It’s great, but there’s one simple yet utterly important feature I see missing on too many mobile site versions: a link to the full site. While it’s right to offer the mobile optimized version as the default front door when the user’s on a mobile device, the user may still want, or need, to access the full site. In the worst case, the limited content on the mobile site hasn’t been updated with the same info as the full site. I recently had to go to a company’s site to check the address of their new office, but the mobile site still had the old address. I had been to the full site before and knew they had the new address there, but as I was using my iPad the code on the site forced me to the mobile version with no access to the full site. And this was the site of a large digital agency. So I had no way to get their new address on the go.

My other recommendations for mobile site design, in a short summary, are these:
2.    Simplicity: single column layouts work best.
3.    Small and targeted: reduce the amount of content.
4.    Functional: present the navigation so it works on a mobile device; touch UI or not.
5.    Easy: minimize text entry and scrolling.
6.    Take advantage of inbuilt functionality: e.g. GPS/location aware, maps, make calls, save contacts.

Karri Ojanen

Download and Installation

Having connected my iPhone to my laptop and launched iTunes sharp at 1pm EST, or when the clock hit ten in the morning in Cupertino, the first message that appeared on the screen told me that iOS 4.3.5 is the current version and there’s no update available. After I clicked again, I rubbed my hands together as iTunes informed me that iOS5 has become available.

The first attempt to download failed, but after that I experienced no major issues. The download took only about 30 minutes or less, while tweets started coming in from others experiencing longer wait times.

That was just the first part of the process, however. Next iTunes wanted to back up all content on my phone (as is standard with iOS updates), then restore it on the phone. This is where lots of people have reported having problems, as these articles show, and some have been left with temporarily bricked devices or data loss. I, however, had a relatively smooth ride again and another 20-30 minutes later, after a few set up steps on the phone itself, I was ready to start exploring the new and improved operating system.

Notification Center

At the very first glance before I began to specifically look for the new features I knew of I felt like not much has changed. The new, Android-like Notification Center doesn’t show at all until you swipe your finger down the screen. It feels very responsive and I like how Apple has added weather updates to it even if it feels a bit like they just had to do something different than Google. By default the Stock Widget has a place in Notifications as well but I went to settings to remove it right away as I don’t feel like following the stock market every time I check my phone especially at times like this. The new setting options for notifications are quite robust – you can choose one of three different alert styles for each application, how many items to show, etc.

Camera

My phone needs to use a pass code so I don’t get to access the Camera from the lock screen. There is now an option to turn grid lines in Camera, which can be helpful, and pinch-to-zoom gestures work as well. The biggest improvement in my opinion is that photos can be now snapped by pressing the volume up button instead of having to try to touch the virtual button on the screen.

iCloud

To have iCloud properly working requires you to not only have iOS5 on your mobile device, but update iTunes to 10.5, which I had already done on the day before, and make sure your computer’s running the latest version of OS X. That is if you want to have all your Apple devices sync with the cloud, and it obviously means even more time spent waiting for those updates to download and install. The OS X update took 2.5h to download on my Macbook and my otherwise speedy home Internet connection. Then, to use Photo Stream on your computer, you need the latest version of either Aperture, which is what I use, or iPhoto.

After everything’s set up, I’ve been happy with iCloud so far. Contrary to initial reports that the music part of the cloud service wouldn’t be coming to Canada, I was happy to discover that iCloud works for music on both my iPad, which I updated to iOS5 later at night, and my phone here in Canuckia. However iTunes Match service, which is what this article in Toronto Star pointed out as the problem piece for Canadian users, doesn’t seem to be offered.

iMessaging

While major attention understandably is on RIM’s BlackBerry server failures this week, Apple’s answer to BBM hasn’t seem to have launched completely without glitches. I’ve experienced that some iMessages are sent twice while others “fail to send” when they in fact do go through to the recipient.

Other, and Summary

Music, aka iPod, has a new icon and videos have been separated into a new Videos app. While it makes sense it’s annoying to have yet another icon on the home screen. The new Twitter integration doesn’t work perfectly with my contacts, as it was able to pull pictures for only three of my friends even though I have many more people in my contacts that I (and they) also follow on Twitter.

I haven’t really tried Reminders yet and I don’t know if I end up using Newsstand much. All in all, my phone and my iPad both feel snappy after the update and Notification Center alone made this update worth it.

Have you updated to iOS5 yet? What are your experiences so far, and what do you like the most? Have you experienced any problems? Please write your comments below.

Karri Ojanen

Most people don’t mind that. People who use computers at work daily may forget that many people, while they also encounter computerized systems on a daily basis, don’t need a computer for work. They want it for fun. They do upload content to sites like YouTube, and Flickr, they click away at their profiles on Facebook and use Twitter, but the kind of production they do on those sites doesn’t require a physical keyboard or an extra large screen. And while there are over 157 million blogs online, the average Joe or Jane who goes online doesn’t engage in serious blogging. The iPad is a casual web browser and social media tool, a video player, possible eBook reader and a casual gaming system, and that’s exactly what most people want.

The only really serious deficiency the first iPad had was the lack of camera, which many of its competitors quickly included, and now the updated iPad 2 comes with two cameras.

Tablets won’t kill laptops, but they, like smartphones, will be much better at introducing people who don’t “need” a personal computer to casual personal computing. The touch screen interface is more intuitive, and once more applications get truly touch optimized, like the iPad version of Apple’s video editing software iMovie, we may see tablet users become somewhat more seriously productive, too.

But Apple will hardly rule the tablet scene alone. Competitors using Android Honeycomb will start gaining more popularity once they catch the attention of bigger masses, and as the tablet market matures, Intel’s Meego, HP’s TouchPad and BlackBerry’s Playbook may all be able to grab a corner of it. Apple has had a head start, its ecosystem is strong and the iPad 2 is a timely update to the original, but the company still has some way to go in refining the iOS. Android, as imperfect as it is in its own ways, has nailed a few interface issues like notifications better, while the iPad forces the user into a do-one-thing-at-a-time mode.

