Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Hi Gang, I'm not sure if the newbie forum is the best place for this post. Mods, if this is better for General Discussion feel free to move it. I am posting it here because I have had my N800 less than a month now, so I am still a newbie with this device.

First a bit about myself so you can understand where I am coming from. I am a geek and gadget junkie. I am not a programmer of any sort but I am what I consider a power user. I am adept at Linux, Unix, OS X, And all flavors of MS Windows.

The following is my wish list. Things I wish the N800 could do, or do better. If any of these are possible please post a reply explaining. Thanks.

#1 Skype. The Jabber video chat client is nice but, Skype is the dominant Video Chat network in the world. This device, especially with its built in camera would shine with skype. Pidgin is awesome on this, but until it gets native cam support, we need Skype.

#2 Better Cam Support. The add on program that lets you take snap shots with the built in cam is nice, but what about movies? What about websites like ustream (flash video sites) having access to the web cam. The cam seems to be locked down to just the one app, and the snap shot application feels like its a bit of a hack. Why? Open it up Nokia! This could be a hell of a mobile net cam platform.

#3 Better Battery Life. Boy WiFi really sucks the life out of this thing. About 3 hours of constant use and its toast. I would have thought it better being an all flash product.

#4 PIM Support. I know I know Nokia has said they don't want this to be a PDA, but come on. If your using it to check your email eventually you will need to respond to an email with some Calendar info, boy it would be nice if this had some sort of PIM that could sync (preferably with a mac please). I have tried using google calendar for that but it doesn't format or work well on this device. If not a full blown PIM then better WebCal support is a must.

#5 PodCast Support. This is such a beautiful Screen it would be great if it natively supported quicktime and h264 (what most podcasts use). Being able to drag and drop a video podcast from iTunes to a memory card would be hot!

#6 A Better Clock. We have an amazing large screen and the only clock program displays the time in a small corner of the screen. How about an cool retro alarm clock mode that uses the whole screen, making this a great nightstand companion (especially when plugged in.)

#7 More Virtual Memory. With SD Cards getting high capacities and faster read write speeds, limiting the virtual memory function to 128mb is handicapping the device. I don't know what the max is that this system can handle, but I'd love to see 512mb or even a 1gb option there.

Ok Thats all I have got for now, like I said If one of these wishes has already been addressed feel free to tell/link me. If there is a better place to post this list let me know, and feel free to add to it too, then maybe we'll take it over to the official Nokia forums.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I'd add to that support for more modern versions of flash, and in a future release a jog dial or perhaps a scroll ball (kinda like on the apple mightymouse or higher end blackberry phones) to facilitate horizontal and vertical scrolling.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

The lagging flash support might be whats keeping the webcam from being useful on flashbased webcam sites like ustream.tv. Good pick up.

Scrolling is tough sometimes since the UI doesn't increase the scroll bars for finger use, forcing you to use the stylus. Maybe just change the Ui to detect a finger scroll bar...

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I'm a bit nearsighted so its par for the course for me to have to scroll a webpage horozontally AND vertically when reading something, like this forum for example :)

--Jeff

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

#3: Well, you won't find many wi-fi devices that can do much more than 3 hours of active use. I get about 4 hours from my N800. My PDA gets about 20 minutes.. and the N800 can stay online for much longer. A couple of days or thereabouts. Very unusual.
#7: You're experiencing out-of-memory problems then? I'm curious about what applications you run. Myself, I haven't even enabled swap space, so I'm running with just the 128MB of RAM as VM. Never had an out-of-memory error. But I usually don't run more than 3 apps at the same time.

My wishlist for today:
a) Global panorama/landscape support.
b) Some of the applets waste way too much space. When it isn't allowed to arrange them in an overlapping pattern, then there must exist no limits to how small they can be adjusted. Some applets refuse to be reduced below a certain limit, wasting lots of space (clock applet in digital mode), others are good citizens (3party small launcher).

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Actually no, I haven't hit that problem yet, but I am anticipating it, especially if intensive apps like skype get ported to it. I just don't see the advantage to restricting it, it has to be a barrier to some apps/programmers.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I don't think Skype will be all that much more demandong than Googletalk. I have faith that the programmers will lnow what scripts to run and what scripts are completely useless at certain times. Then again I dount i'll be using skype unless its free. I don't want my n800 to replace my cell phome just yet, maybe bur not yet. Its a lot bulkier than my L7, so carrying it around isn't the most pleasant thing in the world.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Well, first of all, let's wait (and see) for those applications first. It's bad to "optimize" based on assumptions.

Secondly, the limit is artificial, it's only in the UI. You can add as much swap as you want, using the direct Linux methods (there are other such arbitrary values in the UI, for example screen timeouts which can in practice be set to anything).

