s60

The Thrilling conclusion: Archaic OS + wonderful 3rdparty apps (e.g. ShoZu + Qik + Gravity) = mobile multimedia creator happiness iff:

1. You can get this phone at a good price (since it's now over a year old, maybe you can get the E75 at a substantial discount e.g. $200)
2. You don't mind the user unfriendliness of S60V3 and the puny 320x240 screen. S60 V3 is unfriendly and archaic compared to iPhone and Android and other modern mobile operating systems but Symbian has some excellent free or cheap 3rd party programs for mobile multi-media content creators i.e. Gravity + ShoZu + Qik are all free or under 10 Euro each which means that with these programs you have a multi-media creator's powerhouse.

But since the Nokia C6 was introduced does it make sense to consider the E75? Not for me. the C6 is cheaper, has a bigger screen and more up to date software!

C'mon Nokia bundle ShoZu, Qik and Gravity with the C6 and pitch the phone to multi-media creators, students and journalists! It would be a killer combo.

Got my phone bill last month and it's my highest bandwidth usage ever. 875MB primarily because I streamed 640x480 video using Qik on the E75. Just goes to show you that as I have suspected, once you start streaming at 640x480 or higher e.g. HD, your mobile bandwidth is going to start rapidly rising and suddenly having a multi-gigabyte data plan makes sense!

In other words once Apple catches up :-)  with Nokia in terms of being able to stream 640x480 or higher resolution video over 3G, 3.5 G or 4G, it's going to bring the mobile network to its knees (at least the Canadian mobile networks and probably most other North American ones which are not designed for mass market video streaming)!

As I blogged about before (e.g. with my N999 concept), the future is great cameraphone pictures & video coupled with always on, always available connectivity. And the closest thing so far to this future is 3.5G combined with a cameraphone with a decent video camera and still camera, i.e. not the current iPhone's cr*ppy camera.

Sometimes I actually see glimpses of the future. That's how I felt tonight with Qik streamed live (check out the video below after the break) over HSDPA 3.5G from the E75-1. What a great wonderful tool for artists and journalists. Imagine if instead of the decent camera in the E75, it was replaced with the camera from the N93 i.e. something with a usable optical zoom and a Zeiss lens!. Magic! Nokia please make it so :-)

I'm a fan of the future - quick video at Vancouver Startup Drinks

Part 2 of my E75 review is a short update to say that the E75-1 works great with Rogers/Fido 3.5 G aka HSDPA and it's fast with ShoZu and Gravity. I thought that Rogers HSDPA was only compatible with the E75-1 (but a search through the specs shows that the E75-1 works great with 2100MHz but not 850MHz HSDPA and Rogers offers 2100MHz so that makes sense!). Now I am dreaming of having an N86 and/or N900 with 3.5G. Wow that would be fast and a great experience!

A while back I thought I lost my N82. In my panic I tweeted about the horror of using the iPhone 3G's camera (I love iPhone apps but hate the camera!) and the nice folks at WOMWORLD Nokia offered to lend me an E75 with a QWERTY keyboard and 3.2 megapixel camera until I bought an N82 replacement.

Fortunately I found the N82 but by then I had the E75 (thanks to Tom Hall of WOMWORLD Nokia!)

So this will be an abbreviated series of stream of consciousness reviews

1. I actually like the E75 form factor. It's light and thin! And the slide is nice
2. Gravity rocks on it. Best Twitter client on any mobile platform. Only limited by the small screen.
3. The screen doesn't have enough pixels! (320x240 belongs in the dustbin of history :-) certainly doesn't belong on a "business" phone like the E75 that was introduced in spring of 2009!) So Gravity and other heavy text and graphics based apps like the web browser suffer
4. S60 5th 3rd edition shall we say is "long in the tooth". I am not going to repeat my past anti-S60 whingeing (e.g. N97 S60 whingeing) :-) Suffice to say that anachronistic unusable error messages  like"Create WLAN connection in offline mode?" abound. As well as the many other S60 issues (e.g. the antiquated web browser, c'mon Nokia, put a modern Web Kit browser on the E75 via a software update, please!)
5. The camera is decent. Far better than the iPhone (and the E71) but not nearly as good as the N82 which shows you that Nokia is still ahead of Apple (but for how much longer?) - check out my e75 photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/tags/e75photo/