Karri Ojanen

• Integrated messaging suite
• Cross-device (phone <> TouchPad) notifications and interactions
• Touch to Share – Allows the user to transfer content from an HP mobile device to the Touchpad simply by tapping it. This may sound simple, but it shows that the relationship HP has created between the new tablet and their phones is better thought out than the iPhone <> iPad experience. And, with a ripple effect and everything, it looks like fun.
• Native apps social integration

In terms of building a real, vast ecosystem, luring developers, and crafting a differentiating brand for WebOS, it all still remains to be seen. Despite all the good ideas they had, Palm died, and now HP is attempting to build on their platform that didn’t manage to reach enough mindshare, either in developers’ or consumers’ minds, in the first place.

While HP may lack the brand value that Apple has, HP does have wider global reach than Apple, and more resources. Palm, on the other hand, was known for its Pilot PDAs all over the world in the end of the 90s, but by the time they were pushing out their Treo and Centro lines of phones, they were very much limited to just North America, both in terms of mindshare as well as actual sales. If HP really puts its muscle behind this and works on the brand, it can gain at least a better foothold than Palm alone did.

The real question will be, how many tablets and smartphone OS and ecosystems can co-exist in the future? With the BB Playbook, Honeycomb based devices, the HP TouchPad, iOS, and, possibly, Microsoft’s tablet OS (with a chance that Meego will still make it to tablets) coming to the market around the same time, the fight is already fierce.

Karri Ojanen

Apple iPad
Things were different ahead of the iPad’s launch than they were back in 2007, prior to the launch of the first version of the iPhone. While many had thought that Apple may enter the mobile phone market even years before it actually happened, no one managed to quite predict what the device would be like. But with the iPad, predicting what the Apple tablet would look like before the company officially announced it was easier. The surprise element of the iPad was smaller than the wow effect that the iPhone caused.

The feeling after the launch was that the iPad didn’t live up to the dreams and hopes of many. People who were waiting for something revolutionary woke up to see the new device as “just a big iPhone”. However, the tablet also had its instant supporters: some claim it’s the perfect computer for their mom, while others simply say that whatever the iPad lacks in its first incarnation (camera, for example) will make it to the next version.

I question the utility of the iPad, even for my mom, as one of her favorite things to do on a computer is to make Skype video calls. I also think she wouldn’t respond too well to the on-screen keyboard. But let’s keep in mind that the device hasn’t started shipping yet, and very few people have handled it, let alone used it in any real-life scenario. The future of it will lie in the hands of app developers – maybe even more than it lies in the hands of the company’s own designers.

For interaction designers, the iPad is an exciting new opportunity. Luke Wroblewski has written a number of terrific articles about the iPad, including a list of new multi-touch interactions and iPad design tools and resources. And Matt Gommel, a renowned iPhone developer, challenges a number of preconceptions about the tablet, including the “just a big iPhone” claim, in his blog. While we’re waiting for the actual device (and an iPad version of OmniGraffle), let’s get our tools and templates ready. Even if the iPad doesn’t instantly appear as big of a game changer as the iPhone, it, together with the HP Slate and other, upcoming tablets, is still the beginning of a new kind of personal computing experience.

Windows Phone 7 Series
Microsoft seems to have done what it hadn’t really done before: taken a totally new, fresh approach to something it had already built. The new Phone 7 Series looks and acts totally different than previous versions of Windows Mobile, incl. version 6.5, which will now continue to live on as Windows Phone Classic. The 7 Series promises to be, finally, finger-friendly, complete with multitouch, and it looks significantly different than any of the competing touch-based mobile UIs.

The initial response to 7 Series seems to have been positive, though some point out that the bold new design may not work so well in practice. Luke Wroblewski has been exploring Microsoft’s new UI as well, and written an excellent post about its information resolution vs. the iPhone. Edward Tufte responds to it here. While at first I find it quite easy to agree with Tufte’s comment that “the WP7S layout and typography have a looseness found in commercial art and marketing, an inappropriate metaphor for a handheld information and communication device”, I think it may be premature to call Microsoft’s idea “inappropriate”, when they’re trying to redefine the mobile UI so drastically. Let’s see how users react to it.

Karri Ojanen

I believe that the introduction of every new device and UI just increases the need for scalable solutions, ideas and executions that can be applied across multiple “channels”, devices, and screen sizes.

Over the next few years, we will move from the idea of millions of computers connected by the Internet, to the reality of one huge computer that is the Internet. Every device will be a window into it. Banners and microsites have been an attempt to continue the traditional advertising era idea of standardized spaces into the digital age, but in the new era, the channel-based thinking of the past just won’t be the winning strategy anymore. What matters now is platform ideas, bigger concepts that, on the idea level, are device agnostic, and can then be scaled and executed on different screen sizes etc to convey the same overall idea and functionality across the board.

It won’t be easy, as there will be no ‘one size fits all’ solutions, but hey, when was this business ever easy? And, more importantly, should it be?

Successful agencies will realize that, going forward, this business will be (and it is already) much more about creating utility, producing services and tools than just pushing out effective messaging. And, unlike Josh Bernoff, I don’t think this means that the Internet is getting splintered. I think it means the opposite: we are getting more connected and realizing that the Internet is the highway we all share, we are just looking at it through different windows at different times.

I don’t think that the past 15 years was “the golden age” of the unified Internet, either, and further on in his article Bernoff points it out as well that the new era is not cause for panic. There’s no point in trying to undo the changes.

