Nokia no longer master of its own Destiny

Nokia and Microsoft announced a partnership in which Nokia would put WP7 (Windows Mobile) on its phones. We knew that Stephen Elop was going to effect some change at Nokia when he was brought on to replace OPK. We knew that change was imminent when he talked about "ecosystems". We knew he is a former Microsoft employee. We knew Nokia had to do something about the slow pace of innovation on the Symbian platform and its perception by mobile users. But in my opinion, this adoption of a competitor's mobile phone software to run on your own hardware is a mistake for one shining reason:

Nokia no longer controls its own destiny.


Let me provide an example. If you need to move the most amount of network packets, using the smallest amount of rackspace possible, you choose Juniper's T series routers. It's not even a question about the other guy until they are so scared of of losing the sale, they slash the price on their inferior product.

Juniper makes the best networking equipment in the world because of two things: 1) our stellar hardware engineers who design chips designed with the purpose of inspecting and then moving that packet from point A to B; and 2) our crazy awesome software engineers who write JunOS to use every ounce of power in that hardware ASIC. And vice-versa. Juniper can do this because we control both aspects that shape our destiny: the software and the hardware.

As a former Juniper employee, Stephen should know better.

Instead Nokia has bound its fate with that of Windows Mobile, something over which Nokia has very little control. Instead of building up the platforms of Symbian and Meego to use Qt, they are now beholden to Steve Ballmer yelling "Developers, Developers, Developers" at the top of his lungs to generate buzz in the new ecosystem.

Stephen Elop wasn't at Microsoft at the time, but as a former member of Ballmer's inner circle, he should know that splitting effort in this manner does not work out as well as one thought it would when the deal was made. Watch this clip of Ballmer (just after Jobs says Micorosoft has no style) talking about how the partnership between Microsoft and IBM set Windows innovation back 3 to 4 years. Nokia has given up its position as a leader in the mobile world. One can argue they lost this a long time ago, but this announcement is certainly the final nail in the coffin.

As my maemo-powered N900 and my Symbian E75 I use for work start to age, I'll be looking for a new phone, and I'm pretty sure it won't be Windows Mobile. Thank God the iPhone moved to Verizon Looks like Android is the next stop for this mobile train.

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Goodbye Facebook

I am leaving Facebook.

I will be closing my account in approximately a week. If this is the only way you have to contact me, please take a second, look at my Info page and add my phone and email to your address book. My email address is also my IM account, and you can always find me on twitter @ktneely, although I have slowly been moving toward identi.ca (I'm bogart over there). Or just head over to my Google profile.

There are a number of reasons for this. I do not delete my account lightly, knowing that it is the only active link I have to many of my older and more remote friends. But I will delete the account because I have lost all trust in Facebook the company and the platform.


I have a number of reasons for this, with privacy topping the list. By privacy, I obviously do not mean keeping all information about me to myself. That cat found its way out of the bag a long time ago. What I mean is my ability to control the information. Facebook has been deliberately obtuse concerning both its current policies and -more importantly- plans for future developments of its privacy and data policies. The EFF has done an interesting little analysis of Facebook's evolving policies. I've lost both control of my data, and faith that the company would do anything -even some small measure- to try to protect that data or find a way for social media to be secure and maintain privacy.

I'm not the only one, and my reasons for leaving may be different than reasons you might have for considering the same thing. Gizmodo published an article 10 reasons to quit Facebook which provides some pretty compelling reasons to leave the service.

And then they have even more reasons to quit which provide some good followups to questions that the first set of reasons

The second reason is because Facebook just isn't that great of a communication platform. Sure, it's fun and all, but the interface is clunky and when I receive an email that you have written on my "wall", I want to simply respond, not have to log into a separate service and compose an answer on a webpage. It's annoying.

