Why I killed iTunes

I have been using iTunes since 2001 (version 1.0) on a Mac, and since it came out - on a PC, too.
I killed iTunes on my PC and here's why.

First of all, I do not posess Apple's "closed source" systems like iPod or iPhone.
This effectively frees me from the need of iTunes - because I do not have to sync those. Nevertheless, iTunes seemed to be the best music jukebox system out there, on any platform. But 7 years have passed, and things have changed...read on.

Secondly, there's no iTunes Music Store operating in Russia (of course, this being a major reason to my first point. A big pity, I must say, I was longing for a way to get those free Album Art covers for all my CD-ripped goodness...
GimmeSomeTune stopped finding the right stuff, for some reason.

Next on, the built-in Visualizer has changed for the worse. It tends to circle a little bit too much on a very limited subset of visual configs, showing just few tired schemes.
My reliable sources said Steve Jobs mada some orders and it influenced the "randomness" of the config preset selection. Too bad, I still remember how beatiful it was in version 2!..
Version 7 showed some improvement in that part, though, but never again was it soo good...

The User Interface has changed in v6 from very simple and elegant, rounded corners, to somewhat edgy and more aggressively-looking one; the Visuals button disappeared into the menu; button layout changed and I must say it was unpleasant and irritating to accomodate to those unexpected changes.

Startup speed on PC was slow.

But worst of all, was the closed nature of it's sync mechanism (iPod or nothing), which could not help my Nokia N95 to get new tunes! Well guys, I remember v1 was not so! It could sync to Rio and Creative MP3 players, although to a limited set.

Once I installed the new Nokia N-series PC Suite, I could not miss the MTP option - the one that installs the drivers needed for Sync with the Windows Media Player.
The second blow came when I upgraded from bundled WMP9 to the latest WMP11.

IT REALLY ROCKS!

I did not expect this from Microsoft, but they did their homework well!
This player exceeded my expectations in functionality, and gave me a very satisfying user interface.

Very important that now I can sync to Nokia, thanks to the open nature of it's device interface.

This thing watches folders! The functionality has always been in my wishlist for iTunes - and I found it only in WMP11. Now you can simply copy some files into a watched folder and they automatically appear in your WMP Library! The same goes with changes/deletions. Wow!

The usability has increased dramatically since the previous versions.
I have never had high expectations of newer MS releases, but hey! WMP11 delivers!
This one goes against my common rule - never upgrade a Microsoft product until you have to.

WMP11 has a built-in Find Album Info feature - this works most of the time, getting all the info, including the album art.

And since all my music was already neatly packed into iTunes Music folder, I just set the WMP to Watch this folder - and all my music magically appeared inside the WMP Library! Managing music with this feature is a no-brainer. The only loser would be iTunes, if I changed something outside of it.
And then - after a week or so - I found it does not make sense to keep PC iTunes anymore. The competitor is strong enough to stand on it's own feet.
Why would I bother manually re-scanning music folders from within iTunes, to add some newly copied files?

Kudos to the MS Windows Media Player Team!

(My Mac still runs iTunes, though! :)

Nokia Download! nearing EOL?

It has been for quite few weeks now, and I wonder if Nokia is going to fix it or scrap the offering alltogether to free some space for Ovi.

The Nokia Download! for PC application cannot update itself.
I have version 2.0.19.0, the new version is 2.1.11.0 and it's installation files seem to be corrupt on the Nokia's server:









The Nokia Download! on my N95 "Cannot find file" when updating the "N95 Sercices" section.

Anybody else experiencing the same?

It would be no wonder, of course, if Nokia decides to give red light to Download! and give green light to Ovi Store or something (N-Gage for non-gamers of us?)...

Oh and yes, I filed the bug request with Nokia, long time ago.
They seem to have fixed on-the-phone experience, but not the PC app updater.

N.B. "EOL" stands for End Of Life.

What will change tomorrow?

Today at 10am PST Steve Jobs will give a keynote at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco, USA.
Many people wrote about what products will probably be introduced.
I don't want to repeat that, let's try to imagine how (and if) the world will change, which triggers Mr. Jobs will pull again, like most every keynote.

Back in 1985 it was the Macintosh, starting the Era of "very human technology", with intuitive user interfaces and analogue control (via mouse). The all-in-one, take-anywhere design of computers.

If you remember 1997 - the introduction of the original iMac - you will understand that then it was the dawning of USB Era, the floppyless Era.

In 1999 the PowerMac Cube was introduced, thus "igniting" (Apple's own words) the Era Of The Compact Desktop Computers.
It seemed not very important back then, but we still see the continuity of that Era, even in other vendor's products.