I think for the past 15 years we’ve been merely learning the basics of what the Internet can bring us, and, for large part, creating interim solutions that have been based on a combination of the past, the “what we know and understand”, and the new. Now, moving forward, we are starting to see the real shift, the shift that will change the advertising industry as we know it, as well as many other industries. To me, that’s not Splinternet – that’s the Digital Age, and for those who are already living it, it comes very natural, despite the challenges we face and the speed at which the changes are happening. So instead of trying to force new standards to replace the old ones, jump in and be flexible, modular, fast, and humble – willing to look at your work with new eyes.

Karri Ojanen

It goes from idea to necessary tools to research and sketching and programming. Submitting your app to App Store and getting it approved by Apple may turn out to be the hardest step, but if you get that done, then there’s promotion of course to get your app noticed by the masses.

Whether you want to try your hands on creating one of the two main kinds of popular apps – social stuff or another fart or burp app or flashlight – or something more “experimental”, and are new to it, Smashing Mag’s guide makes a good read.

Karri Ojanen

So without further ado, let me run you through the basics, the software, and the (what I see as) the pros and cons of the device. At the end of this post, I’ll get back to the other reviews and give my verdict. If you feel like you don’t want to read through all the details – or just that you’ve seen the same features get reviewed on so many other sites already – feel free to jump to the stuff in the end. But to get my whole view on the phone, bare with me and read through it all.

Unboxing

The N97 comes in a pretty small box with a minimalist design that goes well with Nokia’s environmental strategy: the box is light, mostly paper-based and therefore easily recyclable. There is very little plastic.

My first thought, when I opened the box and looked at the actual device inside, was that it’s way smaller than I thought. Not that the N97 is actually so small in comparison to other devices – it’s 1.7 mm taller than the iPhone, but nearly 7 mm narrower, and about as thick as the BlackBerry Curve 8300, which is 3.6 thicker than the iPhone – but the images that I had looked at online before I actually had the device in my own hands had always made me feel like it must be bigger than it actually is. The 3.5″ screen was touted to be “huge”, and while it’s not small for a mobile phone by any standards, it’s not bigger than the iPhone screen. It’s the resolution that is bigger: the N97 displays 360 x 640 pixels, whereas the iPhone only 320 x 480.

Inside the box I found a stylus (yes, Nokia did throw one in – I’ve never actually used it), a microUSB cable that’s good for connecting the phone to a computer and charging, a regular plug-in charger with a similar microUSB plug to attach to the phone, headphones and the usual: an installation CD for the Ovi Suite, manual, and other info. One thing that Nokia left out of the box that I think they should’ve included is a TV-out cable.

Hardware

Because of the fold-out QWERTY keyboard, the N97 is noticeable thicker than the iPhone and a few other Nokia devices, like the E71 and the ultra-thin E52. In terms of thickness the N97 reminds me of some older BlackBerries (and even some newer ones). But even though the N97 is thicker than some of its main competitors, it’s still much thinner than the T-Mobile G1, which isn’t a particularly old device.

Lots of reviewers – even Gizmodo’s “doom-spelling” Matt Buchanan, have already said nice things about the slide mechanism that reveals the physical keyboard. It feels extremely sturdy and makes a satisfying “thwack” every time you slide the screen upward. The screen angle isn’t adjustable (if it was, like on the HTC Touch Pro2, it probably wouldn’t have been possible to make the mechanism physically as durable in this size?). Some have complained that the angle isn’t the best, but I have no problems with it.

One very nice touch simple, but horrible mistake Nokia made is the underside of the camera lens cover. At first, people (incl. me) thought that it’s covered by light blue cloth material that cleanses the lens every time you open and close the cover. Instead, it actually does the opposite: it damages the lens every time you open and close it! More about this problem here and here, and a DIY solution here (although I think that this is definitely something that Nokia needs to address NOW – the owners of a $700 phone shouldn’t need to try and fix a hardware problem like this themselves).

The whole phone is made of plastic, incl. the chrome-like edge that rounds the top side of the device, but in my opinion it still looks stylish and not “cheap” at all. Well, if there’s anything that does feel slightly “cheap”, then it’s the screen lock/unlock slider on the side of the phone. It looks a little off place.

I got the white version, and the color is not actually plain white, but slightly shiny pearl white on the back. Overall the N97, as thick as it is, looks and feels stylish in the hand.

The slide-out QWERTY keyboard – people have said this and that about it also – is obviously not the perfect QWERTY found on your desktop, and also not the same thing as on the Nokia E71 or BlackBerries, but hey, I didn’t expect to find that on a phone that also packs as much other stuff in as the N97 does. After you’ve used the keyboard for more than 5 minutes, the space bar on the right becomes a total non-issue – for me, it actually makes a lot of sense on the right – and typing long messages is faster and easier than on the iPhone’s touch keyboard, I find.

Camera

The N97 packs a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual LED flash that can also be used as video light for capturing VGA video at 30 fps. I personally have never really felt like I need my phone to work as my main camera – I have a Canon DSLR that I carry around with me when I know I’m going to want to take some great photos – but having used other phones with 2mp and 3mp cameras before, I really wanted to upgrade to a phone that can take at least better-than-decent-photos in situations where I don’t happen to have my “real” camera at hand.

And the N97 totally delivers on that. The 5mp snapper takes photos that, in well-lit conditions, easily rival many actual, simple point-and-shoot digital cameras. In low-light situations the results range from bad to decent. You either wish that the N97 had a xenon flash instead of the dual LED, if you like using flash for your low-light shots (I don’t), or you just need to go get your “real” digital camera instead and work with the settings (like I do). Even so, the N97 beats the absolutely horrific, noisy low-light pics my 2mp N76 took back in the day.

In terms of camera, both still and video, the N97 stands tall in a different class than the 2mp iPhone 2G and 3G AND the 3mp iPhone 3G S.