Thirdly, swap space is meant to keep the system going in peak situations, it's not like it's something you want permanently going on. If you have an application which needs so much room that more of its virtual memory consists of swap than of RAM then you will have severe performance problems, as well as hitting the flash memory hard (lots of cell wear). If you really need that much swap in a nominal situation then either a) the application must be rewritten to need less memory, or b) if the N800 applications come to need that much memory then the device will have to be equipped with more RAM. Time for the N900, in other words.

So far I would say the 128MB RAM in the N800 is quite sufficient, could even be considered quite large (compared to most PDAs, for example), unlike the 64MB in the 770 which was probably a bit on the small side. If you add 128MB swap then you have a total memory size of 256MB, and having more than half of it as flash isn't particularly useful/efficient anyway, as explained above. In other words, I think the UI limit of 128MB swap is reasonable.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

More games!!! More optimized/new emulators!!!

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

PenOffice and/or Calligrapher!!!!

Dangit.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I would like to see:

-Opera 9 support (so more AJAX works like the eyeOS web based operating system)
-modern flash support
-embedded WMV support (using VLC or Mplayer for example) so I can watch www.uitzendinggemist.nl
-easier API for use in Python, and better documented. (like the S60 version with easy bluetooth, GPS and webcam/audio and UI api)
-WORKING hand writing recognition software
-the entire UI should be finger optimized (currently only a few items in the UI are optimized for finger usage)
-a better email program (even the email app for the current S60 phones is easier to use)
-easy SMS and phone /contact application
-and off course Skype (with video is possible), but that is coming
-a lightweight MSN messenger applet for the home screen. (Gaim is rather slow)
-Wimax support for the next internet tablet.
-scroll wheel in the next tablet (D-pad and on screen scroll bar suck)
-better D-pad and action buttons for playing emulators (GP2x functionality)

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Amen Bernard, I'm quite confused on how Nokia can call this a IT when they've all but handcuffed it with a limited browser/flash support let alone the video support online or offline.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I would like:
1. A true SIP client that connects to any server I want and does not go through any fixed proxy like gizmo does.
2. Better media player / internet radio app that plays ogg, wma, and he-aac, and doesn't corrupt the library when it feels like.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Good one! I forgot that. I love the SIP client on my Nokia E60 phone, and use it alot.

I think the current N800 is a good Internet Tablet, even if the only thing it does well is browsing . (I think the Opera browser is good, but it could be better)

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Oh i agree its a great device as is but it has limited support, and a small user base. Thats why i started this thread, with few community progammers, it's nice to get solid feedback on what should come next.

Am i alone in wanting a pim?

Maybe ,.. Just a thought, what if you could put symbian on this... There are lots of shineys for the nokia os that could run over blue tooth/wi-fi

tho honestly the linux with a terminal and ssh is pretty famn useful. I'd have a hard time giving it up.
t up.
t up.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

If you want Symbian, buy a 7710 on eBay. :cool:

Of course, being obsolete Series 90, you won't get all that many applications for it...

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

As long as we are wishing for stuff.

I would like to see someone create a new battery cover, that could hold a second battery and somehow jump the two batteries together for increased battery life. It would not be that hard, and at worst the thin part of the n800 would be as thick as the camera end. I could totaly live with that to double or more my battery life....

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Applications!!

PIM, Word, Excel, Push E-Mail, Citrix.

Yeah - I know it is just a web tablet, but it could be a lot more with some development.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I'm still trying to figure out what's stopping the developer community from coming out with the desired apps.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Hmm.. various reasons, I guess.
PIM: There are already 3party apps, e.g. the GPE suite. Now, I don't use it because I don't find it good enough, in particular I find the calendar app wanting when compared to my Palm T3 calendar. So, for a lot of people the GPE set is fine, the GPE developers don't see any reason to add anything, and even though I could go ahead and code a bit in GPE myself I probably wouldn't get what I want - something as easy and good as the PalmOS equivalent. Too much work at this stage, and too few competent developers seeing the need (that would have to be a need seen by themselves, that's how it works)

Word: Well, 'Word' usually means MS Word, which won't happen. OpenOffice is too big, ABIWord is almost there, but this is still a complex piece of software. But I for one isn't going to start working on it, now that I got my bluetooth keyboard I'll be going in the direction of LaTeX which I find much more satisfying to write documentation in. 3party commercial Word-compatible app. could be a possibility, if the customer base gets big enough (Documents To Go, which comes bundled on PalmOS, is pretty good. Full office suite, including PP. It's considered better than what comes on Windows Mobile devices.)

Excel: There's Gnumeric. Reads and writes Excel format, and I like it much better than Excel anyway (I get things done.. it understands even my archaic recollection of spreadsheet commands)

Push E-Mail: This is more for phones, because as far as I know to get true 'push' (no latency) you need to utilize some management GSM/CMDA channel or something. With wi-fi you would either have to keep a TCP connection open at all times, or resort to 'pull', which is what I do: The built-in email app polls my imap server every ten minutes or so, this works for all practical purposes as 'Push email' for me.

