I've been meaning to write a comprehensive article about Nokia's Ovi.com for a while now, being pushed as much as it is, but never really got to it so far. Now I dived into the different things Ovi offers (or not), and managed to salvage these things from the bottom of the sea.
Syncing
Face it, it's a pain in the ass. The Ovi Suite is still laggy as hell (talkin about a Q9550 with 4GB RAM here), seems like it has serious difficulties handling the phone, no matter what I wanna do with it. Syncing from the phone, well...chew me up and spit me out. All the digging into the menus to find that place where I can actually sync from, and even then still have to change the active profile AND then the settings (unless you want all your data messed up on phone and on the server too)...ugh. And if the settings are lost, due to a device format or whatever, it's yet more pain to get them back on the phone what with the sending and pin and whatnot. Really, why does it have to be so complicated? And have you noticed that it can actually only sync Contacts, Calendar and Notes? Not e-mail, not (multi)media, not bookmarks, not messages, not contacts group...why? Why can't Nokia create an all-the-way backup possibility with such an otherwise virtually full-featured online service? Read on for some of the answers.
Contacts
Not as much smooth to use as it could be, but it's passable I guess. Only thing I don't understand is why the Groups part not defined at all, seeing how both Ovi and the phones can handle that...no syncing though. And it takes too damn long to load any entry's details. (Even my N97 is faster there at least.
Share / Photos & Videos
Uhm...right. Guess this part went through some improvement lately. Still, it's a bit messy - you can't have folders, only albums, and handling them...well, let's say, if you wanted to move one album's content into another one (you know, as in, subfolders), you'd have way too much to do. Plus, it annoys me to no end that you can't sort your images/videos in the albums. Everything will stay in the order you upload them (by default, it'll most likely be a Z->A order). Don't understand why though, it'd be quite important to let users decide things like that, be it by filename or date/time (you know, photos, EXIFs...?), location, whatnots. Or at least a basic photo-or-video distinction maybe? Not like, forcibly separated, but optionally if one so decides?
Calendar
Kinda the same as Contacts. Sometimes I find events duplicated or even tripled, for reason beyond me, like put in different categories...that's downright annoying again. Same goes for speed as well.
Store
First of all, I can't believe I've just logged in to Ovi and then I go over to Store and I have to log in again. Wtf? Second, I'm wondering why the drop-down menus won't work in Opera? Anyway, I ain't gonna go to IE just for that. At least now if I type the name of an app in, it seems to find it - took long enough to get there. Third, if I select "Show free only" (phone app, but prolly same goes for website too), I do NOT want to see demos and trials and "limited" editions of apps, thank you very much! Go create a "Shareware" category for those stuffs. Fourth, why the HELL do I absolutely need to send links to phones via text messages? If I browse things on my computer, let me download the damned .sis or .wgz files right there, would you kindly? It's a good idea, the store, but way too much of a mess-fest still.
Mail
Well, it's nice, I guess, but with Messaging and all that, it's getting quite hectic. If it could display the inboxes of those emails I've signed up for Messaging too (in clearly distinguished folders, of course), that'd really make handling emails just nice and smooth.
Maps
Um...okay, bit like Google Maps, with favorites from my device added (remember tho, there wasn't any Maps settings defined in the general Ovi.com Sync profile)...and apparently I can't do anything with routing cuz my Opera is not supported. (...everything else is, ffs, annoying us Opera users on purpose?) Um...right. Guess it's a nice thing, or it would be, if we could create routes and save them and get them on our devices too. As such, I can't even get to routing at all.
Music Store
THE totally useless pos. Sorry, Nokia, but your service is only available in 21 countries, and yet you're pushing it way too much all around the globe like it had any point. I appreciate the effort, but frankly, even the little navigation "toolbar" disappears from the top of the site when I get there, so I can't even move anywhere else unless I hit the browser's back button first. Un-cool. And btw, if you're going to merge games to Ovi Store, why can't you do the same with Music? Provided that the service is available in the given person's region - which would be the easiest to check automatically when one's signed in, since we have to enter that info in the Account part anyway...if it isn't, it just shouldn't be displayed at all (and this stands for the devices' Music Player as well).