Anybody who writes that images taken with the N97 are “still washed out enough that they have the definite feel of “cameraphone” all over them” (yeah, this comment goes out to Gizmodo) IMO should think about what they’ve written. I don’t ever mean to completely replace my real digital camera with the N97, but I’ve shot a few pictures (and so have other people: example 1, example 2, example 3) in the past couple of days that make me feel happy about the N97′s imaging capabilities – it is what I personally was looking for.

Also, check out what Alec Saunders, who took both the iPhone 3G S and the N97 out on a test run in San Francisco recently, has to say about the difference between the two devices’ cameras. People who actually want their phone to work as their main camera should look at the Nokia N86 8MP, SonyEricsson Satio or Samsung OmniaHD instead. The N97 is an all-rounder, not a top-end imaging phone in today’s market.

The screen

Now, when people talk about screens, some seem to just quickly scream “resistive touch screen? instant fail”. Though capacitive screens represent newer technology and are often more responsive than resistive, that kind of comments sound like they come from the mouth of a 15-year old who’s reading smartphone specs just like he would look at motorcycles in old trading cards. Instead of the bland technical spec, what should really matter is: “does it work?” It is possible to make resistive screens very responsive, even more accurate than capacitive, and implement multi-touch, like this example shows.

So what about the N97 screen then – resistive that it is – does it work? Yes, and no. It’s more responsive to touch than the Nokia 5800XM’s screen, and as soon as you learn to press it a bit harder and not with your whole thumb, then it can actually be more accurate than the iPhone’s capacitive screen, I find, for touching very small icons. But it does miss some taps – something that capacitive screens don’t usually do.

So, let me ask myself that question again – now more specifically – does the N97′s touch screen work for me? Yes, it does. But I understand that it can be a dealbreaker for some.

Other than touch, the screen has great resolution for watching video and playing games. In bright sunlight it’s not as bright as it really should be, but still better than some of the other phones I’ve had, and much better than AMOLED screens, which just turn into a mirror on a sunny day.

When I first heard Nokia call the N97 a “mobile computer”, I was laughing. I thought that even if it was a great smartphone, it was silly to come up with a new “term” like that, especially because I had a hunch that it wouldn’t, after all, be this device that just beats every other smartphone to the ground. But now, at least looking at the physical figure of the N97, I have found a way how it makes sense to call it a computer, indeed. Because when you slide out the QWERTY keyboard and put the phone on the table, it looks more like a mini laptop than any other smartphone I’ve seen before.

It’s dumb that the N97 doesn’t come with DivX or AVI support right out the box (like the Samsung Omnia HD, for example), and that you need to use 3rd party applications (Format Factory, thankfully, is free) instead to convert and then watch movies on the device more easily. But when you do get your movies and shows converted to the right format – I have done that – and start watching them, they look very good on the “big” screen.

The UI

Visually at first glance, the Symbian S60 v5 UI that runs the N97 doesn’t suite my taste. The new home screen that does implement some very good functional ideas, like widgets, looks too mishmash-y and engineer-like to compete against the iPhone OS or the Palm WebOS. I know lots of people are simply calling the S60 “outdated” and “clonky”, but I don’t think it’s that yet – I’m not a big fan of everything about iPhone design either and the Android default home screen (and logo) both look just horrible to my eyes. But it’s clear that both Nokia and the Symbian Foundation need to work to give S60 a much fresher look, and instead of copying it from others, they should do their own thing. The icons, even though they have been given a facelift, still lack clarity. It feels a bit like while Nokia does have great designer-types, in addition to engineers, to work on the hardware design, they let only engineers to design the UI, leaving visual designers and usability experts aside.

A great thing about Symbian S60, however, is that if you don’t like the looks of it, you can change it by downloading and using a different theme, or even by creating your very own theme. And if you don’t like the folder structure, either, then no worries – you can easily change that too.

If you think that your favorite applications are buried too deep in the default structure that Nokia has given you, then go ahead and change that. This is what makes me think that the numerous people who have written about the complicated S60 folder structure haven’t actually ever used it for more than half a day and haven’t even looked at what can be found under Options in the applications browser.

I myself have been using this theme on my N97 now for over a week with a custom wallpaper, and I like it a lot. If that makes you want to call me an iPhone wannabe, then so be it.

Bugs and inconsistencies

Bugs and inconsistencies? Yes, there are those. First, like everybody’s noticed, the S60 v5 UI is not yet fully touch-optimized. It wasn’t so on the Nokia 5800XM, and it still isn’t so on the N97.

While there are some areas now where everything is done quite well – like the home screen, where everything from the widgets to the clock to the Wi-Fi icon to the profile name is thumbable – there are still inconsistencies like the single-tap/double-tap issue that everybody’s noticed and the existence of kinetic scrolling in some applications while it’s absent in others.

And instead of scrolling through pages/”slides” of applications, like on the iPhone, on the N97 you actually have to use a normal scrollbar with your finger on the screen – unless you have customized and organized your folders so that no scrolling is (almost ever) needed. That all – the inconsistencies and the other weirdness – seems very silly, and it’s crazy that Nokia still hasn’t had “enough” time (?) to fix all that.

Nokia N97 home screen widgets (video)

Some applications also take long to launch – like the camera, which can sometimes take up to 2 seconds since I open the lens cover. This doesn’t seem to be as bad every time I do it, so probably (and obviously) the number of other processes that the phone is running at the same time affects it, but it still shouldn’t take that long ever. Also, the accelerometer on my phone seems quite finicky – sometimes I need to hold the phone in a pretty specific angle to get it to change the screen orientation flawlessly. However, some other users show that the transitions are in fact very speedy.

