A funny thing happened to me recently: after being contacted by Nokia WOM World about testing out a N95-4 — The US edition of the N95 8GB — I was then contacted by Shozu to inform me that I had just won one of them by taking part in one of their surveys. (Lesson being, having an offer in a survey works for everyone!) Naturally, I wrote WOM World back to tell them to move on to the next blogger on their list… but of course, I still planned on writing about the differences in the phone. (Again, works for everyone!)

Really, who needs another unboxing/side-by-side photo gallery of these two phones? There are loads of them out there; in fact, here’s the standard vs. 8GB N95 photos you may need to reference for my post, if you’re not familiar with the phones. But like I said, I just plan on writing about it.

(Just to note, there were many changes between the original N95 and the N95-3 when it was finally released for the States, and the N95 8GB models share those improvements. So you won’t be reading much about, oh, the loss of the camera lens cover or the extra memory because the N95-3 had the same adjustments.)

When the phone finally arrived, I migrated myself off the N95-3. While the Switch app in the phone worked great for moving Notes and SMS/MMS between the two, I did not move any Contacts or Calendars data. I let a round-trip through iSync handle that, since I consider my Mac to be the master source of such data, and iSync is such a great app. (I did need to download a new driver for the 8GB from the Nokia iSync page first, but that took no time to do.)

Bookmarks copied over but they did not show up sorted the way I had them originally, and as you may know, reordering bookmarks is extremely cumbersome in S60 because of its mark-then-command model combined with the Bookmarks commands being in a sub-menu. S60 menuing is almost always contextual, so I did not understand why some of these commands weren’t surfaced higher once bookmarks were selected (This is a subject for another post, however).

Now that I was up and running, I was struck by how similar they are overall. The screen is bigger, but only slightly so, and while I did feel like the screen was now easily equal-to (if not better) than one on an iPod classic, it didn’t feel so superior to the N95-3’s that it made me say wow or anything. It is definitely nicer to look at, to be clear, but it’s just a modest increase. I think some people say that it has a new daylight-readable screen, but I would have to take their word for it. It was a little easier to read, maybe, but in most of those situations there still is enough overall light and glare to make the screen hard to read, like any other electronic device in the sun. So while there is a little more heft to the N95-4, there was no major moment where I really felt like I had a totally phone in my hand — the feel is that close. For obvious reasons.

The other big hardware difference are the keys on the face of the device. While the tactility of the keys are vastly improved over the N95-3, they are smaller and more cramped, making them a little hard to press accurately. This may be something I get used to, because I had similar reactions to the -3’s keys when I first got it, but they no longer get in my way.

The directional key is the most improved, finally feeling like its edges are raised enough to get a thumb on it quickly and move it easier. The center button also feels taller and is easier to press. Overall, gaming on this phone will get a little boost over the N95-3 because of these directional key improvements.

The menu and multimedia keys are also rounded and raised, which helps since they are much smaller. This is a big difference from the N95-3, where these buttons were treated more like negative space within the perimeter of the other buttons on the phone’s face. I miss those larger, flatter keys mostly because of the differentiation of feel and what that meant (these were modal buttons whereas the others were commands) but again, not a problem… just a preference.

However, I do think the soft keys are too small. Really. Most of the times I hit the soft keys to accept dialogs or unlock the phone and I don’t actually believe I pushed them, because they just don’t “give” enough when pressed and I don’t feel like I pressed on them directly.

On the whole, that was it. Most everything else was improved, and they were really the small software touches that a new firmware might have brought to the N95-3. For example, podcasts would now remember their playback point if you stopped them earlier. No more would I need to memorize a timecode and fast-forward through an hour to get back to where I was. And I even like the new panel system that the multimedia key launches. However, there are still bugs that have been left undone, such as requiring a data connection when reading downloaded RSS feeds: if there is an embedded photo, the phone will try to connect, but if you cancel, the Web Feed application QUITS. It doesn’t just let you read the feed WITHOUT PHOTOS.

The biggest thing to note is that is has Flash Lite 3, which means Flash Video support in the browser. However, leaving Flash fully-enabled made the browser crash on almost every Flash-heavy page I visited. Changing it to “images only” still allows you to click on Flash embeds and play the file in-page or in the Flash Player app on the phone, which worked much better. But desktop oriented Flash on a phone sized device is just not satisfying and not a good experience — choppy, slow, wrongly sized. For the desperate it will work, but it’s more of a back-up “just in case I have to access a Flash-driven site” type of feature. But it’s honestly just not that useful or necessary a feature.

I have yet to fill up the -3’s memory card, so doubling my card into 8GBs of built-in storage hasn’t been a notable change to me at all. Really, I have never swapped multiple memory cards into any device. I buy one card per each, be it a Memory Stick Duo for the PSP, or my CF card for my SLR, and it stays in the device all the time unless I’m transferring files to my computer and I couldn’t find a USB cable. I’m also not one of those people who travel with two or three cards for a device, so the fact that the N95-3 has a MicroSD slot wasn’t more valuable to me in comparison to a phone with non-upgradable storage.

