What was that device that had a 3 way slider, sliding down would make a qwerty, to one side would bring a numeric pad, and to the other i think it brought a media keypad (stop, play/pause, next, previous etc) ?
the principe of a slide out qwerty that can also become a slide out dialpad is worth taking in consideration though
Like, use the corner 4-5 rightmost (or leftmost depending on whe reyou want the top of landscape mode to be) columns of the qwerty as the dialpad, reusing the buttons (perhaps have the labels for the dialpad 90 degrees from the regular letters to show when they are active) . Perhaps because of the space for the sliding mechanism (like with the N900) have a few buttons of the dialpad not appear when in qwerty mode just like how most of the qwerty keys won't show in dialpad mode. If possible don't leave out 5 way dpad functionality nor shift (like the pencil key in older Symbians) nor backspace/clear functionality; the keypad should still be just as useful in portrait mode.
Regarding the media keys, IMO they're better as buttons along the side of the device, perhaps soft shutter is play/pause, hard shutter for stop, and if necessary, long press in the volume keys as fwd/back (repeated presses would still control volume)
why they don't like "release early, release often" ?
Because that's a great way to go when you don't do support.
For an open project, if it's broken, you get to keep the pieces. Or, you get a refund (tee hee it's free so up yours). It is the reason my brush with Linux was so short-lived, back then my video card wasn't supported and after asking around I was told more or less directly to guy another card (back then it was the god of video cards).
Unfortunately, Nokia has tech support and if you release every week you can't run a call center. Customer doesn't know what build the rtcom-ui package is, doesn't know or care to run CLI commands, and your standard ... employee from the country they all outsource to doesn't have Linux debugging skills.
They need big bannered versions, like 1.1, 1.2 and so on, things you remember, things you can ask "Sir, did you update your phone? Yes? When? September? You need to update to 1.2"
It might be a geek-friendly phone, but it's still a damned phone, marketed and sold as one and needs to have the support one expects from a phone and from Nokia.
I'm pretty sure that if people give up support releases would be way earlier, way more often.
And then there's the liability for lost data. You see, if I install an official release and I lose all my data I can scream really loud, because it's an official product and should work. If they release weekly, they WILL release a showstopper bug and they simply don't want the liability and the publicity.
"Nokia releases update that kills all N900 phones", Do YOU want to be responsible for making that decision? I wouldn't. In fact, if I were responsible for the platform NO BYTE would ever leave Nokia without a minimum of 30 days beta testing on a decent number of devices (like, 100). Because if it hits the fan, at least I tried really hard and someone scr*d up. If i release untested, I answer for my actions. And people high enough to make those decisions have things to lose.
You think people complain about long release time now? Wait till they get a bug that deletes all they remote contacts on Google, or something. Or catches fire.
ndi,
But that is exactly why we have for example devel repository. Nokia could probably also make devel repository where it has different terms that free Nokia from all responsibilities and warn that updates from this repo might brake system.
ndi,
But that is exactly why we have for example devel repository. Nokia could probably also make devel repository where it has different terms that free Nokia from all responsibilities and warn that updates from this repo might brake system.
My thought EXACTLY!
They gave us a phone which we decide what and when to install stuff from, why can't they give us the same choice when it comes to firmware updates?
They can add a nice disclaimer with big red words on it when you try to install an update from the 'devel repo' as far as I care - but GIVE ME THE OPTION TO CHOOSE! I'm a grown up ffs (even though my wife would probably claim otherwise sometimes )...
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