The screen lock/unlock slider worked inconsistently before Nokia sent the N97 its first firmware upgrade. It’s better now after the upgrade, but still doesn’t work flawlessly every time.

And more, on the UI and software side, the N97 is plagued by even more inconsistencies, which are pretty small, but the sheer amount of them makes me realize that the phone really is “still in beta”. I can see that Nokia’s been working on some things to optimize the UI, but obviously not hard enough to create a consistent experience.

The N97 was announced in December last year – almost eight months ago – and the actual launch date was pushed back a couple times, yet the device is still raw now when it’s in the hands of the first end-users.

Why is that? I’ll get back to this and a couple other things about the phone’s performance in the verdict in the end.

Memory and processor

Even before the launch, many people were worried about the N97′s processor and the amount of RAM. Now that the phone has hit the stores, reviewers all over have been blaming the phone’s glitches on the
“sluggish” processor and the “measly” amount of RAM.

However, if those reviewers would’ve studied the specs a bit more carefully and looked at some of their own, old writings about the iPhone as well, maybe they would’ve noticed that the N97 actually sports a faster processor than the iPhone 3G – it’s the same ARM 11 but clocked at 434 MHz on the N97 vs. the iPhone 3G’s 412 MHz – and the same amount of RAM (128 mb) as the iPhone 3G.

Now the iPhone 3G S does pack a speedier processor (ARM Cortex A8 @ 600 MHz) than the N97 and twice the amount of RAM, but it still puzzles me how people seem to forget that the mighty iPhone 3G actually had no better processor than the N97.

That aside, I too, having read some early posts and reviews of the N97, was wondering whether the phone is just going to be sluggish and horrible to use because the processor lacks power. Now that I’ve been using the N97 for almost two weeks, it really looks to me like the bugs and occasional slow performance aren’t so related to the processor, but just the immaturity of the S60 v5 OS.

The Nokia Photo Browser (beta), which I have downloaded and use on my N97, shows that it’s very well possible to do cool, touch-optimized snappy stuff with the S60 v5 OS (just click to watch the two videos below to see it in action) – but Nokia hasn’t got that implemented nearly everywhere throughout this “mobile computer” yet.

Nokia Photo Browser (beta) in action

Nokia Photo Browser (official video, HD)

Even if it is the UI and software rather than the processor that make the phone slow-ish now, it doesn’t make the problem go away, but the software can be updated and fixed with more future updates, whereas the hardware can’t be changed without buying a new device. So – if you are seriously considering the N97 – don’t worry about the processor or the amount of RAM yet. It seems like a dumb move that Nokia didn’t put a speedier processor on what they call “the Nseries flagship”, but again, test the device first, and see if it works for you.

Applications and games

I’m going to pull out just some examples of the applications and games that I’ve tested myself.

First, there’s Gravity, which is not the only Twitter app for the N97, and not the cheapest one either (10 euros in the Ovi Store), but it’s worth the price, if you like to use Twitter on the go a lot. It looks good, works well, and supports multiple accounts, image uploading to TwitPic, Posterous and other services, multiple Searches, Twitter Trends, Groups and more.

Mobbler is a free Last.fm radio player and scrobbler that works well – don’t try using it without a decent unlimited data plan and connection though.

Then there’s the Facebook app and widget that comes with the phone, and is also available in the Ovi Store for free. It looks clean and offers loads of functionality – from posting photos to finding friends’ numbers in the Facebook phonebook to tracking events. Too bad it’s still buggy – but I’m hoping an update will fix that.

For me, Nokia Sportstracker is truly a killer. I’ve been seriously into long-distance running now for about three years – ran my first full marathon this spring and had done 30km races before that. For almost
as long, I’ve been using Nike+ with my iPod, because it’s cheap and it seemed to work well enough for me. Any “serious” runner with an interest for gadgets will tell you though that GPS-powered sports
trackers will beat Nike+ in accuracy and functionality, and just like Apple’s other devices – the iPhone and iPods – the Nike+ sensor comes without easily replaceable battery, which is dumb and annoying. So I’ve looked at those GPS-guided trackers, but haven’t picked one up because they cost $250 – $350, which is a lot compared to the cheaper and much simpler Nike+. Now, with a GPS-enabled phone like the N97 and Nokia Sportstracker, I have a real accurate, reliable tracker for my runs without having to buy one separately. I just did a 12km run the other day using both Nike+ in my shoe and the N97 running Sportstracker in my pocket, and the N97 clearly beat the Nike+iPod combo in accuracy, even though I’ve recently calibrated my Nike+ again. The web service for Sportstracker still claims it’s in beta, too (now a trademark for Nokia) – but this service actually works beautifully.

Then games. I’m a sucker for strategy and simulations, and so I’ve bought both Sims 3 and Sims 2: Castaway from the not-so-great-but-constantly-improving Ovi Store.  Sadly, Electronic Arts hasn’t done much to optimize Sims 3 for the N97 touch screen, and so the gaming experience is hindered by bad controls and pixelated graphics. But, even so, I’ve managed to spend several hours playing the game – it is still Sims and I still like it. Sims 2: Castaway offers a bit better graphics and better control, but more limited game play.

Another game that I’ve got from Ovi is Motion Board, which is very much like other, accelerometer-enabling games with a similar idea on the iPhone. It’s a simple game that uses the N97′s sensors well and
looks pretty on the hi-res screen.

Navigation

Navigation is one of the reasons why I ordered the N97. The iPhone doesn’t yet have turn-by-turn navigation (there have been some attempts, like the XROADS G-Map and Gokivo, but the former was quickly pulled from the App Store and Gokivo just fails to deliver), and we’re still waiting for TomTom to “come to the rescue” (ugh) sometime “soon”. When it happens, it’ll mean having to buy a whole kit to enhance the iPhone’s GPS performance and to offer the voice instructions.

