Techy odds and ends

Nokia released a major update for the E72 handset in September 2010. The previous version was V31, so V40 and V50 weren't even released to the public. According to many online resources there are something like 450 bugfixes in V51. There are also some new features that some people would consider to be bugs, and curiously enough, some pieces of software appear to have been down graded between versions V31 and V51. V51 is currently available via Nokia Software Updater and as Firmware-over-the-air. There are various sources of information on the internet listing things that are supposed to have changed. What I'd like to do here is give you an idea of what the new firmware feels like, which is something you can't put on paper. Visually, very little has changed. To be honest, the only difference I've noticed is a smaller clock at the bottom of the screen. People who tend to use the keypad to select elements in the phone's menus will be pleased to hear that the '7...

What better way to kick off the New Year's blogs than with the announcement of a great firmware update from Nokia? This article could be subtitled "Give Credit Where Credit Is Due" because V40.0.005 does seem to be the result of a productive effort from Nokia's software development team. They have evidently been listening to customers' concerns because the timer-related bugs that were introduced in V30 and V31 are gone and new features that many people were demanding have been introduced. In short, it took them long enough but they got this one right in my opinion. Nokia considers changelogs to be confidential information, so you'll never find one except when it's leaked on unofficial sites, but bear in mind that they more than likely contain inaccuracies deliberately introduced by Nokia in order to identify the mole leaking them. The information here is therefore based solely on personal observation. There may be features I've overlooked because I nev...

This is an area where there's a huge amount of confusion. With any luck this article will clear a certain amount of it up. Broadly speaking, there are two types of each model of phone. It's actually far more complicated than that with regional variants, promotional offers etc., but let's keep it simple for the moment. On the one hand, you have the phone as it was originally designed by Nokia and containing Nokia's firmware. On the other hand you have phones that are distributed not directly by Nokia or their retailers but by mobile network operators. In the latter case, the firmware installed in these phones is modified by the network operator to include their logo, links to their services and a few custom features and settings. Occasionally, network operators will also deactivate features of the original phone that they don't want you using. AT&T come straight to mind with their paid-for voice dialling service − the phone already has such a feature built in but...