What will be different this time? How today will change the world (OK, maybe just some markets, not the World? :)

One major change - 3G Mobile.
Yes, you could say Apple is "late to the party", full of other vendors and solutions.
But ask yourself and ask people - how much do we use 3G? How many people are really aware of the advantages?

Not really many, I witnessed. Besides the usual "internet is faster" there's not many people (in percent of the total mobile market) who get excited when they hear "3G". You hear? "The Internet is faster"...sounds like epitome to the TelCo World.

It's no surprise that many have tried, but still 3G is getting pretty low traction.
With iPhones, there'll be change.

Update: just noticed a post at here
There in comments I tried to analyze what's missing (I made a type in my name heh),
and there goes my explanation why Mr.Jobs spent so much on his flights last quarter...

New S60 Calculator

Always wanted to write about it, but never took time, until now...

With all the stories and hopes about a better S60 Calculator,
here are my ideas for the new Calculator UI:

0. Please take a look at the Music Player and it's efficient use of D-pad buttons.
With a single button press you can fully control the current playback experience.



Now think of how many up/down/left/right clicks you need to do any serious math with S60 Calc!



It would make great sense to repeat the Music Player usage pattern in Calculator.

1. The Centre Button goes to "="
2. Left Button goes to "-" (Mental connotation is "Less")
3. Right Button goes to "+"
4. Up is "*" (Multiply)
5. Down for "/" (Divide)
6. "*/+" keypad button on the keypad for decimal dot.
7. "#/^" keypad button would work as SHIFT for the four D-pad buttons, cycling through the other math operations, in fours.
The Shift keypad usage is familiar from the Text Input, so users will quickly adapt it for shifting to more advanced math functions.



Does this make sense to you? Please chime in.

Update: Calcium screenshot added
(only 4 basic ops, but usability-wise leaves S60 Nokia Calc in the dust)

6 steps to better PC software from Nokia

Hello Nokians,
this is just some free advice, a private opinion from an engineer, software architect, AND a prosumer.
Take it or leave it.
What would I do if I had a chance to change Nokia Way?

1. N-series PC Suite and Communicator Marriage.
(get back Lifeblog moniker)
I would certainly evolve the N-series PC Suite, which currently holds the palm of Usability. The most obvious step would be to add messaging features that the suite currently lacks.

2. Ditch the Video Manager, Music Manager in favor of WMP integration.
Well, the time has come to confess - VM and MM are pure crap.
If I'd wanted so much to keep them I would put in into a niche of S40 Suite or something.

3. Nokia Music Client ("Euphoria") as a WMP Skin/Plugin.
While the current buggy beta is "beta than nuthin", and has the potential to keep the high UI standards of N-Series, I do not want a separate Music Database just to use my music with my phone. Either use the WMP DB, or "become the WMP", i.e. re-engineer it as a WMP Skin or Plug-in.
Knowing the strategy is cross-platform, I would then say - integrate with iTunes Music Folder/DB on Mac, integrate with WMP "My Music" and DB on a PC, and with some popular Linux player, too.
Administrative effort needed to use large music libraries with two players concurrently is not worth using Nokia Music Client, IMHO.

4. LifeBlog becomes the N-Series PC Suite.
With all the search for a "golden formula" of the PC Suite, why not consider ditching the PC Suite for good? I mean, you have LifeBlog, the pieces missing are Sync with Outlook, One-Touch Access, and Messaging.
Everything else is for geeks, geeks can get tools wherever.

I mean, why not nicely tuck all those under LifeBlog's wing and you'd have the iSuite for Nokia Phones!

Just make it ONE Window, ONE UI. Call it OVI/PC, if you please.

Let's think of consumers/prosumers, not mainly geeks. Severe some features in favour of majority. Knowing where to cut is important, remember Occam's.
Otherwise this is starting to look clumsy like Oxygen's Products.

5. Nokia Communicator rehash.
Well, it's just a beta. You have to pedal around it for the view to stay up-to-date.
Please make it sync everything without users having to click around.

6. Well. And. Of course, Fix all the bugs filed for PC Suite :)

Lifeblog vs. Nokia Photos

It had been circulating in the back of my mind for quite some time - the thought of "who's the winner?" kind - between the Nokia Photos and the Nokia Lifeblog, to both which I gave my kudos in a previous post.
But time passed, and newer versions of both products appeared, each striving (quite independently, it seemed so) to "grow wings" and become PC-man's definitive iPhoto replacement...
So... in the blue corner (and on your Nokia phone!)... the Nokia LifeBlog!



