On 10/2/07, Gary Baribault <gary at baribault.net> wrote: > OK then, can I beat up on them? I agree, this is a lousy way of doing > the updates, I cannot suggest this device to anyone if every time there > is an update, all applications have to be re-installed!! Why can't the > update take a proper#full backup to a flash card, dump a list of > applications, and after the flash, re-install the latest updated > applications? > > It would have to be possible to overide, since some applications would > need to be updated, and it should be possible to tell the device to go > aheah and wipe everything out, but what where going to have here soon is > many devices out of date because people don't want to go through with > the update and then 2 - 4 hours of re-installs. That's not only > dangerous but very lousy for the reputation of the device. This conversation has been had many times in the past and Nokia has resisted it since it complicates updates in a huge way. It is a fact that it is more difficult to do this on a resource constrained system like the Internet Tablets than on a regular desktop. Now Nokia realizes that users really really want this and are putting in the resources to make it happen according to their presentations. I suspect that we will see it in Chinook or (more likely) Diablo. However, I think people's perceptions that Nokia not offering this functionality in the first place is an outrage against Nature are born from their mistaken belief that the Internet Tablets are just a small desktop machine and have the same constraints and should behave the same way. Reality is that they are much closer to the resource constrains of a cell phone and I don't know of a single cell phone that doesn't just wipe everything that isn't on the SIM or external memory card on a firmware update ... if they offer a firmware updates at all. Just look at the iPhone firmware fiasco happening right now. The iPhone has about the same resource contraints as an N800. Apple is not even letting users *install* third party apps and are intentionally bricking them if they have hacked it open. So compared to that user-hostile treatment, living with a Nokia device is not so hard to take. All that being said, I am not sure how many apps you have but reloading my IT after a firmware update has never taken me 2-4 hours. There are things that you can do to make it much quicker. Make a backup on the external card. That will save your bookmarks, preferences ... pretty much everything except your installed apps. If you save the .install file (or the .deb file for those apps without one) each time you install an app, it is trivial to figure out what you need to install again after a firmware update. If you keep your application data on an external memory card, it will be nearly instantly accessible once you do reinstall. The data on the internal card will be instantly accessible once you restore the backup. Just a few thoughts to make your update less traumatic. /Mike