And just up today: a security flaw in Yelp -another social networking site that has taken advantage of some of the latest Facebook features- has a security flaw, which in turn exposes data housed within Facebook to risk of exposure. One can blame Yelp; it is there security flaw, after all. But if a relatively well-established social site like Yelp -I've been a member going on 6years, far longer than my tenure at Facebook- can accidentally expose data in Facebook, how long is it until other sites using the same features cause similar problems?

Before you reply, I know that I can take steps to protect my data on Facebook For now. The problem with that tactic is that Facebook is such a moving target when it comes to the data provided to the service by its users.

And Wired is looking for an open alternative to Facebook. I'm all ears if you know of one:

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Nokia Here and Now finds cool local places

Wow, I just installed the newest Nokia Here and Now on my N97 and it shows kitchenettesf. Now I'm hungry! Here and Now began life as a Nokia Beta Labs application. It's basically a web widget that takes your locaton and shows you pertinent information such as weather, restaurants, and events nearby. Not amazingly special, but it works really well and starts up quickly, so I check it every once in a while.

It has since graduated from the Nokia Betalab and can be found both on the Ovi store and via the "software update" application on at least the 5800 and the N97. I am just excited it is showing cool small places like the Kitchenette SF.

The beauty of silence, Nokia BH-905

Nokia BH-905's are premium in noise-canceling, mobile music. With attachments for all types of outlets, these are the only headset you will need.

I received the Nokia BH-905's as a Christmas present. I had put them on my list as a sort of joke, but my parents found a good deal with a rebate at Amazon and got them for me, bless their hearts. I opened this sucker up, set it to charge, and, after a wonderful meal, started playing with it.


The noise canceling works great. I do not have much experience with noise canceling, but these work as well as any I have ever tried. I sit under a noisy vent at work, and while it is bearable, sometimes it is nice to block it out. This headset does that wonderfully.

The BH-905 is comfortable to wear, although i cannot say I've ever forgotten that they were on my head. They are best when sitting or lounging, but I have walked a mile in them and did not have any problem with that.

The headset comes with a great case, a cable for connecting to a standard 3.5" microphone jack, an extension cable for when the sound source is far away, and a ton of adapters for other plugs, including airplanes.

But we don't want to have a cable, do we? I mostly use these connected via bluetooth to my N97 with its 48GB of music and video. So far, these have the most powerful bluetooth transceiver I have used, as I have not run into any of the skipping or connectivity issues I sometimes get when I use other bluetooth headsets and put the phone in my jeans pocket. The connection between device and headset has been rock solid every time I use it.

The battery life is phenomenal. I have gone multiple days with lots of noise canceling and some bluetooth usage. They are much smaller than I thought they would be, but still a full on-ear headset that is comfortable to wear but far bulkier than in-ear or clip-on style headsets. This headset has quickly become a part of my daily commute on the train and long hours at my desk.


Everything fits snugly and easily into the case for storage, portability, and protection. You can see charger, cables, adapters, and the headset all have their own place.

What noise-cancelling headphones have you used? How do you like to listen to music on the go?

Note: I also posted this review to GDGT. Feel free to check me out or follow my profile on GDGT.
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Evernote for Nokia S60 phones

Evernote has quietly released a beta version of its mobile client for S60 5th Edition handsets like the n97, N97 mini, and 5800 smartphones by Nokia. I am a huge Evernote user and have written about it before, but if you still haven't tried it, now is the time! Evernote gives you a "second brain"; a place to put all that information you want to remember but know that you won't or can't. Evernote provides a blank slate for any type of information you want to put into the system, and then allows you to access that information from just about anywhere with clients for the web, Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm Pre, and now Symbian S60.

I have been using Evernote S60 on my N97 and 5800 since November. It has really improved over the past month and ready for you to try. It's not perfect yet, but here is my overview with some tips and tricks along the way. I have used the 5800 exclusively with wi-fi because mine does not have a SIM in it, and the N97 on AT&T's network. All of the screenshots are from my N97 in portrait mode, but the app works just as well in landscape and handles switching between the two without a problem.



