Abandoning crap
General
- March 7th, 2007
Wonderful quote I found today:
“Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.” — Ira Glass
Heh. Made me reconsider a lot of things.
To make this generic observation relevant for this blog: is there some crap that you think should be abandoned from Nokia devices, S60 user interface, or built-in S60 applications?
Via Presentation Zen - which, by the way, I strongly recommend subscribing to.
Go To/Pinboard application is the first thing that comes to mind. It *could* have been very useful, but somehow never fulfilled its potential, and now can easily (and better) be replaced by the combination of active standby, multimedia key and softkeys.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The IM app. In the US, it’s U-S-E-L-E-S-S. Completely. I’d love to use it but I can’t.
Funny post, Tommi.
My crap:
1. IM app. Is there somewhere in Europe is using it??? I don’t think so.
2. That PTT application.
3. ONLY One of the Catalogs. Why the hell I have in my E61 ROM 2 (TWO!!!) Catalogs applications?:-).
4. That puerile Service Help link in the E-series which goes to “get setings” and a very poor “help”. Totally useless.
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: S40 is more simple/elegant in terms of user UI and experience when compared to S60.
Little annoyance: I want to add someone to my contacts. 9 times out of 10 I put in their first name, then scroll all the way down to the “mobile phone” field and proceed to enter in data.
S40: Two fields: Name, Number. Want to add more? Options: add more detail.
It’s the little things like that.
Why don’t you try and get corporate to get you a 6300 and you can study it and notice other small, user friendly enhancements.
I’d volunteer myself to make such a report but I doubt that is going to happen
I would say the Flash player. I don’t know anyone who uses flash not in a browser - and once your guys get flash working in the browser* the need for a seperate app is gone.
*Of course I would rather flash just banned entirely, but that would put a lot of 16 year old web designers out of business.**
**Apologies to those who actually know what you’re doing with flash - you are just far too outnumbered by those who don’t.
Damn! I was going to say Pinboard app too but rafaelg beat me to it.
I agree, the IM app seems useless too. It doesn’t appear to do any of the popular IM protocols (Jabber, AIM, ICQ, MSN etc…) but unhelpfully doesn’t make it clear what it does support. I’d really like to know!
I would say make it support popular protocols or get rid of it.
I’d say a lot.. but i also know that each one has it’s own preferences…
So for me, i give no use to Lifeblog, IM (unless you make it usefull, and you could/should), PPT.
@Mitch: FLash player will rock. Nokia is still not using it to its full potential, but wait for Flash UI’s etc.
I develop for flash (things on my own, etc) and it’s good because like java it’s something that adapts to many phones, not only S60.
and there’s many games/small apps in Flash Lite.
Cheers
Don’t ever get rid off the PTT app. I know, not many provider in europe support it yet, but this will change. PTT is actually a great idea.
I fully agree on the IM, why does it have to be Wireless Village? Please consider implementing popular protocols.
As of anything else, Liveblog certainly is a candidate for removing. But I guess everybody has its own opinion on what to call ‘crap’.
The whole Series 60 is bunch of crap. It is all based on more than ten year old system Symbian, that is crap as well. You cannot install your own operating system on the device, you cannot even update the existing system. Nokia blocks on purpose many of useful features to provide bigger income for operators. On the contrary it adds many useless services. My latest Nokia phone (I didnt buy it, I have won it) contain only one useful feature added apart from SMS and basic phone - mp3 player, that is all. Everything is not needed for me.
But the time works against Nokia and that’s good, there will be time soon, when the mobile phones will be like TVs, produced by many companies for very low price. Nokia has nothing more to offer…
Congratulation! Brave move Tommi!
I would bring my favorite old horse here about Firmware management and Browser features. Separate service and web browser, un-saveable web pages, slooooow and buggy browser behaviour are abandoned in FP1 but offcially these are only “maybe” options for S60 v3.
Is there a chance that users who already payed good money are allowed to abandon the crap? They desire that as you could read in your blog too.
