My reminders look like this: Michael’s birthday in three days and Time to leave for dentist appt. They’re entered in a calendar app. They’re triggered when I arrive at a particular date or time.
But what about when I arrive at a particular place?
Since I have GPS in my Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, why can’t I get reminders that look like this? — About to pass Home Depot. Need to get electrical tape.*
Or: One block from dry cleaners. Pick up Jill’s sweater.
Come on now. We have a full-fledged computer system at our beck and call. Call Jim as soon as you get back from lunch should only activate when I return to work in the lunch timeframe and Pick up milk at grocery only when I’m passing the deli in the evening, on my way home.
You know, that GPS in the N810 has got to have way more use than we’re making of it.
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* This isn’t a new idea. More than two years ago, I wrote a post about Geominder, an app that runs on Series 60 phones.
ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc., formerly PalmSource, Inc. has just released Garnet VM Beta for the Nokia Internet Tablet. This virtual machine software lets you run the full Palm OS Garnet on any model of Nokia Internet Tablet (770, N800, N810), giving you full PIM functionality as well as let you install more than 30,000 free and commercial Palm OS applications.
I have just installed the software on the N810. The emulator runs at the middle of the screen at a 320 x 480. Graffiti works well, the keyboard on the N810 works perfectly, and the sound works as well (note that sound does not work on the 770). It seems like it even has an option to wireless HotSync to your PC as well. There is no option yet to rotate it and stretch it horizontally on the tablet which is my primary request as of the moment. Update: There is an option to rotate the screen by unchecking the Fullscreen option, but it just displays the Palm window horizontally at the same resolution. I hope someone finds a way to stretch the desktop area.
As a long time Palm OS enthusiast, I have been longing for PIM apps on the Internet Tablet and never expected this(!), and I am ecstatic! I have setup a new Palm OS forum so IT users and Palm OS users/developers can chat and mingle.
Time to dig up my registered Palm OS app serial numbers…
OK, I know it sounds early, considering that I haven’t yet installed or used IT 2006, the new OS for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. I don’t know what it really does or doesn’t do well. But I’ve already started forming my wish list for the next OS release.
My two biggest frustrations with the 770 are fairly personal and one of them is so personal as to be idiosyncratic. But they both deal with the unrealized potential of the 770 for note-taking and organization.
Btw, I don’t want the 770 to be a PIM replacement, though clearly lots of other folk do. Phone numbers, addresses, alarm reminders — I’m happy enough with those functions in my cell phone.
But note taking is a whole ‘nother category.
No one believes tapping into Notes or an editor like AbiWord is fast enough to make notes while you’re thinking or in a meeting. And don’t even mention BT keyboards — I do my best thinking on the twenty-minute walk between work and the train station.
I’ve been exploring use of the GTD system propounded by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, and despite my highly electronified state, I’m heavily dependent on scribbling things on 3×5 cards. No other way to get so much information down quickly enough.
But I can’t use the handwriting recognition engine in the Nokia 770 because it just doesn’t work. (”Adequate” is a failing grade here.)
The screen resolution of the 770 is 225 pixels per inch — about five times that of the UMPC and most laptops. It’s so high that it seems ideal for actually being able to decipher handwriting and translate scribbles into keystrokes.
I urge Nokia to license the PhatWare HWR engine used in Calligrapher and PenOffice and use it instead of their current feeble software. I really would use Notes then for just what it’s supposed to be, to jot down quick notes.
As for my other wish: Like others, I’m wanting more capability out of Opera. But in my case, giving me a complete desktop Opera 9.0 wouldn’t satisfy me.
That’s because I like to use a TiddlyWiki-based micro-content wiki called MonkeyGTD. (Jeremy Ruston wrote TW, and Simon Baird customized it to MonkeyGTD.) TW and its derivants are single-html-page wikis, whose “tiddlies” correspond to pages in a standard wiki and which typically are short entries rather than the full-blown kinds of things you want and expect from a full page. A TiddlyWiki is meant to be stored locally and is perfect for tracking lots of cross-linked notes. All the programming in TW is done in Javascript.
My problem is that Opera won’t save changes you make within it to an html file, even one stored locally. (A modification lets you do this through Java on a desktop machine with Opera.) So I’m ready for a different browser, and if Nokia doesn’t supply it, I’d like to be able to remove Opera and free up that space for a browser that can do what I need.
Being able to quickly make notes with a viable HWR application and to consult, add to and check off all the things I need to do in a small browser-based GTD application — these are how I’d like to make the 770 work for me. Can we get those in the next go-around, please?