So overall: the N95 8GB is a great phone, but it’s only a modest upgrade from the N95-3. You’re not going to miss out too much except for the software updates, which could still come to -3 if Nokia ever gets their ass in gear. It comes down to the memory card most of all, and if you have money invested in MicroSD, then your choice should be pretty clear.

More to come.

In a previous post from 2005:

37signals’ philosophy to their apps is very similar to the model of UNIX shell commands, and makes it obvious to me that Web 3.0 will be all about piping web applications together—and those apps that become too closed off will be the ones that get left behind.

It looks like Live Mesh might finally kick this Web 3.0 thing off.

Live Mesh is a new Microsoft framework for cloud computing on the internet, providing tools for sharing data between devices and protocols for accessing data without needing to know the underlying providers. It appears to be, in many ways, a “meshing” of feeds that the services publish with synchronization data binding them all together so the platform can modify and republish as need… but much, more powerful in practice.

A few weeks ago, Loic Le Meur blogged about how he wished his social map lived on his blog. Something like Live Mesh would be able to link Facebook content with blog content without there necessarily being an original that controls a number of copies. They would both be equal and after synchronization, only the sync identification could be considered “master” data. (The question is, of course, is who owns that sync data — something I haven’t uncovered from the Live Mesh site yet, but damn, wouldn’t it be amazing if they’d figured out how to make that decentralized as well?)

But what’s most interesting is that this seems to be the first child of Microsoft’s new position of cross-compatibility on internet, and they have promised Live Mesh will be platform-independent.

Private betas are happening now. I can’t wait to hear the first reports. A demo video (using Silverlight sigh) can be found on the site’s Developer page. Not only does it demo photo data being shared over Live Mesh, but complete applications, both live in the browser and saved locally (in a Google Gears-ish manner).

Tabletblog recently reported about an episode of TWiT which featured Dave Winer which not surprisingly had gone off course over RSS, iTunes and podcasting.

In it, Dave Winer expressed frustration about the lack of a proper podcast device — that while iPods are well known as podcast players, they weren’t the perfect device. For example, such a device would be wireless and download episodes even when away from the desktop.

Tabletblog naturally responded with “Did that TWiT ever hear of Nokia Internet Tablets?”, and other users chimed in to agree.

However, Dave Winer is talking about having a device that is formulated around the experience of podcasting. It’s a platform design challenge that most people aren’t interested in facing because podcasting isn’t that technically complicated on its surface.

He’s not just thinking about the iPods, he’s thinking more about specialty devices like the Kindle, where the platform itself is optimized for how people read, bookmark, annotate and reference books. There are hardware features implemented (like the e-paper screen) to aid users with those tasks, and there are business partnerships (such as Sprint’s EVDO) designed to help connect users to content faster, but the very design of the interface, both input systems (e.g., the Kindle’s scroll wheel) and underlying software, speaks to the device’s primary purpose.

The Kindle also plays audio files and browses the web. These features are downplayed for a reason. Mostly, it is because the Kindle does not welcome you with a general purpose desktop of files and applications, it leads you immediately into consuming existing book content or new book content, and then subsequently lets you explore other supported content types.

So “just installing an application” — like Video Center or the S60 Podcasting app — doesn’t get us to critical mass. It’s when those apps are installed by default, and promoted in the operating system appropriately, and work with other devices or applications intelligently that we being to make real progress. The real irony is that many users install Video Center to download audio podcasts. “Podcast” isn’t even in the application’s name. Not very intuitive, is it?

When Daniel puts his analysis to the post, he says this:

I think they want a device with an open SDK, expandable storage, flexible Internet connectivity options, a microphone and speakers, Voice over IP support (preferably with recording,) and perhaps even a webcam.

A nice list of hardware, but nothing that isn’t already in many devices today. What’s missing is that coherent use of those features together, that is evident in those devices’ design. Podcasting is a process, it is not a single technology: an RSS file syndicates, an aggregator auto-downloads, etc. When looked at this way, podcasting is usually delegated to sub-features of applications. That built-in RSS reader could support auto-downloading of attachments, for example.

However, the experience of consuming podcasts does not equal “auto-downloading of attachments in an RSS file.” It is much more conversational, TiVo-like and, dare I say, magical.

One could have the same argument about about the perfect mobile gaming platform — knowing the successes of cellphone gaming and the various 3D-accelerated models of phones out there — but the leaders in development and user mind-share continues to be the Nintendo DS and the PSP, products that have made design decisions and trade-offs in order to better support their primary purpose.

What would a perfect podcast device do?:

• Download & stream podcasts over the air
• Allow full management of subscriptions on the device
• Allow advanced discovery (by popularity, by editors, etc.) on the device
• Provide a desktop client for subscription and file management
• Synchronize between desktop and device, wirelessly even
• Recommendations based on activity or other users as an option
• Support both cellular and wi-fi data connections in the device
• Have dedicated media player controls
• Large screen for video playback
• Support feedback mechanisms (comments, etc.) to the show itself
• Run third-party apps that extend the subscription and playback experience (such as a Last.fm-style service)
• Maybe even be a podcast producing device as well

All these elements would need to be the device’s primary experience, not something buried within a phone or handheld computer.

