Introducing Nokia Bubbles - A fun and efficient way to unlock your phone and get to what matters
Fri, 2011-02-04 13:27Written by Pauli Asikainen
Bubbles is a fun and efficient way to take a shortcut to timely or useful things on your phone. Bubbles appears when you press the "Apps" key while your device is in sleep mode (instead of the black screen with clock and unlock button). Simply grab a bubble and drag it to one of the available drop points to initiate the corresponding action.
There are bubbles available for the following actions.
- Unlock the phone
- View new messages
- View/Respond to missed calls
- Control the music player
- Control the FM radio
- Change profile (profile timing also supported)
- Call/Message your three best friends
- Activate the backlight to use as a flashlight
- Show your current location using Ovi Maps
- Change the background of the Bubbles screen
- Display when battery needs charging
- Display statistics about bubble speed and distance (just for fun)
When I invented the bubbles concept (with my friend Sami) the idea was to have a fun way to unlock the phone. After some thinking it was obvious that bubbles can be used for many other purposes and at the same time have some fun things on your screen. Throwing the bubbles around was one of the first things we did with them. And when you have some event you want to respond to it is very easy and fast to do so.
We would like to know what you think about the Bubbles application. Please try it out and give us feedback and if you have any ideas how bubbles could be enhanced or ideas about new bubbles please tell us that also.
Thanks & have fun.
- Pauli
Comments
Downloading now..it looks like a good idea..i hope is stable and functional.
It's obvious that Nokia has the capability to innovate. I hope you keep the good momentum
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9MB. I hope this can be installed to mass memory. Downloading now.
www.twitter.com/MickyFin
www.twitter.com/Nokiausers
tried it.....its so cool....hope i doesn't slow anything down
I guess it is a great application, but too bad that Nokia doesn't care about the customers who have S60V5, because they don't compare at all againts N8, iphone or htc android devices. I personally have X6.
I agree with you: please Nokia don't forget the S60 5th!!!!!
Very cool but I would like a settings menu somewhere.
Just installed it , i think it's ok , a great added extra which has added a nice little touch to my N8 . Try Nokia Bubbles ^_^
working great. Tested at www.SymSis.com
i liked the application in the very first look. Its a very good beginning. I just hope that more customization is allowed in the future. Something similar to contacts now, i would probably hope for my favorite apps. Overall, Its a great start. Congrats:)
Wonderful app!
A nice step towards the new Symbian interface!
french: pour ma part j'aimerais savoir si vous allez le rendre compatible avec le n97 et meme si vous seriez en mesur de pouvoir rendre adaptable les jeux HD que l'on trouve sur le N8 (asphalt5, avatar, Gt academie...) car ceux comme moi qui on achetté ce telephone il y a apeine un ans se sentent oublier.
on voi de belles applications et de beaux jeux pour le n8 et on sais bien que ce n'est que le début et en contre partit on se rend compte que Nokia fais tout pour faire oublier le N97.
A part ça je tient a vous remercier pour tout ce que vous faites et surtout pour tout ce que vous avez déja fais auparavant.
It's a gr8 application to use ur phone efficiently and quickly...
Hope that more apps of its kind will be in the market soon from Nokia Beta Labs...
However, i feel that it cud have got possibly more controls and a settings menu...
But Well Done, it's a whole new experience.......!:)
Fun to use and genuinely useful. The context sensitive bubbles are genius.
My only concern is when driving, catching the lock bubble and throwing it into the unlock action bubble might be somewhat more distracting than the current unlock method.
Yes, the phone is mounted handsfree on my dash before someone has a go for using a phone while driving
Love it much. It make the symbian lock screen modern again. Like aegisdesign said, there is a real concern when driving.
Maybe in the next update, you can make the unlock button remain at the same place as the normal unlock screen (and we only require to press it to unlock, like the usual). Only other bubbles are moving as they are now...
AMAZING......GOOD JOB DONE BETA LABS.....THIS APP IS SURELY BRINGS ON A SMILE.....HOPE THIS APP SOON BECOMES A MORE STABLE AND STANDARD NOKIA APP....EAGERLY WAITING FOR THE NEXT VERSION.....
It's so great. I've installed it on the C: drive so I'll have no problems when connecting my phone via USB. It's working very smooth and I think it's a very nice app.
I agree with @delanz about making the unlock button going to this new unlock screen and it could be nice having a settings menu.
