On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Norman Ramsey <nr at eecs.harvard.edu> wrote: > I finally upgraded my N800 to OS2008 about a month ago. > I've gotten used to the new look and feel, about which I'm mostly > neutral, but otherwise it has been nothing like what I was promised: > > 1. The RSS reader is no better able to handle a feed with a hundred > entries; my favorite feed falls in this class. I don't think the RSS reader will ever be a priority, unfortunately. It's been tagged (as far as I can tell) as a low-importance "toy" app. That, and there are so many other high profile applications like the browser and they only have so many staff. > 2. I get web browser crashes at least once a week. I *never* had a > crash under OS2007. True. Some of it can be attributed to the micro browser change from Opera, but it is disappointing since I don't remember as many crashes with microb in OS2007 either. > 3. I very frequently get inadvertent 'double-hits' when using the > stylus with the touch screen. These were rare events under OS2007. This bug simply must be fixed. It's a major regression over OS2007 and I thought my touch-screen had started to fail due to the glitches, including double-taps when using the hardware buttons. > 4. If improvements have been made to the applications themselves (as > opposed to the home screen), they are not readily visible to me. > Image viewer still chokes on a directory with several hundred > images, for example. Overall I think the look is much more polished and appealing, although I rarely use the "Applications" button and have launcher panel installed for starting my important apps. It seems faster as well (For obvious reasons since the clock speed was increased). I think the improvements outweigh the problems significantly, especially once you get familiar with the new way some things work. > 5. OK, one minor complaint about the look and feel: with the new fat > menus, even using the stylus, I can only fit a few bookmark > entries on the screen at one time. A device like this benefits > from a lot of bookmarks, but now screen real estate carries less > information and bookmarks are therefore more work to find. > > I am really disappointed in this upgrade and in Nokia's general > decision to keep the applications closed source. The performance of > the applications is a continual source of disappointment to me, but > without access to the source code it is hard to see how to do better. > There should be an option for "Classic" or the new look as it really can be a handicap if you have tons of things loaded. Either way, things like the launcher panel keep my sanity intact instead of threading through nested folders to get to an application. I am aware of Nokia's reasons for keeping many applications closed although I don't think they are helping themselves that much. It sure slows down clone makers but it also adds up to a slower, less well-tested result. I expect in the end other people will port/create superior applications to replace the built-in ones. I think Nokia is banking on that to add value without cost to the platform. As long as they don't kill the Maemo platform through too-frequent hardware releases that cut out older device users of OS updates the future is bright and I can't wait to see what else comes of it. Larry
