Direct quote from a fascinating interview with Nokia’s VP of Nseries Computers in their multimedia division, Pekka Pohjakallio:
"From now on, all the Nseries will have Wi-Fi," says Pohjahkallio. "We
believe more and more that when the internet is about participation,
the creation tools we have on these devices fit into people’s desire to
participate in Web 2.0 applications, as well as get at their email and
browsing wherever they are. And Wi-Fi seems to be cheaper in many
places than normal data calls. And of course it is also a tool for home
integration, as there are lots of devices that you can connect to
Wi-Fi."
I’ve had an N80, and I loved it. However, one of the many over-hyped features of that particular phone was the Wi-Fi. Now, this was my first non-PC device to have Wi-Fi, so perhaps my expectations were a bit high, but I personally just didn’t find Wi-Fi all that handy to have in my phone. There are a few things I expect to be able to do with Wi-Fi on my
phone. They are things that you can easily and readily do with Wi-Fi on
your PC, and I don’t think it’s too big of a request to be able to
accomplish them on your mobile.
The first is obviously internet, and FAST internet. The second then is being able to connect to my home network and browse shared folders. The third and final (for this article, anyways) thing I feel I should be able to do with a Wi-Fi enabled device is streaming media, TO AND FROM the device.
The first of these was accomplished halfway by my N80. It was internet, and it worked for any application that I could use EDGE with. However, I personally found that EDGE was often quicker than the WiFi connection. I ran speed tests using the exact same device, from a fresh power-cycle, sitting in the exact same place and pulling up the exact same page, and it was way faster, visually, for the EDGE connection than the Wi-Fi.
Secondly, file sharing. This is actually one arena in which Nokia’s S60 devices have never truly excelled at. Sony-Ericsson devices, even the non-smartphone ones, have always had Bluetooth File Browsing. I.e. if I’m using an SE say, T610, I could connect to any other Bluetooth-enabled phone and actually browse their folders. Now I would agree that this implementation could use a bit more security, but the core function is still there. I should be able to do the same if I have a wireless network setup at home, to be able to browse those folders and pull up any media on my Wi-Fi enabled device.
The third function, media streaming, in my experience, has NEVER been mastered, by anyone. I’ve had several S60 devices, all of which, of course, come with RealPlayer installed, and advertised as streaming audio/video over RealPlayer. Never once have I gotten this to work properly without at least having to tinker with the settings more than any normal consumer would tolerate. With my N80, it came with a "handy" software called ConnectedHome (or something similar to this). From what I could understand, it was supposed to take over the position as Media Player/Organizer on my PC (yeah right) and facilitate streaming with my N80. However, you couldn’t stream music TO the phone, nor could you stream from the phone TO the PC. You could merely use the phone to CONTROL the music playing out of the PC’s speakers. To me, that’s useless. There’s already at least three other options for that.
Thus, I’m glad to hear that Nokia is committed to offering WiFi as an integral part of their future plans. However, until the basic uses for Wi-Fi (as understood by Joe Consumer) are implemented, it will still be grossly under-used, and therefore, under-appreciated by the majority of users.