Games / N-Gage
Now there's a story to that. I've been an N-Gage fanboy since the day the very first N-Gage device was even announced. I think that was in 2003. A lot has happened in the years, but the gaming community that gathered around the platform is quite one-of-a-kind and special. Now the link from the Ovi "toolbar" takes me to the N-Gage site - which wouldn't be bad, but again, the toolbar disappears (see Music Store), leaving me no navigation options, I have to select my region (even tho I've been logged in to Ovi, so it should've been able to determine) and login to the N-Gage site as well. That's messy. And then, you want to shut down the N-Gage platform altogether. That's sad. As in, really, really sad. I mean, how on earth do you even think to incorporate gaming into Ovi Store when that's still an ugly mess to start with? Not to mention the community - you said you'd do that when N-Gage shuts down. I don't even dare to think of what's gonna happen to the games we've already purchased (you know, PAID MONEY for). You go all community-focused on one hand (Messaging, anyone?), and then you take a step back on the other hand. Where's the logic? I don't get it. The whole platform as it is, is way better than Ovi Store: much more straightforward and much smoother to use, even if it could do with an update for devices like the N97.
What should be done?
First of all, bring all content and services together to Ovi.com with the "toolbar" on top being constant everywhere. And, with the different services being able to process data from our profiles on their own and by default. Make it a bit smoother to use and define all the syncing profiles (okay, I get it if you don't want everyone uploading all their music and images/videos on your servers, but at least give the option to share what we want, from one place, to the appropriate part of Ovi, by default). Indeed, a more proper way to backup purchase history (and data, like activation codes) would be cool too - I don't want to go through migraines in case I format my device or get a new one. And for sanity's sake, create ONE unified application for the devices that can handle ALL services, from one place, with one login? I mean, Syncing's a nightmare, and then there are all the separate apps: Share Online, Contacts On Ovi, Maps, Messaging (which btw won't properly set up my email accts now with v20 fw on N97, only defines them to the default Messaging app), Store...and prolly even Software Update could be brought here as well. Maybe an option to create online backup of ALL the phone's settings (not talkin about 3rd party apps of course), so that when I, say, restore data from Ovi (Contacts, Calendar, whatnots) after a format or something, I could also get settings back the way I used to have them?
I've been supporting Ovi since the first day it started, I guess, with photo/video sharing back then, and in ways, I still don't see any improvement. Scattered, not intuitive at all, and while a lot of services have been added, it's just not really a nice experience to use. And experience counts the most, really, you know, it's that thing called iPhone. That's about the only thing it really has as advantage.
I just can't, or don't want to believe, ppl working at Nokia are still being so incompetent. You don't need a diploma to just see how others are doing it and which one users like, yet somehow it gives the impression that Nokia just ain't listening to anyone else at all, just following what they cook up blindly.
Oh, and one tiny thing again? I've mentioned this earlier, but...GIVE US A BLOGGING APPLICATION for cryin' out loud! All the devices with QWERTYs, all the focus on email/IM/communities, and no blog app? Wth...
...even with v20 firmware, there's a small pile of things that just drive me mad on a daily, common-usage basis. Not much, really, but nonetheless annoying.
First, which is very much obvious, is the graphics/UI, so I'm only gonna say this much: c'mon ppl, thing SCREAMS for an overhaul with so many fancy and unique customisations of virtually every system. (In other words: ain't Nokia ashamed that SE could do better with the theirs-for-so-long Symbian's S60 v5 in the Satio?) -_-"
Second, the camera button. FFS, REMOVE the "start 2ndary camera from home screen" functionality! It's the button I usually go to press by gut instinct to check statuses (clock, messages, whatnots), and 2 out of every 3 occasions it goes and starts the front camera! Annoying! Unnecessary! Unwanted! Shooooooo!!!!!!!! >.<
Third, the Music Player. Honestly, I haven't the faintest about what on earth you did to it - the album arts in the list look nice, but a) it seems to select image from tracks randomly where there's more than one to one album; b) it seems to select displayed album artist randomly (just one example for this two, I put Beyoncé's Ego Remix from her remix album to the I Am Sasha Fierce album, it's a featuring Kanye West track, and lo and behold, for the ENTIRE I Am Sasha Fierce album, in general, the displayed art is that of the remix album's, and displayed artist is Beyoncé ft Kanye West...).
