Randy Arnold's Blog

original source: http://www.pop.com.br/

Apologies to QML fans but I’m going to to extend the interruption of that series by at least one more article.  Blame a cynical friend’s recent conversion to the Dark Side of mobile Microsoft.   

As regular readers know I’ve been a dual Microsoft/Linux power user for many years.  While some friends see that as a bad case of cognitive dissonance, I prefer to call it technical agnosticism.  I was never interested though to include Windows Mobile in that scope, mainly due to an observance that it was just Windows scaled (badly) down to a handheld device rather than something specifically designed for the form factor.

Microsoft finally realized that, bit the bullet, and created Windows Phone from scratch.  But the product still carried Windows branding baggage and has been panned by some mobilists and tech pundits– many of whom did so with ten-foot virtual poles.

This has been especially true of Nokia fans (self included), particularly those who saw great things in the Linux-based operating systems Maemo and then MeeGo and had high hopes for the sexy N9.  Nokia’s CEO had brought about the Elopocalypse in accepting Steve Ballmer’s engagement offer, and no one from the Linux side of the family wanted to be part of the post-wedding reception.  Some later snickered at the Spanish meaning for “Lumia” (as tempting as it is to riff on that further, I’ll demur).

So far the MicroNokia nuptials have resulted in two acknowledged offspring: the fraternal Nokia Lumia twins, 710 and 800.  There’s nothing apparently spectacular about the 710, hardware- or appearance-wise.  Its low price is the most attractive feature.  As for the 800, photos don’t quite do it justice.  You have to use this device to realize its true beauty.

The same can be said for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS.  Yes, videos seem compelling, but jaded smartphone users aren’t easily impressed by moving pictures.  Experience it first-hand, however, and the skepticism melts.  I admit to encountering that at Nokia World when I first got to play with the Lumias.

This sort of mindset conversion is never more dramatic than when a diehard open source devotee is swayed.  Such was the case when my aforementioned friend Johan Paul surprisingly tweeted the following:

I’m highly interested in what he’ll have to say further, the more he uses his Lumia 800.

Now, I can’t quite profess unconditional love for these babies.  Some of the beauty is only skin-deep and there are genetic defects only a mother could overlook.  My personal OS peeves are no tethering, no Bluetooth file transfers and no USB mass storage mode.  HUGE step backwards in my opinion and a MUST fix.  As for the Lumia 800, lack of TV output combined with omission of a front-facing camera have my teeth gritted.  I also have to wonder why support for quickly-trending NFC was left out.

Beyond feature failures, Microsoft and Nokia face distinct but obviously related challenges here.  The former needs to get Windows Phone in general out of the market share basement.  The latter needs to re-establish their specific phones as must-have products.  I have yet to see a clear signal on how evangelical overlap is going to be handled by the two, particularly where software development is concerned.  I also still wonder if the marriage between them will ultimately put off other WP participants (not that I actually care).

Nevertheless, if outreach efforts can get examples into the hands of prospective buyers everywhere, even doubtful ones like my friend Johan, Microsoft and Nokia do indeed have a potentially winning combo.  The 25,000 device-seeding effort won’t hurt!  In addition to my QML explorations, I plan to develop for Windows Phone and can’t wait to start showing off my own Lumia 800.

I just need to get that pretty baby in my hands…

Ever since Intel’s MeeGo-cedes-to-Tizen announcement, I’ve been in a slightly unfocused state.  It’s familiar territory– when Maemo was set aside by Nokia for MeeGo, there was the same quandary: what now?  Better yet, what next?

After a little over two years of scant free time, I’m finally working normal hours.  So that liberates me for more community engagement, aka the stuff I really love.  It also frees me up to think.  But looking back on the past 5 years of support for open source projects with great promise but ultimate abandonment, I’m left to wonder what to target. 

I asked that question out loud not long ago and concluded that adding Windows Phone to my repertoire makes sense.  I already have the skills and connections.  But so does including Qt, and so I’ve been plunging into QML recently as I await the delivery of a Nokia WP phone for development.  I find that, in both cases, developer/enthusiast communities for both platforms are small and quiet in my area.  So I feel obligated to help build them up as I did for Maemo and MeeGo.

That last thought just makes me nostalgic for a time when inspiring those communities could be as simple as posting “Just wait until you see what’s next!” on a discussion forum or IRC chat.  The passion of Maemo and MeeGo advocates was undeniable.  Even their complaints betrayed high interest; most people who don’t really care about a product or project won’t give you much feedback.  They just leave.

I notice that the original Maemo community refuses to “just leave”.  At the very least, we lament on twitter the lost chances to see each other in person once or twice a year.  We hit each other up with connection requests on social media channels, as a friend did to me this morning, inspiring this post.

I’ve realized most of my true friends are nowhere close to my neighborhood.  They’re in Moscow and Tampere and Mexico City and New Delhi and Vancouver and Berlin and Beijing.  Sadly, one I’ll not see again.

Some in my former circles will do more than cling to contact via virtual means.  Many are already in Qt and I hope to encourage more to try the waters.  A few will venture into Windows Phone, especially Nokia Developer Champions transitioning from Symbian.  Others have or will find homes in other related ventures like KDE, Ubuntu, Mozilla, et al.  So odds are I’ll bump into some of them here or there.

What I’d really like to do, though, is form a consortium of sorts from all of these passionate, talented people.  Find or create some projects, like Maemo, that fire us up again and keep us strongly connected.  The opportunities are there; Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon haven’t solved every problem yet.

More than ever, creative solutions these days demand diversity of skills.  The landscape moves too fast, the darlings of industry overturned too often for people to successfully coagulate into homogenous, bureaucratic masses.  Those deeply embedded in the eroding status quo haven’t realized that yet.  But my old Maemo and MeeGo friends do.  They’re out there now, plowing new furrows in stale fields and causing wonderful disruption.  They’re fast refactoring MeeGo communities into new groups, some with new but related purpose.

Even with the so-called failures of Maemo and MeeGo, I’m proud of what the members accomplished.  I’m pleased to have been a part of those grand experiments.  And instead of bemoaning the outcomes, let’s refocus.  Retarget.  Identify and support initiatives that take from and extend the best parts of both.  Include rather than exclude.

Anyway, I’m not going anywhere.  I’m finding new focus.  I’ll see you all at Qt Project, in the Mer IRC channel, a local Windows Phone meetup or maybe some big conference somewhere.  Let’s stay in touch.  That’s what communities do.

Finally, here’s the much-demanded second part to this QML beginner-focused series.  Okay, one guy asked, but he sounded really interested.

I said at the end of the first article that I would progress to the next phase in this one.  But the request for a screenshot of the app at this point got me to thinking that it would be worth more to fledgling QML developers if I backed up and broke down the code.  So let’s do it.  There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll spread it across two or three articles.

First, the promised screenshot:

MotoRing, phase 1

There’s more going on here than my final app would really need, but I was working for two things here: one, to expand the original code example’s functionality for anyone following me, and also to provide visual feedback of functionality for my own drive trials.  Ultimately, the home screen will be very simple and the app will rely on a separate configuration screen (or menu) along with notification audio and dialogs screens.  For safety’s sake, and especially given that this app is to reduce driver interruptions, emphasis will be on audio.

