Nokia N8 has some annoying issues

by Volker Weber

While I am very impressed with Nokia's progress, there are a few annoying issues. I am going to start a list, and I as I find more annoyances will amend them. I will also post fixes here, so come and revisit.

  1. Nokia provides a social client with basic plugins for Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately it uses a very small font which cannot be adjusted. The app also does not inherit clock settings from the operating system. Update: fixed
  2. The N8 browser requires lots of screen taps and does not support reflow, like Android and BlackBerry 6 do.
  3. I cannot get Nokia Multimedia Transfer on my iMac to recognize the N8 over USB, no matter which setting I use on the phone. Without Multimedia Transfer Nokia Map Loader does not work.
  4. Connected N8 via Bluetooth to Multimedia Transfer as USB wasn't working. Loaded Nokia Map Loader. Map Loader shows no maps at all. When I hit Update Maps, Map Loader bombs. Submitted debug information. Nokia, this is SNAFU. Provide download links for maps. I know how to move files with a file manager. I guess most people do. Workaround: used Ovi Suite on PC.
  5. Ovi Store apps are not current. A number of times I have downloaded and installed apps from Ovi Store, to be told on first launch, that there is a newer version available, which required yet another install of the same app, now downloaded from the app web site. Bloomberg was the latest one.
  6. Widgets on the home screen cannot be moved from one of the three screens to the other. When you use the shortcut widgets, you cannot move shortcuts around with drag&drop. Instead you have to select the app you want for each of the four positions from a long text list.
  7. I have installed a few apps from Ovi Store that I am unable to delete. They don't show up in the application manager. I have also removed the Ovi Store icon from the shortcut widget, and now cannot add it since it does not show up on the list of available apps. [Partly resolved: Mikael Jonsson told me it's called Store instead of Ovi Store.]

Do you notice that there are no hardware issues? :-)

Notice to Nokia fans: I like the N8. See:

Comments

1. The Social app is shit, use Gravity instead like everyone else.
2. Theres a new browser coming before the end of the year. If you really don't like the Nokia browser then use Opera Mobile 10, though that doesn't support multi-touch and thats even more annoying.
3 and 4. If you use Nokia Ovi Suit like normal people, you wouldn't have any of these problems. The N8 is built for NOS and thats the only thing you will need if you want to connect your N8 to a PC. I didn't even know Nokia supported Maps Loader or NMT anymore.

Petri Jänkälä, 2010-10-10

Petri, "normal people" may use Ovi Suite. But for an iMac that is not an option. Nokia Multimedia Sync is actually a very good solution. A lot less resource hungry than Ovi Suite for Windows. And Map Loader sort of works on both the N900 and some older Symbian phones. I am really curious what is broken here.

Is't quite surprising that Nokia ships an app like Social, isn't it? One would think they can do better.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-10

I really have to agree with Volker, 'Social' is such a weird thing, I am feeling a little ashamed because of it ;) But Petri is also right, there is Gravity, which is simply brilliant.

Of course things become easier when using the OVI suite. Nevertheless available solutions should of course work!

Not current versions on the OVI-Store might be an indicator for a too complicated / and or lenghty resubmission process. Or lazyness on the publishers side. Not easy to tell without more data.

I am glad you like the N8, I love mine. Still undecided about the color, I took a silver one. Black or blue might be even better :)

Hubert Stettner, 2010-10-10

Looks like Nokia should buy Gravity instead of embarrassing themselves.

Silver would have been my choice as well. But black is a good second.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-10

Update: I have installed the trial, and I am no longer convinced that Nokia should buy it. ;-)

Volker Weber, 2010-10-11

About the widget OVI-store shortcut. I too deleted mine but I can still add it again, but it's not called OVI store, just "Store"(actually i'm from Sweden so on my N8 it's called "Butik" which is Swedish for store).

Mikael Jonsson, 2010-10-11

Mikael, you are right. I found it, it's indeed called Store. This does reinforce my point that adding a shortcut is overly complicated.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-11

Interested by your comments about the Social and Gravity apps, Volker.

Does this illustrate the problem that Nokia is always going to have from this point forward, that they are too late to the 'app' party, and thus will not have the ISV commitment that Android and Apple have?

No matter how great the N8 is as a device (and I like the reviews you've posted so far), the idea of giving up the iPhone and the 10+ great Twitter clients that are available (plus 100,000s other apps) would be too much of a wrench right now...

Stuart McIntyre, 2010-10-11

It make me laugh that iPhone and Android users always state how many apps that there relevant app stores have! Out of the 100000plus apps that are available for each platform how many are actually useful?

I'm sure there are only a few that are really useful, and are used daily.

Jon Walters, 2010-10-11

Jon, it does not really matter that much that there are 300,000 apps in the iTunes store. What matters though is that iOS is the first choice for most developers. When Sonos created an app to control their multi-room music system, they chose iOS as their first platform. And I am pretty sure that Android will be their second. I use the software daily, and today, I can only do that on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Stuart, yes, that is challenge. No, not because Nokia is late. They had tens of thousand of apps for their platform even before the iPhone. The challenge is twofold; first, software is dominated by Americans while Symbian for all intents and purposes does not exist in the US, and secondly, development on the Symbian platform has been very very difficult.

To quote Steve B.: developers, developers, developers. And as we speak, Microsoft takes the stage to present Windows Phone 7. Another platform that needs developers. Interesting times.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-11

@Petri Nokia's view about what "normal people" have or do is exactly the problem I have with this great phone maker. Until a couple of years ago, that may have made sense, it doesn't today. Microsoft is a Nokia competitor, why bind the products like Nokia Suite / Ovi Suite to Windows? What does Nokia gain from that association?

Phones are not an add-on device for PCs, it's the other way round. If Nokia insists on a PC-based environment to manage some of the phones services and updates, why not use Java or even Adobe Air which could work from most OSes?

PS I am using Ubuntu and want to upgrade my E71 Symbian. And no, I don't want to install a virtual machine just for that purpose, nor do I want to try a wine installation...

And because "normal" iPhone users have a Mac or at least iTunes, my next phone will be an Android.

Moritz Schroeder, 2010-10-11

Glad I could help.

By the way regarding the apps that you can't delete, if they show up as icons in any of the main folders you can try to delete them by choosing organize and then pressing(doing a long tap) the icon of the app in question, you should then get a menu which has an "erase" option.

Again my phone is in Swedish so any of the menu names might be a little off.

Mikael Jonsson, 2010-10-11

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