Blue ribbon, silver scroller... toolbox buttons in the upper part.
It can sync to your device, get all the juice out on to a PC, and then you have the full digital life cycle - Backup, Restore, Upload to Web (blog), display, use geo-tags etc. On a side note - the uploader stopped working with this blog.

In the red corner - the Nokia Photos!



Grey ribbon, blue scroller... toolbox buttons in the lower part.
It can ... sync to your device (using the same on-device lifeblog support), get all your content (SMS, MMS, Text Notes - but strangely enough - not from the "Notes" phone application, photos, videos, audio clips - again, not yet from the Recorder phone app, web posts) and then again - you have all the same "Rip/Burn/Mix/Upload" features found in the Lifeblog.

So what's different?
Well, apparently those two programs keep their data separate. I mean it.
Unless you're not careful enough, you may end up with two separate incomplete sets of your phone-produced media-content. Did I say "phone-produced"? Not quite so. You do not have to have a Nokia phone to use those programs. Each one of them allows you to import media from PC and use all the niceties for free! Try it, if you haven't.

Also of some interest are the filtering capabilities in both programs:

I looked pretty hard last time to find it, but I finally managed - inconveniently hidden inside the Tag Manager button are the filters:



With nPhoto (as somebody quite properly dubbed it) - life is easier and the filters are found in a pull-down menu in the right upper end of window:




As you can see from my filters, my usage pattern tend to be more text-biased for LifeBlog and nPhoto for photos. Simply because nPhoto has the button for slideshow, in LifeBlog I have to dig inside menus.

Unfortunately, you cannot control which type of media goes to which program.
From my findings, LifeBlog seems more tolerant and resilient to sync failures. Once I had a notebook battery go down when syncing with lifeblog. And after that the nPhoto began to report failures on some "stuck items" during each sync.
One sync with lifeblog - and the "missing" items came through, and voila - no more errors in nPhoto.

Finally, as much as I would love the LifeBlog moniker, Nokia decided otherwise.
And the winner is.... Nokia Photos.

They seem to have silently given LifeBlog a boot.

Now, if you go to www.nokia.com/lifeblog you will be redirected to the nPhoto site.
(probably, some links from my old post won't work right, but what can I do)

What issues do I see with such decision?
Just one. The brand awareness.

Yes, I can readily believe that nPhoto will have all the LifeBlog features and a nice UI to boast, but what about LifeBlog brand, dear Nokia Product Management???




The LifeBlog name is imprinted in devices and printed manuals, Nokia device owners will surely be looking to get it working.



It is so convenient to use Lifeblog in the phone because you simply see EVERYTHING - all you text/graphic/video/mms media is there on the timeline!

This is a unique offering in the mobile world, even iPhone cannot do that - mix everything in a simple cleanly-navigated time-based line.

Why this offering is so badly under-presented to potential customers is beyond me!
It's usability is also overwhelmingly undervalued.

A simple excersize for Nokia to do:

1) assign LifeBlog to the right soft key by default on the N-series
2) see LifeBlog usage grow and grow, along with a mindshare for good UI from Nokia

The word "Lifeblog" more accurately describes the multi-media capabilities of this media jukebox.

"Photos" just don't go well with what the program does.
It's not a Photoshop.
And what about "Videos", "Messages" and "Weblogs"?

"Photos" just sounds bland.

A wiser solution would be to announce "Lifeblog 3.0", and say it's based on "the best of the two programs" and have it based, in fact, on nPhoto, if you chose so...

Please remember, some [printed, firmware] names just can't be changed.

Please set the customer free of the confusion.

It also would have been a great achievement if Notes and Sound Recordings could have finally been flawlessly synced to a PC.

Classic PC Suite has issues with Notes sync; fumbling with Device Browser for Sound Recordings is so indignifying...

iTunes Music store payment

While listening to an old-time song, that I really liked (Paul McCartney's), I caught myself smiling and I thought:
"Whoa? ONE dollar for this song? I would gladly pay TEN for this treasure!"
And here's the business idea - and what would I do if I was Steve Jobs and the record companies came knocking on my door to ask for uneven payment per song for the greatest hits:

"We're gonna introduce donation-style payments for selected songs, which would enable buyers to PAY MORE than $1 per song, SHOULD THEY CHOOSE SO."
"Pretty cool, huh?!?" :)



Some form of this "offset" already exist, though - people may buy the iTunes Plus version for $1.29, but IMO it just offsets the non-DRM risk...