"How do you use multitasking in N900?" That's the question asked by Peter Schneider, head of the Marketing in Nokia's MeeGo Devices team.

"Obviously, multitasking in the Nokia N900 is rather decent (my way of saying it's the best out there). BUT, are you making full use of it? Help me to understand how you use the multitasking feature. Your feedback is appreciated and taken into account in the MeeGo Marketing approach now and in the future."

Participating in this poll could really shape Nokia's vision of multitasking on their MeeGo devices, and it's encouraging to see them reaching out to the power-user, enthusiast and developer community on this topic.

The available options, based on the number of "mini-windows" you see in Maemo 5's task switcher, are:

• None. I'm happyily single-tasking
• 1 to 3 apps
• 4 to 6 apps
• 6 to 9 apps
• More than 9 apps
• Plenty, I never close any app but leave them all open

*

» Vote now!



Link: Original article.

Does that poll really show of the multi-tasking abilities of the N900?

I usually have 0-2 "mini-windows" open. But, I have email checking in the background, TOR (the one ring) running for sms / voicemail checking, MyContacts (do widgets count, as this can provided group ringtones), the replacement calendar widget, omweather widget, sip, gtalk, etc.

I don't think the mini-windows idea captures the true nature of the multi-tasking ability of the N900. I know a lot of people have several or more Desktop Command widgets or Queen Beecon widgets "running" doing things in the background.

Perhaps if anyone else agrees, someone on the council might approach Peter about updating or running a second poll about how many "behind the scenes" widgets and apps are being used.

Allow me to nag a bit. Marketing is an end of the line process. How is this going to influence the developers/architects/engineers working on the future machines being build right now?

Just a hypothetical approach: The results of the poll show something completely different than the great minds at Nokia HQ had anticipated. Will they stop production and go back to the drawing table?

It's okay to nag a bit. Think about if I would have written: change the MeeGo 1.1 UI on Nokia devices now! Well, I guess I would have gotten all kinds of requests, but that's not what we need right now. Yes, we are using the insight of this study also for more than the pure marketing, but it's too early to promise the effect of the results as the results itself decide whether there is an effect or not on the current path forward or whether they are simply a confirmation of the current plans.

Nice and straight answer, Peter. I like that! In am aware you did not write that but I thought it wouldn't harm pointing it out, since you are marketing, after all.

From a business technical point of view, the results of this poll would/could only influence the production process of future machines, as I suspect the n9 (assuming that is the meego device we are talking about here) should be well underway. Right?

Oh, fwiw, I did vote, of course. I just had little to add to the postings already there. The comment I wrote here would've been terribly off-topic in the other thread, but those were more or less my thoughts when I voted yesterday.

But like I said, the research is appreciated and your response as well.

Edit: BTW, any plans on satisfaction studies on maemo and the n900 from your department?

Hmm, do you think it would be a wise move to ask for customer satisfaction ratios on talk.maemo.org on the N900? I'm sure most of the people here love their N900. But like in most relationships there also these little things (or even bigger things) that drive you mad. But you still stay faithful because it's still the best for you. Considering the tonality in some of the threads here I'm doubtful whether I get results I can actually use in marketing. I consider everything less than 90% of all community members would buy an N900 again a catastrophic failure in a widespread mainstream marketing.

Well. If, like you said, the marketing department actually influences the production processes as well, I certainly would do the research. Even if the reactions would be far more negative than you wish, it will help you regain confidence with your clients, or at least with a part of that group, by showing you have a genuine interest. Added to that, I think one of the biggest problems people here have had with Nokia is the silence from Nokia's side. To show willingness to be *itch-slapped, at least would show that Nokia has some balls as well. (Pardon my French.)

Regarding to your question if I would buy another n900, I am considering buying a second one, right now, as I suspect the N9 will be way out of the price range fitting my budget. Once I succeed getting the one thing fixed that really annoys me about the n900 (not being able to sync with my Linux Evolution program), there is nothing that would hold me back from buying a second one. However, I don't know how representative that is for the people here and the kind of functionality they seek.

Watch out a bit for more than a single reason.
We may on one hand like the phones. But we also have reasons to not like them. Thing like:
- what happend to commercial applications when Nokia dropped Maemo?
- phone dying from empty battery - beeping in handsfree ear-buds hanging around my neck
- phone sometimes dying because one of the Hildon processes decides to consume 100% CPU, eating batteries
- phone sometimes refusing to connect GPRS or W-Lan until switched offline/online
- phone sometimes either stopping to receive SMS - or at least stopping to announce them
- phone unsafe while driving because no voice-controlled dial-out or voice announces of incomming caller - why did my N95 had to die on me .
- unexpected activation of audio that may drain a BT handsfree even when phone isn't used and not expected to do anything.
- media player sometimes refusing to play - just switches play/pause. Stepping next track and then back to previous track makes it play the track.
- sometimes playing music in phone despite BT handsfree registered and playing screen touch sounds.
- some mails impossible to view - maybe unsupported UTF8 character.
- ...

Most people here selected the N900 because the concept matches our needs.

What Nokia marketing and product management must think about is the expectations people have when they buy a phone like the N900. It's wonderful to be able to write own programs. But it is equally wonderful to have all base functionallity functioning. And an application store that does contain extra applications for people who don't develop their own.

But back to multitasking - maybe the phone should have an easy interface to present "cost" from using different applications.

We may want a lot of applications to be instantly available in a specific state, which is the reason we don't end it before switching to next application. But at the same time, we want as low power consumption as possible while not using the applications.

Better multitasking means more applications being used. But this gives more danger of a wild process quickly eating the remaining battery which may be devastating on a business trip. Not a marketing issue, but a phone that could allow individual quota for each application would really be nice.

If marketing wants very high ratings from customer polls, marketing should spend time with product management and discuss the concept of goodwill.

End of rambling

Well, Communities are overrated if you are really interested to make money. Interaction between companies and communities is new. It is something you can't ignore and it will be some kind of default by the rise of all this Web 2.0 stuff like Facebook. Somehow the communities are always the cutting edge, not the mass, but you need them. You can observe this phenomenon at moment very clear in the imaging sector. All important camera producers interact with photographers and it is always about the premium products. So community is asked for their needs and such features are included for example in fullframe DSLR cameras. So Canon or Nikon are producing these fullframe cameras which are not sold that much. They are not the real cash cows, they are more image cows.
For smartphones Nokia is now in a difficult situation. Apple is selling the stuff for the anti-geeks and android is focusing on people who want to believe they are geeks. But they are not the real geeks. You want to deal with the real geeks. These people are as well digital nomads as consume nomads. They come and they go.
I am one of these geeks and I went for the N900 because of Maemo, not Nokia. Especially for us in Germany is Nokia something we think 10 times about before we go for it because of what happened here.
So my advice, don't focus on geeks or nerds. I think the part of community which came from the Psions over Zaurus to N900 maybe more interesting for Nokia. These people want solid and good workhorses which can be adapted to the needs. Some parts of these workhorse aspects were already missing in Maemo, for example all this sync and PIM stuff. These plus a real open platform which can be adapted for the skilled user are the direction to look at, not multitasking. Well multitasking is part of the needs, but coming back to Psion, this is something my good old Psion series 5 could do....

Well but see... it's the geeks and nerds that wind up doing crap on their stuff that companies observe, rip off, make popular, and become famous for...

So... I'd definitely keep at least one eye on them nerdy geeks