008. The Divx Labs blog thoughtfully remind us to “correctly set your phone to today's date before you install DivX Mobile Player.” This has happened to me and the thing just won’t install.  Divx mobile player now features: Version 0.89 new features:

• Restructured menus and softkeys
• New file browser with thumbnail previews
• Manual adjustment available for A/V synchronization

There are a few known problems but these are limited to UIQ and Windows Mobile so we shouldn’t worry about that. The updated Divx Mobile can be downloaded here. You will need a Divx account to download it, so if you don’t have one yet, you can create one here (of course that is also free.)

PC Suite applies updates by itself?

I’m not sure about this, but I remember reading somewhere that PC suite could update itself by adding patches or maybe even download an entirely new version. The Nokia Software Updater checks for updates every time it starts up, but I never did see PC suite do this until today. I installed a few apps and synced the N95 with my PC, but it didn’t prompt me to do anything. I did leave it open and didn’t bother to close it. After about 20 min inactivity it pop-up appeared telling me that an update was available and that it needed permission to download an install it. It’s still PC Suite version 6.84 but the build has been bumped to 10.4. Didn’t know that PC suite actually did this, is this new feature? First time I see this though….

Firmware v20.0.041 available for US N76

Last time I wrote about getting the latest firmware for the N76, when in fact it wasn’t. Thanks to some helpful readers who pointed out that what I actually got was version just before the latest 20.0.041. It did take a while for it to become available but it’s finally here. What I have here is a US N76, so it might take a while before the products get the updated fix. Updating as I’m writing this, hope all goes well with this one. On a side note, I‘m currently working on my N76 review and hope to have it up soon!