My apologies in advance if this post becomes intemperate; I'm still frustrated and annoyed by today's run-in with official Nokia support.

So.

I go ahead and decide to update to the 2006 release. I go to the official Nokia download page instead of mameo.org because I want to make sure I don't download the beta release by mistake. Now, I remember the official download page for past releases containing a link to a manual installation instruction page for OS X and Linux users. For the 2006 release, this link wasn't there. So I e-mail Nokia support asking for information on updating to the 2006 release with a Mac.

The reply I got stated "The software update can only be performed with one of the following [Windows] operating systems... In order to perform the update for your Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, you would need to operate on one of the above systems." I replied saying this was unacceptable, as I do not have access to a Windows machine that I could install and run the update wizard on, and asked if there were any plans to provide a Mac firmware updater. Their reply: "Travis, we periodically check demographic information and customer feedback to determine marketing trends. Your opinion is important to us, and we take your comments seriously. Please know that we have forwarded your comments to the appropriate department for review." Followed by a set of directions for accessing an installed memory card on a PC using a USB cable, which makes me wonder if they were stupid or just grasping at straws.

At that point, it seemed like e-mail support was being staffed completely by low-level drones that I wasn't going to get a useful or even coherent answer from, so I decided to try phoning support. The support tech I talked to confirmed that there was no Macintosh version of the updater; worse, she flat-out stated that the 770 would not work with a Mac. (Which is patently false.) She then went on to claim that Nokia had never supported the 770 on a Mac; I pointed out the manual instruction link for prior updates, but she did not change her story. Unless my memory's playing tricks on me about the link, that's another patent falsehood.

Browsing the forums here, I've found links to both the binary firmware image and Andrew Flagg's GUI flasher utility, so I should be able to get the update done on my own. My question is more basic: Does Nokia even care about supporting anything but Windows? Leaving out the manual install link for OS X and Linux seems to suggest that they're backing away from official end-user support for alternate platforms. OTOH, the fact that Andrew Flagg was able to get an updated binary for the flasher, from Nokia, suggests that at some level there's some degree of semiofficial support.

So I guess I'm asking the people like Andrew who deal with Nokia at a level beyond the end-user disaster I just went through: what kind of support can I expect for the 770 out of Nokia? Is this just a case of the end-user support group not communicating effectively with the engineering and development groups? Is it a case of the support group deliberately deciding to leave out support for things that the technical groups could provide? Or is it just a few interested people inside the technical groups providing unofficial support with things like the flasher, while the rest of the company doesn't care?