I had reason to glance down at my task bar last night - normally I'm an alt-tab man, but sometimes that little strip of app names is useful. But not this time, because I was running a bundle of applications while testing the X6 and my task bar had just one word. Nokia. Lots of apps on display, with just some tiny icons to attempt to guide me to my goal. Anyone want to fix this rather poor bit of UI in the next releases?

Can you spot the Nokia application?

Yes, one of those is a Windows Explorer, but you could easily add Ovi Photos, Ovi Share and a number of the small apps in the PC Suite (such as viewing your calendar on a PC screen). That's a lot of little boxes that only show the word "Nokia..." to the end user. I understand the need for branding and consumer awareness, but I think we can all be trusted to realise that the software connecting to our smartphones has some Nokia in it.

The point is not that all these apps are around, it's that every one of them has the first word as Nokia. And that's not beneficial to good UI, navigating through the apps, or providing a well thought out experience for the end users. So, next update on these apps, a little look at this detail?

-- Ewan Spence, Jan 2010.