Q & A With Lead Nokia Firmware Developer Today; Questions/Suggestions About N97 Firmware Are Welcome

by Mike Macias on November 3, 2009

Because of the overwhelming participation by you the readers in all of our articles about the new N97 firmware 2.0, Nokia has invited EverythingBlaxx (twitter.com/EverythingBlaxx) & myself to a live Q & A session with the lead firmware developer & a member of the technical team responsible for the recent firmware upgrade. Other Nokia bloggers and site owners will also be present with an arsenal of questions hoping to get some solid answers.

Here is what the discussion will be about:

where you see the N97 going in the future
how you’re getting on with the device
what you do and don’t like about v20
what further improvements you would like to see
why certain aspects of the Firmware are like they are

Blaxx & myself will be asking questions and keeping track of the answers so that we can (hopefully) relay them back to you the readers. If you have any realistic questions about the firmware and what would be possible in future updates please leave them in the comments below and we’ll try our best to get a response. No questions like “can you make it like the N900″ or “why isn’t it available for my product code” will be asked, addressed, or answered. Please keep this on topic and realistic.

Thanks!

Update! Gerrymoth from NokiaAddict.com has the entire transcript of the chat. We didn’t get to ask as many questions as we would’ve liked but I did email off more questions so hopefully I’ll get a response. Click here to read the entire Q&A session.

Article by Mike Macias

Mike has written 77 articles for your enjoyment.

On The Web: http://twitter.com/mikemacias

About: Mike is the editor-in-chief of N97fanatics.com and a huge mobile fanatic. He also runs MaemoFanatics.com and the popular E71fanatics.com. Contact him via email at contact@n97fanatics.com or at his Twitter page.

Latest by Mike Macias

Mark76

Support for importing VCards with images larger than 64x64. Currently larger embedded contact images are shown cropped in the contact details, but not in the contact list. Furthermore, I would like to view these larger images by clicking on the picture in the contact details.

vb

diff ringtone for message not one ringtone and more fav contact shortcut

Fred

1. Faster browsing in music player
2. Ogg Vorbis support

Gene

Just thought of a useful key mapping - can someone ask the Nokia devs to remap the right blue function key to a shift key, then remap the right symbol to the old blue function for short press, and open the symbol table on long press?

cody_banks

Multi-touch capabilities would certainly be a great addition (I don't know if that is really possible but that's part of my wish list :)). Also it would be great to be able to move widgets to any location on the screen (something like we have in Samsung Omnia)

Vincent

With the slider closed, tapping an empty text field only brings up the numeric keypad. I believe Obi wants the onscreen qwerty keypad, and not the T9 numeric keypad. Don't know why Nokia does not include the onscreen qwerty keypad as an option for input.

Hodge

The phone has a physical QWERTY in landscape mode thereby rendering an onscreen landscape keyboard pointless, can you imagine fitting a full QWERTY into the portrait? Even my tiny girl like fingers would struggle to tap individual keys.

MajorDouble7

I agree with you, Hodge...I've heard this argument several times and I just
don't see the point. The argument is that somehow it's easier to type with
one hand on a virtual keyboard rather than the T9 number pad...that sounds
completely daft to me.

MD 7

------- Original message -------

Hodge

The keyboard is one of the most attractive features of the phone, I don't see why Nokia, or any phone manufacturer would put the effort into creating a landscape slider phone and then render its main feature pointless by including a virtual version of it.

I understand there may be times where soemone would prefer a touchscreen type facility, and thats why T9 is still included. As someone who hasn't used a T9 phone for about 4 years though I may be slightly biased as to its usefulness...

Vincent

Hodge, I agree with you that the point of having the N97 is to use the physical keyboard. However, I believe the landscape qwerty keypad should also be an OPTION, along with the T9 and handwriting inputs. It can't hurt to have it as an option.

Yes, I believe that portrait qwerty would be way too small (look at opera mini 5 ). Unless Nokia finds a miracle to fit a qwerty keypad in portrait mode. The Nokia 5800 doesn't have portrait qwerty either.

Obi

Late response, but... Could we please get the option of an on-screen keyboard? Sometimes I just want to enter some quick text w/o opening the slider. And other times (I won't comment on when) I only have one hand available for typing text in.

Thanks.

sitati

I think you're missing something, Obi.. Tap on any empty text field with the slider closed to bring up the on-screen keypad, for use in exactly the two scenarios you described.