The APIBridge app is supposed to be installed by default on newer Nokia devices or as a bundle with some apps. I did not have it, so I had to register and download at Forum Nokia to get and install it. Evernote will work without it, but you will pretty much only be able to create text notes and view existing notes. All the additional cool stuff requires APIBridge.


Starting up Evernote, the phone presents the user with a number of dialogs asking for access to the phone's resources. This is annoying and I hope that final versions will eliminate this.


The main Evernote screen presents the ability to create four types of notes: text input, a photo taken from the camera, an audio message, or an attached file (usually a previously snapped photo or recorded audio)


A sample text note. I added a title by tapping where I have the title. Then, I selected the notebook location by tapping just to the left of the arrow, and then I am presented with a list of all my notebooks. New notes select the default notebook at first. Tags are entered by typing the tag as in the Windows 3.0 version of the client. There is no tag completion at present.
Perform text entry on-screen when the phone is open and keyboard exposed, or with the on-screen T9 and the Symbian text entry box.


Creating a note with a file attachment will allow you to attach previously-taken images or recorded sound clips.



Creating a note with an attached image allows you to choose scroll through the images stored on your device. I have all mine in the external memory under Images, but notice that it is displaying both screenshots and pictures taken with the phone's camera. On my N97, the screen does not want to scroll through for me. I think this is a memory limitation and it comes to a halt because I have so many images stored on the phone. I can still scroll through the images by popping open the keyboard and using the d-pad.


Clicking the Notes tab will take you to all your notes, starting with the most recently uploaded ones.


Viewing a note with an attached image that has been uploaded by the S60 client.


Pressing the "Menu" option in the upper right corner allows you to perform actions on the notes.


Activity tab shows notes that are pending upload.
in earlier versions, when uploading notes during spotty connectivity issues, I could get multiple copies of the same note up in my Evernote account. I have not seen this recur in the latest app.


The account screen with the new 'Exit' button


Upgrading or Installing


Evernote will check for new versions of the application. If it finds one, it presents an option to download and install right away. You can also manually check for updates from the accounts screen.


The phone does not recognize that the newly downloaded version is an installable application; notice the notepad-style icon associated with the download. I suspect this is due to MIME-type, but it is annoying. After the download is complete, go ahead and close the web window and Evernote if it is still running. Navigate to your file manager and to the Downloads directory on the Mass Memory drive. You will see the Evernote-xxxxx.wgz (where xxxxx is the build number). Double-tap this file and the installer will begin.


Installing a new version of Evernote.


The Evernote widget weighs in at over 2.5meg, so it is best to choose the external memory when installing it.


Conclusion
As you might have guessed by this lengthy post, I am really excited to have an Evernote client on my Symbian phone. There are only two applications I really want to see: Evernote and Google Voice. I have one now, and will hopefully have a Google Voice application soon.

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The Cloud is a Mainframe. Just fluffier

On ye ole twitter, I came across this interesting post about Cloud Computing (do I need to capitalize this anymore) being vastly different than mainframe client-server computing. I disagree, yet I agree with many of the specific points in the article. (Can you tell I went to law school?)

Okay, the amount of computing available is far different, but the way in which cloud computing actually works is not that far a cray from the old mainframe days.

At least when one talks about hosted clouds, like the Amazon and Google ones mentioned in the article. Sure, they may be a bit more nebulous and disaster-proof, having data centers all over the world, which is nice. However, I am still a client w/ my web browser as a terminal, connecting to a large compute resource that will refresh my screen when I make updates or changes. In "olden days", the resource that was scarce was actual compute power, and -to a lesser extent- storage.

Now the scarce resource is availability. I want to access my data from everywhere. Sound easy? Not when by "everywhere" I mean that I want to access it no matter what I have with me. Left my laptop at home? No problem, I will use my phone. Phone is dead? Not to worry, I will log on using my friend's laptop. And in all these methods, I am presented with a familiar interface no matter if I am using Windows, MacOSX, Symbian, Android, Linux, or something else.