Been thinking about what I’d like in the Nokia 770 that fits how I use it.
I guess I’d like a PDA-like thing — instead of just a listening capability, I wish I could record too, to make quick memos to myself. When I’m in transit, especially walking to the train, entering something in Notes can be more trouble than it’s worth.
We know there’s a microphone. I wonder what it would take to make an easy “press this to make a voice memo” application work on the 770? Or port — anything like this already on the Linux desktop?
Update: Well, I guess actually I can use my cell phone to record voice memos, and I carry it around everywhere as well. Am I the only one having trouble wrapping my mind around the notion that Nokia expects PIM functions to be handled in your phone and not the 770? I mean it makes sense, but I’m still not thinking that way . . .
Then the next day, he wrote about Airset, which he liked.
Are any of these suitable calendars for the Nokia 770? I mean, I can look at them, but I won’t be able to give any of them a good test. But some of you can. Let’s find out which of these if any work really well, and work really well on the 770.
Report back in your blog or the itT forums or as comments to this blog item, please. Thanks.
Update: Maybe I should just say “online calendars.” =DC=points to RSSCalendar as another candidate, though not Ajax. I say, whatever works, works.
Devesh Kothari of Nokia wrote on the developer list that codes for purchasing the Nokia 770 would be sent to U.S. developers starting today, November 7. Hooray!
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In the “non-developers/non-reviewers/real-world users” realm, several people have written that they have received the first consumer-obtained Nokia 770’s. Among others is this report from domibont at his blog, mobile analysis and development. Among other observations, he notes:
Screen resolution/sharpness is impressive and reacts very crisply to stylus input
Setting up is extremely easy, based on wizards (I was surfing the web literately within minutes)
Connection with series 60 is transparent: easy access to files, pictures, music, on smartphone which is presented as a choice next to 770 when opening files (however bluetooth is really to slow to access multimedia content on smartphone)
PC connectivity based on USB, again presenting the Nokia 770 as a transparent external memory device very much as a standard USB memory stick (what a relief compared to the notoriously capricious PC suite!)
Plus some photos have already arrived from a couple of those non-d/non-r/r-w users, Martyrmcr and twohe, which you can see in our gallery. Martyrmcr and Manu were the first to let us know they had received a non-d/non-r/r-w device, at “just before 12pm,” or 7:47 at our server’s time (don’t know where that is, actually. Reggie?).
We would love to see more photos and descriptions of anything that those “d” and “r” types forget to bring up.
The screen is really crisp and legible. They actually claim to have 225dpi.
I upgraded to the newer release, 42-9. Doing so require using a proprietary flasher program. That is a bit odd.
Opera, the default browser is quite fast, and works fine on the 800×480 screen….
Input with virtual keyboard is painful, even if you have prediction of what the user input, and input with character recognition works even less …
I still wonder why it does not come with a PIM by default. Even if it is an Internet Tablet, it should be able to replace a Palm for the PIM features, as one do not want to carry another device. I have installed GPE….
He concludes: “But my overall impression is good.”
In a newer post, he notes “scrolling is hard sometimes without using the stylus” and links to Jonathan Blandford’s comments about the 770:
Given that they owned the hardware, I’m really surprised they didn’t include a scrollwheel of some kind. It would have made browsing that much better. It’s a little on the slow side too. I’m hoping that later versions will have a better processor….
In the long run, I could see dropping the sidekick in favor of a bluetooth-enabled phone and a maemo. Right now, it’s perfect for doing crosswords, and reading the news at breakfast.
It’s small. Boy. None of the pictures on the Nokia website do it justice. It’s got that ‘wow factor’ that the original iPod had. If anything, I think it is sexier than a Nano. I’ll take it to work tomorrow and see what the general reaction is.
YES — the screen is incredible. It needs a bit more of a flexible zoom but it really does have the wow factor.
Converted an episode of the West Wing from my Tivo and uploaded it (quite slow, not full USB2 speeds). Very watchable!
Nothing quite describes the buzz you get when you load up the BBC website and connect to the live stream of Radio 1. Cool!!!
Haven’t installed Plucker but will be this evening. My favourite Palm app, so very happy to have it on the 770.
Whatever the Nokia 770’s primary usage turns out to be (I’m willing to be mistaken in my predictions), it’s clear that having traditional PDA/PIM functions — contact manager, calendar, to-do list — on the device will be reassuring to users.
