Hi

It is a shame Nokia talks disjointedly about devices and the firmware that runs on those devices.

The two are pretty much inseparable, but that isn't apparent from the way the Nokia marketing machine goes to work.

It causes no end of confusion amongst the less technically savvy. And fair enough, too. Aren't you guys marketing these things as mini-computers? Aren't computers upgradeable? Anyway, its easy to see why the confusion arises, and the disappointment, too.

A device is a possibly once yearly purchase for most people. With Nokia always pushing the latest features, and never consolidating older devices, people get disappointed!

What about the new browser with lanscape mode? It's a shame we won't get that. Can't Nokia at least upgrade the browser?

it's a bad new....i hope that nokia will release new firmware that will trasform our s60 phone similar to FP1, like including fota in all device, including ad2p profile, and firt of all giving us new browser s60 2.0!!!

Unfortunately the whole S60 image is quite fuzzy, from these technical details no one is understanding (because no one cares to explain it in plain english) to the marketing design of S60 concept which suffers a lot.

Evreybody knows, this is a dirty corporate policy to sell new phones.
All applications are running on same OS (Symbian 3ed).And you know, it can be easily separeted hardware depended software from future packs. So do not convince us. Most apps has serious bugs and lacks some key features. Nokia should fix them for free!

E61 is my second s60 phone but next time I will buy a Linux phone or a simple non-Nokia phone + some Linux wi(fi/max) device :)

Editions and Feature Packs is marketing guff for major and minor version numbers.

S60 2nd Edition = S60 v2.0
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 1 = S60 v2.1
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2 = S60 v2.6
S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3 = S60 v2.8

S60 3rd Edition = S60 v3.0
S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 = S60 v3.1

As you can see, not every S60 version has been externally released, and only those that did have got a FP number.

Yeah that's kinda stupid. If you can't upgrade to it, why call it a Feature Pack? Call it a new version. This is probably the one part about S60 I hate the most. That certain versions of Nokia phones have certain software features while other current models do not. It's turned me away from S60 before.

I agree with what everyone has said in here so far. You were better off calling it a new version than a feature pack.

I for one am disappointed. Features, which to me seem trivial, like the updated browser and PIM suite should be doable via a simple firmware update.

Yes I understand that Nokia makes money by selling phones, but even Microsoft (Zune) and Apple (iPod) with their MP3 players take the time to offer firmware updates to add new features and improve features already present in older generations of hardware.

It's also true that the mass audience doesn't buy phones or mp3 players due to their OS but how they look. If I walk up to anyone and ask them to tell me the difference between Symbian, Palm, and Windows Mobile are, their eyes are going to glaze over.

I have a Nokia E61 and while I love it, I don't like that the customization I can do to this device is HIGHLY limited. I can't program the "email key" to open an application. I can't have more than one row of icons on the standby screen. I can't make a shortcut that will go straight to my todo's.

While my E61 is a HUGE upgrade from my Nokia 3220 I simply don't have the user customizability I've grown to love on my old mobile.

I would like to talk to you more about this, in either a private email conversation or on an open forum, but for a first generation "blackberry killer" you have made a fantastic product but forgot your Nokia roots.

I'd be pleased if i just could upgrade my freaking firmware in my E70... But no. Everybody else had their updates but mine.. it just says it doesn't find newer version.

ARGH. I can't stand this. I hate it when i'm not using the latest version available! And there may be some real fixes and improvements also!

AND I WANT TO GET THEM! No, i don't think that ranting in your blog would actually help me to get those updates, but yes - ranting helps ME. Mentally.

I agree with u all
i hav 6600 3230 6260 6681 3250 (all s60) , all were good except 3250 as they all had wot NOKIA promised but 3250(bloody 3rd ed device)

the advertisement shows that when we twist the camera the whole UI gets horizontal but in reality only the camera,real plr. and the gallery bcome horizontal.
Wot about the rest of the things ?

i think that there is even no use in buying un new OS 9.2 devices coz when we'll buy it you will release feature pack 2 (9.3)

I also agree with everything people have said here. The phone software should be more widely upgradeable by the user. There's no point calling it a "mobile computer" if you have to buy a new model just to get the latest version of the web browser, for example.

Marvellous point HH

nokia shud actualy release feature packs like windows' service packs and not by making a nu PC for that

HH your remark was exquisite!
Very very good point!!!

