[MeeGo Harmattan] PR1.2 update is now live !

What an amazing day, PR1.2 as i predicted yesterday is now live for the N9 !

The update is about 284MB

If you're not getting yours OTA (over the air), try this or wait a couple of days ;)

[MeeGo Harmattan] PR 1.2 Harmattan Update Changelog (Available) For Nokia N950

Hey Hey what we've got here? a changelog for the PR1.2 but regarding the N950 !

- New languages (Persian, Hebrew, Kazakh, Thai, Vietnamese)
- Software update notifications for content in Nokia Store
- Face recognition for gallery and face tags for Facebook

- Support for folders in the application view

- Mail for Exchange global address book lookup
- Mail thread support in the Email client
- Extended copy-paste support
- Dropbox In accounts Menu

- Media sharing with DLNA compatible devices

- Improved browser history view
- Compass support in Maps
- QtWebKit update to version 2.2
- New font taken into use
- Front camera support
- Video editing support in the Gallery application

- MeeGotouch Framework
- Visual hint for differentiating swipe close gesture from normal swipes
- Timestamps shown in notifications
- Notifications sorted by timestamps

- Improvements in Event Feed area

- Music controls in Lock screen
- New feedbacks added to MeeGoTouch theme.
- Kernel updated to be in sync with the upstream kernel version 2.6.32.48


Connectivity

- Android NDEF Push Protocol disabled
- NFC polling enabled in lock screen
- Separate switch for controlling mobile background connections while roaming


Camera

- Self Timer support
- Composition grid + on/off control


Calendar

- Better handling of To-Do lists, recurring events and timezones
- Private flag support for events
- Support for read-only events
- Ability to forward/reply/reply-all for received events


Clock

- Clock alarm becomes silent by flipping the device face down instead of snoozing
- Updated time picker


Gallery

- People view added to the grid toolbar
- Improved multiple selection indication in grid view


Music Player

- Audiobook and podcast support
- Ability to create playlists
- Ability to delete music files from music player library views via object menu
- Possibility to see songs that are on the current play queue

Thanks lovemynokia for screenshots ;)

[MeeGo Harmattan] Things that drive me crazy on the N9 !

Hi Guys, happy new year !

This post is simply about some features that if correctly implemented, it'll make the N9 more reliable and productive utility ! And Frankly, coming from an N8 and an N900, i'm badly missing some essential features that need to be reconsidered by Nokia folks and management team and some nasty bugs that make other alternatives more reliable for daily tasks, i mean why should have an N9 with those bugs if my N8 and N900 (and iPhone 4) just work as expected?!

I'll list the most critical ones that annoy me, you can check out bugzilla and fill your own bugs or feature requests ;) Some feature request were stated as "wontfix", you'll find reasons after bug description !

By priority !

* Call Bug : Blank Seconds (Bug 118)

* Make phone and sms applications on High priority processes (Bug : 533)

* No graphical equalizer or Bass boost setting on music player (Bug : 504)


* Nokia Suite support for N9 : (Bug 117)

Agreed. Nokia Link does not provide some features that Nokia Suite provided.
Unfortunately, Nokia Suite support is not planned for N9. However, your
feedback has been put forward to the management.

I would recommend you to directly use WLAN on your phone to download maps.
As for the sending/viewing text messages, phone is the way to go :)


* No support for zip/rar files (Bug 308)

* Emails bugs :

- Remove notification of new email when marked read on the server ( bug : 152 )
- Messageserver with high CPU utilization and mail is not sync'd ( bug : 198 )
- Email Client doesn't recognize phone numbers ( bug : 502 )
- Email file manager don't find a file i want to attach ( bug : 503 )
- Back to homescreen when Delete email from the lockscreen pop up (Bug 403)
- search on server support missing (Bug : 506)

* Flash support and web browser enhancements...

* Automatic Contact birthdays Sync on calendar (Bug 158)

Thanks for the report. It has been already fixed internally and will be available in future updates.


* Better use of the notification light (Bug 389) :

Thanks for your feedback.

Unfortunately this is the behavior by design that LED notifications would be
redundant and just consume power. Of course it could be useful to have led
notifications if Low Power Mode(LPM) is disabled, but there are no plans to
change this intentional behavior. Most people will be happy with LPM. Thanks.