As you can see, I placed units selection at the top of the screen.  That made it easy to toggle back and forth between miles-per-hour and kilometers-per-hour during testing.  Speed certainly doesn’t need the level of precision shown; I should just truncate at the decimal point.  The screen above shows that typical US measurements are selected (feet, miles) and the speed shown is in miles per hour.  I could also add more context (i.e., “MPH” or “KPH” after the speed readout) but that’s not necessary for this app.

Now, let’s dig into the code, starting with main.qml, which is automatically created for Qt Quick projects.

There’s the usual basic requirements of course.  In main.qml, the “home” code, we load the necessary libraries for QT Quick and MeeGo Harmattan:

import QtQuick 1.1
import com.nokia.meego 1.0

The actual declarative code describes the home page itself:

PageStackWindow {
    id: appWindow
    initialPage: mainPage
    showStatusBar: true

    MainPage {
        id: mainPage
    }
    ToolBarLayout {
        id: commonTools
        visible: true
        parent: appWindow.pageStack.currentPage

        Item {
            id: switchRow
            width: 300
            height: 32
            anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter

            // Switch for power saving: toggle gps on/off
            Switch {
                id: gpsSwitch
                anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter
                checked: false
                anchors.right: parent.right
                anchors.rightMargin: 50
            }
            Text {
                id:switchText
                font.pointSize: 24
                text: gpsSwitch.checked ? "GPS ON" : "GPS OFF"
                horizontalAlignment: Text.AlignRight
                anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter
                anchors.right: gpsSwitch.left
                anchors.rightMargin: 25
                font.family: "Nokia Pure"
            }

        }
// menu not yet implemented
        ToolIcon {
            platformIconId: "toolbar-view-menu";
        }
    }
}

I’m still struggling to fully understand how to use the PageStackWindow element (and welcome all explanations and examples) but the functionality is clear: it identifies the content page(s) to load for main.qml.  In this case, we have MainPage.qml (which is also created by default) which contains our actual program and is selected via initialPage: mainPage.  (note: I still haven’t figured out how to manage multiple pages with this, and could use some help!)

I have customized the default main.qml content by removing some of the auto-generated stuff and replacing it with what my app needs.  In this case, an on/off switch (gpsSwitch) on the Toolbar (commonTools) at the bottom of the page.  The switch works in conjunction with a text box (switchText), so both elements are grouped into an Item called switchRow. The Item element, as explained here, makes such grouping (and therefore managing) of common and/or related items easy.  As a side note, I’m sure I don’t have to explain what the id property is doing for all elements… do I? 

To toggle the GPS status, we use text: gpsSwitch.checked ? “GPS ON” : “GPS OFF”. Think of this as a simple IF/THEN. When the switch is on, the text value is set to “GPS ON”.  (I’m thinking I can get rid of my two chunks of in-line JavaScript in MainPage.qml by doing something similar.)

If I understand right, showStatusBar: true makes the Toolbar visible.  You’ll also see a menu item referenced in the last code chunk.  I haven’t got to that yet, but I’m hoping I can use the popup menu for settings.

There really isn’t much to main.qml on this or must other projects I’ve looked at.  It’s my understanding that keeping the page loader simple and using individual pages for specific app features is the best practice.  Someone correct me if that’s wrong!

On a related note, while checking tour dates of musical groups I enjoy, I realized there wasn’t an event planner app for MeeGo Harmattan that would suit my purposes.  So I’ll make that another documented project, one that might actually be easier than this one.

One recurring, general gripe: I’m really perturbed by some common Qt Quick elements being documented, separately, as both Symbian and MeeGo types.  PageStackWindow is one example (note that I deliberately linked to MeeGo Harmattan documentation).  Why is this?

Next: I’ll parse out MainPage.qml…

I unloaded some Qt newbie frustration the other day detailing my first serious efforts to code for the Nokia N9.  Now I’d like to step back a bit and outline the actual project, and in subsequent posts walk other newcomers through my coding journey of pleasure and pain.

First a disclaimer: I’ve been programming for over 25 years.  That has included COBOL, Forth, Logo, DOS/VAX/Unix batch commands, Basic, LISP, Pascal, C, JavaScript and Visual Basic (both COM and .NET).  While I could work minor wonders with scripting and compiled linear languages, I found that I have been most productive in event-driven VB.Net.  Readers should know that I am not targeting an audience that’s totally new to programming, but rather, programmers who like me are experienced with other languages and platforms but new to Qt.

I really wasn’t very apprehensive about Qt, especially the mature 4.7.  Friends kept telling me how easy it was, and the Qt Creator environment did not look difficult at all at first glance. 

What got me motivated to finally dive in?  I was presented recently with a coding challenge and after some thought decided I would create an app for the Nokia N9 and N950 that would intercept calls and texts for responsible drivers.  I hashed the idea over with Andrew Flegg and Thomas Perl in London last month and they offered some really useful ideas.  Then I discovered not long ago that apps of this sort already exist for other platforms so there certainly appeared to be a need.

I elected to go the Qt Quick route and see if I could do this completely using QML and JavaScript .  What better test of QML’s depth and breadth?  I also have some experience with JavaScript and none with C++ so that was a deciding factor as well.

With any project, it’s always good to tackle requirements first.  So other than a clever name (in this case, MotoRing) what were mine?

• Constantly retrieve current device speed (in user-preferred units)
• Intercept calls and texts when device is moving above a preset threshold
• Send automatic text to callers/texters informing them that driver is not taking calls.  They should be instructed to immediately call back if there is an emergency
• Allow calls through from previously intercepted number if placed within specified time frame (i.e., emergencies)
• Automatically exit app after device has been moving below speed threshold for a given amount of time

That’s pretty much it.  Of course we can add more bells and whistles, but it’s usually best, especially for us beginners, to focus on core functionality first.  On that note, as I began this I wasn’t even sure if QML and JavaScript could handle this idea.  So the first order of business was to check that out, starting with the GPS need.

As I noted in the previous article, I found example code right away.  After some small bugs were exorcized, the example ran perfectly.  I just needed to add Speed capture.

No need to rehash my struggles with Qt Creator’s behavior.  I’m learning to work around its occasional flakiness anyway (and will report bugs once I get a good grip on what’s been happening).  My main problems outside of bugs and IDE quirks had to do with QML element layout.  Minor changes kept flinging things around my workspace.  Then I came to understand that Qt Creator allows UI elements to be positioned relative to each other… and that’s how my selected sample code was oriented.  This is an elegant solution to the need for fluidity on mobile devices, especially in handling portrait and landscape flipping.  On a related note, I had also been mystified as to why the layout Grid in the sample code extended beyond my portrait mode boundary, until I realized that this was done to accommodate landscape mode.

Ah HA!

With this new-found grasp of QML layout features I was able to make changes to elements positioning without fearing their fall into some IDE black hole.  That included adding a new Speed indicator for testing purposes (I really don’t need all the other GPS properties).

Getting the speed indicator to work was easy.  I found what I needed on a Qt API documentation page and It Just Worked.  But in my excitement I neglected to note how speed was returned.  My youngest son and I took the app out for a test drive and were mystified at the results.  Speed in MotoRing seemed to be about a fourth of actual.