HH said the right thing, it is not a "Multimedia Computer" that way !!!
And in "Wish List" I've wrote some things about "Mltimedia Computers" too...
http://blogs.s60.com/tommi/2006/09/early_adopters_wish_list_for_i.html
THE LAST POST!!

Technically speaking, being able to upgrade the software platform is not a requirement for something to qualify as a "computer". Check any of the definitions of computer, anywhere. And come back if I was wrong... :)

Ok, that was nitpicking, I admit. You had some good points.

But you didn't seem to undestand my point. As I see it, S60 and its "Feature Packs" are integrated with certain Symbian releases and your hardware to maximize the performance / user experience. This is an universal tradeoff in technology development: better performance vs. better modularity. If you don't understand why, read chapter 5 from Clayton Christensen's book Innovator's Solution. Or read the whole book, it'll be worth it.

Anyway, the billion-dollar question is: when will the benefits of modularity exceed the benefits of integration?

You tell me.

--
ps. this commet was just my own thinking regarding the entire mobile industry, not representing Nokia's/S60's position/strategy/roadmaps in any way whatsoever.

Yes, I understand that from the technical point of view it can be called a computer even though the software platform isn't upgradeable. But please try to think it from the end-user's point of view - You have a "computer" or a "smart phone" and if you want to have some additional features that have been introduced in a newer software version, you will have to pay for a new device. Not just pay for the new software, but new hardware also... Even if all that you wanted was a new software. Not very smart.

Of course, from the phone manufacturer's point of view this might be just a good thing because people buy new phones more often and it doesn't have to do additional work by keeping the older models up to date. This is sad, but I understand it might simply be the way business works these days.

Even if it's not technically possible to upgrade the entrire operating system of the phone without sacrificing performance, maybe it would be still possible to upgrade many of the apps by including them in the new firmware releases, or even by providing a direct download for them.

Tommi: the browser and other things are just *applications*, and supposedly are only using a well-defined *API*. Are you saying that S60 source/binary compatibility is in such a messy state that making Nokia's own applications compatible with both S60 3.0 and 3.1 is technically impossible?

Point taken. Let's see if we will get better in backporting important (platform-independent) features to old devices in the future.

Interesting, I posted a note about the exactly the same issue with the profile API.

The fact that someone engineered an entirely new API in FP1 that is not backwardly compatible with the old undocumented API, yet left the old api in the new release.

What this means is that the profile API now cannot work on the current generation of products potentially delaying a release of our product by 6-12 months unless we reengineer a fix.

Hello,

I was worried about this!
I thought hard and long before buying my E70 in Helsinki. They must have thought in verkkokauppa that I am crazy when I timed downloads with my watch many times and tested stabiliy for certain web pages for hours.

Try to open www.cnn.com with an E70 with all features on, and you will get a memory full on most days, but I decided that the E70 is the thing I predicted and expected for the last 5 years and it is finally here... with wlan and a screen which changes the game...

When I saw the trouble with the browser before firmware 2.x, I was very close to go with a pepper pad instead - a linux tablet like Nokia's 770, but closer to an UMPC. But when I saw how the E70 displays readable "full" websites on a screen where I do no see even the pixels, and being a faithful Nokia user with a history (last before E70: 6822)I choose the E70.

If the blocking of FP1 for the E70 will mean, that:

1. I will not be able to open CNN ...
2. I will not be able to open "radio and real audio and video links from the web pages...
3. I will not be able to save web pages and objects on pages to the memory card...
etc...
I will be very dissapointed.

Or in short if it means we will not get the new browser, I think Nokia will make a mockary out of the "2 years guarantie" for this phone.

I do believe that the E70 is revolution. The first phone to be able to open a full website through 3G or WLAN and display it in a way that takes many people's breath away...

Please, support these new tools as promissed in the guarantie, at least for two years!

Finally: Congratulations to Nokia for the brave move, what the E70 has been!

Thanks!

There really is no other real reason but the greediness to sell more phones and the unwillingness to test that is blocking the possibility of releasing FPs to older models.

The hardware is pretty much the same. The screen can be whatever since it already varies from model to model. Symbian works with all these components, otherwise it wouldn't be used at all. The driver interfaces are not changed in 9.1->9.3. The main differences between the models are the casing, battery and which camera is installed, if any.

