Nokia takes alot of heat for its desktop apps, or sometimes, lack thereof. I know even I have been known to go off about this, and rightfully so. One of the biggest complaints that I hear about Nokia, in regards to desktop apps, is that they only seem to support Windows users. Now, since I *am* a Windows user (by default, really), this doesn’t particularly bother me. However, I’ve often wondered why there’s no Mac or Linux-compatible PC Suite. This rings even more true with the Nseries, which I personally perceive to be targeted more towards a consumer who’s likely using a Mac anyways, in terms of being a content creator.
Anyways, I saw recently that Adobe is porting its new AIR platform to Linux (it’s already available for Mac and Windows) and I couldn’t help but wonder why Nokia doesn’t use AIR as a development platform for its PC Suite and other desktop applications? Now, here’s the disclaimer, I couldn’t program myself out of a wet brown paper bag, so I’m not really sure if this is even something realistic, but from the few AIR apps that I’ve played with, it seems as though it’d work fine.
There are also a few things extra that Nokia would need to do. The first is to remove the dependency of Microsoft Outlook. Please know, I don’t have anything really against Outlook. In fact, I use it for both of my jobs (other than being the Guru), and have used it in nearly every other job I’ve ever owned. However, it would be really awesome if Nokia brought the contact/calendar management tools BACK into PC Suite. I’d love to be able to create Caller Groups in PC Suite on my laptop and THEN sync to my phone, so they’re all there.
It also seems as though AIR applications need less than half of the CPU and RAM resources that the current PC Suite – vanilla or Nseries – uses on my computer. There’s no arguing that less resources being needed is a good thing. That’s always a good thing.
What do you think? Would using AIR for Nokia’s PC Suite (and any other desktop applications, especially Nokia Software Updater) solve the problem, or do you think the platform can handle it? Do you have any other suggestions?
