Nokia (Maps 3) big flop

That does it!

I’m telling you because months ago I’ve switched back to Nokia phones after a long time and quite disappointed I’ve realized the N96 has been thrown into the market with an alpha buggy firmware, without a suitable battery (in almost a year time they still didn’t release a decent battery with higher mAh…. what are you waiting for guys?), and the software/firmware technical support is basically non-existent, prove me wrong if you can.

They have scattered multiple support forums on the web where you can barely get support from other skilled users, if you’re lucky… Shall we talk about the “strategy” of delivering 3 suites for some phones? PC Suite, N series and OVI! Each one does something the other doesn’t….. nice salad guys!

Bad news

Now back to Maps 3. Did I tell you about my happiness when I’ve discovered that Maps 3 beta had deleted my Maps 2 license… no way to get it back for free, no answers from “technical support”.

Then the long awaited release: the “official” Nokia Maps 3.

As I’m using Vista’s DPI scaling set at 144%, I could barely read what was written in the install dialogs (oversized and clipped fonts). Neither I could use the mouse to click on the dialog’s buttons, only the spacebar was working.

Once done, I couldn’t complete the update process just beacuse the Nokia Maps Updater crashed with the following output:


Problem signature: Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: NokiaMapsUpdater.exe
Application Version: 1.0.7.0
Application Timestamp: 4a44e967
Fault Module Name: NokiaMapsUpdater.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.0.7.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4a44e967
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000648ce
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1040 Additional Information 1: e697
Additional Information 2: 484bfd979ebad31872c979da325327a9
Additional Information 3: 5df3
Additional Information 4: feca807d3f8a08aa8f72ee55e09f95dc


At that point I’ve tried to use the applet on the phone…. I’ve set the 2D/3D view, the map orientation to follow route, bla bla bla and, “how nice!” settings aren’t saved when you exit! Could they be so crazy while testing for months, to reenter the settings every time launching the application? Thousands times?

The best is yet to come!

After a while I’ve received a message from the Nokia Maps 3 on the phone asking me to allow a connection to the Internet because the license on my phone was “incompatible”….. “nice guys, are you giving me back the spoiled license?”

NOPE!!!

Another message was shown, something like “No data found”….. and it all ended in a nice phone crash! I had to pull out the battery from the phone to recover!

What else can we say?

Post updates

I don’t know how, but lately I could get Maps 3 to connect to the Internet and get a new license (read: buy); The only change occurred in the meanwhile was the firmware update, from 20.050 to 30.033.
However I still can’t use properly the software because as soon as I star searching an address, the program quits with no warning or messages. Unusable.
I’m currently in contact with Nokia’s support, hoping to get it work as soon as possible.

More updates

Incredible but true, Nokia’s Customer Care couldn’t get my Maps to work. Nokia’s support seems to be a Call center where operators are instructed to tell customers to “try to unplug the battery”.
Only hard resetting the phone and reinstalling all the data that was on it including Maps 3, helped to solve the address search crash.

The software now isn’t bullet proof at all, there are still some unwanted phone resets while in maps 3, but at least it is usable.

Once started using the software, I have sadly discovered that Safety Spots (speed cams) warnings do not work if you don’t add an extra Traffic License to it. That’s too bad, because what you pay for this software is not exactly what you get.

Integration with other software is flaky: while running under Carmenu control the programs doesn’t accept commands issued by the remote control of the Car Kit; neither it will forward music player buttons commands if running in the background (without Carmenu running), in a way you will need to switch from Maps to the Music Player quite often to get them through; strange because the music player buttons (available on certain phones like the N96) are correctly lit, like if they are available for user input.

Safety spot warnings will work only when driving in one direction, not both. While this is reasonable on motorways, it’s not on small streets, where a speedcam can trap a car exceeding speed limit in both directions.

I will keep updated a sort of buglist/requests hoping Nokia will read and think seriously about it:

Bugs
- Save all settings on exit, including map mode, 2D/3D and orientation
- Speed limit warner: signs aren’t displayed correctly when set to “On, only visual warning”
- Safety spot warner: speed cams are detected only when driving in one direction. In user settings make possible to choose to give alerts in both directions
- Audio alerts often don’t play at all, and if it does, it is clipped.

Features request
- Allow better integration if not running under Carmenu, while the Music Player is in the background, forwarding to it player-enabled buttons commands (next/prev, stop, play)
- Customizable audio alarms

More to come