Eldrar's reputation went on to the drain long ago together with sony's UIQ and not that sony's back on the track he's trying to make some room for them <= unprofessional for a journalist that's supposed to be impartial.
I have used N97 for six months. It’s a disaster. Anssi Vanjoki [Nokia VP] said that user experience with this device was catastrophic. I have been using Nokia X6 for 2-3 months, and, in terms of software, this device is very comparable with N97. So, I already have two devices that are bad, from software side. And when I’m writing about Nokia N8 – my main point – was about impressions. After bad devices, you have to impress the public, you have to show something very special. 12 megapixel camera is not enough.
On the other hand, I understand that N8 is a flagship device, and Nokia believes that this device will save the company, will save the brand, as technological leader. I do not believe in that, because, while Nokia N8 is a good product, it’s only “average”. I see a lot of logical problems with this system [Symbian^3], because it’s based on the old system. It’s not bad, but it’s not up-to-date. It’s average.
It’s connected to business processes inside Nokia, not Symbian^3 itself. It’s related to product teams, which developed particular products. They couldn’t come to agreement on order in which to place these icons of applications inside the phone. It’s related to the business structure that I talked about before. And because of how the business process works, they couldn’t change this (for X6). My disappointment is mainly about this. Because for Nokia, now it’s very important to show that it can learn from their own mistakes. That they release a mature product into the market. Mature in terms of stability, in terms of features, etc; It’s just one example. I discussed this issue with some top managers of Nokia, and they insist that they will change this in the near future… It was 3 or 4 years ago, and nothing changed. Everything’s the same in Symbian^3.
Nokia's corporate in-fighting continues, although the idiotic divide between the consumer division, which Nokia calls "Multimedia" and Enterprise divisions was only resolved in the recent June re-organisation, which abolished both business units. This divide led to developers having to negotiate two citadels of corporate bureaucracy (and fill out two sets of forms) if they wanted to view the Symbian source code. It also led to idiocies such as Nokia crippling its business phones, the E-series, so phones such as the E61i and E65 don't sport a consumer-friendly feature such as Bluetooth stereo, found on its consumer N series. At the same time, Nokia for a while crippled its Mail For Exchange client so N-series owners couldn't install even this most basic enterprise client.
It depends on the speed of development. [Nokia N8] hardware, is nearly perfect. Actually I like this device. But it’s average, in terms of features that are not evolving. Because when you implement a feature like multi-touch, you can compare it to the first product with multi-touch – iPhone. And you have to show something special or [at least] on the same level. If you do not show it, you miss. Of course, Symbian^3 and Symbian^4 will support multi-touch typing in standard keyboard. The main question is – When? Will it happen in September, or will it happen with the major update, which is coming in February next year to N8, and some other devices? Who knows? But at the start of sales in September, it will definitely not support such features.
And if we are talking about such glitches or mistakes, it’s not connected to the stability of software. It’s the logical issues in this system. They have a very short time, and a very small number of programmers who are coding for this system.
The main problem here is that you compare Nokia N8, which, is coming to the market in September, in best case. Well, maybe in some markets they’ll try to launch it in August. But I do not believe that Nokia will be able to launch N8 in early August with stable software. They could even launch it in June or July, but in that case it won’t be a stable software. If they launch it in August/September – it will be average in terms of stability, but it will be OK. If we are talking about the old fashioned interface, ok. But when people will buy this product (Nokia N8), and find the same mistakes inside, it will be a very huge disappointment. And I do not believe, that until the launch, Nokia could change the business process just for one model, and fix all those glitches. They do not have money or time for that. And this is the same mistake that they have made before. They have not prepared enough to make a flagship device. For flagship, you have to make every effort to make a stable device, with stable software, hardware, etc;. Today they don’t have enough time even for testing N8, and it’s a pity. It will happen again, like with N97. Of course it won’t be as bad as with N97, but in any case we’ll see a lot of bugs in N8.