unusability

Esspresso, an HTML editor released by macrabbit to compete with Coda has exited beta officially. In practice it's not a complete application. Find/replace functions are lacking, there is no single action to replace+find-next, there is no way to replace a text within a selection. This might seem rudimentary, but no shortcut to jump to a line, nor does the interface betray the column number the cursor is at. FTP upload functionality is included and neatly integrated, but it does not allow modification of file permissions. There are various other shortcomings that would ordinarily deem the application a beta, but this release is indeed v1.0.1.

New features in formware 200.21.118 include:

• Unlockable lock - the phone locks the keypad, but instead of the lock screen, the last open application screen remans active while the left softkey title changes to "Unlock." Pressing it however results in no action and the only way to use the phone again is to pull the battery
• All new email - when retrieving email via POP3 the messaging client will ignore the email timestamp and instead use the time of the last download.

For reference, E71 (200.21.118, 11-27-2008, RM-357)

Setting the Messaging application to auto-retrieve email up to a certain KB size appears to sporadically crash the software. While watching the email download in the inbox view, suddenly the screen flashes to inbox list view but with question mark icons and then Messaging exits. From this point on the email key on the phone does not open Messaging if it's set to the "default" action. New email summary lines do not appear on the active screen. The only way to fix this seems to be a reset.

The work-around for this is to manually assign the email key to an inbox, then at least the application will start. It will also generally function without problems unless it crashes again as described above.

There is a new firmware, v210 available for EMEA version of the device, once the NAM update is available this problem will be retested. Perhaps this is why AT&T delayed the release of E71x.

For reference, E71 (200.21.118, 11-27-2008, RM-357)

Using the E71 after the last firmware update is like using a brand new phone, and not in a good way. There is a range of new issues in this firmware release that are new. For example, the messaging application now does not seem to preserve the date of email messages sent CC'ed to self. Meaning that when an email is sent to a 3rd party and the option to copy self is set, the copy will arrive with the date/time stamp of the current connect time, rather than the time when the message hit the mail server.

For reference, E71 (200.21.118, 11-27-2008, RM-357)

Nokia Software Updater suggests that the user first backup the phone contents using PC suite, great idea but in practice the following things are not preserved after restoring the backup following the firmware update:

• web feeds in the Web application, these are a great pleasure to reenter.
• Modes settings
• Installed themes
• alarms in the Clock application
• Soft key settings

After the firmware update the phone lock functionality has changed. Now "Phone autolock" automatically enables "Keypad autolock", meaning that to unlock the phone not only does the user have to enter the password, but also unlock the keypad: left softkey + function key. There was no compelling reason to change this.

For reference, E71 (200.21.118, 11-27-2008, RM-357); Nokia Software Updater (1.4.85en); Nokia PC Suite (7.1.18.0)

It's nice that Nokia included RSS reader functionality in their web browser, it would be even better if the application was usable. Here's a rundown of a few simple things that are wrong with it.

There is no way to import an OPML file. This leaves the user with two options for adding feeds, create them manually, which dependin on the phone you have takes an infuriatingly long time. Or, browse to the website with the RSS feed of interest and then use the subscribe menu option. Either way it's inelegant and difficult to manage since many, if not most, people interested in this feature on the phone already have a desktop RSS client from which they can export the list of feeds.

There is no way to automatically sort the feeds in the list, not even alphabetically. Not to mention by number of unread items, last update time, etc. There is an option to order the feeds manually.

The item view screen is a dumbed-down web browser screen. Dumb because it has no cursor, scrolling up and down jumps between available links in the post, skipping vast swaths of link-less content the user is trying to read. Scrolling left or right navigates to previous or next item in the feed. This is also a problem since the content may be wider than the screen is able to handle without scrolling, like in the case of photo posts.

For reference, E71 (100.07.76, 08-06-2008, RM-357)

In the Nokia Messaging app, HTML email appears as an attachment while the plain-text version is displayed in-line. At this point attachment.html is already downloaded but any images or external content that it references are not. When the user opens the HTML file the software prompts for an internet connection to download related content. The problem is that if the user opts to cancel simply to read the text of the email the HTML message will not be displayed even though it's already downloaded.

Generally this would not be a problem, but if the email message contains multiple character sets, say zh-TW and en-US, the plain-text version will appear as "Conversion error"

For reference, E71 (100.07.76, 08-06-2008, RM-357)

For years people have speculated that Microsoft takes design and usability cues from Apple. All that copying still did not yield a well-rounded product. After seeing the Windows Mobile 6.5 leaked screenshots, it's clear where their inspiration came from this time. It's HTC and Asus, two Taiwanese OEMs who have developed their own launchers to skin the hideousness of Windows Mobile 6.x. Imagine, Asian companies, who traditionally put out terrible interfaces (just look at DoCoMo) are now ahead of the user-interface company with the most market share in the world.

This is most likely a positive development. Not so much the new version of WM, but rather involvement of OS licensors in tangible improvement of the software product. We have seen hardware manufactures figure out how to cram 5 radios (GPS, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM) into slim, well-built packages (Apple iPhone, Nokia E71, etc), now they are on to software. This is a good thing because tolerances in hardware are much tighter, quality control is more stringent. If the same production practices are applied to software we will see vastly better applications soon.

Quicken has some broken functionality which it has retained through the versions. The latest currently available, 2007, still cannot manage ROI on a stock investment properly, especially wth an account transfer thrown in. For example a recent "Performance (ROI)" report suggested -15.17% return on SIRI over a four year period. Brilliant considering that in reality the stock is down 92.57% not accounting for transaction fees.

Many of the E71 reviews noted how much faster the device was than the predecessor E61 and E61i, that experience however depends on the application mix running on the phone. Adding Conversation and Chat slows the phonebook app to a crawl with even 80 addresses listed. Removing the shutters, as Nokia calls them, restores the performance to perhaps even snappy levels.

For reference, E71 (100.07.76, 08-06-2008, RM-357); Conversation (0.40.275); Conversation Phonebook Shutter (1.00); Nokia Chat 1 (0.02).

Opportunity generally hides in plain sight. When the PSP hardware update leaked many fans were excited about a prospect of a proper refresh that went beyond a better screen and an integrated microphone.

After the original model came out many decried the lack of a 2nd analog stick which made FPS games and their ilk difficult to control. Game developers found various ways around that but lack of a hardware controller, in short, sucked. A thought came to mind after the leak, what if Sony integrated a motion sensor.

Imagine controlling the reticle using the motion sensor and using the analog stick to control movement. This goes beyond the PSP, dualshock3 has a motion sensor. Game developers could add a new level of realism to their product by having the player control the sniper mode with the motion sensor.

Perhaps this is an unfair comparison since RIM has been making devices with full QWERTY keyboards for over a decade. With the latest, touch-screen iteration of the product the company has taken their keyboard savvy to the new medium. For example in portrait view the keyboard is rendered in a suretype layout made popular by the BlackBerry Pearl, in landscape mode the user gets the full QWERTY layout. This is leaps and bounds better than what the iPhone has as of firmware 2.1. The keyboard is always displayed in QWERTY format, which is understandable, there could be licensing issues surrounding suretype. However what is absolutely terrible is that it's nearly impossible to get the keyboard landscape mode except in a few places like URL entry in Safari.