Video: Nokia N97's firmware update 2.0 Preview (V20.0.0025)

You may have already seen Mark’s video on the Nokia N97’s firmware 2.0.

Here’s a similar video from Symbian World but it’s a little bit clearer and longer on what is actually coming in October. I don’t know whether what’s demonstrated is the exhaustive list of changes or if there will be even more (I wish for the latter if users have to wait until friggin October!). Note V20.0.0025 is only the designation for the firmware at Nokia World. It may change.

• Kinetic scrolling is everywhere where scrolling applicable. Menu, phonebook, photos etc. Navigating menu is much slicker now. Hopefully this means the same for other apps (not pre-included) that may not have kinetic scrolling either.

“Kinetic scrolling should be possible wherever scrolling is applicable. Normal scrolling is not fun with touch! i.e. Menu/contacts (as seen in 5530)/all other apps”

– firmware improvements I’d like to see in N97

• Notice in contacts,

1. 1. kinetic scrolling
   2. scrolling with the bar displays the letter indicating where you are in your phonebook. e.g. “F” shows up whilst you’re viewing people whose surnames begin with F
   3. Kinetic scrolling does not affect the scroll bar. e.g. in the web browser, if you try and scroll down the page by tapping at the bottom or dragging the scroll bar downwards, it doesn’t work. Not sure if this is the case in the web browser itself.

• Music Player:

1. kinetic scrolling
2. Less songs viewable in screen due to album art and more song details present in lists. IMO, much better visually and more finger friendly.

• Some more widgets, CNN, Elle, ESPN Soccer, MySpace, Vlingo
• Within keyboard, long pressing gets you the alternate key! Hurrah. Less of that vexing shift kerfuffle.

Long pressing over a number gets you that number. e.g. instead of “RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR” you get “4″

– firmware improvements I’d like to see in N97

• New Maps version (Beta already available for you to try at Nokia Beta Labs as well as Lifecasting)
• More phone memory available – though you can’t really see how much is gained, all we see is that there’s “36MB” free. They could have had 35 to start with. Supposedly there’s a 25-30MB increase. But if random apps keep installing themselves/sucking up phone memory, eventually we’ll be back to scraping for free C:.
• Apparently there were theme effects but I couldn’t detect any improvements (did they even have it on?)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tks_cG01fFg]

There’s still a lot the N97’s new firmware upgrade needs.

• Multiple Homescreens? I really need to have more than 5 widgets please. Ideally 3 homescreens – in addition to the current one:

-  a swipe right could change the layout to a “home” homescreen – music player/facebook/bbc iPlayer
– a swipe left could change the layout to a work oriented homescreen – emails/stocks/news/calendar

– firmware improvements I’d like to see in N97

• Actual keyboard shortcuts to take advantage of the N97 and N97 mini’s keyboard within apps like the Web Browser?
• Being able to manually hide that toolbar in the web browser?

Here’s the entire post about firmware improvements I’d like to see in N97 .

Since the homescreen wasn’t demoed sufficiently and web browser not demoed at all, we can only hope that it’s there or Nokia’s firmware team are working on it (which might justfity the really long wait to October).

Lastly, just some rubbish. I know iPhone comparisons have ben done to death, but from 3:39 the N97 mini really resembles an iPhone. No? Oh ok then. >_<

Tags: 2.0, 5th Edition, Firmware 2.0, Firmware Update, N97, N97 2.0, N97 Mini, Nokia, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 MINI, Nseries, S60, Symbian, V20, V20.0.0025, Video

Category: 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries, S60, Symbian, Video