I felt pretty stupid when I discovered the next day that speed is shown by default in meters per second.  That is, 3.6 kilometers per hour.

Of course in the US we measure miles per hour.  I wanted my app to be able to handle either, so I needed a function.  I whipped the following up in JavaScript (precision is truncated):

function speedConvert(speedState) {
if (speedState == buttonMetric)
return 1.00;
else
return 0.62;
}

I also added a ButtonRow element to the top of the page to toggle miles-per-hour and kilometers-per-hour.  The text box for speed passes the state of this element through the JavaScript function above to determine which is being used.  There is probably an even easier way to do this but my method works well.  Not counting a brief hair-pulling period where I forgot that JavaScript has no “THEN” in “If/Else” statements.  Oops!

Some things to note:

• It would be nice to have the app automatically set units of measure based on localization settings, but I’m not even sure QML can support that.  Readers?
• I would have rather used a RadioButton rather than ButtonRow element– but despite what’s shown in the Harmattan API documentation, it does not appear to be available for that platform.  Question: why would this be a Symbian-specific element?  Radio buttons are very common UI features
• Speed accuracy seems to be +/- about 3 miles per hour, so consider that when you set thresholds

After I got this part working well, I updated the code at wiki.meego.com/QML/Get_GPS_data.  If you have ideas on how to improve it further, feel free!

Next: I need to add the threshold setting, and look into SMS interception…

On a broader note: if you’re interested in this series, and/or articles that strive to make technology more accessible, make sure to subscribe to this blog as that will be more of the focus going forward.  And feel free to share articles!

source: http://www-bgr-com

I’ve been pretty easy on my favorite former employer lately, even to the point of gushing over Nokia World 2011 and pouring out pure fanboy praise over a fantastic phone that will only see limited release.  But I don’t think I’d be performing my duty as a recently-renewed Developer Champion if I didn’t provide some much-needed critical feedback.  Lovingly, of course.

Nokia’s physical withdrawal from certain locales is not a new subject for me, but it’s reached a point where I’m more concerned than ever.  Of course most of my focus is on the United States, and more specifically, my home near Dallas, Texas.  In just a few years Nokia as a brand has become a complete non-factor here and just about the entire country.  I’m keenly observant of devices used by others and, outside of a small circle of open source enthusiasts, I’m seeing everything but Nokia phones in the hands of the general public.

None of that is news to most people.  And Nokia has made it very clear that it expects its fairly new Windows Phone strategy, coupled with impeccable and compelling industrial design, to get its high-end products back into regions (like the US) where product sales margins matter.

The continued problem as I see it, though, is that Nokia seems to expect that they can concentrate all efforts on a few key cities.  Its shrinking supply chain system has led to greater consolidation of localization activities at sites far removed from the end customers.  Now, for core needs this consolidation need not be an issue; a phone engine is a phone engine is a phone engine.  But as many companies are becoming increasingly aware, last-mile localization is an absolute must.

This translates to customer Care activities as well.  Contract employees at remote call centers just cannot identify with many of the diverse clientele they are called upon to support.  It’s not just language barriers; cultural differences can be a real hindrance (not to mention cybersecurity risks).  But more than that, trade customers (i.e., AT&T, Telcel, Orange, et al) will not tolerate delays in problem resolution.  They will require local presence in key markets. 

For years now, Just-in-Time and Lean Sigma initiatives have been driving finished goods off of staging shelves and far up the supply stream.  In general this is a good thing and should continue.  But when trade customers are starved for product fulfillment (for whatever reason), they will quickly shift to whoever manages it best.

I saw this first-hand at an employer who went on a cut-at-all-costs binge that led to drastic factory consolidation.  At the same time we were shutting down and merging facilities, a major trade customer was asking us to fill growing shelf space as they opened new retail stores.  But we were too focused on reducing our manufacturing footprint, failed to ship enough of what they were literally begging for, and subsequently lost out to competitors.

That’s insane.

I’ve been concerned for a while now that Nokia is doomed to following that example.  It’s great that the company is finding new focus now, and figuring out the value of critical things like platforming and user-friendly touch interfaces.  But if they continue on this course of hyper-consolidation, not just closing manufacturing plants but also cutting in areas like last-mile logistics, I’m concerned that they may be undermining their own chances.

The Flip Side

Now, it could be that I’m ranting for nothing.  Maybe Nokia has some secret plan to reclaim and terraform its scorched earth.

Part of being a Nokia Developer Champion, though, means avoiding certain areas of speculation.  I would love to toss ideas around about what Nokia might be doing behind the scenes to recover lost mind share and to engage at local levels, but I’ll be good and leave that to others not so restricted.

However…

Anyone can look at official Nokia information and realize that all may not be as it appears.  For instance, recent job listings like:

Issue Analyst-CAR0000004E

As the Issue Analysis Specialist you will analyze and test verify Nokia Store and content issues reported from field or other teams. You will work closely with Issue Managers and Store R&D teams to make the issues understood and resolved in a quickly manner. When issues are resolved, you will verify the resolution.  (Burnaby, British Columbia)

Note that I’m just asking rhetorically, not speculating.  I have no knowledge on these questions whatsoever, either.

Anyway…

As I hear of more friends and former colleagues losing cherished positions at Nokia, I grow more and more concerned over the company’s moves.  I know intimately that Nokia is letting go of very key people that have the knowledge, means and desire to get it back on track.  Some of them are being let go in cities that surely Nokia intends to address with future outreach.  So why cut them?  Why not find new roles if that’s what it takes to keep them?  And will they even be considered for rehire at all if/when Nokia restarts efforts there?

And isn’t killing and then restarting those efforts much more expensive than letting currently unused or underutilized assets simmer for a while?

Hey, I’m not an MBA.  Maybe there’s big business stuff going on that’s beyond my comprehension.  I’m just a customer, investor and community advocate who’s very mystified right now.  I just hope the mystery is cleared up soon… and I’m keeping an eye on Nokia Irving…

As I’ve noted before, I have been interested in Qt development for some time and finally got to where I could allocate the hours to learning.  I missed out on local Qt training a while back so I’m dependent on documentation along with patient people online.

The latter have been a huge help.  I’ve encountered some weird and frustrating situations from which many friends have rescued me.  The former, however, have been severely lacking.  But let me share the pain with you progressively.

I decided to create an application for the Nokia N9.  The app will make use of GPS and cellular services mainly, and shouldn’t be very complicated.  I chose Qt Quick because I wanted to see how mature QML really is at this point.  Plus I’m allergic to C++. 

Installing the latest Qt SDK was no problem.  It was  a slow process, but everything just worked.  I then began searching for sample code because starting projects that way has always been my best mode of learning outside of formal training.  Note to others who do the same: always credit those who have selflessly shared code that gets you started.  One day you’ll want others to do the same for you.

I elected to start with GPS since that was the crucial, and I wasn’t sure if there was even QML support for it.  I was pleased to see many results come up for GPS +QML +sample, especially a MeeGo wiki entry by a friend.  However, at first the code generated too many errors, most related to specifying invalid anchor properties.  I passed that along, the code was updated, and I progressed from showstopping errors to a blank screen.  Well, that was something!  Another friend made a few more changes and success!  I now had GPS data.  What a feeling!