The N900 is the closest thing to my N999 vision that Nokia has announced. More like this please. Still prefer a separate company/stealth division. Still really want a device that caters to  mobile, social multi media creators like  myself. Still want an optical zoom. Still don't need a QWERTY keyboard. Congrats, Nokia, anyway on thinking a wee bit different for a change. And good-bye to S60/S^2/whatever crazy re-branding Nokia wants to give you.. You'll always be my first mobile crush but yes I have jilted you and it will never be the same between us :-)

N97 Review Thrilling Review Conclusion - only recommended for S60 geeks

If I had money which I don't due to transitions in employment and the need to pay $8000 for a new roof, I would buy an N97 NAM with my own money. But, unfortunately (it pains me to slag Nokia since I desperately want Apple to have viable competition longterm and slagging Nokia is like slagging my first love since I loved my first cameraphone, the 1 megapixel Nokia 7610 I bought in 2004!)  I can not  recommend the Nokia N97 for other people i.e. people who are not already S60 geeks.

Buy an iPhone 3GS instead. Sure the camera on the 3GS s*cks compared to the N82, N95, N97, N86, etc but the software is a joy to use and the touch focus is something that Nokia should have done first. and there is a viable useful app ecosystem for the iPhone unlike Nokia (sure it may develop but there is no sign of it).

The N97 works for me because of these apps (in no order):

• ShoZu - Sorry Pixelpipe your service is unusable until Nokia fixes Share Online, sharing only 30 items at a time is a non starter for me.  The unreliable Share Online which has no cues about whether a photo has been uploaded already is a major annoyance.)
• Gravity - Gravity rocks, it's one of the best Twitter clients on any platform and is continually being improved! Gravity makes the N97 QWERTY keyboard useful instead of a frill. Without gravity, I'd be content with the superior camera of the N86 8MP and pecking away in g*d aweful T9)
• Nokia Sports Tracker is a must have for tracking your bicycle rides, walks,etc. It is full of annoyances like not remembering any of your preferences (I always want to share my Maps with everybody, please don't ask OVER AND OVER again) but works well and is very useful and works in the background unlike the iPhone trackers all of which are useless because the iPhone doesn't allow 3rd party apps to multi-task
• QIK, video streaming need I say more. It just works and keeps getting improved!

If you love the above apps or any of the other few (there are about 50 good apps on S60, on iPhone there are several hundred good apps!) good apps on S60, then that probably means you are an S60 geek and then the only choice in 2009 is either the N86 8MP or N97. However once a 5 megaxel iPhone with decent video comes out in 2010, then I fear Nokia at its current rate of stagnation won't even be able to keep S60 geeks like myself happy.

Why normal people should NOT buy  the N97:

• the UI is impossible to use for non S60 geeks, hand the N97 and iPhone 3GS to a newbie and may G*d have mercy on your soul :-) ! Can't stand S60 constantly nattering at you asking whether you want to connect or not, of course I do ! touch inconsistently works from screen to screen, app to app and a host of other UX issues
• the whole thing feels like a work in progress e.g. widgets are a great proof of concept but in reality aren't really that useful, e.g. the twitter and facebook widgets don't display enough useful info and autoscroll, they just display the last 10 or so status updates, these widgets feel like "hello world" rather than actually useful
• instability - e.g. I reset the phone via *#7370#, set the camera to sequence multiple shot mode and take 16 pictures and the camera app freezes; if Nokia can't get their camera app to work in 2009 no wonder ShoZu also has stability issues
• there's not enough RAM - even if you install all the apps on the built in 32GB mass memory you still run out of RAM

Today was a wee day of frustration (which could be attributed probably due to the early V11 firmware or less likely the the fact that I am running the 5800 i.e. unsupported version of ShoZu) in trial N97 review land:

1. At one point, the N97 lock switch aka "keyguard" stopped working, i.e. it wouldn't unlock and the only way I could fix it was to do a *#7370# hard reset which meant I had to re-install all my apps (ShoZu, Nokia Sports Tracker, etc which was very annoying for me, imagine if a non S60 geek had to do this!)
   1. Hmmm, looks it might be fixed as follows (hat tip to The Definitive Nokia N97 Bug List):
      

      "Unlocking the phone via lock switch will not activate the backlight most of the time. This happens on the first unlock after an idle period – subsequent unlocks will activate the backlight until the phone goes into idle mode again. Seems to be a pretty universal problem. Extremely annoying because I have to hit the unlock switch a minimum of three times, usually more. No fix yet. Workaround: Hit the Menu Key [thanks Jasz] or Camera Key [me] to turn the backlight on before hitting the unlock key."