The only thing that's missing is a corporate decision and testing. And since Nokia isn't willing to even test the official releases (you can always leave it to the users), we won't be seeing any FP1s for older versions. No matter how feasible it would be otherwise. And even if the new features were just applications that would compile without the FP, tough luck.

So yes, these are "multimedia computers" but they only last for a maximum of 6 months. Then you must get a new one if you want to get problems fixed or new features. Sad but true.

And if you want a working Bluetooth implementation, you probably should buy from another manufacturer. No real fixes for 6680, N70, N73 although they've been available for quite a while. Or any S60 device when using BT from J2ME. Documented not working in 6600, nothing's been done since. So even a new device won't fix the problem. Nice. Wonder why this kind of problems don't get any media attention, maybe they only affect a few hundred thousand users...

Aron,

You could have missed that, but what you call "revolution" took place a lot of time ago.

To view the websites, you can use products from Opera software.

1) "Opera Mobile 9". Similiar to Nokia Web Browser, but overall better. It reformats the pages so that you don't have horizontal scrolling.
Try opening your CNN.com with it.

2) "Opera Mini" http://www.operamini.com/download/
THAT IS the real revolution. It Java application, and runs on any modern phone, not just a smartphone. It can open websites of virtually any size, and large ones - faster than native browsers (but small ones - slower). And it consumes approx. 10 times less traffic (makes sense when you use gprs, not wlan).

And it's free. Just download and use it.

Hello, and thanks for the comment about Opera!

I was wondering about Opera and Web lately, especially since the iPhone release... with safari - which is also the browser of the E70 - for the time being... What I mean is that if Nokia will restrict the browser to the present version, it is likely that by the time the iPhone arrives in June nobody is going to use the safari in the E-series (without FP1 that is)... That would be said... But not for Opera...

I agree with you that Opera mini is a sweet little thing but it just cannot compare with a "real" browser... Have you seen an E70 displaying a web page after pushing #-twice? (50% zoom) if you haven't please check it out and let us discuss this further... I am very interested in your opinion... Make sure to check an E70, not E61...

As You are also probably well aware Opera has a non-mini version too... And that is not free... For a good reason I believe...

I respect your view and like opera mini myself, but I think that is only evolution. The E70 displaying a full web page at 50% zoom in landscape mode, when the text is still readable ... now that is what I call revolution...

The Nokia E70 is something I was waiting for about 4-5 years: a mini wi-fi computer... Which can carry a SIM card too... (it is great for a phone too ;-)

To sum it up, I am well aware of the new "browser wars", and I personally prefer the Nokia solution with minimap, mouse, and the nice zooming...

I hope Nokia will realize that the choice to give the new browser for the E-series is a milestone of winning the browser war...

This has been written and submitted by an E70...
Regards:
Aron

Hello!

I found this today:

http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-s60-3dfp1-en.shtml

At the end:

"There’s no doubt that Feature Pack 1 offers good feature expansion for S60 platform, but mostly this is correction of mistakes, normal realization of claimed, but unfinished features."

Any comments? What does 2 year support means in light of this comment? Bugs are maintained? :-)

Regards!
Aron

Just hit me: S60 Open to new features...

as reads on top of this page...

like feature pack 1? ;-)

OK, I am pushing this too much, right?...

It's really dissappointing! I have a E61, and some small mistakes in firmware makes me crazy(like limiting in 1 minute in the Voice Recorder, and so on).

This isn't like you don't get offered updates at all. You do (as long as you don't have an operator branded phone that is). It's just that major platform updates such as feature packs are not provided.

That said I was pleasantly surprised that the N80 is offered the N80 Internet Edition update (again so long as it's not a branded phone). When the N80ie came out I was a little annoyed as it offered 'Internet' features (full SIP support etc) that should have been in the N80 but it looked like they were asking you to buy a new version of the N80 to just get updates to the software. Thankfully that changed though.

As I say, operator branding is the killer. It's worse than what Nokia do in restricting updates. The recent issue of VoIP being disabled on Orange & Vodafone branded N95s is an example.

Hello Tommi!
Now that you are in strategic planning, how do you see the strategy of Nokia not allowing FP upgrades and binding the web browser versions with FP-s?

