Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Hi there.

I've been using the N900 for almost a month now and I've fallen in love with it. Mostly for the simple fact that everything advertised just works! Reliability aside it's a fantastic multimedia powerhouse with unbelievably great multitasking and customizability.

However, I have encountered a few "issues". Some that need addressing, most are just me being picky or suggestions to "streamline" the feel of the Maemo 5 UI. Feel free to disagree - you might not agree with all of them, or you might have other points to add

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Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Ovi map is not just slow, it's useless!
It doesn't seem to even be able to auto follow where you are!

Sip needs to leave a missed call warning and actually not lag for the other person.
Maybe adding direct IAX2 support would be awesome, one can dream ;-)
In any case, more front camera integration/fix is needed too... Everything telecom-oriented has to be top notch, i'm not saying gizmo features, I'm saying core stuff!

On a side note the butterfly plug-in keeps disconnecting but that's not Nokia's responsibility i think :)

A simpler menu for enabling gsm/wifi/bt/fm would be a nice touch too...

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Interesting set of points and nicely explained too. Some of them are not what I would choose and probably a slightly different order due to other priorities but nicely written! :)

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

It's nothing to do with Nokia - Community app and it is still in testing so use the normal methods for indicating issues please!

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

I was a little harder on the Ovi Maps before publishing maps thing because I probably could have made a separate post on how annoying it is on the N900.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Thanks :).

Yeah, the priority/order isn't solid. Truth be told it's mostly how they came to my head when I was writing them and then slightly moved a bit.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

I liked the article. While definitely biased on the side of someone who likes the N900 ;)... I definitely it's one of the better versions of "constructive" criticism that I've seen on here of late.

Good job, IMHO.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

first off niceley written... I agree on some and disaggree on others... Here goes: (If I just agree I won't list it or this post will be really long) ;)

1. MENU/MULTITASK/DESKTOP view confusion - I really like it like it is and I think it is easy to get to wraps with.

2. Portrait Mode. - Yes but please make it optional... I really hate it when handling my phone and I'm just about to press a button when the whole phone shifts and all buttons re-arrange.

3. Ovi Maps - Currently sux donkey b***

4. Make it easier to get into call mode. - eh!? you have 7 ways of going there... I think it's quite easy to just press the Phone icon on desktop. If you're gonna take a button fingers off the power button... I use the double tap to lock all the time... rather take the camera button... its just sitting there unused when not using camera ;)

5.Rotate to launch call mode” needs to be a lot faster - I don't use it... too flimsy.

6. When in “call mode... - I totally agree and smart dialing with phone dialer so you can start dialing or spell out a name (the letters are there but don't do much ;)

7. Long press to get secondary symbols - YES! I would rather have preferred this way instead of Nokia "stealing" my up and down arrow making alot of problems when playing games and/or surfing the web, using maps...

10. Scroll bar - YES have 3000+ music numbers and really annoing to sit there flicking forever... (I like the scroolbars with 0-9 and a-z)

15. In video viewer, when sorting out by “Camera/Films” - Yes and more options to sort by please... like camera, video clips, movies, prawn (perhaps ability to hide) :p etc. posibility to make own "titles" and a scrollbar.

21 Quick add-playlist button - Yeah and to quickly select several files.

27. Menu icons to rotate about it’s own axis when in portrait - That would be what I would prefere. Maybe make it an option so you could get it the way you want... (see #2)

31. Say caller’s name - Yes or atleast let us have different Ringtone for different persons in phonebook (even for different numbers in one contact so say my GF is calling from home vs Mobile)... and then you could also make your own mp3's saying the contacts name.

35. MMS - Yes for the love of god! everyone I know have older phones... so no flickr, facebook etc. from phone... I used to send alot of MMS (like instant mini postcards) we even have a fixed title thing going... "My view right now..." I really miss this feature and I sometimes sneak my old w910 along when I'm going somewhere special just so I can send an MMS.

36. Better e-mail client... heck even my iPod touch lets me see the folders I have made in my Yahoo mail. (I know I have option to make folders on the n900 but I can't see my folders on the yahoo server :(

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

It would be a nice option to be able to download large sets of basemaps to store on the device permanently (it has the storage capacity) so the mapping application is not constantly downloading data. If I could download all North America maps in 2GB over WiFi one day, I would do it.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Option to share videos in video viewer

I believe once a video is playing you can touch the screen and press the share button. Looks like 3 dots with 2 lines between them.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Well, you should be able to do it with Nokia Map Loader if you are using XP (or vista?).

If Map loader doesnt work for you, a workaround would be to download the maps and extract them manually.

- Download the maps for your region/county
- Connect your n900 in mass storage mode.
- Browse to cities/diskcache
- Unzip all the zip files to this folder (diskcache)
- Choose to copy & replace all if prompted

Its also worth noting that ovi maps uses vector maps that consumes less storage space as well as allow routing.

Shaq

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Actually, there is such feature but only if you setup "routing" to some destination. See (and vote ;)) for bug https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7178 to bring it main map screen.

:(, I need to note - it is buggy, see another bug https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7177 but that is a not serious bug - you can leave N900 in switched ON state with Maps application.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Aside from portait mode (and T9/multi-tap), I'm hoping they add improved profile support in the next firmware.

I miss being able to have different profiles, as I use at least three profile during the day.

This would also allow developers to come up with a profile scheduler, but I'll save that for another wish list.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Nice review; tap-and-hold on a song in the library to add it to playlist (yea, bad feature implementation there). Nice stuff though, and I agree with much of what you've said, its a fat phone (if perceived as a phone), but an nicely sized mobile computer.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Interesting read, thanks

Some ideas about the UI (mostly the browser):

Configurable option so that close application goes to last used application instead of the "multitask screen"

Same for web pages, so that close a browser window goes to the last viewed browser window.