Citrix: This is some framework to log in to the MS world, right? Commercial application, anyway. The community can't do anything with that one. On the other hand there's rdesktop, vnc and the like.

What it boils down to is that the community developers will always work on the applications that are most desirable to themselves, not what somebody else (non-developers) wish for. So, to get _everything_ under the sun the developer base (read: N800 customers, or hopefully in the future, N800+compatible/Hildon devices) must be _huge_, to increase the chances of including those who would want to write the application.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Good post TA. WE seem to have a chicken-and-egg scenario here with the tablets... and Nokia laid the egg.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Bad APIs, outdated/incompatible libraries, lack of communication as far as upcoming features. Limited/zero documentation of core features. Limited/zero API access to core features. Closed-source core functionality set (browser, drivers.) No browser plugin SDK. Dated browser. Dated flash. No support for the APIs/software of any other mobile platform (QT/Embedded, J2ME, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm). Compatibility was broken with the N770 for poor reasons.

The ITOS tablets are closed-standard closed-source projects very similar to your average cellphone. That's fine, assuming the feature set that gets shipped is rock-solid. It's not.

ITOS users have little clout to demand compatibility --- very few people treat it as a serious target. ITOS developers have little power to provide compatibility --- much of the OS and feature set is proprietary.

I'm not expecting anything earthshaking until Ubuntu Mobile (or some other major distribution) supports the N800. Nokia did a fine job with the hardware and some points, but is doing a terrible job with managing the platform.

EDIT: One more thing. Developers are motivated and demotivated by a certain set of criteria. Owning the device (and the discount!) makes me inclined to do a certain level of work to adapt it to me. There's a limit to the amount of uncompensated work I'll do to improve a device when substitute devices already provide the feature set. The developer community is simply not responsible for fixing core issues.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

It's too tempting to port things. After all, even creating a simple program that is truly functional and doesn't seem half-finished is a lot of work. But the result of porting can be apps that don't fit on screen properly, or assume you can type without losing a third of the screen, or have tiny toolbars that really need tooltips to be useable.

Sometimes I'd rather have the ported programs than nothing at all (or some barely-functional fresh program, or the built-in email program). But some ports I just find too frustrating to use.

Things like MaemoMapper or Canola show what can be done.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Beyond Contacts on my Palm certainly has spoiled me. Were DataViz to offer something similar for the N800, I'd buy it in an instant. I emailed them to tell them as much, though I don't expect anything to come of it.

QuickTime's fairly open, and folks have written at least subsets of it for Linux in the past, so it's at least theoretically possible. It used to be the codecs (primarily SV3 and Qdesign Music 2) that were the problem, but these days, most of the proprietary codecs have either fallen out of common use or are not really appropriate to the N800 in any case.

That said, Apple itself seems to view QuickTime as tool for content creation only these days. MPEG-4 (particularly Part 10) would appear to be their chosen delivery format. (Bring this issue up with a QTVR aficionado if ever you're feeling spiteful.)

My greatest wish for the N800 is a good port of Emu48. Sure, real PIM software, an improved web browser, better Flash support, and the like would all be nice, but a computing device that doesn't give me ready access to the functionality of an HP48GX just leaves me feeling...naked.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

With a stable abiword, including doc and odt i/o filters, pdf output and with a port of pdftk, I would be able to leave my notebook in a drawer for 99% of my daily activities.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Stable Abiword would be 33% there for me. I really need a good push email client.

Citrix, citrix, citrix!!!! Nokia pay Citrix money to make a client for the N800!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I want just little tools, where I can prepare stuff offline and have it upload it when a wifi signal becomes available:

* A flickr uploader
* A tool for checking my gmail (POP is insufficient, I want it pre-sorted like I get when I'm online with Gmail)
* A tool for writing blog posts that works with blogger

and, since this is a wishlist, an offline RSS reader that works with/like the google rss reader. Google ownes me right now, alas.

I'm looking into writing these with Mono, but the learning curve for n800 development is steep as heck and poorly documented for Mac users. I think I can do it with a few layers of emulation.

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

I have one very small (I think) request. Maybe it already exists, but I couldn't find it. I hate how the built-in browser background changes to white every time I change/load pages/sites. No only does a white background drain power faster, but it's very annoying when surfing the web at night in low light situations (ie bed).

Thanks
SL

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

Please port Bloglines 770!! :mad:

Re: Wish list for the Nokia N800
 

good stuff. good stuff. It was nice to see the Nokia vs Developers point of views....

IMO Nokia is going to have to step up if they want to see this platform more forward. Like Palm did with its developers. There is a reason there are a billion and one palm apps out there.

I love the idea of running linux in my hand but.... there are cheaper devices that do a lot of thing better than the N800. I'm going to hold onto mine until we see this rumored July "update." If the update bring half of what I hope for, I will be thrilled.

Besides, what other device (besides the iPhone) has such great touch screen potential.... It's soooo close.
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