So if we are talking about abandoning crap, shouldn’t the focus be on better firmware management and user support? Isn’t that the proper form of “crap management”?
e.g.:When is the v3 firmware for the E70 coming?
In my opinion if we start talking about abandonging crap we should start at proper customer support and consider doing that for existing user base.
Did anybody ever use the Video Editing Software?
Alexandre: I know that flash has a lot of potential and can do some wonderful things - it was a cheap shot
I’ve seen a few people mention the IM and PTT (PoC) tools as candidates for removal. These are just mis-understood, and un-demanded features. As ‘Field Of Dreams’ said “if you build it, they will come”. Well, Yamigo allows you to use the IM app built into the phone to connect through their server to other IM protocols.
Hopefully there is also a service for PoC, so I can finally use that outside the testbed.
The crap that I’d get rid of would be emergency number ability when the phone is locked. When my phone is locked, the only number I would not want to dial from my pocket is the only number I can dial! There should at least be an option to disable this feature, if I was to need to dial 999 I would instictively unlock the phone as I got it out of my pocket anyway.
1) All the dead icons. I don’t need a LifeBlog icon as I don’t use it. The same goes for “Chat” (whatever it is, at least not IRC) and Flash Player icon, plus push-to-talk. Unless stuff is configured to work, it should not be visible. (Operator should somehow be able to market potential services, yes, but not by having non-working, non-supported service icons on the display.)
2) Animated effects that the user cannot speed up (like the four-arrows-application-chooser thingy). First time they are nice. Second time they are bearable. Third time they are a pain in the arse.
Anything animated that slows down device response should be configurable not to exist.
Hello!
Here is the perfect crap management example in the S60 blogs:
http://blogs.s60.com/browser/2007/03/excepting_alice.html
Here starts a movement to remove the browser from the firmware and make it updateable through a separate .sis file.
All of you who have S60 v3 and desire to have the new Web browser, it is time to make a statement! Visit the link and help the S60 team to get the new browser out for every S60 v3 device! The browser team is asking for our help so that they can help us.
This seems to be the best example of crap management. With proper delivery methods, we can leave the buggy and less usefull stuff behind and bring the new usefull stuff into the front line.
Best Regards!
Aron
Yes! I completely agree. To be honest, I don’t get the point of that key anyway - I already have 2 configurable softkeys, 6 configurable shortcuts on the standby screen and the app menu is only a button press away (and I can move icons around on that so the most frequent are in the top 12) - why do I need yet another app shortcut key?? Especially when it takes 1-2 seconds to appear (it’s faster to press menu-key and then keypad button to directly access an app at the top of the menu). Get rid of that “four-arrows-application-chooser thingy” and IMHO the button too.
As for Flash Lite: I think people need to differentiate between Flash Apps (quick to develop + cross platform = good) and Flash embedded into web pages. They are different things and the latter is unfortunately abused 99% of the time to make user-unfriendly web-pages.
With a dedicated music player app I do not understand why the gallery app also lists music. Seems also weird to me that I have to use gallery app to assign a mp3 as ringtone to a contact and that this is not possible from within the musicplayer.
Visual Radio - is that in use anywhere? I listed to FM just fine, but I have never seen that the Visual Radio in wide use.
Apps I never use:
Goto, Chat, Lifeblog, Installation guide, move data, wlan wizard, flash, Muvee/instructor.
Apps that I use all the time:
Opera mini, gmail and the Nokia podcast client.
What I would fine useful would be
Clock: with timer-stopwatch-count up/down, repeat alarm, weather info for current city.
PC Suite feature that would enable me to store my settings for wlan, email accounts, voip, radio stations etc. The backup application never works 100% for me. It would be wonderful if I could have a interface on the PC to enter all of the above settings rather than using t9 keyboard to enter username, passwords, servers.
The VPN control and relation to access points could also be made more intuitive.
@jens u. er… i use video editing!
in fact i wonder if n93 has a better one!
Surprised to see some of the apps on the lists. I would hesitate calling an application crap only because I don’t use it. Someone else might..
