Why can't my S60 phone do that?
Published by Steve Litchfield at 9:42 BST, October 15th 2008
It's all very well standing there smugly with your new Nokia N or Eseries phone, knowing that it's functionally superior to your friend's Apple iPhone. But when you both turn on your devices, it's the iPhone that people gather round, partly because of the larger screen (covered here - The Pull of Real Estate, Intensity and Interaction), but also partly to watch its party tricks. Watching these you might well ask: 'Why can't my S60 phone do that?'
Old hands may know the answers, but just in case you know (or are) a relative S60 beginner...
The good news is that, to a greater or smaller extent, it can - if you know what to do. In no particular order, and putting in thoughts to indicate where an S60 device can be superior to the iPhone as well (indented):
Pull up a full-screen photo or web page, then turn the iPhone sideways and watch the photo or page adjust to the new orientation
This one's easy, but it does depend on which S60 phone you own. The Nokia E66, N95, N95 8GB, N82, N96, N79 and N85 all have accelerometers that accomplish the same trick, but you do have to have 'Settings|General|Personalisation|Display|Rotate screen' set to 'Automatic' and, in the case of the N95 and N95 8GB, need to have newer firmware installed (at least v30 and v20 respectively).
For some other modern S60 phones (3rd Edition FP1 and above, with no accelerometer), rotating web pages can still be done, though slightly less intuitively, by diving for the menu and using 'Rotate screen'. Photos, once on-screen, can be rotated by pressing '3' or '*' (depending on the age of your device) - use this 'full-screen' for greatest effect. I know, I know, not really such a party trick, but at least you can fake it 8-)
Advantage S60: Photos can also be edited (in the Nseries Gallery app, at least), taking out red-eye and adjusting colour and contrast, for example. Photos can also be emailed or sent via Bluetooth, both at full original size, whereas the iPhone currently resamples every image down to VGA for transmission.
Screen size and intensity are the only real issues here
Browse round a zoomed out web page and then zoom in to the exact bit you want
Another easy trick to replicate. You can't tap on your S60 phone's screen, of course, but you can achieve almost exactly the same effect with judicious use of the '8' key (short for the 'Page overview' function on the menu) and the d-pad. Start looking at a web page in this '8'/overview mode, move the highlight using the d-pad and then press in the d-pad to bring up the right bit.
Advantage S60: Although the '8' trick is nowhere near as intuitive as Safari and the iPhone's multi-touch, S60 Web scores when it comes to multimedia and interactive content as almost all modern S60 phones have Flash built into their web browser and so can view Flash content/videos, whereas the iPhone's Safari simply shows a boundary box in each case.
[NB. Note that the intensity difference between the two device's screens isn't as huge as the photo makes out - though the iPhone's screen is brighter...]
Show a 5 day weather forecast
There's nothing magical about the iPhone's excellent little Weather applet - it simply scrapes the relevant forecast information from Yahoo! And there are numerous weather applications (both Java and native), widgets and mobile services for S60, all of which do more or less the same thing.
For free, and armed with a modern S60 device (with Web Runtime built-in), it's easiest to start at http://widgets.nokia.mobi/ on your phone - this installs Weatherbug's rather iPhone-like (and pretty) widget. For the full weather experience though, it's worth plumping up for the comprehensive Handy Weather.
Advantage S60: Not only does Handy Weather give you a pretty 5 day forecast, it will even display the next day's weather as a screensaver on your phone without you even pressing a button or tapping anything. And it will run on every S60 phone, with no special requirements.
Same info, different presentation style?
Browse through and search YouTube videos, playing them full-screen
The famous example is the skateboarding dog, of course, but the truth is that (almost) all YouTube content is now available through the iPhone's built-in YouTube client. This hooks into special H.264 versions of each clip, created after upload by YouTube's servers. Although each modern S60 phone can play H.264 video back, there's no way to access these versions, sadly.
Although you can play YouTube videos back within the YouTube web pages themselves, using the default Flash video streams, you'll need quite a recent device and recent firmware (similar to the auto-screen-rotation list above), and the final experience is quite slow because of the speed of Web itself and all the rendering needed. Another option is to use the official Java YouTube client, but this accesses low grade 3GP (H.263?) sub-QVGA resolution video clips. You can go full-screen in RealPlayer if needed using the '2' shortcut, but the video quality is significantly less than viewing the higher resolution, better-encoded H.264 streams in Quicktime on the iPhone.
As on the iPhone, the best YouTube experience is obtained using a dedicated (native) client. Except it's not built-in with S60 - you have to download Mobitubia for yourself - it's freeware. Once installed, it's almost the equal of the iPhone's YouTube client. Another YouTube client for S60 is emTube, officially discontinued but still available here, for example.