Gene

Improve Podcasting please!! Things like support for the new Internet destination in Connectivity. Support iPod m4v resolution to access more video podcasts. Also, podcast auto update makes no sense - e.g. it always sets next auto-update to 24 hours after previous attempt if set to daily, whether or not the attempt fails. No way to update entire catalog in one shot. it's the clunkiest app, with so much potential.
Dump Real Player for a real video player. It really sucks now.
Fix music find feature. It's worthless now.

Vincent

When viewing all the podcasts, there should be a button on the right side that updates all podcasts (instead of having to mark all podcasts, then having to update them).

Only the "back" and "options" are on the right side with 2 more possible actions. The next firmware update should address this.

Andrew

Something to stop the phone from freezing up every few days. It would be great if it actually worked as a...PHONE?

butz

I don't like about the firmware 20.0 that I still can't get it with my not branded german N97 :-(

Vincent

I would really like a future firmware update to overclock the 434hz processor. Maybe around 600mhz as they did with the ARM11 processor for the E72. With the 1500mah battery, a little bit shorter battery life for a speedy phone would be great.

josefulander

Some of these are fairly minor but would be a nice addition.

1. Multiple home screens. Currently you can swipe on the home screen and it removes the widgets. It would be great if you could have an option having more widgets showing up.

2.Google tasks syncronisation.

3. Tabbed browsing, with the default browser.

4. A function for the browser where you can send a podcastfeed straight to the podcast app(instead of copying and pasting the link)

5. An option to change icon on bookmarks(so it looks nicer if you want a bookmark on the homescreen.)

6. HTML mail in the native mail program.

7. At the moment you have to go into the menusystem to close an app(musicplayer, podcasting etc.). So in many cases you have to tap-scroll-tap in order to close the app. Why not just put a small X in the top right corner that emedeately shuts the app down.

8. An easy way to choose the wallpaper in your menusystem(not only the homescreen)

9.Skype(obviously)

10.A wider range of codec supports.

Thats all for now.

MajorDouble7

BTW, the new kinetic scrolling is fantastic, but seems to really only work well in music player and contacts...other places, app menu for instance, it seems a bit clunky. My guess is that this is due to the size of the icons (music player and contacts have smaller icons, hence move faster). Anyway, another two cents for you.

MD 7

Guest

works like a dream on mine mate...but, i have everything on main pane..no folders besides "extra" where all the "useless" stuff is put..

MajorDouble7

That's a good idea...I'm always trying to condense everything to one main
menu as well.

MD 7

------- Original message -------

MajorDouble7

This may be a no-brainer, but I'm waiting for the Skype app that was promised (and am sure is on its way eventually).

I have always been a little less-than excited about how the FM transmitter continues to transmit even after closing the music player (don't get me wrong, I love that I can pause my music and up to, what? three hours later push play and the Transmitter kicks back on). For instance, after closing music player, some thirty minutes later (sometimes longer), I'll open a game or youtube app and the sound will automatically start transmitting...I can see how sometimes you might want other things transmitted aside from the music player, but there should at the very least be an option to allow transmission of only music. Make sense? I've also been frustrated with the several steps needed to activate the transmitter. (While in Now Playing) --> Options --> FM Transmitter --> Activate --> Confirm. I like the accessibility on the homescreen to the connectivity menu, but even from there it takes a few steps to turn the thing on.

Thanks guys for stepping up and participating in the Q&A...you are our representatives!

MD 7

Omnifather

Morning Major, why not try enbling and disabling the FM Transmitter using Voice Commands? Just one long press and you say " FM Transmitter" then it either comes on or goes off.

MajorDouble7

That's a fantastic idea...I'm always looking for ways to make voice
commands useful...I think that's the first example that I've heard of that
actually makes voice commands a practical solution (for me anyway).

Thanks again!
MD 7

------- Original message -------

Rich C

H.264 support - PLEASE!!!

Gene

I think H.264 is supported, but with a really limited resolution (QVGA). They really need something more up to 480x360, which seems to be the norm for video podcasts.

Rich C

I wish you were right. My home PVR integrates with iTunes (or any podcast catcher). It can recompress shows into a bunch of different formats, but H.264 is the only one it will publish into the RSS feeder. I can tweak the file output - I've scaled the output down to 320x240, which I believe is the output for QVGA and changed the output to 30FPS (it can go down to 15, maybe I should try that). It seems like it ought to play since I can see a thumbnail of the first frame in the video, but when I do, the player craps out.

