STOP flooding the market with new buggy mobile phones every three month!

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Discussion for Nokia Beta Labs

Sun, 2009-09-06 13:33 an3k: STOP flooding the market with new buggy mobile phones every three month!

I bought the N97 three weeks ago and returned it one week ago. I NEVER saw a technical device with more bugs which is so poorly conceived as the N97.

N97: PictBridge functionality unexistent, default photo application is more instable and buggy than the beta labs photo browser, lock code can be evaded (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5E-6rHuoZ0), status bar/menu bar in internet browser is moving the whole site instead of just overlaying, if you edit a bookmark which has a long URL you only see a short part of the URL, if you connect the device as mass storage to your computer, every app which is installed on E: or uses E: as data storage crashes and you have to set it up again (email widget, etc.), RealPlayer EVERYTIME asks if you want to establish a connection, ReaPlayer maximum bandwidth is limited to 4,3 Mbps, RealPlayer cannot be set to use a destination but only to use access points (WLAN or GPRS/UMTS), if bluetooth is turned off and you send a file via BT its turned on but after transmission its not turned off again, video light cannot be turned on or off while recording a video, voice recordings are added to the music library, ringtones and notifications sounds are added to the music library, if keylock is activated and you open the camera lid it works as intended the first time but if you close and open it another time, camera app doesnt open, ... and many many more.

I used mobile phone years before there was a company called Nokia. Think about why everyone wanted a 6210i or 6310i ... best devices ever build. Some minor bugs but thats ok, nothing is completely bug-free but the N97 has so many bugs, it has more bugs than features! (ok, that was a bit sarcastic)

Close Beta Labs and use the power of these developers to fix the bugs in firmware-releases BEFORE you release them. Also stop flooding the market with "new" phones every three month. Stop harming the nature by wasting ressources. Start keeping the software you release up-to-date (WHAT ABOUT NOKIA VINE? Its for Nseries but the flagship is not supported). Start keeping your websites up-to-date. Fire your completely useless QA division (if they didn't noticed all the bugs, they're incompetent and if they noticed them they're just somehow retarded).

I'm quit.

Sun, 2009-09-06 15:58 mbrett: Interesting

mbrett

You sir, are a very old man and obviously invented the mobile phone as Nokia has been around for c.140 years and the rest of us beleived that the mobile phone market began in the 1980's in the UK with a little company called RACAL which became Vodafone.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2009/08/20/oral-culture-the-weight-of-his...

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 11.0.021
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015

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Sun, 2009-09-06 19:20 Ghost1IG: too be honest i kinda

Ghost1IG

too be honest i kinda understand where this guy is coming from

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Mon, 2009-09-07 08:25 mbrett: This is not the place for these sorts of rants though

mbrett

This site is all about Beta testing.

If people want to complain about their phone's functionality there are other sites to do that on. It would be better if people stayed on subject on this site to help improve the Beta software we are trialling.

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 11.0.021
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015

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Mon, 2009-09-07 09:22 Ilkka: Dear quit,I've moved this

Ilkka

Dear quit,I've moved this post under the Beta Labs forum, as it doesn't belong to any application in particular. I considered deleting this, but as you propose closing down Beta Labs, I thought this might be the better forum for this thread.

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Mon, 2009-09-07 13:21 mbrett: I would rather you didn't close down the Betalabs

mbrett

I would rather you didn't close down the Betalabs and am sure there are many others who would prefer it stayed open for business.

Really what he seems to be suggesting is that Nokia stop developing software and just develop the phones as teh Betalabs team is not that big and the development teasm would still be developing the software is the Betalabs ceased to exist. We would loose teh end user imput iinto the development process though. The flaw in his suggestion is that the phones require software, either in the form of the firmware or additional software. I love the fact that I can have an impact on the future developement of applications I use and devices I will use.

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 11.0.021
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015

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Mon, 2009-09-07 14:18 an3k: Yes, Nokia was founded

an3k

Yes, Nokia was founded around 1870 ... sure ... Nokias first mobile phone was publicly announced around 1990.
The first device you could call a mobile phone (or being more exact a mobile telecommunication device) was used by Neil Armstrong as he was on the moon. It was build by Motorola.

And where can i discuss with devs about the bugs in the firmware? Nokia Care Hotline? ...

You totally misunderstood me!

I mean that Nokia only should close Beta Labs to use the manpower of these guys to get the official firmware less buggy. If the devs doesn't have to care about Beta Labs they could spend more time on _avoiding_ bugs in the official firmware. I know, damn marketing division is the problem cause they (can) tell the devs when they've to finish a firmware version! But do they care what are customers saying about extremely buggy phones?
I don't blame the devs, they're doing a great job (here and at Nokia) but the Nokia BOD has to change immediately its behaviour. Stop releasing so many phones with tiny differences (would save the environment too) and start building awesome devices again, like the 6310i.

Its not logical that Nokia has the manpower to develop software on Beta Labs but at the same time doesn't have enough time to care about the bugs in the official firmware. And i'm not talking about fixing the bugs after the phone is sold, i'm talking about avoiding the bugs before the phone is released.