And here's a separate section for the Music Player's Now Playing screen, cuz that's a tragicomedy (you know, as in, so bad that the only thing you can do is burst out laughing). For one, wth's up with the album arts? Displayed for ALL the albums in the list (even if not correctly, see above), and then at random tracks, I just see the emptiness / default album art "icon" in the Now Playing screen. Someone explain, and even more so, FIX it, plz? The right function "button", serving as "Back"? NO, IT WASN'T A GOOD IDEA TO MAKE IT SWITCH BACK TO THE HOME SCREEN!!! I'm tearing my hair out every time I want to select a few track and press Back to step back to the lists (cuz that's how it's worked since forever), and find myself on the homsecreen! It's a freakin' pain in the ass to have to flip through my entire album list every time instead of going back to where I've selected the currently played album. >.< Oh, and between the lists and the now Playing Screen, where on earth does the CLOCK get losts? I mean, it's displayed everywhere BUT there, geez. -_-"
Sorry if I sounded repetitive, but that's just it. Had to let it out in a "BUGFIXES-NEEDED-ASAP" type of rant too.
After a while, I finally got to writing about this too. Not a bad thing, the time-lapse, I mean, in the meantime I've gathered real-life experience using the new firmware. I'll try not to go back to general issues that plague the phone (you can read about them here, here, here, here, here, and here), they're mostly unresolved by the new fw, either because it's impossible to solve them on a sw level or because Nokia's being an idiot. That's the gist of it. Let's see the things that became screamingly obvious for me in thes past few days.
Switching the phone on, it still has those apps running in the background: Log, Contacts, Messaging, Clock...and I still don't understand why. Even more interesting is the available updates list that the Software update displayed right after updating the firmware...no what happened there. Maps, N-Gage, Messaging, Ovi Contacts - why on earth can't Nokia implement its VERY OWN applications into the firmware itself? (The answer is: space is needed for sponsored (TIME LIMITED) DEMOS, see Adobe, QuickOffice, Boingo, etcetcetc.) Don't about others, but for me it's furstration perfected...
As far as general kinetic scrolling goes...I for one am still using the scrollbars on the side. Sorry, got too used to it. Maybe Nokia should just get rid of it in the next major update? By that time surely everyone can get used to it. Til then it's sorta purposeless and misleading in a way. And yeah, it surely can give a different experience, but frankly, I don't really have that much lists to scroll in. Even in the Music Player (that's the longest for me), I end up using the scrollbar, cuz there it's okay - like, a quickscroll to the letter I'm looking for. But really, that's it.
Actually, the Music Player is worth a few words.
One more thing, the battery life. Idk if it's the indicator having been just...not working correctly earlier, but now I notice that from a fully charged battery, it gets two or three level down in like 2-4 hrs of only being on WLAN using MSN and browser-or-Gravity. (Phone's in Offline profile otherwise.) That's just horribly, horribly bad, and needs a fix asap. Same goes for the RAM-handling: if the RAM gets full (Opera Mobile 10 beta is too much of a memory hog), the phone simply closes ALL the running applications, driving me mad in a matter of seconds, really. At least display a warning and ask the damn user which application they want to be closed - or don't allow running new tasks if the free RAM is under a certain amount. Sheesh.
Let's see, what games I can remember it as being overhyped and/or disappointing.
Mirror's Edge: that's got to be the first on my list. (Not a particular order, mind you, just like in the sense of "first-one-to-come-to-my-mind".) Gamer community's media just couldn't seem to get enough of it, I couldn't go on the net without stumbling into it somewhere, even if I didn't even go anywhere near game-specific sites. It was being called revolutionary, it was being called new, it was being called awesome. And what did we get? A world that looked breathtaking at first but was quickly discovered being effin' sterile. A Tomb Raider ported into a modern futuristic world and the camera installed into the protagonist's head (but really, most of Faith's moves felt like they were simply taken over from Lara, I swear a sound effect or two was actually borrowed -_-). A gaming experience that looked like was aimed at the stereotypical "stupid american consolers", with the RED hints everywhere - in truth, it was just stupid: the hints were either way too easily identified (or the solution offered by them too obvious anyway), or totally not discoverable, leaving us wandering around trying to figure out what the heck to do and where to go. All the while a health indicator was totally not present (with all the police shooting at us, virtually no matter where we went); a usable map/gps was not present (in the future, you know, with Faith herself being a sort of messenger); and the world was a fake-open one, supposedly giving us alternative options for routes, but I doubt many took the effort to discover those as it was a pain in the ass. And the storyline/ending...no comment. Well, at least Faith had a cool hairdo. That's something too, isn't it?