Advantage S60: one big plus for the two S60 clients are that you can save YouTube (Flash Video) clips onto your memory card for playback later when you're offline. Or even archive them for posterity.
Buy music from iTunes over the air
Got a song running through your head? With iTunes on the iPhone, you just search for it and tap on 'buy'. Thing is, the same's also true for many modern S60 phones, anything from the N82 onwards, with Nokia Music Store (in selected countries, but then iTunes has limitations too) providing the same over the air satisfaction, even if the way Nokia's solution is implemented as a web site rather than a native client can be a little.... slow.
Both systems rely heavily on Digital Rights Management (DRM), which is a real pain and not a route you really want to go down, but it's acceptable for quick gratification when you really, really want a track in a hurry.
Advantage S60: In addition to playing back DRMed WMA music from the Nokia Music Store and vanilla AAC and MP3 tracks, S60 also supports vanilla WMA and eAAC+ format music, so if you have music from many different sources then they'll play fine. Just don't try and mix iTunes DRMed and Nokia Music DRMed files!
Not that I'd buy often from either - I hate DRM! 8-)
Flick between full-screen photos with a swipe of the finger, then zoom in with multi-touch finger splay
Now, without a touch-screen, you can't swipe on S60, of course. Not yet, anyway. But on Nseries phones, the Gallery application will let you, in (rotated) landscape mode, flick from photo to photo with just left/right on the d-pad. Almost as good and almost as satisfying. And the 'volume' keys on the side of the phone double as zoom controls, albeit not as fast or as smooth as on the iPhone.
On non-Nseries phones, you can do the same photo-flicking thing using the third party Resco Photo Viewer, reviewed here. This also has the advantage of smoother and faster zoom in and out, using the '6' and '7' keys. Again, not as neat as on the iPhone, but arguably as fast.
Advantage S60: Using either Nseries Gallery or Resco Photo Viewer, there are oodles of editing functions, ranging from brightness/contrast adjustment to clip-art addition, cropping, sharpening, etc.
[Here, I'd already zoomed the N95 photo in using the up/down side controls and am pictured 'splaying' to then zoom the iPhone version... NB. Another case of the camera lying a little, the screen colours from the N95 don't seem to have photographed as well, again probably because of light levels. ]
Instant access to a huge gallery of native applications, many of which are free or nearly-free
OK. You've got me here. This is an area that Apple utterly nailed. Everything native. Everything instantly available over the air. All (free) application updates fully notified and also available immediately over the air with full changelog for each.
Nokia will point to its Download! application on each device, but although this is a starting point, it never becomes much more. Once past a few Nokia home-grown staples, you're into fluffy widgets, Java games and pointless 'security' software. Admittedly, some native star applications are present, such as Mobipocket Reader, Worldmate and most of Epocware's great 'Handy' catalogue. But that's where it stops. And far too many demo/trial applications are simply shown as "Price: 0", which is very, very misleading.
No Advantage S60 whatsoever here. Zip. 8-)
Why can't my S60 phone do that?
Leaving aside the last (rather bitchy, I admit) section, the point of this feature has been to show that most of the things the Apple iPhone (which I also rate highly, with reservations) loves to show off with can also be done with an S60 phone. Albeit usully less intuitively and albeit sometimes with a bit of third party software, but nearly always with more actual functionality to back up the UI trick, once you look beyond the basics.
Why can't my S60 phone do that? It probably can. See above, rinse and repeat.....
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 20 October 2008
Categories: How To, Comment, Software
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition, S60 5th Edition
Feature Discussion
No, seriously, another advantage is that multimedia files can just be uploaded to the N95 or a swappable media and thus save us from iTunes or any complicated putty sessions. The only thing I really miss on my N95-1 is the better browser experience.
I think what the iPhone managed to achieve is that it generated so much public interest, and this although it's the first time Apple ever created a phone. So even though the iPhone is somewhat crippled compared to the N95-1, it still has a better public image. The question of "see-what-my-N95-can-do-and-your-iPhone-can't" actually never arose for me so far.
N810, which I own too and soon on eBay, is crap - even with 800x480. And X1 is ... Windows? So you should be warned.
I would get a Symbian if I only can choose between WM and S60. But anyway, on Symbian touchscreen phones and on Windows Mobile touchscreen phone a stylus is a must-have. That makes me sick after 3 weeks with my new toy, my iPhone.
AAS, surely by now you would have to agree that the N95 (even though the original version is more than 18 months old) is still surprising the odd iPhone user. Surely you have to come to the conclusion that there are very few NEW smartphones on the market (including all other Nokia smartphones N85, N96 etc) that can beat the 18 month old phone.
The Samsung 8510 has the potential to beat it if they sort out their software.