2. The camera app hung as shown in the photo above in the "Processing Image" state. Holding the menu key and trying to kill the camera app didn't fix it (instead the phone just showed a blank menu of apps). I had to turn the phone off and then on to make it work.

Experienced the usual "early Nokia firmware why-can't they-get-it-right-the-first-time" glitches today on the N97:

1. The phone rebooted when I inserted the USB cable to recharge it
2. USB charging via the USB cable didn't work until I rebooted the phone (charging via the USB to normal Nokia power charger coverter dongle worked flawlessly!)

As Dave Winer says, "We make sh*tty software". The frustrating part is that Nokia doesn't seem to improve its firmware for the initial release of its phones. My 7610 in 2004 and the trial N97 I have today in 2009 both have random reboot problems and other glitches; the fit and polish of the initial Nokia firmware releases (i am running the 2nd release i.e. V11 on the N97 but it doesn't seem very polished) hasn't improved in the last five years. C'mon Nokia, you can and should do better, please!

1. The N97 touch UI is a wart on top of an S60 wart. The S60 touch UI  works  only if you are an S60 geek like me or sloanb. For the mass market aka "humans" as Marc Canter calls normal people :-), S60 and the S60 touch UI are unusable. Please Nokia (speaking as a friend who wants Nokia to thrive instead of merely surviving the iPhone juggernaut):
   1. fix the S60 UI as per Rui's suggestions
   2. start a separate stealth division or company to re-do the UI (as I  previously advocated after Nokia Open Lab 2008 and as Alec Saunders advocated today  or just buy Palm :-)  (yes I know buying Palm is unrealistic, but in the long run it's just as valid as Maemo (which I like but is just for geeks at this point) or even worse trying to revamp S60 to make it usable)
2. Having said that, I am strangely enjoying using the N97 (the Touch makes perfect sense if you have been living and breathing S60 since 2004 like I have!). I love the beautiful big screen (the N82 screen seems tiny and dark by comparison) and the camera seems faster shot to shot and the pictures are not bad in regular light (e.g. this photo of Dane from the N97 looks better than this photo of Dane with the N82 (need to view both at original size) wouldn't you agree?).
3. Nokia not having full Mac support for the N97 at launch time in 2009 is inexcusable. The days of the Microsoft hegemony are over. Get over it Nokia, the 1990s are over :-) !
4. Even if Ovi Maps supported the Mac, I doubt I'd like it. I bet I'd feel the same way as Stefan i.e. I'd still use Google Maps instead of Ovi.
5. Over the air update of my trial N97 (which is European) firmware worked flawlessly. Unfortunately as per Ms Jen, the same can't be said of the N97 NAM, again inexcusable for a flagship device.
6. Still not a fan of widgets:
   1. Rather have the weather widget use the official and best Canadian forecast which is Environment Canada's
   2. The facebook app doesn't show enough info and doesn't show Notes
7. Surprisingly email works better than expected with my gmail account. Major bug is that tags don't show up as IMAP folders which they do in a proper email client like Thunderbird.
8. Qik, ShoZu and Nokia Sports Tracker (Sports Tracker still has a bad website and inexplicably doesn't upload all the photos you have taken during a ride but that's not an N97 exclusive bug) all work just as well as they do on the N82 and E71 even though none of them except Qik support the N97 officially yet.
9. Gravity rocks! it's one of the best mobile twitter clients on any platform! Beautiful and fun with the kinetic touch scrolling.
10. The Web Browser still feels pokey and outmoded compared to the iPhone web browser. Please fix!
11. As many others have pointed out, the keyboard is fine except that "long" key presses should result in numbers or the other symbols instead of auto-repeating the key.This works fine in the E71! Please fix in a future firmware update.

