Which is what most people were asking for on bugzilla. I don't care about a refund, but an apology and an opt-out are the least that I would have expected.

I would like either the initial splash screen to never appear, or if it must appear, to have a "no thanks" button so that an SMS is never sent. Unsubscribing via the My Nokia applet in Settings after the event is not good enough, in my opinion.

That effectively means "Don't buy Nokia", since everything is now under the very weird, Finnish concept.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Ovi

Yeah. The way in when you're out and the way out when you're in. I'd say that's an apt name. Every time you get a device, they show you the OVI.

ETA:

"Oops. Will be default-off in PR 1.3"

Closed: Fixed in 5.0+

Well, here's the box. Show me the warning!


I didn't find it either.

I can't make up my mind whether I'm exceptionally stupid, the people at Nokia are exceptionally stupid, or they people at Nokia think the rest of us are exceptionally stupid.

With the whole Maemo/meego enterprise, engaging the Open Source Community, building on goodwill, green business and ethical practices Nokia seem to be going out of their way to present themselves as the Good Guys of handhelds (whether phones, tablets whatever). And they seem to be putting quite a bit of effort into it.
http://www.businessgreen.com/busines...top-spot-green

http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...witcher=mobile

http://ncomprod.nokia.com/corporate-...uct/highethics

To list but a few

And then this business fo data and un-turnoffable sms comes along completely knocking that idea sideways.

Are Nokia people so dim they don't see why this might be a problem for the ethical, open source fanbase they've attracted to maemo?

Are Nokia people so blind they think the maemo fanbase is so dim we won't notice?

I feel very confused. Are Nokia good guys or not? I don't know any more.

Small thought: in searching for links, I came across the Nokia Code of Conduct for business which talks about going beyond the point of mere law in their ethical approach. It also encouraged employees to report violations of the code - though no mention is made of whether the public might do so. Is that area wirth persuing?


Editing again now I've had chance to skim the code:

I'd say there's a violation of "fair and reasonable choices on its collection and use" wouldn't you?

Don't eat. Don't give to children. Don't short. Warning. Disclaimer. Don't try to jam up the.

Yep, it's the US box alright.

Well, depends on who you ask. People like Texrat, probably, will root for them as they were the good guys. Others say they're the Devil incarnate.

Me, I'm less than shocked. Appalled, but ...

Look, Nokia has never been the Good guys. As long as I bought their phones (8110 means about 1996, but not quite then), they had the good and the bad. Always been the visionaries. Uniform UI, good tech support (by good I mean you give them the phone and money and they fix it, no flops), the best phones available and pricing to match. OTOH, they aren't known for generosity, communication with customers, involvement, well, anything that makes anyone Good. (I'm not talking about free stuff)

In my experience, Nokia is yet to finish a platform or device. None of the phones I had ever had their bugs fixed, and I don't mean N900 that features millions of lines in an OS. No, what I mean is they never fixed them back when it had 2K of flash memory.

Not even when flashing was normal, never more than one flash or so per device, always addressing stuff they thought was bad. Basically showstoppers and a few features. On to the next device.

I feel like the whole Nokia policy is a train. Steam everywhere, speed, people Wooo!-ing, glitter until you buy a device. Then you're off the train, in the middle of the field, alone. Train is already 50 kilometers *that way* and it ain't coming back for you and your device buddy. But fork over some cash and you're back on board, hunting for that next device they always release.

Nokia takes this corporate hocus-pocus to the extreme. All big companies have rules and regulations, but they do it best, second maybe to Apple.

Larger companies have better relations and are less secretive. Even the perceived monsters have forums they listen to, channels where developers blog/tweet/discuss project progress, post blunders, relax. Help forums where you can actually get a hold of a person that actually writes the code and provides you with insight.

Not Nokia. Cold, distant, silent, monolithic, separated, unhelpful, single minded, stubborn, to name a few.