F.E.A.R. & F.E.A.R. 2: they told me it'd be SCAAAARY. Actually, the only scary thing about it was its hardware requirements, not really justified imo. Scary?... Not really. I mean, I grew up on X-Files, being about 8-10yo when it was being aired here...so, sowwy, but there just wasn't enough in it. Alma is just a sick little girl who should've had her own bedroom. Oh well.
World of Warcraft: ...what's the big fuss? There are tons of games like that out there...and actually, correct me if I'm wrong, but somehow it doesn't really seem like it's more than an XP-collecting contest. You even have to pay for it. All the while Blizzard is going awry with Diablo 3, which doesn't look like will have much in common with the previous titles, unlinking it from the Diablo-atmosphere ... as of now, anyways. Sheesh...
Gears of War / Unreal Tournament 3: honestly? Apart from looking totally alike, they're just...idk. Not that good. Well, GoW actually can get good in co-op, but somehow not really engaging that much. And that utter bullshit Epic's been up to about how not they're gonna bring sequels to PC...pfft. The fuck do you release a game on a given platform for if you're not gonna support it in the future? Fuck you, Epic, you wouldn't be anywhere without PCs...someone remind me again, why are they still in PCGA? And UT3...I was freaked out when I first got to it. Got so much taken out of it compared to UT'04 that it managed to weigh down too heavily on the experience itself. Beautiful levels, but while you could play UT'04 to no end, UT3 just becomes obviously too repetitive, way too fast. Some good ideas in there, but it just ain't enough to make up for the castrated features.
Modern Warfare: ...I've said this earlier, but: too. freaking. many. soldier. shooter. crap. And what on earth is so special about them, really? I'm starting to panic cuz I feel like there's something wrong in my genes, with me not being able to get hooked on these at all. Bleh.
Need For Speed Carbon, Undercover, ProStreet: Carbon and Undercover are just Most Wanted, twice more. And while MW was quite enjoyable, the whole thing became a snoozefest in the reincarnations. It's like, there's a pressure to release a NFS game in every year, even it's nothing new at all. Wtf? Prolly they felt that too, cuz they made ProStreet. Which they shouldn't have. Wanted more realistic physics, but couldn't get away from the arcade: result was that they fall to the ground between two seats, ending up with cars undriveable. And the whole atmosphere was like Underground remixed, which is just...er...yuck.
Star Wars - The Force Unleashed: O.M.G. ... First came the bullshit about how it's not gonna land on PCs, cuz PC don't have enough juice and they didn't want to reduce the gaming experience (! not a word by word quote, but it's what they actually said, for real). That while the game was made for PS2, PSP, Wii, Nintendo DS, even for iPhone and Nokia's N-Gage platform...er, yeah right, cuz THOSE didn't need anything reduced in the game...what do you take us for, fuckin' simpleton idiots?! Downright outrageous. Then of course they dropped the bomb, the game will be coming to PC, and in a special PC exclusive edition too. ... No comment. But honestly, idk what for...from the start, from the news and bits I've gathered, I've been feeling like we ain't missing out on much at all by not getting this game. Story is a laugh at best, the whole thing is way too arcade ("costumes" meaning actual different characters, even droids to play? wtf, where's the logic?), and no justice to the 15GB raw material - 25GB installed size at all, by graphics or anything. I mean, there's no graphics settings AT ALL. Console port much? Control is not intuitive at all, either. Oh, and, how on earth did they manage to bring TWIMTBP AND that old crappy Havok together?!?!?! But please. LucasArts has been spiraling downwards, sad as it is...Force Unleashed doesn't stop them either. Idk about others, but I sure wouldn't mind playing those old games again, getting back in the "classic" SW universe as well, in the "classic" storyline and places - with today's graphics and physics and AI possibilities, whatnots. They could do it so easily, I really don't understand why they don't do it. Sad, really.
