Forum Nokia just released Nokia Energy Profiler, intended to help 3rd party developers to test and monitor (and improve) their application’s power consumption in real time in the target device. I proposed last month, inside Nokia, that we should release this under Beta Labs too. We decided not to go for it, however, because the app is clearly developer-focused, while Beta Labs is consumer-focused.

Yet, I wonder: are 3rd party application developers really motivated to measure and improve their power consumption? After all, if the battery runs out quickly, Nokia gets the blame - not the developer. But what if power users and loud-voiced bloggers started using this app, increasingly giving public pressure for the developers of applications that prove to be the worst power-hogs?

I wonder.

Update: I'm not talking about 3rd party apps only, but also about apps by Nokia and our partners.

Update: you can contact the Energy Profiler team directly by sending email to energyprofiler (at) nokia (dot) com. The team is interested in how to improve usability, fixing possible bugs, and your unexpected observations about power consumption in different circumstances.

Note: for Nokia Beta Labs specific discussions, visit Nokia Beta Labs blog.

The brand-new 4.0 version of Nokia's Search application just became available for download for a number of handsets based on S60 3rd Edition FP1 (N76, N95, E51, 5700, 6110, 6121, 6290). Try it, it's really good - I was especially impressed by the results that get updated while you are still typing your search term.

Steve Litchfield adds an important note:

Installation note: you'll have to go into App Mgr and delete EVERY instance of 'Search' - if your N95 is like mine, there will be several entries! After this, Search v4 will finally install 8-)

The same thing happened to me. Couldn't install the new version 4.0 before uninstalling all the old Search related items using the Application Manager. But now it works like a charm.

Now that our brand-new Feature Wishlist has been up and running for a week, the usual suspects are starting to emerge, along with a number of interesting new requests.

Let's look at this old favorite:

Related to that, Aron raised a valid question:

These messages got huge coverage by you and other blogers and the relevant response has been... None or slight.
So what will be different when the same topics rise there?
Can you encourage us a bit that it will be better there?

Well, I can't. If something ends up at the top of the wishlist, it doesn't mean it will be implemented. That would be plain dumb, for two reasons:

1. The costs might be higher than the benefits. For example, it wouldn't be wise for Nokia to start developing an invisibility cloaking device, just because it got the most votes from you.

2. Voters are biased. A typical Wishlist user loves technology, and might ask for things that an average user would hate or be afraid of.

So what can you expect by submitting and voting requests in our Feature Wishlist?

I think it's about getting your voice heard. The higher you get on the voting list, the higher your chances are to get noticed - and considered by people who matter. After that, it's their job to make the choices what to implement and what not.

What do you think, does this sound fair?
---
Ps. I think the E61 update wish was a good one. By now, I believe you have made sure that the people who matter have heard your message. About is it feasible, I can't unfortunately comment.

Rock on. We have now two wish lists:
1. Application Wishlist - for 3rd party applications
2. Feature Wishlist - for actual S60 platform and built-in apps

I'm curiously waiting to see how the digg-style voting works. If it works well, the Feature Wishlist could end up as the most important channel for users to send feature requests to Nokia. Until now, the problem has been how to filter good suggestions from the massive pile of dorky ones.

From now on, please send your improvement wishes to the Feature Wishlist instead of my (or some other S60 blogger's) email inbox. That way, it has much better chances to end up in the actual Nokia offering.

Now, let's go and make it work.

Phil has more details.

Aron asked a lot of questions:

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

Well, since Nokia/S60 strategy and roadmap are not public info, I can't comment much. But personally, I believe it makes sense, increasingly, to update critical Internet apps such as browser to older devices. Whether it is technically and economically feasible in this case, I don't know. And in any case, it's a tactical decision, not under my jurisdiction. Go back to harass Ganesh ;-)

Got an email from Jussi-Pekka, a fabulous colleague of mine:

Here's a great app for the mac users. I was participating in the internal beta and this went live yesterday. This is totally different thing that the crappy media transfer for mac before.

This just makes usage of iTunes pleasure with my N95.

It made me to leave my iPod home.

Jussi

http://www.nokia.com/mac

Now I really need to go and buy that Mac.

Gizmo for S60 just become available in Nokia Beta Labs.

Go try it. People tell me it's really good.

This S60 client is related to the Gizmo project, a great service that gives us free calls etc. to any Gizmo Project, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, or Windows Live users.

Compatibility: at least N80 Internet Edition and N95, dunno about the other WLAN-enabled S60 devices.

Zach, the writer of Symbian in Motion, asks Does Anyone Check the Wishlist?

Phil already replied to most of Zach's questions, but he missed the big and hairy one: does Nokia systematically process the wishes? Or at least the most popular wishes, related to the built-in apps?

To be honest, I don't know. I proposed this idea to one cross-functional Nokia internal working group, and the chairman liked the idea. But then, unfortunately, I got too busy to join these workshops, and I'm not sure if this initiative is proceeding or not. If you have better (public) info, please comment: is somebody from Nokia systematically processing the wishes?

Link: S60 Application Wishlist

As a side note, sorry for being quite inactive in the blog world lately. Been really busy working on a big assignment, to be delivered by the end of this month. Hope to have more mental bandwith for blogging from June onwards.

About a year ago, our barcode reader surfaced in Nokia N93 user manual, and I promoted it in a blog post
2D barcodes will rule the earth. Very interesting discussion followed (52 comments).

Six months later, as we were about to put the barcode reader available as a .sis package for N73 and N80, I explained the whole concept - and the need for open standards - in a post with a bombastic title 2D Barcode Manifesto. Extremely interesting discussion followed (so far, 75 comments from industry insiders and other insightful people)

To summarize, Nokia has now demonstrated:
a) Mobile Codes: a nice mobile code generator (in beta)
b) a number of compatible barcode reader applications
c) our love for open standards etc.

What do you think we should do next?

Disclaimer: I'm not working directly with Nokia/S60 barcode stuff anymore. But I'm quite sure the other guys follow this discussion closely...

If you have any questions about S60 Widgets and Web Run-Time, please drop a comment. Ganesh kindly promised to reply to all your concerns.

Initial list of questions and concerns:

1. Are S60 Widgets and WidSets the same thing? If not, what are the differences? (from Symbian Guru)

2. Will this be available in the current installed base of S60 3rd edition devices? (from everywhere)

3. This feels scary. Are you clueless people opening security holes? (from the Register)

4. Are the widgets S60 specific? Or can they be ported across platforms?

5. How can I find cool and useful widgets from the clutter of useless ones? What is the cost of my time in locating said widget? (from Ring Nokia)

6. I don't use desktop widgets, they don't give me much extra benefit. Why would mobile widgets be any better? (from Ring Nokia etc.)

7. ...

8. ...

9. ...

10. ...

+1: What happened to the release of latest S60 Browser for download? (from Darla Mack)