Great job Nokia!! As always ^^
Not for S60 ed 5... :(
Sounds Interesting! Ever for S60v5?
Regards
Ankit
Looks great! Always been a Nokia user and appreciate the wide range of phones and user interface it offers. Can't stand iPhone and Android gadgets as they are not phones, simply a toy. Keep up the good work, Nokia.
Damn, this is a cool piece of program you got thar. I hope there will be some sort of setting in some point where I can add/disable some bubbles. Still, I luv it <3
No functionality for the 5800 Xpress music?
I am also an 5800 user. Now nokia is not concentrating in 5th edition phones now. I am very much depressed because i bought 5800 which runs in 5th edition os. I paid lot of money to get this phone. If i have that amount of money now, i can get an nokia N8 with some more rupees extra. I think i have made a mistake.
yes, this sounds like a great idea, and i will test it soon. Thank you.
yes, this sounds like a great idea, and i will test it soon. Thank you.
Nokia always busy with N8. They really don't care about S60 3rd and 5th edition OS user. I think my next phone should not be Nokia. Now i'm thinking to buy Iphone or Android.
Nokia losting their customer day by day because of such wrong decition. Now i hate Nokia too much.
I hope that you could add all the names from Sim card too to that bubble where you can add favorites to call... I have only few names on phones memory and like 90% of names in sim card :)
I dont know why but Nokia always makes me feel like a moron. I cannot find any information from this site about how to download these applications into my mobile. Seems that everyone else knows so I am starting to think that there is something wrong with me and maybe change to nn.
A good idea but it needs work. Seems to only install to phone memory on my N8, took 3 tries to get it to install but there was no indication that it had not installed. At this point I can only do the following:
Unlock the phone
Activate the backlight to use as a flashlight
Show your current location using Ovi Maps
Need a settings method - now only shows in installed programs not in menus.
Interesting observation - using the unlock button one can get to most items faster than via bubbles. Anyway I'll keep trying it for a while.
Lovely program looks great as well.
Once you add contacts to the 3 bubbles (wish there could be more) is it possible to change the contacts and if so how?
I think also the bubbles can also act like a screen saver instead of the black screen with the time and date or is this to save the battery?
My N8 looks great now, thanks great innovation!
Cheers Nokia,
Yet another piece of software i cant use on my new, sorry, i mean anciant outdated nokia X6 thats far to old to be of any use anymore.
i suppose it has been nearly 3 months since i got my X6, and lets face it, why bother with S60 V5 anyway, when u can just put all ur effort into makin stuff for your shiney new S^3 handsets, well, that is until a few months time when something new will come out and then they will all be in the same boat too.
Dont know why i bother anymore to be honest, when all Nokia is interested in is its latest new thing and couldnt care less about anyone else!
This would be nice on the S60V5, if you can tear yourselves away from your precious S^3 for long enough to port it over.
Half of these comments are regarding the lack of support for s60v5. It's time for Nokia to acknowledge that their strategy is wrong.
Nokia is losing customers day by day, and ignoring their users doesn't help.
Being how these comments are always ignored maybe we should email Nokia directives directly, instead of spending our precious time giving feedback here and in other forums.
Either that, or just switch to Android.
so true...nokia keeps forgetting their old customers...obviously we cant upgrade daily...or maybe there shud be some option to upgrade firmware with new os or like that...
Can the code for this be made available so it can be ported to Maemo5? Or, if not willing to reveal the secrets of the trick, can betalabs port it to Maemo5 as a demonstration of the cross platform awesomeness of Qt development?
i have to say that it's a great move to enhance the latest symbian^3 interface & functionality, but i have to say, it's still a little bit far away to compete with google's android and it needs some improvements. at least i hope that if nokia can add a live wallpaper function to this app just like the one android has, then this app will be a great hit in the future. anyway, i love this app very much.
Wow, this is an awesome and very innovative ui app! Love it so much!!! Keep up the good work...and thanks for sharing...
Works perfectly, just had to reboot after installing. I like the way this app looks: simple, easy and smooth! Keep up the good work!
awesome application...!!!!!
it's working good but need some modifications ...
1)if bluetooth is included it will be fine..
2)option for changing the contacts in favourites bubble(since we are unable to change the contacts)
3)option for wifi..