Then the weird stuff.  I added another QML file and changed the id of the grid object on MainPage.qml, and after the next build my app was all black.  There were no new errors or warnings so I was mystified.  But no problem: surely unwinding the last code changes and reverting back to the last good state would restore the app to its previously successful condition… right?

Wrong.

Even after a new build the app stayed black.  I exited Qt Creator and restarted the project twice; no improvement.  No one online could provide an answer, either.  Out of exasperation I killed the project and recreated it from scratch using the same code that had just failed.  It now worked again.  Go figure.

The next day I made some more changes, and each test build was successful.  I really felt I was getting the hang of QML now!  Until I renamed the id of a button on main.qml.  Zap!  Black Screen of Death again.

So at least now I had a culprit: mucking with element id values.  But still no understanding of why.  I was told in the #Qt irc channel on freenode.net that the project was not getting fully repackaged even after reverting the code.  I would assume that the Clean function would resolve such issues… but in these two instances it did not.  However, this second time exiting Qt Creator and reloading had the desired effect: the project compiled and ran properly again… mysteriously, even after I did the id rename a second time!  In other words, the change that seemingly broke the build the first time sailed right through a second.

I now have a reputation on twitter as the guy who scares off wannabee QML coders.

But of course that’s not my goal.  I really want to master this, and maybe ultimately help others as a Nokia Developer Champion.  In the course of the past two days’ madness, however, I have discovered a few things:

• The Qt community is awesome.  I cannot overstate that.  Even as I flooded twitter and IRC with inane questions, rants and cries of despair, patient experts kept stepping forth.  Nokia is truly blessed to have them involved.
• QML code examples are fairly easy to find and usually useful.  I have been brute-force hacking my way through Qt Quick, and mostly successful at finding relevant code snips to plug into my project.  And when they don’t work, again, the community does.
• Qt documentation is severely lacking.  Don’t get me wrong: it’s easily available and there’s a LOT of ground covered– but it falls short in details.  I ran into too many situations where the text would say “To do this you first need to do that” with no pointer whatsoever to how you did that.  Come on… at least give us a link!  And some examples that demonstrate entire solutions, not just pieces (note: according to the latest Qt Blog article, they are getting this now).

To be fair, documentation that comes up short is certainly not unique to Qt.  The sort of omission I cited above has been a huge issue with Microsoft developer docs for decades.  To the Qt team’s credit, they embedded bug reporting right into the dev environment.  I dutifully reported my first bug and I’m sure it won’t be my last.

My suggestion to the Qt Project is to start floating docs past beginning users, especially those with a coding background in other platforms but new to Qt.

I learned in humbling fashion very early in my developer days how useful this can be.  I had written a DOS QuickBasic utility that converted data from one format to another.  There was a single screen of user inputs and I was very confident I had coded it strong enough to foil the worst of evil users.  But to be sure, I sat a very disagreeable co-worker down at my PC and challenged him to find bugs.

Some time later, he smugly presented me with three pages worth.

It turns out I had neglected to test for invalid inputs in several cases.  My trouble-making tester had tried every character combination he could imagine and broke my app more ways than I had thought possible.  But he did me a huge favor: not only did that app turn out to be extremely robust after bug-fixing, but I learned a valuable lesson.  That is, test your apps (and documentation, sample code, etc) on people who come at them with fresh eyes and even a high desire to find fault.  Your product will ultimately emerge the better for it.

Now, back to QML coding… you’ve been warned!

source: conversations.nokia.com

I didn’t expect to be able to say anything first-hand about the Nokia N9.  I really thought my semi-facetious post a while back would be pretty much it unless I came up with some other abstract commentary to inflict on you all.  And I really haven’t used this meandering blog for device reviews, unless you count one admittedly unusual attempt for the slightly-less-cool N8.

So I was genuinely surprised to receive a sleek black N9 in London last month the day before Nokia World 2011, at a special Champions Day event.  And I’ve used it enough to share some juicy details.

First, however, a disclaimer:

The following review is from a drooling, starry-eyed device nut who is contemplating super-gluing an N9 to his hand.  Don’t expect much objectivity.

So let’s do this. 

Design

There’s been enough mentioned on this aspect, but I have to say it myself nonetheless: this is the Ferrari of phones.  In fact I even suggested on Twitter that Nokia co-brand a red one with the Italian king of cars.  I cannot overstate the sexy elegance.  Yes I have overused that word “sexy”.  Yes the N9 deserves it.  No other cell phone has been designed better.  Most don’t even come close.

Your gaze is immediately hooked by that seductive ebony screen.  The one bordered by an almost non-existent bezel.  The only one that gently arches above the front surface of a cell phone.  Double-tap that gloss black Gorilla glass beauty and be dazzled by the display’s brilliance.

This device is such a work of art that I find myself treating it with much more reverence than its predecessors.  I am using the included slip case religiously, and finally contemplating placing a screen cover on a cell phone… for the first time.  Just hope I find one that does it justice.

The single-body case is almost stunning enough to make me forgive Nokia for the sealed battery.  Almost… but given my discouraging experiences with Nokia batteries, I’m really concerned about the possibility that this one could go bad.  So there’s a risk.

I’m also disgusted with myself for somehow letting the chrome camera trim get a little scuffed.  Probably from riding in my pocket.  Note to self: buy a damned hip case.

Oh, and I really like the robust SIM slot and usb cover mechanisms.  Nokia finally got those right!

UI/UX

I came to this conclusion with the N950, but the N9 just cemented it: MeeGo Harmattan provides the ultimate mobile device experience.  Period.  Yes, I have a fondness for the various Maemo iterations (and a tolerance for Symbian Anna) but this user experience is state of the art.  Swiping is so intuitive, so expected, that I now find myself futilely flicking my finger across the screens of lesser devices.  Other than some oddities with settings drilldowns, I’m completely satisfied.

Notifications and messaging integrations go a long way toward making this a must-have product.  I’m a forgetful sort who gave up on watches when I started using cell phones, and the N9 does a great job of alerting me to what I’ve scheduled and what is going on in my virtual world.  The sleep screen shows the time and icons for alert types– very handy.

Power/Performance

At first the N9 irked me with its sluggishness on waking from sleep.  No such thing as a coffee app, unfortunately, so I had to wait for the recent PR 1.1 update to see an improvement.  Sure enough, it now wakes up and goes straight to work.  Nicely done, Nokia!  Especially getting the update out so quickly.

Battery life is… tolerable.  I’m a demanding user of mobile internet so I know to keep expectations low… but I would not have complained if a larger capacity battery had added some size and weight.  My ultimate dream device will go at least a day of heavy use without needing a recharge.  The N9 isn’t there, but it tends to last long enough between recharge opportunities.  I occasionally have issues charging from usb (“not enough power…”) but without some troubleshooting I don’t know if it’s the phone, my power sources or both.

Apps

You know me: I’m not really an app guy.  Allergic to Apple-sized content stores, I’m usually content with what the manufacturer includes.  Nokia has done a great job here, preloading the N9 with the usual useful utilities like Maps, Music, Facebook & Twitter clients, a nice integrated Accuweather app and much more.  That even includes Nokia Drive, contrary to some misleading press.

So what have I installed?

• Solitaire
• PhoneTorch
• Recorder
• File Manager (beta)
• Radio FM4

…and a really pretty fish wallpaper.  All recommended.

