cell

About a week ago Boris and I showed up early to the Raincity office and were discussing sending and receiving MMS messages on carriers in Canada. Apparently people in the US do this all time and I thought we should give it a try. So, at 9:07am I sent an MMS message with a low-res photo just to see what would happen.

Because we were sending from my old Motorola V710 on Telus to Boris' Nokia on Fido/Rogers we didn't have much hope that it would arrive immediately. I expected that we would probably get it by lunch but as the day went by I forgot about our experiment.

The next morning I get a text-message from Boris: Got the mms at 11pm - go realtime

Now why does it that it take 14 hours to receive an MMS message? Is this why I don't bother to using this?

Of course, Telus' website is classic:

Have you tried picture messaging? Was it quick like you expected? Did you use it again?

Roland Tanglao has put a blog post up about some of my initial reactions with the Nokia N81. He also recorded a quick video, found here:

Roland Tanglao borrowed me his Nokia N81 8GB almost a week ago now and I've been taking notes on what I like and dislike. The S60 software is good but to me it doesn't seem perfected; some things were confusing right off the bat. Anyway, in the hopes of giving a candid impression of the phone here are my raw notes with additional comments added for clarity in []:

Notes about N81

• Love the browse with Bluetooth + my Macbook
• Unclear that profiles = settings (at first at least)
• Like the idea of profiles
• Images are deep in weird directories, simple date based hierarchy might be better [while browsing with Apple Bluetooth File Exchange]
• Why are there two 'home' screen? Switcher for both... dedicated button for this ??
• C:/ and E:/ drive?? [looking back this is phone storage and mass storage]
• Sounds = music? Digital vs Simple? [directories in device]
• Heavier than expected, but nice
• Red button and 'C' button hard to differentiate between
• Home screen bad with white background.
• Animations too slow for choosing camera modes [now that I know what each button means, I'm glad they don't show up too soon]
• Folders in Device are for your organization? The phone can find music/pictures wherever you put them — is there a private folder?
• Is there T9 input?
• Is there a quick shortcut to '.com' [in web browser]?
• Love Bluetooth transfers
• Wallpaper setting + display difficult to find
• [Should be] clearer on whether or not WiFi is being used
• Too many paths to get info...? [found that you could access contacts, music, video, pictures, etc from different ways, which was kind of confusing]
• Maybe clearer that you can shutdown apps... or is that necessary?
• How do I zoom with maps?? [later I found that this is the * and # buttons]
• Clearer that tracks are in correct order... [I like listening to CDs in order and I couldn't tell at a glance if the tracks were in the correct order]
• Inconsistent text entry, file name entry when saving YouTube vs search entry, * and # seem to do different things [both from the built in browser]
• I can save YouTube videos!! — not local :(
• Full screen video is awesome, wish I didn't have to pause to find it [ie. pause, click options, click fullscreen]
• When streaming a saved video how do I know I'm using WiFi!
• T9 text entry should be on by default, I had a difficult time finding it in the language settings... Tools -> Settings -> General -> Personalization -> Language... too many clicks!
• 'Settings' are not a 'Tool'
• Doesn't give the sense that it is continuously connected to WiFi
• Stay connected to WiFi! Don't ask me all the time [if it can connect]
• Text entry should be smart enough to know that õ isn't a valid character [for a URL in a web browser]
• Too many ways to get at things... kind of confusing
• N-gage showroom needs something to indicate it's loading
• UI feels slow and clunky
• Like that slide can be used to lock/unlock
• N-gage games never worked, gave up when demos wouldn't launch
• Opera Mini was smarter than default browser

Overall I like this phone a lot, but really that is from a developer's point of view; for me its idiosyncrasies are made up for by that fact that apps can be loaded easily and that syncing with my Macbook is a cinch.