On the night before I receive my N97 from Nokia WOM World for a brief trial, just for fun I looked back at my N999 concept/vision from December 1, 2008. And what the heck here's the N999 concept updated for July 2009 (notable updates are in bold):

1. screen with as many pixels as the 5800 Tube or iPhone (sorry but QVGA doesn't cut it in 2009!)
2. S60 simplified and fixed as Rui describes
3. 5 megapixel camera with cover and Xenon flash with 3x optical zoom and 640x480 30fps video (basically re-use the awesome N82 camera hardware and software and combine with the N93 optical zoom)
4. Quad band GSM and 3G (i.e. works on Rogers and AT&T in North America AND European 3G out of the box just like the N85, no funky North American model)
5. Built in ShoZu (with 10MB limit removed for 3G and WiFi, make the limit 50-200MB for 3G and WiFi) - killer app for photographers and videobloggers - Qik is built  into the N97 why not ShoZu? (I can't stand Share Online's limit of 6 photos at a time since I take over 50 a day; hope it's removed on the N97)
6. Bult-in Qik (killer app for videobloggers!) - Qik is built  into the N97 can't wait to try it!
   
7. Awesome web browser (Nokia's Web Kit browser was great in 2006, it is now far behind Apple's)
8. Lots of available RAM (as much as the N95 8GB please!), 8GB storage on built-in card - Reviews are mixed on the N97, sounds like it has a lot of RAM (more than the N95 8GB)  but with widgets it takes up a lot more. - I doubt I will use widgets!
9. Built in Nokia viNes to take advantage of Nokia's great GPS hardware (killer GPS app!) - viNes apears to be dead. Nokia Sports Tracker appears to be alive, so I'd rather have that built-in
   
10. Built in Twitter App i.e. built in Gravity

Now I know the above list is not possible given today's processors and batteries but in that case I can live without optical zoom! Everything else is doable as far as I can tell.

I still don't need:

1. QWERTY keyboard - I'd rather have an awesome camera and flash than a touch or QWERTY keyboard. And for me touch keyboards are just as good as QWERTY.
2. Email (Email is dead to me (ok email isn't dead but my resolution is to take any email thread  that I need to keep that has more than 2 replies to a wiki or blog); I continue to use it  for work and to communicate with "normal" folks!) - If the browser is as good as the iPhone's, then webmail clients work just fine.
3. Touch (would be nice, but not convinced Nokia has the software chops for this; I am not interested in S60 transmogrified with touch, I would prefer touch to be part of a totally revamped user interface that's NOT S60.) - Unfortunately it appears that Nokia's current touch interface s*cks. I hope I am proven wrong by my N97 trial.
4. Micro SD card slot
5. Calendar (would be nice but that's what my laptop is for :-) !) - Again with a good enough browser a web client would be good enough)
6. IM (Twitter is IM enough for me and I am fine with using it in the browser)
7. VOIP is dead to me except for Skype
8. MMS - I am not convinced I need it, I can always use ShoZu email photos :-) but I was wrong about SMS (so maybe I am wrong about MMS) - I am pretty sure I am wrong about MMS and I am pretty sure (unfortunately) I will be MMSing my relatives with pictures since they all finally seem to have MMS plans and devices and none of my luddite :-) relatives still use flickr or any of the other public or private photosharing sites!
   

Gravity, the fantastic S60 Twitter client proves that German S60 developers continue to rule the moribund S60 apps ecosystem (unfortunately the S60 app industry is a cottage industry compared to the iPhone app industry). First, profimail ruled the world (back in 2004 when I bought my first S60 phone and thought the mobile email was relevant, just say no to mobile email, just say yes to short form customized mobile two way communication like Twitter) and now gravity rules. And if you don't believe me that the iPhone app industry is clearly dominant over the S60 app industry than that's your prerogative and I'd have to wish you the best of luck making money with your S60 apps!

Behold the awesomeness of Gravity in my Gravity Screenshot set on flickr!

See the accompanying UBC mobile brief wiki for notes to this presentation which I gave to the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Sciences on January 13, 2009 (note that this presentation was prepared using the 280 Slides web app which i highly recommend!)