Etcetera

I love the tiny usb-style wall charger.  It’s about time Nokia got on board with that.

Kudos also to Nokia for its environmentally-responsible quest to reduce packaging.  The N9′s product box is really close to zero wasted space.  Other manufacturers, take note: you should be ashamed of your excess.

I enabled Developer mode on mine because I’m trying to teach myself Qt.  I haven’t seen it interfere with any other functionality.  Now if only my code would work…

Summary

The most surprising thing about the N9?  The amazing reaction it’s garnered.  Quotes like:

You’ve never seen anything like it, and if you think it’s attractive in pictures, wait until you see it in person — it’s completely and utterly irresistible. -Engadget

The thing with the N9, though, is that, much to my surprise, I really do rather like it. -Gizmodo

After using the Lumia 800 for a day, I am happy to say that it makes my Nokia N9 purchase even more valid and justifiable -ZDNet

The sole complaints from reviewers?  The expected short shelf life of the MeeGo Harmattan OS and the scarcity of apps.

I must now remind the reader: I am really a computer person, not a phone person.  And when I have had to use a cell phone, my past preference has been Nokia sliders and E71-type form factors.  So when I tell you I can’t put this candy bar touchscreen phone down, that’s profound.  The user experience has no equal.

Well done, Nokia!  Now… if your CEO would only change his mind on the platform’s viability…

This is a highly personal post so for those whose eyes roll or minds reel at the thought, click past this one and I promise more juicy tech stuff next.

As regular readers know, I lost a great job with an awesome company in January of 2009.  As of this past Monday I started a challenging new role with what seems like another awesome company so far.  In between, I worked at something that didn’t work out while keeping an eye on Nokia opportunities the whole time.   

Now, maybe I need to qualify that last statement.  It’s not like I’m ever going to “phone in” performance at any employer.  I worked hard at my previous position.  But I could have made much, much more of the role had I been so empowered… and it was extremely difficult going from the can-do culture at Finland’s single largest employer to an organization that could have used a best-practice infusion at the very least.

I’ve related here and there some lessons learned before and after my Nokia job loss and I will repeat them here for the interested readers’ sake.  Not just to bemoan my own mistakes, but perhaps help others from making the same ones.

But first I want to share some things with Nokia.

You really were an awesome employer.  There’s no such thing as absolutely perfect, but you were close enough for me.  You provided me opportunities I never could have previously imagined.  Thanks to you I’ve been to Finland, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, England and Mexico (not to mention states here in the US).  I was already open to cultures other than my own but you cracked my mind wider.

The projects I was given, and others I was able to initiate thanks to your empowerment, had me eagerly racing into work on Mondays when others dreaded the drive.  It’s an almost indescribable feeling.  Like I was being paid to play.

When you closed the Alliance factory I was almost in tears.  Many colleagues did indeed cry.  We were a family.  A tight, talented family that kicked ass if I might say.  I still believe there was value in what we did for the US market.  I still believe we had the skills and strengths to turn around your prospects here.  I just hope you’re truly serious about pulling that off.

You emphasized Connecting People at every level, every entry and exit point.  I wasn’t good at that at first.  You helped.  In three years I went from a stuttering introvert to a much more confident trainer, presenter and business explorer.  You demanded it.  Thank you for pushing me out of my comfort zone.

But I didn’t get it as well as I should have.  Sure, I networked globally with 400 to 500 people on a regular basis, but I neglected key parties on my home turf.  So when you (mistakenly) decided my critical role was superfluous, I discovered the hard way that I had not made managers at the fringe of my circle aware of who I really was and what I could do for them.  You were good enough to give me two months to find another internal opportunity, and they did exist, but the hiring managers declined to interview me because of my former failure to fully network.  Ouch. Lesson learned… painfully.

But it wasn’t all me.  In the past three years I’ve noticed you doing some odd, even counterproductive things with regards to hiring.  I’m mystified by why you deleted the “Global/Location Negotiable” job classification out of your Taleo  career system.  Many of your employees can and do operate virtually.  So how do you classify them now?  And why did you remove that for new prospects?  I don’t get it; virtual is the trend!

Then there was the extremely frustrating experience of applying for jobs that were available.  On one I was told I was overqualified and would not be considered.  I replied that the economy here had dropped just about everyone down a job grade so that was not an issue.  Still no go.  The job was closed without being filled, then re-opened weeks later, same exact description.  I applied again, and this time was told I was underqualified.

Really?

There were so many other chances at roles I could fulfill.  But no interviews.  I still don’t know why.

I came so close to rejoining you a month ago, though– I was even told to expect an interview!  But you dashed those hopes by deleting the opening… along with, I now hear, the jobs of more friends and colleagues.  That’s hard news to swallow, and I can only hope your master plan is on track.  Of course I also hope that every released employee finds another good opportunity as soon as possible.

But hey, I’m not writing just to lament lost opportunities.  I’m throwing myself into what I’m doing now.  An even though I failed to rejoin you, I’ve stayed close.  In 2009 after a brief hiatus I shifted my focus in the Maemo community from technical liaison to outreach.  Being elected to the community council is what got me to Amsterdam.  Helping the MeeGo community later got me a trip to Dublin.  More recently, participation in your Nokia Developer Champion program helped land me in England for Nokia World 2011.  Friends and family don’t quite get why you do these things without hiring me back, and I have been trying to explain the perks of volunteerism in response.  Personally I feel well-rewarded!  I strongly urge everyone, especially young people, to volunteer in activities that interest them.  One never knows where that might lead.

I had hoped to eventually leverage that volunteer work into a related role within your walls, but it looks like you’re not ready for that yet– at least, not in my neck of the woods.  Everything these days seems to revolve around Beijing and Sunnyvale.  The Irving office is about to lose more employees and I don’t know for sure your plans for its future.

But I did just have my Champion status renewed for another year, so I’m looking forward to our continued relationship.  I will proudly carry (and show off!) my gorgeous N9 and when my Lumia 800 arrives, I’ll try to give it equal time.  I’m even hoping to develop for both (currently struggling with Qt).  I want you to succeed, for a variety of reasons, and I will continue to do my small part in that… paid, unpaid or what have you.  So ping me when you need me!

I still believe in you.  You truly were an awesome employer.  It’s just a shame I could not put “Nokia” back on my resumé.

But life goes on.

A few weeks ago, Nokia Connects held a media contest to award tickets, travel and accomodation for some lucky blogger to express why he or she was excited about Nokia World 2011.  I already had all that covered, but gave it a shot just in case my wife or a friend could use the prize.  Worth a try, right?

Granted, my entry began by addressing cynicism, some personal but largely general, which had to make it a long-shot.  I walked readers through my Nokia journey for this year, with the aim of providing an objective yet ultimately optimistic view of the company’s prospects.  