The Witcher: I tried to get into this one like 3 times. I really did. And I couldn't. Even though I love RPGs. I've no idea what went wrong, but Witcher couldn't at all tickle my fancy bone. Oh well.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games: About the same as Witcher...something's amiss in it for me, and I just can't get a feeling out of it. For me, Fallout 3 managed to deliver a more realistic and more believable post-nuclear world. But that's just me.
Left 4 Dead: outdated graphics engine, freakin' buggy everything, and the idea of dozens of zombies just sprinting to you from every direction endlessly...simply ridiculous. The type of game I don't even know why they spend money on.
...I think, that's about it for now, from the top of my head. Too many great expectations turned out to be rather turn-offs. I guess, that's not surprising...most ppl nowadays want to make money, and nothing else. They might put a lot of money and time into developing, but if it gets so technical, the experience is bound to be lost as a focus, which will lead to the not-good games.
Came upon this little article via WindowsGamer. Well, let's see...
Halo 3 ... um, it's definitely overhyped. I mean, too frackin' much media, really. Disappointing? Wouldn't really know...no consoles whatsoever, so never played it. Thinking of it this way, it IS disappointing that MS won't bring Halo games to PCs anymore. Loved the first one, and would've loved the second one too, had it not been so terribly optimized. Oh well.
Saints Row ... bleh. I've never liked those GTA-type games, can't understand what's the big fuss about it. But, the whole "gangsta style" seems to be way too mainstream nowadays (which does leave me a bit frustrated tho), so I guess I understand it...somewhere. But there's too many of them, really. And when quantity becomes prioritized, it's usually quality that suffers...
Killzone ... argh, am I the only one who's full to the point of being sick with these soldier-type FPS games??? Honestly, worse than a locust swarm, and just so much alike. And the same goes for AION and basically all the rest of those "MMORPG"s...they're okay for an alternative way for social networking, but frankly, slaughtering monsters and collecting XP only to level up and repeat the whole process...where the hell is ROLEPLAYING in that??? Yikes. I'd say the category "RPG" has become way much bastardized over the past few years...and THAT BASTARDIZED version in general is totally overhyped and disappointing.
Far Cry 2 - omg, couldn't agree more. Graphics looks nice at the first glimpse, until you stumble upon the horribly too many and horribly too static objects...hullo, Crysis anyone? It's NOT okay in 2009. (Not to mention that the player doesn't even have any body unless some limited thingy when sitting in a vehicle...and not any cast shadow at all. Wtfh...) And then the environment gets extremely boring because it's way too ... not even repetitive, but ALL THE SAME. And then the missions: you end up doing the same things over and over again, and if you've got patience left you can actually hunt down the diamonds to be able to get new weapons and upgrades...yuck. No, thank you.
Resident Evil 5 ... you know, it's just not Resident Evil anymore. The environment once again is extremely boring, add to that the fact that the gamespace is basically narrowed down to corridors, really...mostly one way to go, and that's it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't RE games supposed have a feature "scary" as well, at least at a few places, a few times?...
Tomb Raider ... well, I agree it's a bit oldschool, but hey, Lara is actually a classic. Like, she's been around for some 14 years if I'm correct, unlike basically all other titles that are dated (well) after 2000. And if anything, the graphics is beautiful, and her movements are still among those of the widest range, really. (Anyone recalls Mirror's Edge? It wasn't anything more than a badly served Tomb Raider in modern times, placed into first person view.) And she still has that somewhere dry but nonetheless awesome British sense of humor which I personally just adore...I'm not sure how much Legend and Underworld have been advertised, so I'm not sure about overyhped, but as far as disappointing goes, I think, the only disappointing thing about them was their lengths - or more precisely the lack thereof. They're both way short which is no good for that type of game. I think.
...My nominees for the "overhyped and disappointing" category coming up in the next post.