There's a new Core Player that supports s60v5 in the works that is close to release and supports H.264. It would be nice to not have to open a separate player to play my homemade video podcasts, but that will at least fix my problem.

Gene

It looks like someone got this working in MPEG-4/AVC for the 5800. I think that's H.264 in an MPEG-4 container, at least according to this (not so reliable) wiki snippet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC

I think you need to go with baseline profile, meaning no effects or other optimizations whatsoever to get H.264 to work on these low-powered devices. In this nokia discussion, someone got it working:
http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthr...

I've received other AVC podcasts from Podcasting, but only up to 320x240 will work. otherwise, H.263 (Xvid encoding) on native resolution works great.

Tobias

I would like to know if the long loading times in music player will be improved in upcoming firmwares. For a collection of more than 7,000 songs, opening a specific album takes 61 seconds. I think that more advanced caching structures could really help to reduce these delays...

Shivaranjan

1. The Ctrl key is greatly missed in Nokia N97, If the sym or shift or func key or their combinations can be used in place of ctrl it would be good.

2. A official way to switch of the camera shutter sound.

3. Tweaking the default browser so that cut, copy and paste can be done from the webpages

john

1. Multiple widget home screens instead of the present one.
2. More memory!

Bazil

1) Others cannot hear you clearly when you use the speaker.

2) There is a keyboard mapping bug in the greek version of the phone. To make the accented capital letters appear, you should press ‘ and the letter that is on the left of the letter that you want to write. For example, ‘+I doeasn’t bring ‘I but ‘O. This happens with every accented capital vowel. I have submitted this bug to the greek representative of Nokia since July, but it is obvious that they didn’t inform the parent company (Alpha Copy, the greek Nokia representative is notorious for not serving their customers). I would be glad if you inform them of that bug.

buddymunster

music app is loads slower, still cannot view videos properly (lags) even when using nokia media transfer to convert the files... perhaps have official media transfer support

strangest thing... some of my app icons would disappear at random!! the app is still on the phone according to app manager, but can not be found any where else. only encountered this in 2.0

Rafael

Couple of nagging issues:
1. The dialer app does not issue tones after connecting (for voice mail or menu operation) . This can be replicated by calling voice mail from the contacts or log menu and bringing up the dialer prior to the call connecting / ringing. Clicking on the number buttons will NOT issue the dial tones to navigate through a voice mail menu.

2. Would it be possible to have an option to display the dialer right after answering or dialing a call?

3. I wish there would be more public way to track bugs in the firmware and to have the ability to report bugs. I run into issues every day and would not mind reporting the steps to reproduce (and trust me with 8 different Nokia phones on my desk I run into issues every day during development).

4. Connection auto switching from 3G to 2G has many issues compared to the older 3rd edition phones (noise/clicking/drop out etc.). What has changed in the phones or firmware between N95 and N97? Different chipset used?

Thanks

Raf

tspdk

first of all thank you for a great Blog/site.

I am waiting the new FW2.0 becaue I live in Denmark and the Danish FW is not released yet.

Zoom function as the Iphone when viewing pictures would be great and better Facebook app, screen saver function and unlock the phone without using the switch on left side or buy a 3 party program so to this.

Omnifather

Just noticed there is a swipe to unlock function when recieving calls with the FW 2.0

Mark

divx/xvid playback improvements. I currently use smartmovie and they say the playback is rubbish cause they dont have access to the native APIs for video hardware improvements, so will they include divx playback? iPhone movie playback is far better

selvavm

Why no new transition effect?

In landscape mode, why the OPTION & BACK/CLOSE buttons can be placed in the bottom? (bcoz it consumes more space)

Face detection for N97?

When I use music player with apps like game, the music stutter? (not before)

Baptiste Martin

Great initiative from Nokia.
My only and simple question is :
Why ,even with the V20.0.019, the N97 does not look like the presentation video, we all saw back in 2008 ?

Boris Sekulovic

Any hope of N97 getting some decent firmware built-in screensaver or smth that looks more like E series checking of time/calls on long press?

Threaded message viewing?

Two or more widget screen sets?

Britzinelul

Hy,
My question regarding V20,well the N97 softweare is:
-Are they put some new aplications in the next updates?
-Are they put some new transitions?
-Does Nokia working to a new SW update for N97?

Thanks