* Skype & video call (Bug 309) :

Thanks for your feedback. But unfortunately, there are no plans to support

* Smart dialing (Bug 505) :


Search application is actually pretty fast and list you all the possible
options. Also the contacts icon is just beside the dialler and does not any
additional traversal. Unfortunately there are no plans to change this behavior
by design. However thanks for your valuable input.

* No sharing option available in the Music Player (bug : 92) :

Thanks for your feedback. This behavior is intentional as we do not intend to
encourage the distribution of music files from our apps.


* Play Video, Music and Pictures to DLNA clients/TVs (Bug 405)




* Get rid of "SMS" option to landlines numbers (Bug 404)



* Tapping on a message in search results doesn't open the message itself  ( bug : 124 )


* Facebook/Twitter notifications (Bug 310)

Ps : Some of bugs listed above are already fixed or under consideration, let's hope the most critical ones will be a part of the next PR1.2 as really the experience was a lot iPhone-like dumbed (even more) and if i want a dumbed "smart"phone, thanks i have already an iPhone and with a lot of application and tweaks that keep me forgetting its limitations...

And you? Are you facing some nasty bugs that annoy your user experience? Or Having some feature requests? Vote for the existing ones or create your owns, share your experience :)

[MeeGo Harmattan] [How to] Bring back your dead N9 to life !

If you bricked your N9 as i did the past week, and want it back to life from the dead Nokia Logo then you can use the following method for restoring system after some dangerous experiments with applications.

My guide is based on ubuntu live cd (the best and safest method yet) as i have Win 7 64bits and i just can't run properly the tools needed to flash the N9 (if you want steps to do it on windows OS, be sure to look into maemotalk forums)...so :

In few steps :

1- Get (not really necessary) the latest ubuntu build (i did it with ubuntu 9 and it worked just fine), Once you've finished downloading your file, you'll need to create a CD or USB drive (the advantage of running a live cd is that you won't need to install anything on your PC) and then run it (see step 3 from this page).

2- Get the maemo flasher released for Harmattan (in my case i did choose the flasher_3.12.1_i386.deb version of it as i'll use ubuntu live cd) and install it !

3- Get the firmware image for your device, I used NaviFirm from http://www.symbian-toys.com/navifirm.aspx to get the appropriate firmware for my N9 (you can search your Firmware with the help of the product code of your N9 which you can find on the back of the micro SIM holder) you're not forced to download all files but ones checked by default, the most important file is the Mcu LEGACY one (something like : DFL61_HARMATTAN_2X.2011.44-2_PR_LEGACY_XXX.bin)

Ps : It'll be convenient to rename it to something easy like your name for example : saad.bin

You want to do a warm-flash ( I have not tried a cold-flash, so do that at your own risk ) of your device.

There are detailed instructions at the maemo wiki, http://wiki.maemo.org/Flasher but you won't probably need them as only what's left to you to do is to place files you've just downloaded to Desktop.

5- Place downloaded files to desktop.

6- Run Xterm, then type :

cd Desktop

Then sudo flasher -F FIRMWAREIMAGE.bin -f -R

Where  FIRMWAREIMAGE.bin is the name you gave to your firmware image... in my case the command will be :

sudo flasher -F saad.bin -f -R

Plug your N9 (it must be switched off already) and wait the magic till your device reboot ;)

It worked fine, but still, do at your own risk !

Additional type : Do a hard reset after that as you could have some old nasty files staying on the system ;)

If you have questions drop them in comments section :)

[Leaks] N9 (N950) PR1.2 upcoming update Screenshots !

As stated here, PR 1.2 is more about new features (more than fixes) and here we go with some leaks at what we should get ;)

Added a button to manage applications

The buttons have a new style

On display there is a new option settings Colour Profile

Settings Gallery has a new option for face recognition

 menu to display an image color change and has a new option "Insert face"

video recording interface has added an icon to turn on/off the LED flash

The camera interface now has separates flash options

Via : phonesfera

[MeeGo Harmattan] The default N9 font will change to bigger and better !

This is a pre-warning of one change that will take place in an future software update of the Nokia N9: the default font, "Nokia Pure Text", will be updated as well. This might have an impact on some of your application UIs.

The typeface of Nokia Pure Text itself will not change, but the font metrics will. The most significant change is that by default, the text will take approximately 20% more space vertically, i.e. the height of the "bounding box" of text items will increase.