I've been through years of management, marketing, corporate grit, and I know exactly what school of thought the guy making these decisions comes from. Image, people. Everything is image. A projection screen, glitter, fireworks, push, free devices to encourage developers, until people buy it. Behind the screen, users are unheard, unheeded, abandoned. Developers lack documentation, rendering them unable to write the stuff they were brought over to write. But by them the train and it's TV ads and cool adverts and campaigning is already on its way to the next station, in Meego, Massachusetts.

I know people like them. I know some have made contact and probably have warm fuzzy feelings from the Push or whatnot. In fact, it's a safe bet someone will stand up for them right here, right now.

And to you, dear supporter, I say this: You probably are more than a customer. Maybe a developer. Maybe a member of some council, some board, some initiative. Definitely not a "simple" customer.

Is the above Bad? No, after all, no kicking of my dog ever took place. Good? Definitely no.

How about Cold Gray? Is that on the scale?

SMS subscription be damned.

The most important data gathered from this baby is the number of N900 out there that have an active data plan. Subtract from sold, get a percentage of people that use it as phone versus internet tablet.

How many on which networks, meaning the next negotiation of branded Nokia phones with Vodafone is going to be a lot more interesting.

IMEI and Network ID means they know hoe many devices migrated, how many were bought and when (IMEI is associated with shipped lots), and get a sale graph, activation graph. How many were Christmas gifts. How many were exported. How sales varied.

Subscribe to news my foot.

Sadly, no. The whole "Code" is wishy-washy enough to tolerate anything up to manslaughter, as long as there's even a tiny hint of them doing it to "support" their customers.

Okay, everybody who knows how deep my loath for Apple goes might be shocked by this, but still:

By now I'm not sure Nokia's still behind Apple on that account. At least Apple tries to score every single one of their poor business decisions as a feature in disguise (thus trying to keep their customers happy). Nokia on the other hand doesn't seem to care that they're constantly alienating their customers. Yes, I have to admit, I'm still rather shocked at that reply to the issue at hand.

"Here, take that. Don't like it? Take your whining elsewhere. Oh, btw, there's a new device coming out soon - why don't you pay us again to get that one instead?"

I haven't followed Nokia too closely over the years, other than their "very mainstream" offerings; but it seems to me that passage in bold up there pretty much sums up their sole strategy for the past decade (and beyond?).

Their attempts to branch out (N-Gage, Ovi Store, booklet, naviteq maps) has generated lukewarm (at best) market response thus far.

I have a feeling that they've yet to really commit themselves to any of the 'new strategies' and internally they keep going back to the sole gameplan that has worked for them all this year. I'm afraid it's not good enough for 2010.

Also, if I may, it's not very open-source. It's clearly intended to fly under the radar. That's a shocking stab in the back at the fundamental paradigm that the community is based on, an abuse of the spirit by which the source code for Linux and much of the code is provided openly to Nokia and everyone that wants to use it, and finally a direct stab in the back of individuals and users who trusted the closed portions of code Nokia provided. This last item further bolsters the argument for COMPLETELY opening up the firmware. For an open-source device, this platform has NO standing for looking down on closed-source or even other partially-open devices like Android.

Nokia should feel shameful for this hypocrisy. While one side of their face speaks about how active they are in open-source, the other side of their corporate face tells you that they will MAINTAIN having closed-source portions, continue to build devices with components that aren't open-source friendly and continue to express seemingly passive-aggressive levels of support and communications to customers.

Repulsive and disgraceful. Shame.

What Nokia did was ugly. In my particular case, I did the update OTA but never got a SMS and was not auto-registered, though I can't explain why not. Supposedly, I should've been and that ticks me off. Even so, what Nokia did with the PR 1.2 upgrade was nothing compared to what Google does. And things are really bad for some people - for example:

http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/...a-ota-updates/

So, while any fantasies we may have had of Nokia being a totally benevolent corporate entity are now forever tarnished, the PR 1.2 auto-registration scandal is small potaotes, relatively speaking.

But I'm still pissed...