Quick note from Nokia PC Suite team:

We at Nokia PC Suite team are further developing the Nokia Communication Centre application, and it now contains lots of improvements that you suggested during the previous beta testing period. We hope that you enjoy using the application, and take a look how easy it is to manage your device calendar from your PC. Please try it, share your thoughts, and report all your findings about the application. We will listen to your feedback again, and make the improvements in future versions. Please note that this is the first version, and might be unstable still.

Key improvements:

• Calendar editor
• Contact group support
• Contact thumbnail view
• Performance improvements
• Lots of bug fixes

Download here.

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Guest writer: Mark Wheatley, Product Manager, Nokia Music for PC

Well, we are now at version 1.0.

I would like to thank all of you for your incredibly constructive comments over the last few months. Lots of your ideas are now in our product backlog and you will start seeing some of them appear over the next few months. Also, the bug reports posted on Beta Labs have helped us identify and fix lots of issues that are harder to find in our more ‘clinical’ system testing environments.

Those amongst you who have not previously installed the Beta application can download the first full version of Nokia Music from this link:

http://music.nokia.com/download

If you have already installed the Beta you will be receiving an automatic update to version 1.0 during the coming week.

Those of you in the United Kingdom you will soon be able to experience Nokia Music as part of the great ‘Comes With Music’ concept that launches in the next few weeks. If you buy a ‘Comes With Music’ device you will be able to download all the music you want from the Nokia Music Store for a whole year. And unlike some other subscription deals you get to keep the music after the year is over.

Thank you all again for helping us through Nokia Music’s infancy. The fully grown Nokia Music experience is finally here.

Mark Wheatley,
Product Manager,
Nokia Music

Guest writer: Julio Castillo, Senior Product Manager, Nokia Photos team

Click the images to enlarge.

We at the Nokia Photos team have been busy working on the upcoming release 1.5. Nokia Photos is a PC application that you can use to manage and transfer your personal media to and from your Nokia device. Here are some new things to try in Nokia Photos 1.5 beta:

Nokia Photos works with all your personal media
Nokia Photos 1.5 can now import pictures and videos from any S60 device, digital camera, memory stick as well as from your hard disk. If you have an Nseries phone, you can do even more with Nokia Photos: for example, you can load your device with tons of content from your PC. Nokia Photos converts videos to the right format so that they play in your device. It can also shrink pictures to the screen resolution so that they do not take up too much space on your phone. This way you can carry thousands of pictures with you all the time. Newer devices like N78 and N96 understand tags, albums and other organization in Nokia Photos and display them in the Photos application on the phone.

Location and geotagging
You can visualize your geotagged pictures on the new map view. You can also manually position any picture or video on the map to geotag it. We use technology from Nokia Maps so you can do the same things that are familiar to you in your phone like searching for cities, addresses and places of interest as well as saving your favorite places.

Nokia Photos works better with Ovi
Apart from the evident Ovi look and feel, you will find that it is much easier to setup Nokia Photos to share your media on Ovi. And, of course, Ovi can understand your geotagged pictures and videos and show them on a map if you choose so.

We look forward to read your feedback. Please let us know what you think of the new map view. Is it easy to use? How could we improve it? What other things would you change in Nokia Photos?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

On behalf of the Nokia Photos team,

- Julio

Guest blogger: Stefan Gimeson from Nokia Maps team

Maploader 2.0 is now ready to graduate from betalabs and will be available at http://maps.nokia.com. I want to thank you all for the valuable and useful feedback over the last few weeks, and I really hope you will like the finished version. Major fixes in the release version:

• Vista 64 issue is fixed
• S40 support added
• Included pc suite drivers in the installer that should make maploader independent from PC Suite
• Many, many bug fixes

For the future we are working on a nicer look for the whole application and shop, a history function that will let you manage maps on the device and of course a Mac version. Also, we are planning on adding more localized versions.
So, stay tuned, many interesting and useful features coming up. Thank you all for your ideas and feedback, I hope you will continue to be active here on betalabs. And - for you on the northern hemisphere - I whish you all a great summer.

(NOTE: Due to holidays and technical issues, we are unable to update the Beta Labs website and remove Map Loader 2.0 beta from the Beta Labs offering before Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Quick note: Nokia Music PC Client has just been updated. Once again, loads of improvements done. While I don’t have a detailed changelog to publish (sorry), a couple of things that previously bugged be are now gone.

Download here.

More important, as always, please share your thoughts about how you think we could make it even better: drop a comment to this blog post, or take the survey!

Quick note: now that you have had time to play with the updated Nokia Music PC client, could you do Mark and his R&D friends a favor, and fill in the survey?

