Our Business

Add, divide and multiply

By James on 04 June 2008

ESPOO, Finland – Would you be surprised to know the iPhone is a talking point within Nokia? Of course you wouldn’t. Now would you be surprised to hear the S60 calculator hasn’t been touched (bar minor bug fixes) in almost eight years? But what have the two got in common?

Talking about the new software update for iPhone, a few of the dev teams on S60 and S40 noted how the iPhone calculator had been redesigned with some new functionality. This got the team thinking, and asking questions, such as when was the last time the S60 calculator had been given a once-over (not since it was written eight years ago).

Separately, the team noted how the S40 calculator is not only better, but newer. So, rather than write a new summer-upper from scratch, they decided to port the S40 one to S60. It took two days and is now sitting
in Alpha labs before hopefully being unleashed to the masses shortly.

So there’s two things at play here. Openly discussing other products helps people think about what they can take from it. Not just in features or functionality, but in ethos – this wasn’t about ripping off the iPhone calculator or functionality, simply about not focusing only on the high-profile things, but the small AND important things.

Secondly, two teams talking together about the same thing enabled them to find a solution that works for the user and is easier to implement than starting from scratch. The biggest bonus being speed, which means we get to see the fruits of their labour sooner, not later. Nice.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what Alpha Labs is, then think of it as the internal version of Beta Labs. Basically it’s where apps go for initial testing and development (so Nokia employees can play and feedback) before graduating to Beta Labs.

So, what else would you like to see given a makeover?

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Al Pavangkanan Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

E-Mail has needed a makeover for years. It really needs html support. I shouldn’t have to click attachments.

Messaging needs to be replaced with Conversations

Rita El Khoury Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Props for the post, James, now how about looking at the Calendar, Messaging and Contacts too? All need a facelift, and all haven’t been updated since like ever!

Antony Pranata Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Finally… we’ll have a better built-in calculator for S60. Hurray…

Actually, the calculator issue has been brought by many S60 fans/bloggers. If I remember correctly, one of the S60 Wish List items are related to “better calculator” (http://www.s60.com/life/wishlist/displayWishList.do).

Well… it’s the power of “iPhone”.

chlettn Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Good to hear! I almost never used that calculator because it’s neither userfriendly nor rich in functionality. Getting a 3rd party

Other than that, I agree with above posters. How about updating basic, every day functionality as well?
I’d love to see birthdays linked between Contacts and Calender, a better eMail app (as said, HTML mail support really should be there nowadays), editable T9 dictionaries (for the words that were saved wrong accidentially), better T9 handling in general (the prediction preview window of SE phones is really handy in my opinion), etc. etc.

Sure, those things aren’t all that flashy, but they add up to a nicer experience

Fernando Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

I second the messaging and calendar apps, contacts is fine IMO.

But eh, I don’t know if the S40 calculator is the answer, you still have to navigate to the function button and press ok to select it. In my opinion you guys should use the Calcium concept, with just one keypress to select an operation (eg. pressing up for +, down for -, etc…)

Mike Macias Says:
June 4th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

Wow its about time. The less clicks the better. Use the d-pad for plus, minus, divide, multiply. keep it simple. have an option for scientific calculator. keep it similar to Calcium Calculator, its awesome.

I also agree the Messaging application needs to be re-worked, hopefully making it more like Conversations. This goes for emails as well, similar to Gmail.

Lee Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 12:16 am

I agree about syncing birthdays in Contacts and Calender, there is little point adding them to contacts if the calender can’t display them. From what I have read, this hasn’t been fixed in Feature Pack 2 either

fr Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

You should look at using parts of s40 calendar too, for example the way it handles birthdays is much nicer – and it actually tells you the age.

FlintZA Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

If you’re redesigning the calculator, please take a look at Calcium for inspiration. It’s far more intuitive than the built in calc app
Another nice thing would be adding standby support to the RSS streams, so I can see new streams on my startup screen.
I don’t know about other overhauls, but getting tracking functionality back in the mapping software would be nice..

Sergey Zak Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Time to kill old ugly User Interfaces!
http://cubeover.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-s60-calculator.html

Pratish Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

Yea, i know this is about improving existing S60 apps, But how many do agree that a smartphone needs to have a native stopwatch/countdown timer ? Now that would be cool..
And pretty cool if we could interface birthdays in contacts with calender.. And a really nice scientific calculator ! Sweet!

Arjen Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

Apart from a better Calendar (although I like the display on active standby) the Contacts application would be so much more helpful if it were possible to search for companies, addresses etc. I know the database isn’t optimized for searches like this so it would take longer, but porting over the search functionality from the new Search application (which is incredibly fast) to the contacts app would be perfect.

brklynsurfer Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 7:43 pm

update the sms app to have threaded conversations

Antoine of MMM Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 9:07 pm

I would like to see the SMS and Contacts apps be redone. Fewer clicks to get to actions mostly, but also some integration of both apps together, and some inclusion of API hooks from social networking services.

roma Says:
June 5th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Replacing a unusable calculator for a lesser unusable calculator? So where’s the gain here. I can’t believe Nokia passes a chance to really change that application.

grschinon Says:
June 6th, 2008 at 12:15 pm

Re HTML mail. OK, if you want it, that’s fine as long as it can be deactivated for those who believe that HTML belongs on web pages and that overbloated, virus-enabling HTML e-mail inflates data charges for no reason.

roma Says:
June 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

I think Calendar is something that could be looked at. Take a close look at those 3rd party apps around and add some of the layout and options to the standard Calendar, specificaly the week view. I think the current Calendar is very outdated and doesn’t offer much options how you want the information presented. Also pressing an appointment should not bring you to the edit screen (same goes for Tasks and Notes), but just give you more detail about that appointment, like the notes in the appointment.
An option to use a smaller font to get a better overview of the day without the need to scroll to much to see the rest. Implementation of the Desktop Outlook functionality like ‘Busy’, ‘Tentative’ and ‘Out of Office’, including the colouring of the status of the appointment.
Attendees, make them visible. The information is there, just not visible in the phones Calendar.

I think there is a lot to gain with optimizing the PIM.

Categories. A much used function in business enviroments. Completely missing in the PIM, specificaly in Contacts. A much heard request around the Internet but still not implemented as a basic functionality.

And last but not least: life began before 1980. Why can’t I enter a birthday starting before 1980. My closest friends are all 28 years old. Though most of the female friends take that as a compliment I think it’s very strange this limitation is in an advanced OS like Symbian.

Ow, I have so much more suggestions….

Bob Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am

Ah, look at old Nokia trying to keep up.

Calcium did it first and better. And it’s free.

Download Calcium folks. It’s not in “alpha.”

charlie Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 9:15 am

Please note that the calculator we mention here really is just an experiment. If all goes well, it’ll get to Beta Labs and maybe even be released. We’ve got a ton of interesting things going on inside the company and not all of them make it to the public or to the platform. But, I think the guys working on this little app will be happy to see such a positive demand from all of you.

I guess we were as excited as you guys about this and squeaked too soon. Heh.

Matti Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am

Hi,

those who wished a new, threaded version of SMS (conversation view), have a look at the BetaLabs: http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/conversation

Gomcoite Says:
July 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

The Screensaver needs a BIG time Make-Over.

Sherwin Says:
September 1st, 2008 at 4:47 am

This is off topic, but maybe you can port Nokia widgets to older phones? You can then render some of the old apps as widgets – you might not only get a nicer interface, but built in networking functionality as well. Maybe calculator can be integrated with an online currency converter? Or calendar pulls birthdays of your facebook friends?