It would be like telling developers that only certain kind of sw would be welcomed.
LifeBlog for example is one of the best apps ever. I would even pay for it. Used it for several years already. It’s an easy walk back to the memory lane as often I want it. And I use it as a time management tool as well.
> I would hesitate calling an application crap only
> because I don’t use it. Someone else might.
Good point.
The “multimedia key” with the animated arrows is indeed pretty useless. It is faster to use the normal menu button.
The previous (2nd ed) “multimedia key” was usable. It only started/hid one app. In multitasking environments it’s nice to be able to get one app on the foreground fast and then back to the previous app. And naturally it was set to IRC
The new version of the button is quite unusable, I agree. I don’t ever use it on N93, I didn’t even remember it being there. Though it doesn’t show any animations or other crap and is quite fast. Maybe I should give it a try now.
Lifeblog, IM etc should be apps that the user can uninstall/update if they so choose. Like N93, no IM app. Why? It’s on almost all other phones. Is it because of the low memory problems that occur almost every day? Nokia doesn’t want people to have IM on the background eating away memory? Also the last time I tried IM (on E70), it didn’t allow WLAN access!
And the browser must be updatable, especially since the FP1 will bring AJAX, this MUST be available for pre-FP1 devices too!
It’s true that PTT and IM are not that widely supported, but at least they’re standard protocols. Not that they’re not horribly documented and usually implemented poorly, but still. Standards are good.
Lifeblog is usable, if you have a blog system that supports it. I created one and use it sometimes (it’s available for others too, in Finnish only now, and this probably isn’t a place to advertise so you will find it if you need it).
The Gallery should be enhanced, it takes forever to load pics/videos, the music player crashes sometimes when adding/removing files etc.
So yes, I agree, the whole system should be redone and yes, I too would prefer it to be non-Symbian, though that’s not gonna happen.
IM (replace it with MSN/AIM/Yahoo/Jabber)
Go To (WTH is it?)
Web browser/Flash (remove from the ROM and make it UPGRADABLE)
Whoa! Thanks for your comments - that was refreshing. And it seems that your tender feedback really caught people’s attention here at Nokia headquarters
I counted the number of shortcuts I use on my E61 for anything — even if I only use it once. Out of the 80 available, I’ve used 27. This includes things like the quick access to preconfigured email via the email button.
In general, 80 icons for mostly completely inactive stuff is nothing but a lack of skill in deciding what’s too much. My view on design is that it takes a bunch of smart engineers to come up with 1000 features — but it takes a single really good designer to lead the engineers if they’re to find which 3 features are the only ones really required.
Unrelated, but _extremely_ annoying is the recorder button on the E61, which keeps on recording me taking the phone out of my pocket, or putting it on the table, or other similar stuff. Whoever thought of this button should be penalized by being forced to use the phone for a week, and then have all the inadvertently recorded clips posted on a Nokia audio podcast. Not just useless, it’s plain evil.
Why do we need to abandon features, clearly all the features are of use to some people. But I think most people only ever use 10 - 20% of the total number of features.
I would love from a battery saving, OS speed and also UI - usability point of view to be able to uninstall a lot of the features my N80 has because I know that I will never use them. If I had to re-start my phone everytime I enabled or disabled a feature - that would seem normal as its a common feature of desktop computers.
The one thing that ruins the usability of s60 is not the UI its just the overwhelming number of features I never use.
> Why do we need to abandon features
To clarify my point, here’s a marvelous quote from an article I’m reading right now, The Cathedral and the Bazaar:
.
http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/the_cathedral_and_the_bazaar.eric_s_raymond/portrait.pdf
ok fair enough, although I think its difficult to find things that no one needs because the s60 demographic must be so diverse.
I guess the quote needs to be taken in 2 different contexts. Design for a market (all the s60 features available) and design for a person (all the features on my phone). What struck a cord with me is that I cant get rid of all the crap on MY phone, I can’t personailse my phone and I have a big list of things I would want to take away if I could.