The N97, however, offers turn-by-turn navigation basically right out the box. With Ovi Maps and a free voice guidance file in your preferred language, you can start navigating either by car or on foot right away. I’ve tested it twice now in and around Toronto, and it’s worked beautifully.

Some things, like traffic data for North America, were still missing a little earlier, but the new Ovi Maps 3.0, which is not in beta anymore (*drumroll*, Nokia!), has fixed that.

And even if you don’t end up using turn-by-turn, Ovi Maps for Mobile is easily the most feature rich mobile map application I’ve seen. I don’t understand why people say they download Google Maps for their N97 instead – I have it, too, and while I don’t think it’s particularly bad, I just don’t find any use for it. Ovi Maps offers so much more. And another really great and important thing about Ovi Maps is that you can download the maps you need to your device instead of having to wait for them to load over a data connection.

Browsing & Email

The web browser on the N97 has been greatly improved from previous versions (incl. the 5800XM) and while it’s not nearly perfect yet, I have no real issues using it. One good thing about the N97 over the iPhone is that it supports Flash Lite, although I wish that it already had support for full Flash 10. If you don’t like the default browser, you can always run Opera Mini instead.

Email on the N97 is a mixed bag. While the Nokia Messaging solution, which is the default app on the E75, is great and setting up Gmail, Yahoo, etc on it is dead simple, it isn’t the detault app on the N97. Why the hell not, Nokia? Well, luckily you can still set up and download it for your N97. It isn’t completely flawless, but personally I find that I can do all the emailing I want, push and not-push, on my N97 using Mail for Exchange, Nokia Messaging and even the default app. And if those don’t please you, you can always try a 3rd party application, like Emoze, which is free and I hear it works well.

Battery

The N97 has a 1500 mAh battery, which, unlike the iPhone and iPod batteries, is easily replaceable. That is a huge point for me, and I’ll get back to that in the verdict. That said, when I first started using the N97, on the first day, it seemed like with moderate to heavy use it was still pretty use to consume all power within 12 – 14 hours. However, that changed the next day, after I had charged the phone. Now I can go through two full days without having to plug it in, and I’m still using Wi-Fi, GPS, browsing the web, taking photos and playing video. If ever I don’t use my phone as much as I do at the moment, I can probably get up to three days.

iPhones on the other hand have always had battery issues, and Apple has done little to help users, or the environment, by sealing the battery in. Apple has used concerns about battery performance as the reason for several of the iPhone’s shortcomings, like the lack of multi-tasking, and of course it’s true that the more features today’s smartphones have the more power they need, but I believe that if Apple had properly optimized the OS and given the iPhone a bigger (and replaceable) battery than the current one, then it would simply last longer. So why not?

Comparisons and the verdict

Alright. So what’s my verdict? Nokia’s taking a lot of heat right now for everything from its Symbian OS to its new and flaky Ovi Store and the capacitive screen. Ironically, Nokia’s not the only manufacturer using Symbian S60 v5 or capacitive screens for its touch devices – both the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD and the upcoming Sony Ericsson Satio use the same OS, and the Samsung Jet and Omnia II, for example, also have a resistive screen. Yet it seems like it’s only Nokia that’s taking so much criticism for those things.

And well, rightfully so. Because Nokia is still by far the leader in terms of market share – not Samsung or Sony Ericsson.

While a few of Nokia’s competitors have managed to come up with great, snappy new UIs in the past couple of years, Nokia still somehow hasn’t had “enough” time to work with the Symbian Foundation to develop its own, truly innovative UI for touch. Why the hell not?

Well, because Nokia is such a huge company that had got so used to being the “one and only” in most markets around the world. They can’t simply turn on a dime. It also doesn’t make sense for them to scrap everything and completely reinvent themselves, like Palm did. Mind you, they’re not that bad.

That all I can somehow understand. But it doesn’t help the user, who’s trying to use a Nokia device, or Nokia itself, trying to battle against its competitors, who “suddenly” now seem more innovative and way more user-friendly than Nokia. The great hardware specs don’t matter so much, the users say, if the overall experience is less slick than the iPhone, the Pre, or Android. Neither Nokia’s size or its position as the leader in terms of market share work as viable excuses for the company.

But let’s go back and take a look at the competitors then.

Is the iPhone a (near) perfect device? No. The Palm Pre? No. The Samsung Omnia, the SE Satio, BlackBerries, HTCs? No, no, no, and no. None of that works as a real excuse for Nokia, either, but that is why, after carefully reviewing other devices, testing an iPhone 3G, and reading all the bad comments about the N97 as well, I still chose the N97 instead of any of its competitors. Out of all the compromises out there, it seems like the best compromise for me.

The North American cell phone market has always been, and still is, quite dramatically different than Europe or Asia. Cell phone penetration in the US is still about 25% lower than in Europe and some countries in Asia, and, more significantly, the approach that Nokia had always used in Europe, building its phones for the consumer, not the operator, has never worked in the US or Canada, where operators get to dominate the market with exclusive plans and by crippling the devices they sell.

Think of Verizon, for example, and how they crippled Bluetooth on some devices, or messed up voicemail. Much the same with Rogers up here in Canada – they sell devices only after they’ve got to modify them first. In my opinion, only an angst-ridden teenager should act the way that wireless operators do in NA. In Europe, instead, there are regulators that have helped consumers to get a fairer deal from operators, and 2- to 3-year terms are way less common.

That’s even more so in Finland, where I had never ever had to sign a long contract and purchase my phone from an operator, but had always bought the device separately on my own, then got the SIM and the deal I wanted, and been able to use all the features the phone offered, like the phone’s manufacturer, not the operator, had intended. After moving to Canada, it took me a really long time to begin to accept the realities here.