The current height of the font is actually a bit too small. E.g., some of the diacritic/accent marks or descenders do not fit to the bounding box. Fixing this is important especially for non-european languages using non-latin script. The picture below shows how the same text labels render on two different software releases, PR1.0/PR1.1 on the left and the new version of the font on the right:



Whether this has any impact on your application, depends on how the UI layout has been built. In many cases, there is no impact or the change does not really matter. These cases are e.g.:

• Short text labels centered on top of other graphical items (like buttons)
• Lists and other pannable areas where the size anyway varies.
• By using margins and other buffer, you have anyway prepared for changes in the size of the text items e.g. for localization purposes.

But you might see some small surprises if your layout directly depends on the height of the bounding box of the text items. In Qt Quick terms, that would be the Label.height or Text.height properties.

In many cases, the best approach is to design the UI so that you expect the size of the text to vary both horizontally and vertically, that is needed anyway if you provide localizations for different languages.

Typically, that requires leaving enough margins or other space or placing text in pannable areas.

Via : developer.nokia.com

[MeeGo Harmattan] PR 1.1 Update for Nokia N9 is available via Nokia Software Updater !

Yeah, if you're tired of waiting of the -based on country and carrier- PR1.1 OTA update for your Nokia N9, you can use your PC instead with the help of Nokia Software Updater :

The update for Nokia N9 is quite huge (1.1GB) because NSU is downloading the whole firmware instead of just the necessary update (when you do it OTA, the file size is about 200MB++).

PS : after installing NSU, don't forget to update it, and then connect your N9 with the sync mode when prompted ;)

[MeeGo Harmattan] PR1.1 (20.2011.40-4) software update for the Nokia N9 is live!

Device software update 20.2011.40-4 (aka PR1.1) for the Nokia N9 is out. Already now, you should get a notification about the update. If you can't see it, you can check it manually by going to Settings / Applications / Manage applications / Updates tab, and tapping on the Refresh button.

It is a 218,6 MB Over-The-Air update, so using Wi-Fi connection is advised. After downloading, the installation may take up to 40 minutes.

This software update brings music controls on the Lock screen, improved multitasking and memory management, NFC tag reading, as well as more than 300 smaller enhancements, improvements and fixes. Following the N950, the N9 now also gets Swype keyboard, and swiping down to quickly close an application is now enabled by default. In addition to this, the camera gets color filters and there are improvements in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

The official non-detailed changelog (If you want a much more detailed changelog check out my post over here !) :

The first regions and operators have already been targeted, with others to follow in the coming days. So do not despair, if the update is not yet available for your phone.    

The changes and improvements include: 

• NFC tag reading
• Music controls on lock screen
• Photo and video shooting with colour filters
• More powerful multitasking
• Swype for faster typing
• Faster MfE, syncing only the active folders
• Noise cancellation reduces background noise so your friends hear you better
• Swipe down to close apps easily; now on by default
• New notifications for the standby screen, such as charging and calendar
• Multiple smaller improvements to operating system 

[Sneak Peek] What's coming to your N9 Firmware Update

Konttori (the Coach for Harmattan Applications Framework) hinted in a recent post about upcoming update for our beloved N9 and we can read "around 3500 improvements (fixes or features) to be in the release" (PR1.1 and PR1.2 combined i guess) , i didn't want to post about that until having some "facts" about what can we expect really to be addressed, and here we are with some of them, but first of all, you should know there'll be like 3 future firmware updates for the N9 in the future PR1.1, PR1.2 and PR1.3, maybe more, but that's for know and it's enough to use the device for daily use for 2 years ;) 

Anyway, 308 task or features were completed for 1.1, you should know that PR1.1 is all about being faster, stronger, better. It succeeded on all metrics, reliability, use time, performance, long period use. All metrics for 1.1 are simply outstanding based on Konttori comments and hints !

- Low power mode enhancemens, battery charging and silent profile are now shown in there.
- Tons of NFC and connectivity improvements.
- Performance enhancements.
- Visual tuneups (e.g. toolbar has a shadow now).
- Splash screen has been taken to wider use.
- Color management is less nervous than before (neutral sRGB space color palette is now used always, except in clearly outdoor situations, when oversaturation is applied to adjust how eye desaturates content in brightness).