Nokia has to do something soon. Don't think it's quite as urgent as "must introduce something this week" as Scoble describes but the window is closing for Nokia to re-capture the "high-end today but quickly becoming profitable mainstream" mind share that they have lost.

What do I want? Here's my N999 "multimedia-creator phone" vision updated for Dec 2008 (not in order of priority):

1. screen the size of the 5800 Tube
2. S60 simplified and fixed as Rui describes
3. 5 megapixel camera with cover and Xenon flash with 3x optical zoom and 640x480 30fps video (basically re-use the awesome N82 camera hardware and software)
4. Quad band GSM and 3G (i.e. works on Rogers and AT&T in North America AND European 3G out of the box just like the N85, no funky North American model)
5. Built in ShoZu (with 10MB limit removed for 3G and WiFi, make the limit 50MB for 3G and WiFi) - killer app for photographers and videobloggers
6. Bult-in Qik (killer app for videobloggers!)
7. Awesome web browser (Nokia's Web Kit browser was great in 2006, it is now far behind Apple's)
8. Lots of available RAM (as much as the N95 8GB please!), 8GB storage on built-in card
9. Built in Nokia viNes to take advantage of Nokia's great GPS hardware (killer GPS app!)

Here's what I don't need:

1. QWERTY keyboard
2. Email (Email is dead to me; I continue to use it reluctantly for work)
3. Touch (would be nice, but not convinced Nokia has the software chops for this; I am not interested in S60 transmogrified with touch, I would prefer touch to be part of a totally revamped user interface that's NOT S60.)
4. Micro SD card slot
5. Calendar (would be nice but that's what my laptop is for :-) !)
6. IM (Twitter is IM enough for me and I am fine with using it in the browser)
7. VOIP is dead to me except for Skype
8. MMS - I am not convinced I need it, I can always use ShoZu email photos :-) but I was wrong about SMS (so maybe I am wrong about MMS)

Would be nice:

1. Built in S60 Python so I can hack around and do some Geo hacks (and with reasonable security model to let mash up creators create some insanely great mashups) - Sorry widsets, Nokia WRT and flash lite don't cut it for me, but I am willing to be convinced of course!
2. Built-in Skype (the one on the N800 is fab and yes I know it's on a different operating system but Nokia has some awesome developers, c'mon and get with it :-) )
3. USB charging
4. Over the air firmware updates

QUOTE [From Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Nokia’s touchiest week «]

Translation: this is the week that Nokia either shines or moves to the B list of the cell phone market. Yeah, you won’t know how this week turned out for a year or two, but there is no bigger week for Nokia.

Now, can you count Nokia out yet? No way. It has the biggest slice of the cell phone marketshare pie. Its devices are much better engineered than Apple’s are (GPS on Nokia is better, so are the antennas, the cameras, and bluetooth radios that Nokia uses). But engineering does NOT equal a great experience. Yeah, my Nokia does not drop phone calls in places in Silicon Valley that my iPhone does, but generally I reach for the iPhone when I want to make a call or surf the web. Why?

Nokia is behind in experience. The executives here from Nokia that I’ve talked to know that. They know this is Nokia’s touchiest week and one where they either deliver a much better device or they are going to face a very tough 2009 globally.

END QUOTE

Had the pleasure of meeting James at Nokia Open Lab 08 and it's interesting (Agile Messenger!?! IM on my phone, no thanks, I'd personally rather use Twitter and Jaiku) to see his (mobile) desert island desktop for his S60 devices.

I personally no longer customize the home screen of my S60 devices just like I no longer customize my Mac that much (or I customize it in cosmetic ways like change the desktop, I don't do that on S60 for fear of using precious memory something which we will look back on in 5 years and laugh that we worried about memory!).

I find S60 too unstable (I blame ShoZu and S60 memory management; don't get me wrong I can't live without ShoZu but after a while I simply have to reset (usually a warm reset using *#7780# sometimes a hard reset using *#7370#) all my S60 devices which means I lose my customizations. I am sure I am an outlier here; I think it has something to do with posting dozens of photos a day from ShoZu :-) ! Yes I am addicted!)