I didn’t win that prize, but I do feel like a winner after having joined around 4000 other skeptics and enthusiasts at one of the largest product launch events of the year.  Nokia didn’t disappoint, either: not only was the much-anticipated Lumia 800 formally acknowledged, but a compelling sister product (the 710) and a new feature phone line (Asha) made their debuts as well.  There were no surprises for me with Lumia; the sharp Nokia blogging community had already pegged the critical details.  But Asha was a pleasant revelation– I had been so focused on Nokia’s work on the high end that if there were signs of Asha’s existence prior to the event I completely missed them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The personal high point for me was being invited, along with 34-or-so other Nokia Developer Champions, to arrive a day early for a special mini-event targeted specifically at us and by extension the developer community at large.  As important as the Big Show was, I believe community outreach to be equally critical.  Let’s all be honest: some Nokia moves and statements since late 2010 have cast a pall over its otherwise-stalwart developer armies, especially those in the Qt camp.  While many Nokia developers are certainly interested in adding Windows Phone to their arsenal, some have balked for one reason or another.  Nokia’s challenge is to make sure a sufficient effort is put forward toward developers feeling skittish or disenfranchised, as the company can ill-afford any more negative publicity.  Getting more behind developers and providing them a path to Nokia’s future will be much-needed goodwill.

Super-developers like Simon Botes have been successful at getting their products downloaded, but struggle at monetization.  During our Developer Day, Nokia’s Kenny Mathers and Reggie Hutcherson assured us that this is a key component of their strategy.  Hopefully we’ll hear more on that very soon…the survey we were sent afterward certainly asked all the right questions.

The Nokia Developer Team is to be commended for putting this day (including an evening mixer afterward) together.  Handing out beautiful black N9s was just icing on the cake.  Next: more regional events, please, especially across the US!  It’s all about engagement.

Which brings us back to the main event.  As awed as I was by the glitz and glam of that important opening keynote, what I found really assuring and exciting was a well-received live feed of Lumia product being packaged for shipment at the Salo factory.  This is precisely what Nokia needed to connect with the skeptics.  Not some pointless dog and pony show, but rather, a nuts-and-bolts example of something tangible.

As usual, for me the best part of any event is socializing.  Nokia World was an excellent opportunity for me to share thoughts with friends and meet new people with a fascination for All Things Nokia in common.  Yes, sometimes that fascination follows a cynical twist but even detractors freely admit that Nokia has many strengths.  For one, the sexy designs of the N9 and Lumia 800 were a hot topic of discussion.  And even those searching for flaws in Windows Phone 7.5 had to settle for minor gripes– if there are any showstopping-defects, I didn’t see or hear of them.

I can’t say the experience was 100% positive, however.  Communications (wifi and cellular) were horrible to non-existent throughout most of the show… not a good indication of Nokia Connecting People.  I was told 2010 suffered the same issues, and I sure hope this is resolved by 2012.  It’s embarrassing.  But not as awful as the Monster-made headphones that were revealed.  Ack.  Too glossy, too bulky.  Sorry, I don’t see these coordinating with the sleek Lumia phones.

Still, I’m newly enthused about Nokia’s prospects, even though I’ll admit to some discouragement over the move away from mobile Linux.  But I’m a ten-thousand-foot technologist, and don’t get as religious about platforms as I do platform philosophies.  I think now that Nokia’s thoughts are on a good track.  That’s a good feeling for this fan and stockholder.  ;)

Related articles:

http://thehandheldblog.com/2011/10/26/nokia-lumia-800-unboxing-video/
http://zomgitscj.com/2011/11/03/gallery-nokia-world-2011-day-one/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/29/nokia-world-2011-wrap-up/
http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-world-2011-the-us-perspective-28191709/
http://create.msdn.com/en-US/news/nokia-world-2011
http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/1/2529187/nokia-world-2011-interviews

Okay, I’ve officially had it with this year’s buzzwords.  You know which ones.

Ecosystem

Curated.

At first ecosystem was kind of cute.  It sounded so green and organized.  Who could argue against anything prefixed with eco? 

Then the pundits-that-be decided ecosystems alone don’t cut it.  After all, a cesspool is an ecosystem.  Just not one you would normally want to play in.  So we need our ecosystems to be, we’re told, curated.  That’s kind of like “managed” only cooler.  Dallas manages.  San Francisco curates.  Got a cesspool?  There’s surely someone in Silicon Valley who could curate it into an artichoke farm.  In Dallas we would manage to backfill it.

Apparently Apple sets the standard for curated ecosystems.  Within their ivy-walled garden thrives a microcosm so well-managed that the inmates don’t mind the asylum.  Some critique the development of this weedless wonderland, and even point out how it will ultimately work against the interests of the inhabitants, but for now the produce buyers don’t care.  They’re basking in the touchscreen glow of curated apps.

I was supposed to talk about open tech ecosystems at AppUp Elements 2011 recently.  I say “supposed to” because my thunder was stolen by tales of a bus loaded with sweaty coders making a fun run from San Francisco to Bellevue, Washington.  I felt like a disenfranchised anthropologist showing blurry Bigfoot slides at TED Talk.  There’s no competing for eyeballs when the choice is between programmed reality and the apparent myth of successful openness.

But I’m really tired of ecosystem because, as I had intended to share in my presentation, I don’t think it’s really so much about the garden or the plants.  I think it’s more about elements like earth, air, water and fire.  The stuff of services.  Deep down, do people actually care about brands?  Don’t they care much more about the experience?  So if my Philips television (with Samsung guts) could cheerily and seamlessly share with my Nokia phone doesn’t that make product branding irrelevant?  Give me Bluetooth, wifi and NFC combined with open data standards like XML and you have the service elements of my ecosystem.  Just add seeds.

As long as a customer-antagonistic war is being waged over content supply and demand, I have to sadly admit we’re likely to see more media gerrymandering that supports the walled gardens.  I want a completely open media market where I can pick what I want a la carte.  What I get is a bunch of bundles served up by various competitors signing mutually-exclusive deals for content libraries that contain some of what I want and a lot of what I can’t imagine anyone desiring.  And a subscription television bill that’s higher than my combined water, sewer and garbage service.

Take that, ecosystem!

Fast Company word wizard Farhad Manjoo foresees a 2012 tech ecosystem battle between the current four apocalyptic horsemen: Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon.  “Curate” won’t come close to describing the likely bloodshed.

We’re gonna need some new buzzwords.

Today I was challenged to share my anticipation for the next instance of Nokia’s landmark celebration of mobile ingenuity.  So, what will it take to excite me in London on the 26th of October?

Something big.

As regular readers will recall, in May 2010 I asked if 2011 would be make or break for Nokia.  While hoping it wasn’t, I feared it just might be.  Pessimism wasn’t helped later when at least one analyst answered.

This has been an interesting year for the Finnish giant.  It started with a singularity, was punctuated by an Elopocalyptic big bang, and has since churned in an expanding universe of naysayers.  I’ve lately been concerned about Nokia’s universe contracting.  I can’t recall any companies cutting their way to success.

So I’m looking for a great big MAKE from Nokia World 2011!  I’m expecting rocking revelations.  Passion-fueling presentations.  News that assures us a fantastic rebound is closer than anyone dared hope.  Something that restores universal faith in a company I know still has what it takes to not just succeed but exceed.

I’m convinced that much of the recent quiet hints at just that big surprising something.  Bring it on, Nokia!

Some of us like to think that systems and data and processes are the bones, brains and blood of any venture.  And for the most part that’s true.  But what body can thrive without a heart?