Thanks to Nokia Beta Labs for this awesome GUI application
What most of the people complaining here about S60 compatibility don't understand, is that this is just one of the thousands of applications that there are out there, and there will always be apps designed for specific systems.
Simply, older S60 phones cannot use this app at its best because they don't have the right hardware. It would be like asking Microsoft to port Windows 7 on a Pentium 2 based PC. It cannot be done. It's a compromise between performance and money. If you cannot buy an advanced phone, you have to deal with the fact that you won't have all it can offer. Don't think other phone producers are better, there are people out there who are still waiting for an upgrade to their Android 1.6 when 2 is out since 2009.
This is an experimental app for Symbian^3, but there are also new betas for Symbian^1 and even for S60 3rd, and who knows that, with the experience gained with our feedback, they won't port it to Symbian 5th devices. Sometimes developers use a system to test and then they port a more stable and polished version to older ones, since it is more stable and requires less power.
But, even if they don't, say that people are going away because there aren't betas (betas, not apps) for their system is a little exaggerated.
There is plenty of compatible apps on Ovi Store, the fact that not all of them come first to Beta Labs doesn't mean that there won't be any more available.
Obviously, this doesn't justify Nokia when there is little support for other things like bug solving or missing updates.
Moreover, sometimes it is just a matter of time.
Here you can see that Symbian^1 is not forgotten, just needs a little more patience: http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-bubbles/discussion/21740/did-symbia...
Downloaded and installed it.... No problems but I had to restart the phone to make it work. How can I add more bubbles?
There isn't that possibility yet, all the available bubbles are in the Core + Additional package.
Also, there is no settings menu yet.
were is bublle for x6 (5th). I think that i maust say. Good by nokia and welcom iphone.
This is an amazing app! It should be made an internal part of Symbian. It has great potential, and it can be improved in many ways. Congratulations for the idea and the implementation. It shows what powerful UIs can one make with little effort, using Qt.
The animations are very fluid. I also like the way the clock now moves on the standard black lock screen. ;)
Thank you! This is the kind of innovation that Symbian needs more! Keep up the great work at Betalabs, I hope that a lot more excellent prototypes were published here!
Especially I need more options to modify the homescreen. I need more flexibility on size/position of widgets. I also need more space (like a 3x3 matrix of homescreens instead of 1x3).
Also expandable folders would partially solve the space issue:
-when you click one folder on the homescreen it opens a full- or half-full-screen view of multiple objects (which you can freely modify)
-more spaces for the app-shortcuts (Pikavalinnat) that can be scrolled in a similar way as the favorite contacts list (Suosikit)
-option to create many favorite contact lists (Suosikit) so I could make one group for family/friends/work etc. and add them all to the same homescreen or to multiple homescreens (now I can only have one set of favorite contacts)
Thanks again for Bubbles! Tällaisia lisää!
very great app. Just missing settings screen to tweak to my personal settings
very great app. Just missing settings screen to tweak to my personal settings
Hi Somebody help me! I downloaded, installed it, but I do not know how to start and use. Please someone describe in detail how to do what.Thanks.
Works pretty well ! Just two minor bugs:
1.) some pictures of contact added to bubbles exceed the frame of the bubble
2.) Once you touch the menu button and the bubble-unlock screen appears it does not dissapear again unless you perfom any action with the bubbles ...
pls. fix ;-)
Need the "settings" menu so to choose black background & a soft white for bubbles for battery saving. It do tends to activate when in pocket. Also a way to set for how long to display bubbles before reverting to clock screen-saver.
kann man das Bubbles auch ausschalten und die alte entsperrung wieder gewohn nutzen ???? oder geht das dan nicht mehr ??
I can't run X-plore app after installing bubblelock and my N8 seem run slowly,is it b'coz the Qt app? How it come?
Very nice app. People who are complaining that this experimental app is not immediately available in all Nokia platforms are just ignorant. Im sure it will appear also to S60v5 if its just technically possible.
Anyways, very nice app for our "outdated, backwarded and whatnot" platform :D Itrolls and fandroids are attacking even this marvelous app all over the internet. It really makes me laugh...
kann mann es auch wider ausschaltend
great addon to the Symbian^3 UI. It still has its rough edges, specially on the installation process and the lack of a configuration panel
Tested with C7 PR 1.01, and it feels like a great innovation.
Some bugs that I noticed:
-When pulling and keeping the slider switch down, flaslight turns on like it should, but about 3 times out of 4 it turns immediately off on its own just after. It started working again when I remowed the bubbles.