QUOTE [From AAS Feature: Desert Island Desktop, with James Whatley]

Whatley's main role at SpinVox is to look after their Social Media Strategy, and that means he is plugged into many of the fast moving Web 2.0 sites, so it's no surprise to see Jaiku as the first application - he's one of the most prolific Jaiku'ers on the service (http://whatleydude.jaiku.com/).

There are a number of built in applications here, and one click away from Jaiku are the Nokia Web Browser and Contacts applications. The contacts application is probably the biggest 'social application' on any handset (oh don't mock, it lets you email people, call them, keep notes on them, group them together - that's just like Facebook), so keeping it close to hand is high up in his thinking.

Pretty much everyone I asked had a web browser in some form on their launcher, and Whatley is no exception. "It's the first application I open up whenever I pick up my handset", he explains. I suspect that he's checking out his other social networks and keeping an eye on the SpinVox blog as well.

Communicating online is a mainstay of the quick launch apps, and the inclusion of Agile Messenger (www.agilemobile.com) solidifies that view. Offering access to most of the popular IM platforms, including MSN and AOL, this has been on whatever handset Whatley has been using for a few years. "I purchased a lifetime licence and genuinely could not live without it."

The phone is also his main PDA/Organiser, but not through the built in PIM apps. Whatley has chosen to use Epocware's Handy Calendar over the regular S60 offerings

END QUOTE

Change 2008 to say 2009 or 10 and change Linux to Android (which is on top of Linux) and Russell was basically correct. Go Russ go! Looking forward to more mobile predictions now that you have joined Nokia (and I love how you continue to be honest!)

QUOTE [From The Future of Mobility is Linux - RussellBeattie.com]

There could be some spoilers out there. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow - Apple could pull out some amazing iPhone and change the market over night. But right now being in the industry this is how I see things progressing. As it is now, I use a Symbian phone and plan on recommending that platform to others looking for a good smart phone. But as the next 12 months goes by, I full expect that a Linux based phone will enter my world, and within the next few years become a standard.

See you in 2008.

END QUOTE

S60 5th edition and touch *sounds* good but if it's not in an easier to use form than the current S60, it's useless. And I am sorry but DRM'ed Windows only music doesn't work for me (I don't buy DRMed music from anybody including Apple)! Anyways Apple badly needs competition in the usability department so my fingers are crossed that this represents some sort of competitive threat to them. Go Nokia go! Viva la compétition!

QUOTE from Nokia unveils iPhone competitor — Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Comes with Music (press release, backgrounder) is Nokia’s new digital entertainment service. When you buy a supported Nokia device, including the NSeries, any of the XPressMusic phones and some other mass market phones, Nokia gives you access to the Nokia Music store at no additional charge for an entire year. Download (and keep) as many tracks as you like. This is not a subscription. You get to download and keep as many tracks as your heart desires. Tracks are delivered in Windows Media format, with DRM.

S60 5th Edition (press release) was also introduced. This latest operating system release includes support for new displays, the touch UI, a widescreen mode, a variety of new sensor support, and updated applications and browser support. Wonderfully cool things are possible with the new sensor support, like being able to stop the ringer by picking the phone up and putting it back down face down.

A touch screen phone and operating system were not unexpected. After all, Nokia had to respond to Apple’s phenomenal success with iPhone. However, the gutsy decision to give away the music goes straight after Apple’s cash cow, iTunes.

Scorched earth is a powerful offensive posture. One wonders what kind of deal with the devil RIAA Nokia had to agree to in order to gain the rights to distribute all those tracks for no money… and what the impact will be on their bottom line.

Look for 5800 XpressMusic devices with North American standard radios to land here Q1 2009. Exciting times are ahead.