How does it feel - from the perspective of the strategic planner - that your excellent S60 browser on V3, FP0 is not able to save web pages because the Web 2 browser is still bound with FP1 only and not available as a sis install?

How about E90 not supporting widgets because that is bound with FP2 and E90 is FP1?

what can-will You do about this?
Best regards: Aron

After reading many reviews and finally this blog post and comments here I decided not to buy Nokia E70 :/
I love features of this phone, but I'm just not going to invest 500EUR in smart phone which basically isn't supported by manufacturer (I like the post about two years guarantee). I love Nokia phones, but I can't accept such attitude from Nokia.
Nokia let me know when You'll start to support Your phones for two years.

Meantime... guys what can You propose instead of S60 Nokia E70 ?

How does it feel - from the perspective of the strategic planner - that your excellent S60 browser on V3, FP0 is not able to save web pages because the Web 2 browser is still bound with FP1 only and not available as a sis install?

Nokia seems very bad on the software side of things currently - Take the E65 for example. A very nice phone, good looking and not very old. So, how about firmware updates on this lovely little thing? Well, it doesnt have FP1 which features firmware downloading OTA, and whats worse, it doesnt support updating via your PC either! WHY??

Sony Ericsson seems much better atm, but they're also a long way from being ideal (check the P990 complaints threads that abound on the net). I am going to wait for a decent open phone (openmoko, hint hint. Too bad it will be atleast 12 mo beofe its useable...) that I can upgrade whenever and with whatever I want to.

In the mean time I will probably simply buy a stupid, simple phone. I need a few things from a phone, but I want a whole lot. 3G, HSDPA and WLAN all will have to wait for me if the software side of things doesn't shape up soon.

Hola, muy bueno el post

Hola muy bueno el post

A stupid thing I found in E62's "Services" WAP Browser is its inability to save webpages to the MiniSD memory card.

Do you not wonder how this idea even came into their heads to not include the facility to move saved webpages to the memory card?

With 80 mb internal memory, & an addiction to save webpages for offline viewing or just for rememberance's sake, you cannot expect to save more then a few hundred pages.

And if one wants to save thousands of pages?

I was expecting a minimally decent thought process from the application developers at Nokia.

Given this stupid limitation, my 2 GB add-on memory card comes to no relief to this purpose, even though I have above 1 GB free in it.

I'm both amused & depressed wondering how many many more webpages I could save in that free space I got in the memory card.

I'm a new Eseries user & now I madly want to know if there's a work-around. I need to save more pages for offline viewing since (1) my GPRS access is costly, (2) my service provider Hutch robs me of extra money each time I connect to their GPRS, (3) many many times it occurs that a webpage loads incomplete and it has to be reloaded - maybe another of Hutch's sales strategies.

Does Opera Mini allow saving webpages for offline viewing? Does it support saving to the memory card?

I'm planning to try out the Opera Mini but before that I want to ensure that it is light on the processor. I'm weary of applications that are memory and CPU hoggers - I dont like to even see them. Do you guys recommend Opera Mini? I'll let you know my experience if I try it out.

Truely speaking, I'm happy with the overall performance of the "Services" WAP browser that ships with the E62 S60 3rd ed. But its limitation of using only the internal memory to save webpages is killing me. It is the biggest show-down.

Now my E62's Memory Details shows I have only about 9 mb free, and heavy webpages (say with lots of hires images) refuses to load, showing a "Low-memory" message.

Also I'm sad to know that the OS on these devices cannot be upgraded. I was however under the impression that it is possible to upgrade the OS with newer versions like we do in PCs. Is the OS embedded in the firmware? Will re-flashing let you upgrade it?

I'm however happy to know from John Bäckstrand's post that people are thinking towards having Open Systems in these smartphones - devices that are Open to New Possibilities in the true sense.

A stupid thing I found in E62's "Services" WAP Browser is its inability to save webpages to the MiniSD memory card.

Do you not wonder how this idea even came into their heads to not include the facility to move saved webpages to the memory card?

With 80 mb internal memory, & an addiction to save webpages for offline viewing or just for rememberance's sake, you cannot expect to save more then a few hundred pages.

And if one wants to save thousands of pages?

I was expecting a minimally decent thought process from the application developers at Nokia.

