23 February 2010

Why the Nokia OTA isn't a great feature

I recently got a N97 at work.
I won't talk about how I was deceived by the S60 5th UI/UX (if it was mine, I'll be happy to change it for an Android or even an Iphone!) but about a feature I first thought was a great improvement : OTA firmware update

We know how much this feature is needed to solve the problem we, FLite developers, had with the buggy N95 and 5800XM.
"No problem, just update your firmware and it will rock"

Sure. But it isn't that simple, it's even IMPOSSIBLE for some people...like me :(

Currently, the N97 firmware available in France is the 21.0.045 (from http://www.nokia.fr/support/logiciels/mise-a-jour-de-lappareil)
I have the 11.0.021 so I should be able to update it to fix some of the issues I had (what is this pityful sensitivity ?! what is this pityful UX ?!)

Unforunatly, I tried OTA and the Nokia Updater without success
Oh, sorry, actually it updated something : all the games I moved on the "Games" menu cames back to the "Applications" menu...GRRRRRRRR!!
So, in fine, it didn't update. Why ? it seems it's because my phone is locked to SFR (Vodaphone) and the firmware too!
So unless SFR/Nokia released a SFR dedicated 21.xx firmware, I can't update...

I really hope I missing some point but, anyway, the real problem is : if I was unable to update my phone (for whatever the reason is), do you really think a 'common' user would get a better result ?
I doubt....and ever worst, he thinks he have the latest version !

So I have to admit I can't rely on the available firmware and tell 'update your phone to play my game' : I had to make my game works on ANY firmare version.

Some month ago, people talked about what is the better : FL update by firmware or by AMP. I'll really miss AMP !

Lesson learned.

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