[From Nokia unveils iPhone competitor — Alec Saunders SquawkBox]

END QUOTE

My video reflections on Nokia Open Lab 2008 (wiki)

Show Notes (selected)

It's been 3 weeks since Nokia Open Lab 2008 (wiki) in Helsinki and my mind is still reeling! If you don't want to watch my video (apologies for the audio quality) above, check out the show notes (which summarize maybe half of the video!):

1. Fantastic people, fantastic event, in particular the women I had a chance to really speak with were great: Micki, Jen and Anne - glad I had a chance to have in-depth conversations with you all. I suggest that the event needs  to be longer next time and include more non native English speakers in a more inclusive manner
2. The environment is everything. We need to get beyond an economy based on "gadget obsolescence". It's the end of  business as usual as Umair says. Thanks for leading me to further insight about the environment, Micki!
3. Nokia gratuitous advice time :-) Team 1 milks the cash cow of S60 by refining it. Team 2 starts with a clean sheet and comes up with a mobile to make the early adopters once again fall in love with Nokia (hint: it's got to be open, it's got to be an holistic experience, perhaps it's green, perhaps it's a lifetime hardware subscription, a lifetime phone!)
4. How about a"DeviceCamp" where people like the Nokia Open Lab Participants come together with Nokia Software and  Hardware people (under NDA if need be!) to produce a real device over a long weekend? It could be designed in a Wiki or in a visual riffing service like ConceptShare beforehand! Let's do it in Vancouver!
5. Nokia you know where to find me if you need further input and feedback! Love to help!
6. To everybody at Nokia Open Lab 2008: Come to Vancouver and I'll help you get a rental bicycle and I'll show you my city!

Like Richard, I just added the $30/month 3G data plan to my existing Fido plan. So it should be cheaper (and faster) than  the $50/month I pay  for my current grandfathered unlimited EDGE data plan. If the SIM isn't locked, I am  thinking about buying an unlocked N95 8G NAM  because the camera on the iPhone s*cks (but the 3G lifestyle (it's great! thanks to iPhone 3G I can now tell people about ShoZu and other apps I have been enjoying with my "2.5G" lifestyle and how you can create multimedia content in real time, post it immediately to the internet and get feedback in real-time) of always-on geo-enabled consumption and creation, usability and ecosystem of iPhone apps is far superior to what Nokia and others have done! Nokia, you blew it, this could have and should have been been your market to run away with). Luckily it's early and not too late to win in mobile in the long term but unless S60 usability is improved it's not going to happen!.

And for the record, Rogers still s*cks and so does Fido:

1. Their website is inaccurate; existing Fido customers should just call 611  to get an iPhone 3G
2. The hiring of MS&L digital was a waste of money (despite their blog practice, BlogWorks, MS&L did the non social media aware thing of emailing people and didn't blog, twitter, flickr, facebook or in any way engage social media)
3. 3 year contracts s*ck; in 2010 I bet I could easily go over 6GB/month. There's no reason other than short term economic gain which in the long run hurts the entire Canadian economy by hampering innovation and experimentation and reducing productivity.
4. Giving priority to new Fido customers over old faithful Fido customers like myself who have been paying $100/month since July 2004  is unacceptable. Why should I have to wait for my iPhone unlike new customers? Why can't I go to the Fido store like new customers  and order it there rather than being forced to order over the phone?

I rode in the June 2008 Vancouver Critical Mass bike ride (check out my Mobile Muse Channel with pictures, videos and text as well as my partial Nokia Sports Tracker map of the route as well as flickr pictures which I can't get into the Mobile Muse Channel since there's no RSS feed) and streamed video live using Qik from my Nokia N95, like I did for the Vancouver Car Free Festival. Only this time I didn't use WiMax just Edge

Some observations and comments:

1. The ride is quite the phenomenon. As a 3-5 days a week bicycle commuter; it was quite liberating to "take over" the streets and cycle with impunity (if you were in the middle, not so in the back) and be a 1st class citizen (for once!) on the road rather than feeling the need to maintain a constant vigil for cars not seeing you and running you over. Is this a form of civil disobedience or are we just Critical Massh*les? To be honest, I fluctuate between both.
2. Lots of people taking digital photographs and using their cellphones and taking video but nobody doing this live. Imagine 5 years from now when everything is live!
3. My Io Gear power unit Nokia N Series power connector is flakey! Aaaargh, too late to return it too.
4. The N95 really isn't designed for streaming video live over a cellphone network from a bicycle. The S60 interface is designed to be used with one hand while standing still and the phone itself is not designed to be mounted on a bicycle. I would love for Nokia to build a mobile cellphone streaming device but realistically making my own with something like the Bug from Bug Labs (hopefully I'll get mine soon) will (eventually) be the way to go