This isn’t just rhetorical.  The question came up for me a few days ago when I received the devastating news that a very good friend had passed away. 

image courtesy Kathy Smith

Gary Birkett was no ordinary acquaintance for me.  I first encountered him online in the maemo.org community, when Maemo was still pulsing with fresh interest and (despite occasional lapses) Nokia seemed strongly behind the mobile Linux effort.  Gary showed up as “lcuk” in early 2008 and began peppering the discussion forum with unusual questions and wild ideas.  He exhibited an amazingly deep and broad understanding of graphics software and hardware, so deep that even with my own background in the fields he lost me easily.  I think that was true for many in the community.  His useful knowledge and friendly manner made him an instant hit in Maemo circles.

He wasn’t a prolific forum poster, but made up for that lack with a persistent presence on IRC.  It didn’t seem to matter what time or day, or that I am in Texas and he was in Manchester, England– whenever I signed on, there he was.  Always greeting new arrivals and sometimes pulling me into impromptu private conversations about nothing and everything.

I mention all of this because even though he joined in a little later than some of us, Gary quickly became part of Maemo’s core.  That was easily apparent at the second Maemo Conference, held in Amsterdam.  Gary’s mindblowing demos of liqflow were so popular that neither his new Nokia N900 nor his fingers got a rest… and as I noted in one story in his tribute thread:

In Amsterdam one night we all went to a club at Nokia’s treat, but the music was so loud several of us went outside.  It started raining lightly and I was the only one with an umbrella, so we huddled underneath, heads bumping occasionally, as Gary shared his liqbase touch-responsive particle swarming demo.  We were all charged up by it and kept throwing ideas at him, until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and had to run back to his hotel room to code.

That was Gary.

Gary was the sort of person to whom people gravitated.  They were pulled in by his talent, his cheer, his never-say-die attitude.  I guess the irony of that is what hit me so hard when his passing was announced on Twitter.

lcuk… dead???  It couldn’t be!  I’m still struggling to come to grip with the thought…

He leaves the open mobile world at a time when MeeGo battles abandonment rumors and maemo.org tries to imagine life in a post-Nokia time.  He also leaves behind a family that includes a baby I know he was so proud of fathering.

Some have remarked that his passing is symbolic, at least for Maemo, but I would rather focus on Gary’s life and contributions.  His seemed a life worth celebrating.  Interest in his interactive graphics work led to a celebrity stint at Nokia’s onedotzero 2009, where he displayed a spectacular N900 app projected outdoors and earned the praise of many ranging from Maemo newcomers to Nokia executives.

But praise alone only goes so far.  A community isn’t just about its projects and prospects– it’s about the people that make them happen, often in surprisingly brilliant fashion.  People of all types, backgrounds, modes of contribution.  A successful community embraces them all and supports that diversity not passively, but with passion.  With a heartfelt recognition that anything less leads nowhere.

Every community needs heart, and Maemo and MeeGo just lost a good one.  It will be up to the rest of us keep the lifeblood flowing.  Let’s do “lcuk” proud.

Gary, thanks for the friendship and inspiration.  We’re all missing you, mate.  Our thoughts are with your family and other friends.

There’s been a crazy fog of speculation surrounding my previous employer for the past few years, and I’ll admit I’m guilty of contributing.  Many of Nokia’s moves during that time have been unusual, counterproductive and even downright bewildering… so it’s hard to blame anyone for wondering what the heck platform-torching CEO Stephen Elop has really got in mind.

Nokia has always been a leader in hardware.  That’s not even open to debate.  Their serious failures have been, increasingly of late, in softer areas.  Operating systems.   User experience.  Marketing.  In no time Nokia’s failure to execute on iPhone-driven paradigms caused it to fall from leader to follower to company-with-a-questionable-future.

No need to rehash any more history, though, right?  Let’s talk about the company’s future… and why my pessimism started to evaporate tonight. 

Many people were impressed with the industrial aesthetics of the N8.  Many more were floored by the uber-sexy N9.  If I were to forget everything I know about the company, step back and look at their recent hardware design trends objectively, I’d say Nokia has decided to become the Ferrari of phone makers.  The N9 alone is that good-looking.

And do I need to remind readers of their prowess with engines?  Other than some embarrassing lapses with memory and CPU power, Nokia is the undisputed king of cell phone aspects like cameras, antennas and power management.

For a brief period, though, none of that mattered so much.  Apple introduced a device that in many ways was technically inferior to competitor’s products and yet still managed to take the world by storm and become the smartphone benchmark.  They showed that, as cell phones grew in power and complexity to become mobile computers, usability became the utmost selling point for users often befuddled by a vast array of features.

Thanks to a strict adherence to the singular vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has managed to increase the perception among consumers that they are the company to care about.  Even as the Android ecosystem grows to dominate (overtaking Nokia’s Symbian), phones running the quasi-open operating system are always measured against iPhone.

But here’s the funny thing about software: it’s fairly simple to replicate someone else’s features without stepping on their patents.  As Nokia’s Swipe for screen flipping shows, there’s more than one way to engage a touchscreen.  I do expect more costly battles over gestures and other aspects of user experience (UX), but I expect most of them to be lost or tossed.  Courts overloaded with these lawsuits are going to push back.  Software patents have actually been working against the very principles that patents were originally designed to secure, and that can’t persist forever.

It’s no secret to readers of this blog that I’m a big fan of the Maemo and MeeGo operating systems.  I’m even relying completely on a not-for-resale Nokia N950 lately (running the hybrid MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan OS) for cell phone use.  But again, I’m setting that aside and taking an objective tack here in analyzing Nokia’s business moves.  While agreeing to adopt Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 for all smartphone use may make Nokia look like a whipped OEM, if they can outperform competitors in product design and reliability they might just have a winning combo.

Remember the hypercool Nokia Morph concept?  Tell me you don’t want one of these babies to one day be real:

source: http://themediaguru.blogspot.com/2008/02/nokia-morph.html

In the slightly less-exciting present, Reviews for Mango (the current pre-release build of Windows Phone 7) consistently identify it as a serious iOS and Android threat.  As loathe as some may be to consider it, the user experience playing field is leveling.  Once all smartphones have equal access to a competent operating system and user interface layer, the focus reverts back to hardware… and therein lies Nokia’s clear advantage.

It was an interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal [1] that modulated me back into more positive thoughts on Nokia’s prospects.  I’m particularly intrigued by one specific section:

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Mango is a modern graphic user interface that requires fewer clicks to operate than the folder-based iPhone platform and the Android.

Mr. [Marko] Ahtisaari says today’s touch-screen phones are inappropriately immersive, and that he would like to design in a way that allows users to keep their heads up again.

“When you look around at a restaurant in Helsinki, you’ll see couples having their heads down instead of having eye contact and being aware of the environment they’re in,” he says.

“Designing for true mobility…makes it easier for people to have more eye contact and be aware of their environment, and is an example of what people would not explicitly ask for but love when they get it,” Mr. Ahtisaari says.

Who can argue with that?

Well, obviously some will.  IT World insists iPhone 5 will be a significant threat. Apple has done a decent job keeping this one under wraps, so who knows how much of Marko Ahtisaari’s pondering it will or won’t incorporate?

It’s still too early to write Nokia off as a contender or be completely certain of a turnaround… but I’m even more convinced now that they still do have the pieces to pull it off.  Question remains: do they have the players?

