Nokia and Music have never, ever got on
I was walking back from breakfast this morning getting more and more annoyed. I headed straight to my desk to write. Cue a rant.
I can’t tell you how incensed I was when I handed my Apple iPhone to my mother, who, within 30 seconds, had learnt the user interface and was merrily playing music, taking, organising and showing off photos and trying to make phone calls (although the SIM isn’t functional yet).
It really, really annoyed me.
How come she was so able to understand the interface so quickly? How come she wanted one? What?
What’s happening? What’s going on? It took us nearly 6 months to get her to reliably learn to use her RAZR. We tried with a Nokia, but seriously, that was even more challenging.
The source of my anger is that Nokia, billion, billion dollar company that it is, keeps on vomiting out absolute rubbish.
You and I — that is, mobile smarts — get it. We lap up the 5 megapixel cameras. We delight in the ability to install third party apps on to the handset and so on.
Meantime Apple comes along and blows every other handset manufacturer away.
It’s all about the interface, stupid.
And with the latest news that Nokia is shortly to vomit out a music store in a searingly pathetic attempt to make up for the shit, shit, shit MP3 shite music players that it’s been foisting on us for years… I can’t even be bothered to link to the news.
I’m a huge technical geek, yes? I have a 2 gig card in my Nokia N95. I used Nokia’s Apple Mac sync thing, (again, I’m annoyed so I can’t be arsed to find the proper name), to transfer music to my device.
Which I did.
But it didn’t quite work. I mean, the music, some music, transferred. But when I got to my Nokia, it took about 10 seconds to load up the music player (to find the tracks). Only then did I hunt around looking for the playlists…….. which were nowhere to be found.
That’s just a piece of shit.
Piece of rubbish.
You can’t be vomiting out this sort of inept crap when Apple are hawking their beautifully designed, 100% ’syncable’ iPhone that, shock horror, just works.
For months I’ve been doing the Emperor’s New Clothes thing with the N95 — and, in fact, any Nokia. I’ve found myself wondering why I even bother. A multimedia computer? Yes. It’s a sad indication that it’s ‘what computers have become’ though. The music is shit.
It’s always been shit. In fact it’s been shitter — they’ve made it a little better.
Music certainly isn’t the be-all, end-all. But music is a key component to one’s digital lifestyle. That’s why Apple sold ALLLLL those iPods. That’s why you, me and everyone else on the planet carries their perfectly-capable Nokia MP3 player AND their iPod.
Because the Nokia handset’s music functions, despite what the brainboxes in Finland have tried to deliver, is massively, massively substandard. We’re still in the 1990s with Nokia and music.
Will their latest attempt at going multimedia with their new Nokia Music Store get anywhere? Well, the jury is surely out. I won’t be holding my breath. I’m very open to a claw-back. I’d like to see Nokia succeed and I will be the first one to congratulate any triumph that they can deliver. I just won’t hold my breath.
Abso-bloody-lutely Ewan. I too have a 2gb card in my N73, purchased with the aim of shoving a load of tracks onto it. Trouble is, I can’t be arsed (ever) to bother trying to play them through the phone. It’s just too painful to mess around with. And because I equally can’t be arsed to carry a separate MP3 player, I just wait till I get in the car or sit at my desk to put the tunes on. COME ON NOKIA - sort it!
Posted by Mark on August 30th, 2007 at 9:24 am.I’m pleased I’m not the only one Mark!
Posted by Ewan on August 30th, 2007 at 9:33 am.Amen to that, Ewan! I’ve got the N95, the 2gb card, but I’ve also got the painfully pap battery that results in it requiring charging nightly if I want to use it at all to browse the web during the day!
Having access to an iPhone, I can’t agree enough that the interface is stunningly smooth, bug-free but most of all SIMPLE. Simplicity is sorely lacking in S60 phones.
Hell, my friend’s 4 year old managed to use the iPhone’s camera comfortably!! (though I was slightly less comfortable at the idea of a 4 y/o going out of my line of sight with it…)
It’s hard to convey this message to non-converts without appearing to be fanboys/girls who lack objectivity… Until they get to play with the iPhone themselves and appreciate the instant difference to any other phone out on the market right now!
Posted by Vero on August 30th, 2007 at 10:23 am.Ewan,
I have come around to your side when it comes to using a Nokia for a music player, but I think Nokias tend to have the best (easy to use) UI. Not to make light of my parents lack of technological expertise but even my Mom can use a Nokia phone. She can access the phone numbers, make phone calls and even add numbers to the contact list. No, she’s not surfing the net or writing emails but she is using it as it was originally meant to be used, as a telephone. She has even been known to take pictures with my E61i.
I do have to say that I’m sorely disappointed that there has not been a major upgrade from my first S60 phone a 6682 to my current E61i. It seems like the same old music player. It seems to me that the whole portion of the phone that has anything to do with music should be removed and they should start over fresh with a totally different menu scheme.
Posted by Jeb on August 30th, 2007 at 5:25 pm.[...] Ewan, from the SMS Text News blog, has put finger to keyboard and scribed his thoughts on the new Nokia music store and Ngage platform. He thinks the new Ngage experience will be interesting to keep an eye on but his opinions on the music store however are really quite different, he really cannot see why Nokia are even bothering! [...]
Posted by Nseries WOM World » Blog Archive » More Ngage and Nokia music commentary on August 31st, 2007 at 3:15 pm.[...] What do you think, do you agree with Ewan that it’ll be a miserable disaster or should be expect great things? Join the discussion in the comments section. [...]
Posted by WOM World / Nokia » Blog Archive » More Ngage and Nokia music commentary on April 15th, 2008 at 12:03 am.