Also, it's odd that Steve's answer to the iPhone's native functionality in some cases is to spend more money on third-party apps.
Rewrite.
Of course the iphone is less technical and can make less things than my E90 but there is ONE thing that will shape the future of all smarphone and this is web surfing !
And after trying an ipod touch, I will happily switch from my E90 to an iphone anytime ONLY for Safari browsing and EVEN without a (pointless on E90) flash support
I give Nokia one last chance to make a new Nseries with a correct and QUICK browser until the end of this year but if the symbian browser is the same as the one reviewed by mobile review on the new nokia 5800 I will be on iPhone OS starting from next year.
My N95 8Gb, however, kills in terms of productivity (documents, notes, camera, gps, file transfer, disk mode, etc).
I also use my N95 for music because I can get way more music on the N95 in eAac than i can
on even my 32 GB ipod touch. Also, I like the bluetooth AD2P on the N95 instead of a wired
headphone on the ipod touch.
So, I find that using both works best. Ipod touch for media and browsing. N95 for everything else.
For now, this is the best solution if you dont mind carrying two devices. Fact is, the ipod touch is very slim and if you combine it with an N85 it is not too much bulk at all.
I will stick with this system unless Nokia comes out with a device that is as smooth for video, photos, browsing as the ipod touch. I highly doubt it though. I found the gallery and browsing to be sub par.
Opera mini on the N95 is fast but Nokia still needs to come out with a bigger screen device
to make it desktop like browsing.
So, I will probably hang onto my N95 until next fall to see what Nokia comes out with this year (based on the Nseries touch phone rumours).
|
Originally Posted by Unregistered
I have an ipod touch and it absolutely kills S60 for...
browsing, |
| photos... |
| ... and videos. |
| So, I find that using both works best. Ipod touch for media and browsing. N95 for everything else. |
| For now, this is the best solution if you dont mind carrying two devices. Fact is, the ipod touch is very slim and if you combine it with an N85 it is not too much bulk at all. |
Just to clarify, though, I dont have an iphone. I have an ipod touch (much cheaper).
As you rightly pointed out, it is best simply for viewing and not
manipulating/productivity. I agree.
The ipod touch, for example, cannot send a high res pic. N95 can
send full res.
If Nokia comes out with a big screen Nseries phone and fluid GUI I
would dump the ipod touch/N95 combo.
However, I still find S60 very unstable and slow when it comes to video and
photo playback (even with coreplayer). Resco photo viewer is snappy is though.
My young teenage friend has an iPhone, but prefers my N95 8gb better. He doesn't find it hard to understand or figure out. Maybe its generational, but the iPhone is simple if you are, or need your device to be. Most won't, as sales figures showed.
Unlike Steve, I don't think Apple wins in the apps department, nor in delivery. The App store is a policed channel. S60 has various channels, even sites online dedicated to apps, even freeware! You go App Store to upgrade you iPhone. You can go to Download!, Handango, or just Google "S60 freeware apps", which I didn't know people found so difficult until now. We're smart enough to not need such things as an App Store.
And Steve didn't try to answer the iPhone's native functions with retail apps. Maybe the guy that mentioned that should reread Steve's excellent article again. For the screen rotation, he used the native option, even when a better free solution exists. Browser zooming? Same native solution, when free Opera Mini is another of many other options. For the weather forecast, he mentioned the various free widgets, but mentioned his favorite solution, which is a rather cheap app. He failed to mention WorldMate, which is free from Download! and also a great option. The YouTube solution was via the browser, or Mobitubia and emtube, all free and better than Apple's solution. He ignored the built in Video Center solution. For photos, he mentioned the Gallery, and added Resco Photo as another option. So none of the iPhone functions needed a dime to be repeated on S60.
http://thesymbianblog.com/2008/10/20...-with-the-n96/
DVB-H launch schedule
http://www.dvb-h.org/services.htm
Viewing pictures on the iPhone is nice, if you don't plan to zoom in. iTunes forces all images to be resized to an "optimized" size and it breaks any gifs transferred. That's quite the nice screen to be wasted on standard resolution images.
Also keep in mind the S60 browser is about as fast as mobile Safari if you turn Flash off (thus causing them to download and render the same amount of information).
You're right. When I zoom a pic on my ipod touch, it's pixelated.
So, I would love love an Nseries phone with a screen size like the ipod touch.
Not tooooo thick if possible please.
I will get into this my iPhone with that phone!!!!
So that's 5 apps. usually 4 running at the same time, three of which are using a Bluetooth GPS as I only have a 6120c. Can the iPhone do that?
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-10-20/
Cheers :)
0% of nokia music store is.
i only buy the DRM free stuff from apple
otherwise i goto emusic / 7 digital.
fantastic comic strip!!!!