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Nokia Beta Labs
What’s up with Friend View!
Thu, 2008-11-27 12:15Guest writer: Brenda, Nokia Friend View team.
Hi all! We are very grateful about all the feedback we've got during Friend View's first three weeks of public experience in Beta Labs.
We have been reading feedback thoroughly and discussing it in the team. There have been many questions and we have been answering as many as possible, some through e-mail and some by replying to comments on the Beta Labs' Blog and even in some other blogs. Unfortunately, it is not possible to answer to each and everyone, so through this new post we'll try to clear some common concerns and questions that have arisen since Friend View's Beta Labs launch.
Client update
A new S60 client has been released already. Updates should come automatically when you start the application on the phone.
This update has some small fixes, probably not very visible to many but meaningful nevertheless. Some fixes were requested by our users, as e.g. supporting T9 and adding the same zoom keys as Nokia Maps for E71 & E90, among others.
Web version improved
There is already a mobile version of www.friendview.nokia.com for downloading the client. Now, when you go to our home page from your S60 browser you'll be able to instantly download and install Friend View to your phone. Since last week we've also done some small fixes in the web UI in general.
FAQ & concerns
Maps & Cache: Friend View does cache maps in your phone's memory card, so they are not downloaded more than once (unless you clear the cache yourself). There sometimes can be some slowness of the previously cached maps shown on screen, and this has led to a possible misconception about the loading of maps.
Also, as some of you have noticed, we're following the Sports Tracker look-and-feel in order to share map content. Our map content cache is shared with this version of Sports Tracker. This is the reason why Friend View maps are different than Nokia Maps, which may be on your phone already.
Location & Standby: If you have Location Sharing ON, your GPS (precise location) or Network-based (approximate location) are updated to the server and shared with your friends periodically. And while Friend View is in the background (or standby mode), your location is still updated but this happens less often. In this way your phone saves battery. So far, Friend View does not load information from the server while it is kept in the background, it only updates again when it comes to foreground (a blinking icon on top-left corner indicates searching network) . Your location might seem old , when the application comes from background to foreground, until the foreground application re-acquires your position from GPS or network based location.
Keep up with Friend View
We are working on more improvements and considering your ideas and requests. There is still a long way to go, and we’ll hope to keep hearing your comments to make Friend View more fun and interesting.
Let us hear from you!
Same here on 3UK. It's probably their proxy, which does seem to block random sites. If you complain they will claim not to block things and blame the website instead. eg. skweezer.com, mowser.com
I love friend view. I use it everyday , learning new fetures all the time. The only problem is that it's limited to to only certain devices which from a marketing standpoint makes sense. However here in the US nokia phones (S60) are rare making the actual amount of friends I am able to share with very limited. Have you guys considered adding other none s60 phones by creating a java version as well? This would put the nokia software out there and possiblely push more users to your incredible phones. Just a thought. Thanks for the great app. I can't wait for it to be complete.
Nice app but need to make it compatible with twitter.
Thanks for the app , quit use full sometimes with friends.
Request from my side is that there should be a alternative to use google maps in friendview,the map which is there right now does not show where I live , although its very clear in my work place which is only 5 km far, sometimes this makes the apps useless
Is a version for the new 5800 planned?
Best regards,
Thomas.
Gerry and Chris.B: Thanks for bringing this up to us. We don't know why this is. We're trying to investigate further.
-- Friend View team
I Agree with gerrymoth here. I'm another 3UK user on N95 8Gb and N82 and this is very frustrating. Incidentally, this isn't the only app I've had trouble with on 3. Kyte Producer for S60 gives me similar problems, but other web-integrated apps such as SportsTracker and Mobbler work without a problem.
Is there some way we can get to the bottom of this?
Chris
Oh, something I noticed:
I can't use the web version very well with the MicroB-browser on my N800 (running Diablo). Most of the functionality is there, but I cannot zoom in/out. When I click anywhere on the orange slider, the little white dot that indicates the current zoom level disappears for a fraction of a second, so I assume the click is registered, but nothing happens.
I'm aware that MicroB is not yet #1 on the browser market, still: It's one of the browsers distributed directly by Nokia, so why not give it some extra love here and make sure Nokia services run on a Nokia browser? ;)
I agree with CJ, and that would be a good way to keep people up to date, without having to do anything.. That is also a way this application to survive in market, because this is unknown by 90% of mobile users. :p ..Like many others...