One example: On the german website at http://www.nokia.de/maps-musik-und-mehr/nokia-maps-o3/download you don't find the N97 but the N73 and on the english website at http://europe.nokia.com/explore-services/ovi-maps/downloads-and-services you find the N97 but not the N73. On the english website mentioned above, you have to use the Nokia Maps Loader, you cannot download the sis file directly but at http://europe.nokia.com/get-support-and-software/product-support/maps-su... you can (but there is again no N73).

So, there are three websites were i can get the software from and someone has to update all of them. You also can get the same software using the phone updater application installed in the N97 and perhaps using the "Download!" application and perhaps Ovi Store.

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Mon, 2009-09-07 17:11 mbrett: I understand your frustation, but . . .

mbrett

There are a number of issues that you refer to here.

The dev teams are not developing these apps for Betalabs. These apps are being designed for integration into future firmware. We tested Maps and Maps 2 and Maps 3 before they were released a full production software and then later incorporated into firmware. We tested the GPS photo tagging before it was incorporated into firmware. We tested OVI Mail and many other apps proior to them being incorprated into firmware.

The Betalabs team as such is only a hand full of people who work as an interface between the development teams and the general user base. The existence of the betalabs team and those people in the general public visiting this site using the beta applications and reporting issues has caused changes in the applications preloaded on my N97 firmware and this will continue to be tha case in future.

What you realy need is for Nokia to recruit more people into the Firmware developement and testing teams or reduce quantity of products in order to focus on quality. I accept and agree with that.

But I would never agree to the disolusion of the Betalabs as I think it plays a vital part in the next gen software and firmware, and in some cases not enough emphasis is placed on the Betalabs response by the development teams. At then end of the day the Betalabs team present Nokia with a huge amount of FREE beta testers.

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 11.0.021
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015

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Thu, 2009-09-10 09:22 tommivilkamo: To add to Mbrett's comments:

tommivilkamo

To add to Mbrett's comments: operationally, in Beta Labs there are currently 2 employees: me and Ilkka. We are here to build a constructive bridge between the user community and Nokia R&D teams. It has been easiest to start with beta apps & services, but I don't see it impossible at all to extend the scope at some point in the future to (selected) built-in software / commercial services too.

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Fri, 2009-09-11 22:29 mbrett: Re: Nokia's first mobile phone.

mbrett

For your information

http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2009/09/friday-fun-a-symbian-powered...

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 11.0.021
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015

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#10

Wed, 2009-10-21 17:01 thewinchester: My views on Nokia and the N97

thewinchester

I'm cross-posting my comments I made to an article on The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/21/nokia-n97-updates) earlier today on this very topic. I concur with the OP and some of the comments to date, Nokia need to get their act together on new handsets, otherwise the financial losses like they've experienced this quarter will just continue.

Note: I have since figured out how to force kill an app thanks to a reply on The Guardian's article. The method however goes straight to the UX/UI issues I commented on, being that how you do this isn't intuitive (see obvious) to the user.

---------

Bobbie's article is an accurate representation of the issues with the N97, and in fact all Nokia handsets in recent history based around the Symbian OS.

I too have been a long-term user of their products (14yrs and counting), and the last really solid handset I had was an E51 purchased just over a year ago. Even then, that handset had been on the market for six months, and while it may not have had the features I wanted at the time it did what it was designed for quite well. All handsets I've had before have been mediocre affairs and always lacking.

Now to the N97, which I have owned for a month - in short, it is a nightmare of epic proportions. While it may be based on Symbian, half the features which users of N, E and 6 series handsets need and would expect are gone.

One example is that you can't force kill an application which has locked up, instead you must either buy custom software to do it or wait until it dies its own death. Previously holding down the menu key, selecting the application and pressing the C or backspace keys, or selecting close from the options menu available would allow you to get on with things.

The hardware seems woefully underpowered, and while most reviews report that the V20 firmware, which the company spokesman hinted at being released at the end of October 2009, will free up some of the main system memory and storage, it still won't go far enough in freeing up resources to improve system speed.

The user interface (UI) and user expeirence (UX) of the device of included applications leaves much to be desired, with inconsistent button icons and schemas which fail to give a clear indication of what each touch screen icon actually does. There's also inconsistent implementation of copy/paste features, with it not available in all applications.

The UI/UX of the Music Store and Ovi Stores need an overhaul, not being designed for fast loading. While these could have been designed as simple applications receiving streams of XML and rendering locally - they instead download whole web pages from their respective servers increasing data charges for users and slowing down doing something useful.

The in-built web browser needs a serious overhaul. While built on webkit and supposedly fast, it leaves much to be desired particularly when viewing pages in landscape mode.

And on the subject of landscape mode, the device is far too sensitive changing from portrait to landscape and back again on a whim - and you get stuck waiting at least 2-3 seconds while it makes up its mind to switch display orientation.

In short, Nokia's work for the next firmware release of the N97 needs to be impressive and go a very long way to fixing its problems - otherwise it'll be another nail in their coffin, and potentially have been the last ever device of theirs I own.

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