The value in today’s devices is no longer what they are capable of — our culture is at the point where we know almost everything can be done with them, given the right horsepower, or the right hackers — but how immediately the technology lets you do things.

Or to put it hypothetically, in a world where every gadget plays MP3s, why do people still buy dedicated MP3 players?

In an overloaded world, good (or at least sufficient) alternatives are available everywhere. Therefore, the successes are the ones that make people “feel good.”

That’s a tricky target — feeling good — but it’s one everyone is aiming for. It used to stop at the customer experience, but it’s extending to be much more than that, something far more fundamental and user-centered.

A restaurant that cooks with only locally-grown food is one example. Linux as an open-source platform is another. They both bring their own classes of limitations but they are overlooked because the end result is that the user or customer feels good about what it is or what it does.

Last 100 got a tour of the latest happenings with Android, but summarized their long blog post with a “So what?” The end-experience bar has been set extremely high these days, and despite the various back-end bonuses to the platform, there still wasn’t an element to it that made the reviewer, at the end of the day, feel any better about Android than the devices currently available today. It’s a bit early to call this one, but it’s worth looking into, considering how immediate the reaction was to the first iPhone announcements.

I was told an anecdote about Disney’s strategy behind their parks in a meeting the other day, and it has to do with letting staff do whatever they need to do to have people leave feeling good about their visit and being confident that their subsequent visits will be just as good. This leads immediately to word-of-mouth referrals, the “you gotta go here” phone calls, because they don’t need to second-guess their recommendations.

So again, this is not a new idea — in fact, many people have defined what’s going on today as a Trust Economy. But I think this leaves out consumers. This works great for communication and business relationships, but doesn’t define a whole lot about products or how a business sells in the marketplace. Trust is internal, and speaks to integrity and intentions, while Confidence is applied and speaks to experiences. It speaks to the empowerment that the users feel during or afterwards a transaction with your business, your products, etc.

I don’t entirely trust Google, or even Apple now that they have made such a tight partnership with AT&T in the states, but I am confident that I will have a good experience with their products. When I go and try to do a task that I’ve never tried before, I’m confident I will find the command easily and that the process will not be complicated. With the Linux example above, I wouldn’t trust that a Linux programmer would release an app that did everything I needed it to, but with the open-source license, I would feel confident that I could patch or fork the project with the code I needed it to have.

When I took a break from the Internet Tablets, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust the vision that Nokia has around the platform, it was that I didn’t have confidence that they could mature the product in time. When I used it, I didn’t feel like I would be able to get things done as easily or as quickly as they could be done. That’s Expectation at work, and those expectations are based on best-practices in the market today. (Edit: I just remembered Dave Winer’s experiences with the device is a good sample of that.)

Did I trust the device? Naturally. I was sure my data was safe, that it was well built, that its engineering was top grade… when I researched and analyzed it. However, my immediate experiences with it just didn’t match that.

We can always overlook a minor trust issue when we know the product delivers.

Trust remains vital in interpersonal relationships, but participation in functional systems like the economy or politics is no longer a matter of personal relations, it requires confidence, but not trust.” — Niklas Luhmann

What is your product doing that inspires confidence for its users?

It’s not often that I disagree with Ryan Block or John Gruber — these guys are always on top of their game — but I have to disagree when it comes to the recent SIM-Unlock question.

Don’t know it? It was when, during the Q&A portion of the recent Apple announcement regarding the iPhone SDK and the roadmap for the deployment of third-party apps, that Ryan Block asked Steve Jobs:

Will SIM unlock software be considered software not allowed in the app store?

As the live blogging reported, the answer was “(pause)…Yes. (Laughter)”.

Block blogged this later:

But even knowing the answer would be a resounding no, asking whether SIM unlock software would be allowed can be construed as a statement — as well as and an opportunity for Apple to address the millions of potential customers who’d like to be able to use an iPhone on a non-prescribed carrier. (source)

Gruber said this in support:

Just because the answer is obvious doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fair question. I don’t have a problem with Apple serving as a gatekeeper with approval over all apps, but if that’s the role they want, their policies should be explicit. (source)

Here’s the problem, guys: These weren’t the questions asked. What got asked was “will you circulate SIM unlock apps?” and the answer was an obvious “No.” The failure here is that Question 1 was somehow meant to imply Question 2 but only Question 1 can be answered, ergo, it was a waste of time.

Or as Kramer might say, why don’t you just tell me the question you want answered?

Here’s two alternatives:

• “Who is defining which apps are allowable and which are not for the app store?”
• “What is Apple’s policy on third-party applications that compete with AT&T services?”

In film school, one of the first rules of interviewing I ever got was to remove questions that can be answered with a simple Yes or No. Jobs was lobbed an easy “No” — which is exactly how he fielded it — that really no one would argue with, and the purpose of the question was so opaque that we now have two blog entries clarifying it. “Because” is not an acceptable answer, so if the answer must be a reason or an explanation, then you’ve got a winner.

Instead, we got the equivalent of “will you allow software that voids the user’s warranty?” Excellent work there, Professor Layton.