It’s short and simple - same questions as the last time.

Thanks in advance!!

Ps. is there something we could offer as a collective incentive? I mean, something like “If there are more than 250 valid responses during the next week, Tommi promises to …”

Guest writer: Mark Wheatley, Product Manager, Nokia Music for PC

Hi, and welcome to the next version of Nokia Music.

First of all I would just like to thank all those people who have posted comments, defect reports and suggestions relating to the old Beta. This has been an incredibly useful exercise for us here at Nokia Music. Thanks to the contributions of those on this forum we have been able to identify and fix over one hundred defects in this new version. Things we have been able to solve include a large number of ‘stability’ type defects, the ‘Unknown Artist’ bug, as well as a number of issues around device connection.

Unfortunately a bug in the older Beta means Vista users will have to manually remove the previous version using ‘Add/Remove programs’ before installing the new version.

Functional changes since the previous version include a new ‘lighter’ colour scheme and support for ripping to AAC/AAC+/eAAC+ format.

The supported devices list has also been extended to include the following devices: N76, N78, N81, N82, N91, N95, N95 8GB, N96, 5220, 5310, 5320, 5610, 6210, 6220, E66, E71.

Please keep the comments and feature suggestions coming. A lot of your suggestions have already made it onto our wish-list for the future.

We will release the next Beta update sometime after 28th July. The Music Store integration will be activated some time after this.

Best wishes, and thanks again,

Mark Wheatley

Guest blogger: Stefan Gimeson from Nokia Maps team

With Map Loader 2.0 you can buy navigation and city guides directly from your PC!

Map Loader 2.0 includes a web shop where you can purchase and download navigation, traffic information and city guide licenses directly to your device. There is no need for activation, just download and you are ready to explore your world.

The new “Services” tab will let you browse through Drive*, Drive&Walk*, Traffic* and City Guides before deciding what to buy. In addition, the clear and easy to understand graphical representation will show what region is covered by the license. You will see exactly what you buy before buying.

Selecting “Guides” will let you browse through City Guides and Multimedia Guides from all over the world. Selecting one will show you information on the contents and you can download them directly to your device. It has never been so easy to find the right guide for your destination!

New connection mode

Map Loader 2.0 now supports PC Suite connections. This means that you can connect several devices over USB or Bluetooth connection. Mass storage mode is also supported for older Nokia Maps versions and memory cards. In mass storage mode the new “Services” tab will not be available and Map Loader 2.0 will behave like Map Loader 1.x. On startup, a popup will show connected devices and will let you choose the drive/device to use. Make sure you have the latest PC Suite installed (http://www.nokia.com/pcsuite).

Shop

After selecting a navigation license or downloading a guide you will be transferred to the payment page. Enter you credit card data; confirm payment and the license will be downloaded to your device. Your credit card data is sent over a secure https connection. You will also receive an email receipt.

Purchased licenses

In the bottom of the “Services” screen, there is a list of your previously purchased licenses and their expiration date. This will help you to see when it is time to renew you licenses.

Feedback

Download Map Loader 2.0 and let us know what you think! Make sure to uninstall any older version of maploader before installing Map Loader 2.0. Note that this is still a beta, so there are some limitations:

• Not tested on S40, so please don’t use it
• In “Drive & Walk” the navigation region “Russia & Ukraine” is only navigable in Russia.
• Disconnecting and reconnecting a device while Map Loader 2.0 is running can sometimes lead to unexpected results.
• Make sure your phone time is correct before buying any licenses.

* shop content depending on Nokia Maps version

Quick note: Nokia PC Phone has been archived from Beta Labs, and it’s not available for download anymore.

I found the concept truly promising - and based on our survey, quite a many of you liked it too. At the end of the day, however, it was decided that we will not productize this as a standalone application. In any case, I consider the beta trial as a success case: we learned a lot, and now we can seek to incorporate the best parts to other Nokia offering. Thanks everyone for your input!!

The PC Phone team promised to post a proper wrap-up later…

Kudos to all of you who spent time giving us valuable feedback about Nokia’s PC based application store Download! for PC. Most importantly, we learned during the nine-month beta period that a browser based service would be more attractive solution than a dedicated PC client.

And now, we can proudly present Nokia Download Store:

Nokia Download Store is a Web shop for trying and buying content for your Nokia device. From Nokia Download Store you can find, preview and buy a wide variety of content, applications and services from a range of different providers. Previewing and downloading applications doesn’t cost you anything, but if you want to buy something, you may have to pay for that item.

This service replaces the PC client, and I feel it’s fair to call the concept as “graduated”.

You can access the service from http://www.download.nokia.com.

Thanks again everyone!!