Carlos Silva
Cual es la ultima versión yo tengo la Beta 0.823.
Un Saludo
@aiglesias: You have already updated then, that is the last version ;) (tienes ya la última versión)
- Friend View Team
I'm on 3UK and it seems to work, but the maps load really slowly. The biggest problem is most of my friends don't have S60 phones yet.
I heard about a countdown Nokia has started a few days ago.. Is it because of Nokia Music Store?
I think I'll wait for the full version of maps 3.0. Does one get his licence back had he installed this maps 3.0 beta version? I just hope that the latest versions can have more streets. I stay in South Africa - I'm struggling because the devise does not have the roads, especially in the townships & rural areas( even if you are escorted & save a location to your favourites - the device cant take you there again - a "not on a road" note appears.
Wov, i came here to request for support for twitter, and i already see it has been requested.
Since this is another microblogging service, it would be really appreciated and used more if this friendview could also talk to twitter.
How about a web/blog embeddable widget of it so other people can view my posts there. Something like how Twitter/Jaiku does.That'd be great !
Still can't use FriendView over the 3UK Network on my N95 8GB, N96 or E71. This is one major problem and I'm not the only one complaining, most 3UK users can't update the app over 3G without having to put a proxy in place on the data connection.
3UK blame Nokia and Nokia blame 3UK, so I can't really recommend this app to my readers or help people get started with Friendview until someone at either 3UK or Nokia sorts this out?
My network-based localization doesn't work. I tried on different S60 phones and different spots, but it keeps saying "waiting" and doesn't go through.
My question though is: since Nokia owns Plazes.com, which has a great web and mobile interface but misses a mobile application, why don't you combine the two things together? Plazes has RSS feeds and talks to twitter and fireeagle, giving a more complete experience, while Friend View has the Symbian application for a better interaction from S60 phones.
#
@aiglesias: You have already updated then, that is the last version ;) (tienes ya la última versión)
- Friend View Team
Comment by Friend View Team — November 28, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
Gracias
@Kirill (and to many others :-): Thanks!!
And a short note about the changes in the v0.83(2) client. They were quite small. The change to v0.83 AP selection caused one bug that we wanted to correct.
Since we were making even a small release, one small feature was also added. Clicking the comment of a friend-of-a-friend gives a pop-up dialogue "Add as friend?" if they aren't already your friend.
This small change plus several other small changes in v0.83 were easy 'tweeks' we could do quickly based on the user feedback and requests we've been getting. Thanks for those!
Best regards,
the Friend View team
Hi
Some folks have been adding what was changed in the recent v0.83 client software update :-). It was mostly tweeks and small fixes:
- "Add as friend" was added as an option to a friend-of-a-friend's comment messages, if they aren't already your friend
- The user name is not case-sensitive anymore in Login
- "Always ask" and "Easy WLAN" have been added to AP selection
- The client now detects if a buddy has changed the avatar image, during a session and not just at restarts.
- Show map tile "Downloading map..." text only when loading from network. The text is printed once per tile.
- New text for the Tips and About pages
- Other small tweeks and fixes
Best regards,
The Friend View team
This thing NEED SHARING.
Please, get real - i can't lure all my friends in to use FriendView. Just because they don't have a GPS-enabled Nokia smartphone :)
But I want to share my messages and location with my friends. That's what FriendView is all about.
How do I share stuff with friends?
I use RSS! I can then stream it to any social platform (like Facebook or Friendfeed), and then - to my Twitter or blog.
So please, add some RSS sharing. With my message and the embedded map.
This way more people will see the power of GPS-enabled Nokia phones :) And that means more money. Which is sort of essential to stay in business :)
I agree totally with Kirill here. I used FriendView for one week approximately but since I don't have many friends with GPS enabled smartphones/flatrate dataplan, it's kind of useless to post status/location for only yourself to see on the "hidden" webpage. This thing is crying for a embeddable web widget / RSS or whatever it requires so you can publish your status/location in some other pages (eg. facebook) where your friends can see it. Of course in case of facebook, there should be possible for friendview to change facebook status message as well. Pretty please!? :)