Stephen Elop and staff may just surprise everyone.

[1] Very sorry, the WSJ article requires an account.  If someone has a free link, let me know!

A friend of mine in the MeeGo community brought my attention to an interesting concept he calls MeeGoVerse, which translates common gaming elements to real-life work as a sort of “massive multiplayer” endeavor.  One important aspect is the use of achievements to reward people for attacking necessary community evils, like bug reporting.  I can envision Meegon badges for each achievement.  People love to contribute, and especially be recognized for it.

Badges can be found in unusual places and contexts.  While updating my LinkedIn profile recently I took stock of a couple of icons I had not really thought much about before.

Right there beside the YOU indicator you’ll note an in and, next to it, a circular array graphic.  The first indicates  a Premium account, meaning for one that you get to harass potential connections with InMails.  Very valuable when I was searching for a new job two years ago.  The circle of circles shows profile viewers that I’m a member of an OpenLink network and thus open to said harassment.  Fair, after all, is fair.  

Now, LinkedIn calls these badges, which strikes me as a little amusing.  I didn’t earn them; I paid for one and selected the other.   So I feel a bit like a fraud.

To be completely fair, Premium membership means a lot more than a small quota of outgoing spam potential each month– it also indicates that your profile can be fully browsed by those outside your network.  So it’s a useful icon to display, sure, but I still can’t quite call it a badge.

In my opinion a badge is earned.  So if LinkedIn wanted to go that route, your number of recommendations could be one.  Why not allow members to show that count up there with the other so-called badges?  Occasional boilerplate recommendations notwithstanding, it’s at least more legitimate than the other two examples.

Even more appropriate, though, would be badges based on actual, personal accomplishment.  Wouldn’t it be cool to have a common protocol for such a thing, that meant the same thing to everyone and could be deployed in any context?

Mozilla has just such a concept in mind.  It’s called the Open Badges Project, and here’s a summary of the scope and intent:

We’re building an open platform that will enable anyone to issue, collect and display badges. Providing learners with new ways to get public recognition for their skills and achievements.

Their PDF draft paper shows they’ve put quite a bit of thought into this, and I think Mozilla is in a good place to push such an idea.  I imagine support will be built right into Firefox, and since the specification is open, I also expect Open Badge support to at least be made available to all browsers.  And this could possibly be extended to employment, providing a way for job applicants to quickly and easily demonstrate competencies.

I’m really intrigued by this, so I’m going to wriggle my way into the Mozilla community and learn more.  I also have some related thoughts on the dreaded subject of internet karma, so stay tuned and definitely browse the Mozilla materials.  I think they’re onto something!

Anyone ever watch the 1990 movie Crazy People?  An advertisement executive (played with nutty magnificence by the late great Dudley Moore) cracks up under the stress of lying to people for a living and ends up in a mental institution.  At some point he enlists the aid of residents to help him create marketing campaigns after the bluntly-honest-but-hilarious ads that landed him there become popular.  You can read the wiki article to get an idea of the results, but watch the movie if you can to get the full effect.  Other than some bad acting by Darryl Hannah, it’s cute.

Why am I recommending films to you?

Because when I think of Nokia’s flagship N8 smartphone, I think of how well it would fit into one of these crazy campaigns.  I can picture a sharp photo of this beautiful handset on a blank background, accompanied by pithy captions like “The Nokia N8: Quirky But Cool” or “Cover the Logo and Everyone Will Love It”.  

I write that last one only half in jest, because I truly suspect that Nokia’s now-uncool brand is doing more harm to this product than any aspect of the product itself.

There are plenty of reviewers eager to climb onto the “Symbian Sucks” bandwagon and trumpet the UI failings.  And they exist.  I used an N8 for a week courtesy of WOM World Nokia and certainly had my share of WTF moments.  Thing is, none were major.  Every one was a very minor inconvenience, and some have been since corrected by quick updates.

My own history with cell phones puts me at odds with the big league reviewers.  I had never really used one prior to 2005, when Nokia hired me to ensure their quality (I was told my ignorance would aid in objectivity).  My first phone was a Nokia 3000-something, and the next one was an N80i, so to me the Nokia Way was the only way.  I found S40 and S60 both incredibly easy to navigate for a novice.  They fit the crazy way I think, maybe.  So when my mom handed me her Motorola Razor (remember them?) one day, I was stumped.  I couldn’t even make a call without instructions.

The point is that ANY device user experience is going to have its idiosyncracies.  If you favor one strongly or have limited experience, every other UX is going to feel like failure.  That doesn’t excuse the perplexing approach that Nokia took with Symbian touchscreen devices– some N8 functionality feels buried, and finding certain features should see the user rewarded somehow.  And there are parts so counterintutive that if you don’t access them often enough you will quickly forget they’re even there, much less how to engage them.  That said, my oldest son has an N8 and Just Uses It.  Easily.  Contentedly.

Call performance was great.  Audio was great.  The feel and weight were perfect for me (I like a solid phone).  I did encounter two serious issues: the first N8 I received from the Nokia Developer Champions program would not work at all, and the second has a flaky battery that has twiced refused to take a charge (solution: place phone in ziploc bag, place package in freezer for ~4 hours, remove and thaw.  Funny, but fixed).

But bottom line: it really isn’t bad.

Not the hyperbolic End-of-the-Earth bad that some detractors would have you believe.  Nowhere near the “unusable” epithets ladled on so gleefully by biased reviewers encamped in competitors’ fields.  Quirky, yes.  Maddening, occasionally.  But cool, always.

And why not?  The cool starts even before the unboxing.  Nokia has been working hard at minimizing packaging.  The N8 comes in just about the most efficient box possible.  It takes up about one-fourth of its predeccessors’ volume.  So chalk one up to environmental responsibility.

Then there’s the N8′s camera.  I shouldn’t even need to mention this legendary appliance.  12 megapixels of Xenon-flashing goodness.  There is no competition.

And despite the odd interface aspects, they lie underneath a beautiful touchscreen where black is truly black, even under our white-hot Texas sun.  It is a pleasure to stroke.

As I noted in comments on yesterday’s article about Nokia’s balancing act on the make-or-break margin, it’s become cool to bash Nokia these days, kicking a downed dog for offenses that are forgiven of other competitors.  It started off warranted, because Nokia had indeed grown fat and complacent on steamrollered victory, but has now reached a point of pointlessness.

If the N8 had been an Apple product, there would have been some grousing over the omissions and silly stuff, and it would have stopped once the charismatic Steve Jobs convinced everyone that the emperor still had clothes.  There would have been updates promised, and delivered.  But that success at public relations magic is to Apple’s credit, even as I disagree with the common and disingenuous “you’re holding it wrong” aspects.  It’s hard to argue against the results so aptly demonstrated in Apple’s rising profits.

But Nokia doesn’t have Steve Jobs.  They have Stephen Elop, who’s still struggling to master the gift of persuasive gab.  When I drill down on Nokia’s troubles, I can’t help come away thinking that they really come down to a need for clear, strong leadership combined with a clear, compelling message.  The UI and branding parts are starting to materialize… now if only the leadership can instill confidence in customers and stakeholders.  The difference would have made the N8 a must-have device for 2011 rather than a phone we love in secret.