- Lock screen music controls has been added (It's in the top of the screen and at least I'm pleased with how nicely a nuance the controls look. Currently playing song is on big friendly letters, replacing clock when you are playing music). 

- Swype keyboard has been added. 

- Keyboard switching is very smooth with swipe gesture.
- Battery notification was tuned for 1.1 and should come every 2 minutes while in call, every 5 minutes when display on and every 30 minutes when display off.
- Turning device to landscape is supported allover UI it seems.
- Double tap was re-tuned a bit for 1.1. It's a bit more reliable again.
- Tons of exchange fixes
- Facebook starts faster and has tons of fixes in both 1.1 and 1.2. I'd say it's bearable in 1.1.
- wifi in general has been improved by leaps and bounds in 1.1.
- Magnifier works in 1.1 much better than in 1.0.
- Swipe-to-close is enabled by default in 1.1
- Top status bar lag has been fixed
- Browser has been improved heavily for 1.1, but not on the UX front. 1.2 has some feature improvements.
- LED bug that has been fixed for 1.1.
- 1.1 also includes a battery charging indicator in low power mode (LPM)
- A lot of work has been put to better interoperability of BT with cars
- pulseaudio issue has been fixed
- We have automerge contacts support in 1.1, although it has some usability issues. Anyway, zillion times nicer than not having automerge at all. 
- Silence by turning device down works in 1.1
- quicklaunchbar is quite a bit better in 1.1 already. you don't need to swipe-hold to open it, just a quick, but small swipe from bottom will do.

For the PR1.2 it is officially feature enhancement release, so, it contains a lot of new things. :

- Universal copy paste is coming in.
- Swipe-to-close and more logical and visual in 1.2.
- Implementation of decoder enhancements for h264
- Folders will come in 1.2 to home screen. And it's not only apps that need it. If you start using bookmarks a bit more, it's really irritating to not to have bookmarks. Guys in Oulu say that the work should be complete for the feature, so it's about 3 weeks to have decent polish on it. It's one of the "big" features of 1.2
- 1.2 has some sweet camera improvements though (but no comments on what, sorry)
- Lock screen has the support for full screen avatars for incoming call. 1.2 at the earliest
- Deeper integration of maps with the core applications (contacts and favorites)
- Skype video call nor 3G video call support not sure about the later
- PR1.2 changes the swipe down to function as direct close without going to recents/multi-tasking view. Other changes are not going to be made, as they would break the generic swipe logic too much.
- Manage Applications option has been added to the Applications list
- Separated Flash option in Camera UI
- LED Flash icon in Video Recorder UI
- New style for the buttons
- New “Color Profile” setting in Display options
- Face Recognition support in Gallery
- Insert Faces in Photos


Not sure yet if this could make is way on a future update :

- More games will definitely come, but none is HD, as the screen is WVGA 
- Somebody should do numeric T9.
- Not sure if the birthday support is coming or not. I think it is, but not sure
- No comments on video call (included skype)
- Bigger avatar on calls perhaps coming in 1.2
- Push notifications (on mentions and retweets in the Twitter app) were supposed to come
- Contacts as shortcuts is possible, simple to be done, but not in the books at the moment. Please write to nokia care about that. And create a bug.
- Java support is not going to come officially.
- Flash support may come.
- Voice control was in the cards, but we eventually dropped it. Not coming, sorry.
- upcoming calendar notifications has been discussed a lot. I can't remember why it's not there, but there was some reason for it...
- Browser toolbar in landscape should indeed be at the bottom. We are planning to get it to autohide in 1.2, but no promises (it's not on the top of the to-do list)
-  Video player won't have usability improvements. Better get a 3rd party app for those. It takes probably 200 LOC with qml and qt-mobility/gstreamer to create a better video player (usability wise) than the currently shipping one. It would be a nice hobby project for somebody. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly OK video player if you have 10 videos, but it certainly doesn't work well enough if you have a lot of videos.
- 3G video support will ever come. We always considered it as a forgotten technology (and hence favor VOIP-alike video conferencing solutions).
- VPN should be coming soon.
- Contact shortcuts were planned for home screen to be as launcher icon shortcuts. We decided to postpone that to until folder support for launcher items is complete. It's now complete, but there won't be enough time to complete the contacts side of the support for 1.2. Perhaps in 1.3.