Relax, I’m not attacking North Americans – hey, I live here myself now – I’m just saying that it’s important to recognize a couple things about cell phone markets around the world. There are differences between different parts of the world (thankfully), and the American market isn’t everything. The US, and Canada in particular, are still catching up to many other areas of the world, at least when it comes to the average consumer’s understanding of mobile phone technology and the business models around operators and phones.

As aesthetically pleasing as the iPhone OS is, and as much as I think that the N97 isn’t a device for any first time smartphone user, in my eyes there’s something about the iPhone that makes me think of My First Sony. I’ve grown up with cell phones for the past 15+ years – since they first introduced SMS in Finland in 1994 to the first color screens, MMS, and forward – and I don’t find the N97 so damn difficult to use as some people seem to claim it is.

It’s a little different here, I find. When the iPhone 3G first came to Canada, I found out that there were people, young people, here that didn’t know cell phones could play music or take pictures, and not just that – they hadn’t even ever owned a cell phone of any kind before the iPhone came along and was oh so cool. Not that I think it’s bad not to own every damn gadget that’s out there. I just want to point out some of the differences between Europe and North America in this market.

But when, back in 2007, it was first confirmed that Apple was indeed coming out with its very first smartphone, I was excited. I’m a Mac user – I have three of them at home and a fourth one at work – and I’ve never been married to Nokia. Since 1994, when I got my first cell phone, I’ve used everything from NMT Ericssons and GSM Panasonic, Philips and Benefon phones to 3G Nokias.

When the iPhone 2G was officially introduced in summer 2007, I felt very underwhelmed. I thought it was clearly a device for the North American market, not for the rest of the world. It was a revolutionary device for many North Americans, but something slightly less “new” from a European perspective. Apple said it was a smartphone with better mobile browsing experience than any other device before it, but it didn’t even have 3G. It had a crappy camera with no flash, or Flash, and no MMS. They said the UI was so superb, but it didn’t even do copy/cut&paste. And worse yet, it was crippled by the same North American exclusive operator plan model that some customers defend even today because they simply don’t seem to know any better.

The clever touchscreen interface and the cool screenshots I’d seen still made me want to really try the iPhone when it finally came out in 3G. But then there were the problems with voice call quality, 3G radio issues, the bugs, yes, the bugs, and the MobileMe(ss) disaster that the strongest iPhone supporters now seem to have completely (?) forgotten. The truth came out: although very innovative, the iPhone wasn’t the ultimate. It wasn’t a (near) perfect device, and I felt like it just didn’t suit my needs.

I also felt like I shouldn’t go all Apple, and tie myself down to iTunes that doesn’t even give me the kind of music and quality I like. I don’t feel like I want to trust a company that’s so secretive about its own actions.

So the Nokia N97 isn’t a perfect device either – in a lot of ways, it’s very weak, considering that it is the latest “flagship mobile computer” from the current “market leader” – but it has a lot that I like.

The iPhone does do some things that I really appreciate, but then it has some other features and non-features tied to it that I simply couldn’t live with. The Pre isn’t quite yet available in GSM flavor, and let’s face it – as great as the progress that Palm has made with the OS is, Pre lacks several features that would make it a superphone. Samsung, HTC, and even LG and SonyEricsson have come up with some very interesting devices lately, but they still lack proper software support, even more than Nokia. BlackBerries? Well, hmm… There was (is) the BB Storm disaster.

I’ve made a few references to Gizmodo’s review of the N97 in this post, but I don’t actually disagree with what Matt Buchanan has to say inside the article.

Nokia has a lot to do, and if this, what we see in the early days of the N97, is really all that they can give and still call it a “flagship mobile computer”, then sure, they can be screwed.

But I don’t think that’s what the reality is, and I have a problem with Matt’s sensationalist headline. Yes, it got the crowds talking, but it looks odd compared to the final verdict that Matt gave at the end of his post: one doubleplus, three pluses, two equal signs, one minus and two double minuses. If that’s how you rate not just a completely doomed device, but a company that’s “doomed”, then, Matt, I think you should check your rating system at least. I don’t think either you or I can call the doom of Nokia yet.

I suggest everyone more seriously interested in even looking at the N97 to check out a few other, more comprehensive reviews, like the one on GSM Arena or this one on MobileBurn. No, they don’t give the N97 the highest marks, either, but manage to put things into more perspective and honestly are better written than Gizmodo’s quick conclusions. But a word of warning: GSM Arena provides way less “fun quotes” about the phone and its shortcomings for younger audiences. And frankly, if you’re after just making fun of other manufacturers’ devices, then just get the iPhone – don’t read any more reviews.

So why the N97?

Like I warned you in the beginning, this is a long post. To seal it off, I’ll make a quick list of the key reasons why I chose the N97 and why I’m still happy with it now that I’ve used it for almost two weeks. But first let me explain the title of this post.

I believe we haven’t heard the last of the N97 yet. It’s not the “perfect” device Nokia would’ve needed, and still needs, to show the world, and it sucks that Nokia had to let down those who were waiting for a real killer right out the box. But it has solid hardware – just look at all the reviews, even the most negative ones, and you’ll see that no one’s given the hardware really negative marks – and the software can be updated. No, updates won’t fix everything, either, but they can go a long way.

People at Nokia adopted this concept of “always in beta” a long time ago, and it shows now even more than ever, but they need to get rid of it. It just doesn’t work when it comes to hardware and everything about the total experience around the products.

“One of the hazards of being an early adopter: you get to be free product testers before the first rounds of firmware upgrades” – those are Gizmodo’s Adam Frucci’s words about the iPhone from 2007 – and the same applies to the N97 as well. While I am happy using the N97 now, I’m waiting for more bug fixes. Nokia, you owe us more than this.