Given this stupid limitation, my 2 GB add-on memory card comes to no relief to this purpose, even though I have above 1 GB free in it.

I'm both amused & depressed wondering how many many more webpages I could save in that free space I got in the memory card.

I'm a new Eseries user & now I madly want to know if there's a work-around. I need to save more pages for offline viewing since (1) my GPRS access is costly, (2) my service provider Hutch robs me of extra money each time I connect to their GPRS, (3) many many times it occurs that a webpage loads incomplete and it has to be reloaded - maybe another of Hutch's sales strategies.

Does Opera Mini allow saving webpages for offline viewing? Does it support saving to the memory card?

I'm planning to try out the Opera Mini but before that I want to ensure that it is light on the processor. I'm weary of applications that are memory and CPU hoggers - I dont like to even see them. Do you guys recommend Opera Mini? I'll let you know my experience if I try it out.

Truely speaking, I'm happy with the overall performance of the "Services" WAP browser that ships with the E62 S60 3rd ed. But its limitation of using only the internal memory to save webpages is killing me. It is the biggest show-down.

Now my E62's Memory Details shows I have only about 9 mb free, and heavy webpages (say with lots of hires images) refuses to load, showing a "Low-memory" message.

Also I'm sad to know that the OS on these devices cannot be upgraded. I was however under the impression that it is possible to upgrade the OS with newer versions like we do in PCs. Is the OS embedded in the firmware? Will re-flashing let you upgrade it?

I'm however happy to know from John Bäckstrand's post that people are thinking towards having Open Systems in these smartphones - devices that are Open to New Possibilities in the true sense.

Hi Guys and Tommi, I really have to agree with the comments in this post. I just got an iPhone and besides the fact that it is a beautiful device, I sill prefer my Nokia E61i over it, mostly because of some basic features like SIP, bluetooth, To Do list, Nokia Maps, GPS, and so on. But the browser on iPhone really kick some a**. Besides the fact that Nokia and Apple share the same Open Source project (WebKit). Apple did a great job packaging it's browser with a great UI and a fast processor. I think it's time for Nokia to open your eyes about allowing your faithful costumers to make upgrades for their native applications like the Browser and the PIM. After all iPhone had a firmware upgrade just 1 month after it's launch. I hope Nokia learn with the new competitor. I really love competition and the freedom of choice, that reminds me HP vs Dell, Playstation 3 vs Nintendo Wii.

Ok.this what i do.regarding to viewing save pages offline.
Get this application from Lonely Cat Game.Xplore.it allows you to read all saves pages n transfer it to your memory cards.
From your internal memory (C drive) go to cache.and search for the page.mark and move it to your E drive.use the edit option of Xslope.sadly Xplore is not a freeware.tried Y browser.Sexplore,Activefile few other freewares.sadly,no dice.only Xplore come with the ability of reading or viewing all of the caches
sorry if my english not that good.self taught. :)
Zul..

Hello,

Interesting posts since my last time here. To answer the question about an alternative for the E70 I must say there is no alternative. (except the E90 for double price and larger size and more capabilities.) The E70 is so revolutionary that with the addition of Truphone, X-Plore, Nokia maps, Google maps 2.0, Flash lite 3.0 beta, this becomes a minilaptop.

If Nokia would add Web 2.0, Flashlite 3.0 (browser integrated), SDHC, A2DP through firmware upgrade (like they did for the N73), - and last but not least the fantastic memory handling of the E61i, which is in my opinion an FP1 device in FP0 clothing - Nokia could have the perfect pocket-computer-phone-multimediaconsol- etc in one.

I still suggest to buy the E70, especially if VoIP is a major concern. It has only 5% less pixels than the iPhone and more buttons than the N810...

Now about Nokia's reaction to the comments here. Go and read the praises Tommi's Beta labs received for listening. So what about not listening to these comments? How does it sound that Microsoft allows upgrades from their Mobile OS 5.0 to 6.0 while Nokia does not allow the bug fixes for FP0 from FP1? To me it sounds strange...

I love my E70 and loved ones love it too. The E61i is great also- especially the memory handling - but the true potential is in the E70 with its high pixel count.
I am passionate about seeing this great potential in the E70 and I would like to see that better utilized...

Regards!
Aron

Nokia's policy for not allowing OS upgrades is just.......plain disgusting.