Nokia Sports Tracker - I want to believe but I can't because it's flakey
Mon, 2008-11-10 02:22 — Roland
Seeing Ms Jen's and Glenn's posts about the Nokia Sports Tracker Widget a few weeks back made me create my own Sports Tracker N Series Widget page. Unfortunately Sports Tracker is maddeningly infuriating in that annoying kind of "Nokia can almost make software way" because:
- Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it would freeze or stop tracking my movements in the middle of a bicycle ride when I first tried it (using the built in GPS on the N95-1 and the built-in GPS on the N82 (North American version). And I tried to make it work about 70 times (yes I have 70 routes on Sports Tracker and far too many are incomplete because the GPS froze) which I think constitutes a fair trial!
- So I bought an LD-4W GPS when I was in Finland for Nokia Open Lab 2008, thinking that would improve the reliability. Well it did for ShoZu but for Sports Tracker it was no more or less reliable
- I want to believe :-) ! Maybe it's the fact that I have an N95-1 so maybe I run out of memory? Maybe the N82 NAM doesn't work because it doesn't have the latest normal N82 firmware updates. Maybe it's because I don't use 3G (I'd love to use 3G but none of the devices Nokia has sent me to date has North American 3G)
- And yes I know it's beta, I hope the next version called Nokia viNe is less flakey. Maybe both Sports Tracker and viNe are more reliable on newer phones like the N95 8GB NAM, N96, N85 etc! ShoZu has dramatically improved in reliability in recent versions for fanatical 30 pictures or more per day users like myself (pretty reliable for normal folks all along methinks)! Fingers crossed that the same thing will happen for Sports Tracker and viNe.
- Postscript: just tried logging into my sports tracker account with my Nokia Account and it failed, in fact I can't login into my Nokia account at all. Here's the error message: "Servlet error: An exception occurred. The current application deployment descriptors do not allow for including it in this response. Please consult the application log for details." - Weekend maintainence? Regardless, a very unfriendly error message.
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Comments
I feel your pain...:)
Hey Roland,
I'm also having some troubles with Sport Tracker, though they are slightly different to yours.
I'm also using a nokia N95-1 (with the firmware upgraded to, I think, 20.0.15 - something like that) but I am not having the problems that you are having with the phone application, that works fine. However, I'm in Europe and mostly on 3G, so that might explain that difference.
But...as for the site. Ack! Flaky is the word. Today's latest is 'Given Nokia Sports Tracker account is already in use' whenever I try to log in - and that is after coming out of Nokia's Ovi site which logs me into Sport Tracker with my Nokia account, but then ST wants it's own different log in, and then comes the error above. What a pain!
I assume they will one day sort it out, or will they? Mebbe Vine will come out first. Who knows!
Another GPS/Phone tracking site that has a phone application for Nokia N95's is gpsed.com. That service offers much the same as ST (also in that it's website is a little flaky, though it seems to be a bit less flaky that ST right now) - might be worth you giving that a try if your application is acting up?
Personally, I'm just playing with both of these services and sort of holding out to see what else comes along (Vine especially), as I don't think any of the services as they are right now are much good. Patience is a virtue, as they say. :)
Hey Ovi won't log you in
Hey
Ovi won't log you in to SportsTracker automatically (yet). You need log in again with your Nokia Account. After that service should ask whether you have an existing SportsTracker account or not. If you do, enter username and password of your old account and you should be able to access your old account using Nokia Account.
Nokia websites
Hello anon,
No, that doesn't work, ST just shows the error mentioned above. It didn't used to, but now it does...
Incidentally, I'm guessing that you are the same person who just showed up at my site as a referrer from here, in which case you are not very anon, and you also work for Nokia. :)
The truth is that Nokia websites are striving to be 'different', and they are certainly that what with the incredibly heavy use of flash etc, but the more 'different' they become, the worse becomes their usability.
It's really not good. The ST site now has problems, not improvements, as does Ovi to a lesser extent; it was fine, but now flash has appeared all over the place and what with most people using flash-blockers (at least on Mac browsers) it means that a visitor has to go around clicking on the flash headings just to make 'em show up.
I mean, come on, why do you need to use flash for simple column headings? It's mad.
The main Nokia site has become a true usability nightmare - flash everywhere but simple little things like making sure that the 'back' button actually works are forgotten about. Try checking out new apps for S60. You'll go to the index list, click on an interesting looking app, then try to return to the index...and lo and behold...you can't.
As an aside, I can't think of anything more ironic than a cellphone company having a main website that does not work on cellphone browsers.
The ST website is also more than a little insane in many ways. As an example, and as Roland also mentions below, - what's with those urls? If I want to link to one of my tracks I would like to link to something like http://nokia.sporttracker/user/rogi/track/13.
But no can do. Instead I have to use a url that is convoluted enough to bring anyone out in hives. :)
Overall, great (in fact quite amazing) phones and devices, nice company with genuinely interested, smart and thoughtful employees...but...what truly *dismal* websites. I'll give Nokia a rating of 9/10 for technical engineering ability, sometimes bordering on genious, and a whopping 0/10 for the horrendously badly though out design on all Nokia websites.
Must try harder.
And be happy that I didn't get started on about the cookie problems with all of the Nokia websites!
Thanks for the reply, anyway. :)
it works now with my nokia id (didn't work before)
hi anon and rogi
i hate to be negative but yeah i agree with Rogi! Nokia's fascination with flash (c'mon make it functional instead of eye candy and make it gracefully degrade!) has gotta end and Nokia has to start using industry standard solutions (e.g. WordPress, Drupal, Ruby on Rails, etc.) instead of handcrafting bad solutions with Flash and bad URLs from 1998 which is what Nokia appears to be doing!
hi roji
Ah... Widgets
I really hate the word "widget".
In this case, I have not been able to suss out which department or team is resonsible for the release of this widget into the wild. I will assume from previous widgets that interact with Sports Tracker that one has been created by an external interactive agency who is over charging for spotty flash apps* that may or may not be optimized to work with the Nokia servers. But hey, it is Flash! Doesn't everyone what Flash! Wait, maybe Flash! isn't always the answer. But it moves... it is pretty... oh wait, it is connecting to the server...
I already blogged my rants on the subject of internal/external agency communication on this very widget, so I will keep my typing fingers shut...
Hi Roland! Hi! I hope all is well in Vancouver. ;o)
* I will say that this widget actually works much better and with greater consistency than the one that R/GA created in the spring.
haha jen, yes the widget is too slow
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