Select text (hover mode) in browser by proximity "button" or camera button.

Remember the zoom state between page loads in the browser

Remember the zoom state / font settings per-site. (Maybe asking a bit much that .. :) )

When you close a browser window and click on the last viewed one to get back to it, it does a last minute re-draw, and (at least on TMO in classic dark theme) can slightly mess up. Stop doing this.

The browser "long press" menu could have more options - at least back one page (without going to the history screen) would be useful. There's probably others (view source?, don't use css, like mozilla's view->page style->no style?)

An enhanced functionality wish-list item:

Please provide a full set of kernel modules to work with the stock kernel. In particular the firewall and routing ones, and filesystem ones!

People are starting to look at home-brew kernels (some at considerable personal risk ;) ) and while this is great for the advanced user (in theory) it is something of a minefield for the adventurous but clue-deprived. A bit of help from the Nokia kernel people here would remove the necessity for normal users to go kernel-flashing in order to get functionality that is normal and expected on standard linux installs.

Favourite suggestion from the article:

I think would be the 5-way (but why not 6?) vertically swipable desktops. Swiping upwards from any desktop gets you desktop 5. Scrolling down from there gets you where you started from, scrolling up again gets you desktop mod4(initial-desktop-number + 2). Reverse up/down for desktop 6... Well, not likely to happen maybe, but can't hurt to think about it (actually n-dimensional desktops have been considered in a different thread.. :)

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

20. Ability to make playlist

1. At the moment, the N900 has playlists but only ones you’ve imported
2. Please can we have the ability to make playlists on the N900 itself like S60 music players?

I am creating playlists on a daily basis. At first I did not get the logic but once I grasped everything it is very simple and easy.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

all i wish is to get firmware update before christmas as promised

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

If they fix only one thing, it would have to be Ovi Maps!

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Yes Ovi maps made my phone hang 3 times today.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Good read. The only thing I strongly disgaree with is the number one on your list. The contextual single menu button is brilliant (IMHO). Doesn't take long to get used to works perfect once you learn it. Sacrificing it for "pick and play" would be very short sighted.

Function > form.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

_All_ video (and audio) codecs in a turn would be nice (w32codecsall or similar) to get at once.

Once this is done, a small package for Spotify, and then for Slingbox...

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

A note about point one.... hold the "app switcher" button and you jump back to the desktop when you have app(s) open ;)

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

i completely agree with ur whole article... gj

the one the i want the most if portrait mode texting!

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Hmm creating playlist is easy and i find it very logical how to do that.
Just add albums songs to the current play list and save that list under a name..

The only thing is there is now way to remove stuff from a playlist you can only add.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

the weird thing is, if the phone number is not a know number of a contact, there is an sms option!

But as soon as it is mapped to a contact you cant directly say sms

But there is a work around, in the phone app. tab and hold the contact , open contact card, then you have all the options like sms.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Oh and while they are at it would be cool that when you tap and hold a song you could "id3-tag" them like you do with photos for artist, album, genre etc. heck do it all through the device... a very eazy way to sort your files :cool:

and ofc ability to seleckt multiple files and tag alot at one time.

P.S I dont think the Phone/tablet (The Device) is too fat it has a very handy size and feels very sturdy :)

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Thanks for the responses guys and also thanks for having gone through it as it's one awfully long post.

I tried to balance it between having a user experience that's versatile and one that's simple enough for average Joe (AJ) so was extra picky.

Inevitably and sadly, it's him we have to cater for if Nokia's gonna make a success of the Maemo Platform. I.E. not necessarily function over form.

It's the bunch of "We want intuitive UI" crew of writers/reviewers that Nokia must also please because - and they'll also be influencing AJ.

Word of mouth excitement aside, Nokia will also need some seriously aggressive marketing to build up the hype and desirability to get people to realise it's not all about iPhone. Maybe not for the N900 [it's their interim/early adapter solution] but for whatever successor they plan on bringing.

Oh hey, I did not know that. That. It takes a touch bit too long though. But still nice.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

Overall, agree with pretty much all the points you made. I am surprised though that making it easy to copy stuff from microB was not included in your list. I think that stupid cursor mode is an abomination and totally unintuitive.

Definitely agree on the scroll bar... to scroll any big page/music list without that.

Another nice to have is when you share a photo with a networking site such as facebook, if you take the photo in portrait mode, it should be automatically straightened before uploading. To be fair, I can go on and on about the photo viewer itself. It just lacks too many standard features.

Re: Firmware update wishlist for the N900: 35 things that need sorting in the Nokia N900 (software wise)
 

#2 Fine, makes sense.

#5 Agreed.

#8 Not Shift and Alt, but Shift, then Alt. Big difference there.

#10 Agreed.

#11 Photos and videos are not ordered by their creation date, but by the order they were indexed in. You'll notice that pictures on the N900 memory appear first followed by pictures on your memory card. Newer images happen to USUALLY show up at the bottom because they were more recently indexed.

#12 goes against how every OS out there orders their files by default. Making it an option, but not the default is the right choice here.

#14 One of the first parts of the Getting Started tutorial shows you that there's a menu there. That little triangle is quite well known as a hint that there is a dropdown menu there. Prerelease firmwares had nothing but the window title there, so there wasn't even a hint that there was a menu.

#19 Okay, makes sense.

#20 Wrong. You can indeed make playlists on the N900. Holding down your finger on any song pops up a menu allowing you to add any song to the playlist. You can also add all currently showing songs to the playlist by choosing Add current to playlist from the application menu.

No, you cannot remove individual songs from the playlist.

#29 Just plain creepy.