To me, this doesn't sound different than the mainframe computing of yesteryear. In fact, for a long time, that model still had an advantage in terms of user experience because it did not matter what terminal in whichever building I used, I was presented with the same interface.

Where the Cloud starts to become different is when it is actually made up of the clients themselves. I want to see more peer-to-peer clouds. Services like Opera Unite where the clients are also serving up content. That is where innovation is and once again puts control into the hands of the users rather than a few corporate-run clouds.

Nokia releases two convergent devices; shows path to the future

There's a lot of talk on the Maemo users list that Nokia should release a Maemo netbook. Is there a working port of Maemo to Intel-based chips? Maemo is a Linux-based operating system that runs Nokia's Internet Tablets which are slightly larger than a mobile phone devices that are full (if limited) computers. The run on an ARM processor, and as far as I know, Maemo has not been ported for Intel chips that you find in laptops and some netbooks, including the Nokia one pictured on the right.

This was partially mentioned above, but I don't think enough weight has been given to the fact that Nokia has just within the past three months announced major partnerships with both Intel and Microsoft. It is not surprising that a corporate-focused booklet would choose this platform.


And remember, the N900 "Rover" is coming out. The OS/2 comparison is interesting, and it may well be that Maemo stays firmly in the "hobbyist" arena. But i think we will see Maemo take a bigger role as the laptop and phone continue to merge into a new hybrid device (of which netbooks and internet tablets are early forays into this class of device.


Nokia's strategy and vision for the future can be seen clearly from one feature both of these devices share: GSM networking capability. This is the same network your mobile phone uses for its data connection, enabling an almost-anywhere connection to the Internet from both the Booklet and the Tablet devices.

At this point, it looks to me that the Booklet is aimed at corporate commuter users, primarily because the video makes a point about "VPN-less" connection to your corporate email. Whereas the tablet is still aimed at the hobbyist/bleeding-edge connected user. With phone-call capability, this could become a must-have device for the younger always-on-facebook and text messaging set.
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N97 part I: First Impressions

Perhaps the friendliest DHL lady I have ever met delivered my Nokia N97 with US 3G from WOMworld. I did a live Qik recording of the unboxing, reaching the amazing milestone of 1 continuous viewer for the seven and a half minute unboxing.

Feel
I've held and played with an N97 before, so the solid construction and satisfying "snap" of opening and closing the phone was no surprise. Still, I love it.
I like the matte feel of the back cover. Some people like a sleek phone, but I get a better grip with the texture. The bottom sort of flares out and there is nothing wrong with this, but for grip purposes, I think this would have made more sense at the top.



Interface
Though it is not my primary device, I have used the Nokia 5800XM (firmware 20.x) quite a bit and am familiar with S50 5th edition. I immediately found the N97 more responsive on menus and switching the screen between portrait and landscape modes. The screen is also more responsive to my touch than the 5800 and I found I did not have to press as hard on the screen for it to register my input.
It took a couple tries to figure this out, but in addition to the usual locking mechanism via the side switch, the screen semi-locks when it goes dim. It does this in a way that a mere touch of the screen does not bring the phone back to life, but a press of the single button does. I like this feature. It lets me set the timeout for a long time, but when I forget to lock the phone and slip it in my pocket, I don't accidentally dial anyone.

The Homescreen
One of the best features of S60 phones is the massive amount of information they provide from just a quick glance at the screen. In 3rd edition, this is typically upcoming calendar entries, todos, current song, and in Eseries, recent email.
But ever since the Diablo release of Maemo, I have been excited about homescreen widgets: a nearly neverending set of options for displaying information that you are really interested in. The N97 homescreen achieves this. Not perfectly, but better than anything I have seen yet, with the ability to customize the screen with your interests. This could be improved by adding something like the Eseries concept of 'modes', whereby I could change the entire information display by a single click; providing a contextual or time-of-day bias to the presented information.

But still, this level of customization and instant information is amazing, and I have not seen its equal like in any phone yet.

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