So now, the list of reasons:

1. Unlocked device
I won’t lock my device down to a single operator for years just because (almost) everyone else on this continent does. It’s silly, it just doesn’t make sense that operators want to own the phones. I want to own what I buy, and I don’t need the silly layaway deals that operators market as “plans”.

2. Openness
One thing Nokia is doing better than many is making the phone (almost) independent of your computer and your choice of OS: the N97 is recognized as a Mass Storage Device, so I can upload music and videos without ever needing to install any software suites if I don’t want to. And I love how the N97 comes with a great tethering app that lets me use my phone’s data connection to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot for my laptop on the go. The first time I heard that tethering should cost extra or somehow be a “problem” was when I moved to North America. Why? Invest in building better networks, NA operators, and you won’t have to worry about too many people using too much data anymore. I also like the way that Nokia is working with Skype and all in all pushing all these services out to users regardless of how operators in some parts of the world have tried to restrict them or sell them as their own.

3. I can travel with this phone
The North American model of the N97 has quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G on the right frequencies so that I can use it on 3G in Canada and the US, and when I go back to Europe every now and then, I can switch to my European SIM which gives me cheap data and voice and I don’t have to pay my Canadian operator the ridiculous prices it charges for roaming. Try to do the same with a SIM-locked phone.

4. Camera
I’ve had enough 2mp and 3mp cameraphones in the past. I wanted something better, but not the 8 – 12mp camphone monsters. The N97 is perfect for my needs.

5. Navigation
The N97 and Ovi Maps didn’t let me down here: I can download the maps I need, and the turn-by-turn-navigation simply works. No need for a separate GPS navigator anymore.

6. Nokia Sportstracker
This I only discovered after I had got the N97, but I love it. It won’t totally replace my Nike+ and Polar HRM combo, but I really like the functionality.

7. Nokia’s environmental strategy vs. Apple’s
iPods don’t have user replaceable batteries, neither do iPhones. Why not? Nokia has been rated as the “greenest” electronics company in the world by Greenpeace, while Apple, in the same review, is still very close to the bottom. They only started changing the toxic materials their computers are made of when consumers and NGOs launched campaigns against them a couple years ago. This all matters a lot to me. Why shouldn’t it matter? Sure, the fact that Nokia user guides have a chapter about recycling, reusing and saving energy doesn’t make their phones’ UI any more usable, but it still matters a lot to me when I review the two companies as a whole.

And that’s why it is the N97 for me, for now. I’m not trying to sell the same to you.

Cell phone markets around the world have really changed dramatically since just two or three years ago. We’ve gone from (arguably) one leader to a situation where there are many leaders and way more great options available than ever before. That should be seen as a great thing on all levels – it’s not something anybody needs to “kill” or constantly argue against.

Karri Ojanen

Read the whole post here.

Featurewise, many knew to expect something like this. With touchscreens, Nokia is behind its competitors who have already rolled out several touchscreen and touchscreen + QWERTY devices ever since the first iPhone was originally announced in the beginning of 2007 (though people forget that Nokia did, in fact, launch its first touch screen phone, the 7700, already almost five years ago). Nokia is known for its good engineering and components, but engineering or the length of the technical feature list alone don’t equal good user experience. The iPhone, even with its own usability flaws (like the missing copy+paste), has shown that the mobile market of today is about the ease of use, the availability of services, and, of course good marketing and aesthetic design. Nokia’s Symbian OS appears stiff compared to the iPhone interface and Nokia has lost much of its coolness factor. The company that had got used to being almost the one and only is now faced by competition from not just Apple, but Google, Microsoft, and the well-performing Korean manufacturers, Samsung and LG.

So with the new N97 coming out in 2009, the key questions are: does the feature-packed device also pack smooth usability, and how well does it connect with services? Impressive hardware alone will not win back market share for Nokia.

As far as I can tell, the N97 doesn’t use capacitive touchscreen technology, like the iPhone, but has a resistive screen with tactile feedback, like the earlier announced Nokia 5800. That alone is not a major letdown, because the capacitive touchscreen tech also has its cons. It only responds to finger contact and will not work with a gloved hand. The N97 supports gestures, like the iPhone, allowing the same kind of browsing and zooming experience as on the iPhone.

At least in this video, the N97′s new Symbian S60 5th Edition OS looks smooth and the web widgets that can be moved around with the finger to personalize the user’s home screen look like fun. If this is the experience consistently through the phone menus, Nokia may be doing well OS-wise. But what about the services?

Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo boasts that Nokia is rolling out services that “coordinate the world” for the user, “make the mobile Internet experience personal,” and bring social services to the mobile in a way that hasn’t yet been seen. What’s behind Kallasvuo’s words, for one, is the new Point and Find service, which will let users point at landmarks with the phone camera to slurp down location info from the Internet. Read that again. People can point at a building with the phone, and get info about the building. Now that is pretty remarkable, isn’t it, and creates an incredible opportunity for marketers as well. Right now The Point and Find service has a website, or rather just one page with the text “coming soon,” but it is anticipated that the service will become officially available when the N97 comes to stores next spring.

The Google/T-Mobile G1 has the ability to spin Google street-view photos as the user spins. Nokia will obviously top that with Point and Find. But I’m sure it won’t be too long before Nokia’s competitors get similar services out, and that’s what’s so great about the mobile market now. Couple years ago, before the iPhone came out, things seemed a bit stagnated, with Nokia dominating almost everywhere in the world. But now things are happening. There’s also the new ‘Facebook phone‘ that 3/Hutchison Whampoa is launching in the UK that will probably become more quickly popular among real masses than the 500 – 900 euro Nokia N97.

I believe we now have much of the technology, much of the understanding, and much of the user base to be very, very close to a real breakthrough in mobile. The real always-on, always-with-you, social and location-aware Internet experience is coming together.