-Phone does not change orientation.
But overall a great idea that needs just polishing, keep up the good work!
i am sure it will work on my n97 mini
SUPER APP!!! SHOULD BE DEFAULT IN EVERY NEW NOKIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beta labs....why not for nokia 5800 xm??
S60 5th edition users must get the chance to use it too.
There are a lot of users with s60 5th edition.
There must be a bubbles app for us too.
Do look at it.
Super app.Veryeasy to use
A very very tremendous application...simply superb...Thumbs up guys....
Bubbles looks great on my C7.
But after a short time the screen reverse function is not working.
Good apps. But it's not as smooth as it should be. It jerks and lag slightly upon initial start by pressing the menu button. Hope this problem can be solve in another release.
Well done altogether.
Excellent idea ! Maybe you think to consolidate some other functionality inside Bubbles and create a "stand by" GUI. However, access through hardware (button) seems not to be the best experience for the customer. Maybe a pre-set section could help. Including an option to "keep" screen alive and avoid screen saver.
However, after install it and perform firmware upgrade to PR1.1 I've noticed that OVI store app (last updated version) didn't work anymore. I try to re-install but it was useless. If I can live without OVI store, is Nokia willingness to live without customers in OVI ? I believe not so compatibilities should be solved asap.
after i installed the bubbles it worked great but it has only three friend list in the contact bubble and i'm not able to change anyone of them do you guys have any idea of how to change the friend list in contact bubble
last but not the least it is a competitive unlocking method to iphone and droids
Mods deleted the discussion thread on Symbian ^1 compatibility, guess that answers all your concerns.
@cgrt - Wasn't deleted, just moved in an attempt to bring some order to the forum.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-bubbles/suggestion/group/compatibility
John - Community Facilitator @ Beta Labs
its really a gr8 application n also very usefull but it cannot provide me any type of editing like i cant able to add my own three favourates numbers on it .....
Why not for 5230??!!
photo gallery with great UI like this would be great also.. it would be perfect..
For your info all your posts about device compatibility have been put together. It is much easier for the Beta team to read them that way. Also they have stated that S60 V5 devices are being looked into.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-bubbles/suggestion/21430/for-s60v5
Currently using The N8-00 and C7-00 as primary devices but have at the latest count a total of 44 mobile devices at home.
http://www.twitter.com/sheridan01
http://onlyfoolsmobiles.blogspot.com
Where do i find QT? And how do i install it in my N8?
Nice app! But a few bugs..
1. 3-5 times the colours on the screen have been WAY off! I then unlock it with the switch on the side - lock it again - press the app key, and the colours are back to normal.
2. After using the "Torch" bubbel, it went missing on the screen, but when my finger touch the screen it was there, right under my finger, and the yellow torch bubbel appeared in the top left corner of the screen, almost not reachable. I then remove my finger, and it was gone again. But after "unlock/lock" move, it was back to normal.
It would be nice with more contacts bubbles, and a bubbel for "New message", and not only for incoming messages. And being able to decide for yourself what you want the bubbles to do, like you can on your homescreen.
Hope you guy's keep working HARD on Symbian^3 platform, and not only on WP7 now.... -_-
brilliant app which make a fresh new change
agree with @lupael
wen bubbles will be back again ?
NOkia Bubbles not gettin installed in my N8... When installed it starts downloading stuffs through WLAN and displays installation failed... Any help regardingg it would be heplful...
Sounds really really interesting! You Nokia guys are doing a good job - love your products.
Greez
Andi, <a href="http://www.starbike.com">Bike Online Shop</a>
When will nokia release this app for S60 v5....nokia should also care for people using S60 handsets
We can add more bubbles like camera bubble which will launch the camera app. Bluetooth bubble which will acticate or de-activate bluetooth.
@wishall.raj
I got bad news for you:
http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2011/10/18/nokia-bubbles-experimental-bet...
Best Regards
Eske Rahn
After some time bubble with battery gone....What's up?
we need a configuration menu for it..
its good
how can i download ? help plz
its good
NOkia Bubbles not gettin installed in my N8... When installed it starts downloading stuffs through WLAN and displays installation failed... Any help regardingg it would be heplful...
Thanks
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this app can works for 808 pureview but not my Nokia 700?? how the heck? we are both using belle!
amazing
m
bubbles