Nokia Talks, N95-3 Firmware Update Coming In June
**Update** 5-26-08 The N95-3 team got things in gear and released the firmware a bit early. Here’s the link: http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2008/05/ultra-hot-n95-3-firmware-v202011-available.html
Wow, all I can say about this is *FINALLY*. Through this thread on HowardForums, I was linked to a statement by Vandelay, an administrator on the official Nokia Discussion Boards. Vandelay states that he received an official word from the Nokia Software Update team as follows:
Nokia N95 US version (also known as N95-3)
Nokia is aware of consumers’ demand for a new software release, and our development teams are working to produce the new software as soon as possible. We estimate that the new software should be available early June.Please note that your mobile service provider, operator, or carrier may not have approved the latest Nokia device firmware available. Nokia produces many different variants of each product (for different countries and languages) and not all variants will have the latest Nokia device firmware. It is our priority to update all variants as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any delay.
So, looks like our firmware update should be here within the next 5 weeks (that covers through June 20th). There’s obviously no mention of what will be included in this update, but I’d bet we’ll finally see Flash Lite 3, Demand Paging, Web Runtime support, the whole shebang.
This is kind of bittersweet. It’s nice that Nokia is *finally* fessing up and communicating about this situation, but seriously, 5 weeks? It’s already disgustingly past due, and I’m betting this is the last update the N95-3 sees, sadly. I wonder if we’ll also get UDP (User Data Preservation) and built-in Geotagging? Time will tell.
Bittersweet is a nice way of putting it. Yes, it’s nice to see Nokia speaking up and taking responsibility for leaving the N95-3 out in the cold but notwithstanding the 5 week timetable, I am still left wondering how Nokia will treat the next phone I buy. Will they release 4 variants of that one and update 3 of them? Which one will be the stepchild? Nokia needs to come up with a better way of handling these upgrades in the future. As ive said before, I dont think I am owed upgrades, I bought the phone for what it did, not what it didnt, however, if Nokia is going to release 4 iterations of the same phone and is going to offer an upgrade to one of them, they should do em all.. and not months apart either.
Oh please, stop whining already..
5 weeks is nothing in software development and testing terms. And its not like (AFAIK) the original firmware is THAT bad.
@Viipottaja
You can’t tell me 8 second camera load times is something that should be acceptable.
Holy crap! Thought this would never happen…
Al,
I don’t have first hand experience, but I assume the firmware was nontheless ok compared to the original N95-1 firmware.
mixrdrivr,
I’ll give you a tip: by the variation that has sold millions upon millions, not the one that has sold probably a couple to a few hundred thousand units. And voila, you can enjoy frequent updates. Even better if you live in a country where people by high end phones on a business as usual basis.
Now the question is, “Will ATT thoroughly fuck this one up like they did with the updated N75 firmware?” You’re probably better off sticking with the euro version if you care at all about active standby.
Mr Gunn - There’s nothing here to indicate that this firmware will be branded at all. Nokia’s not stupid enough to use NSU to apply carrier branding to a bunch of unbranded phones.
AFAIK, N95-3 is not an AT&T phone so how would they fuck it up?
Finally!!! At least now I have something to look forward to. N-Gage should finally work on my phone properly, and the camera should load much faster. Should we also look forward to improved battery life? Ricky, there’s no reason to include UDP if we’re unlikely to ever see another firmware update. If we DO get UDP then that is a good sign.
This firmware update is great news, I agree.
But: What about Nokia’s horrendous FIRMWARE UPDATE PROCESS? It’s PC-only, clunky and confusing as hell, and risky — it bricked my brand-new N95-3 last month.
With this forthcoming update, lots of N95-3 users will be running that ugly firmware update process. It would be nice if Nokia could tell us whether — and when — they’ll work on making that less of an ordeal (and Mac-friendly, too). After all, their main US competitor (Apple) doesn’t force those kinds of obstacles upon its customers.
Also, it would be nice if Nokia could start shipping newly purchased phones with up-to-date software. Right now, as far as I’ve been able to determine, all N95-3s are shipping with firmware that isn’t even the latest version *currently* available.
I’ve asked Nokia about these issues in my comment to their blog today. We’ll see what they have to say.
On the bright side, at least Nokia is updating its N95-3 firmware. And at least they’re publicly talking with consumers about their myriad US service problems.
If you have concerns about Nokia’s US service, I suggest you chime in on the comments to service-related posts on Nokia’s blog. I just posted a roundup of that conversation so far (blog post, video).
- Amy Gahran
Amy - I have to respectfully disagree with you on the firmware update process. I’ve used it to update countless handsets and never had an issue. I don’t see how it’s confusing at all. There’s never more than 2 buttons on the screen, one of which is always ‘cancel’ or ‘exit’.
Ok, here’s what I found confusing about it:
1) It was difficult getting the updating software installed on a Win XP laptop. I don’t know why, but it took 3 tries for that to happen in my case.
2) It was difficult getting the update software to “see” my N95 once it was connected to the laptop running the update software
3) It took over an hour to complete the update process, with no visual indication of how far in the process the update was. I was concerned that perhaps the process had frozen, it seemed like a *very* long time. But eventually the update process finished.
4) After the update process finished, I didn’t receive a message that it was OK to disconnect my phone from the laptop, so I was nervous doing that.
…And after all that, the update bricked my phone.
I don’t know how representative that experience is, but I’m not the only person who’s been baffled , frustrated, and worried during this process.
YMMV, of course.
- Amy Gahran
Good news about the update, even though I have an N95-1.
Regardless of update or no update, is there word of when Vista is to be supported again by the Software Update program?
Amy - Something’s DEFINITELY wrong with something on your end. When I plug my phone in, it’s quickly detected (USB in PC Suite mode, remember), and the software takes ~1 minute to tell me if there’s an update available. From there, I get a little blue progress bar stating that it’s downloading the firmware, with a total downloaded and total end size count. Once I click the ’start’ button, it shows a moving progress bar that looks alot like the red and white barber’s pole from ‘old times’, so that I know something’s happening. When it’s over, my phone reboots and there’s a final confirmation saying ‘your phone has been updated successfully. It’s now safe to disconnect’.
I’d make a video, but obviously I don’t really have a way to do that, lol. Honestly, you might want to uninstall it and start over if you’re not getting that experience. Something must’ve gone funky with your install.
I have to agree with Ricky here, Amy. I can add that it took about 8 minutes to freshly update my N95 8GB which incuded downloading the 100mb+ update and then actually updating the phone. There’s something wrong with your computer as I’ve never had problems like yours on XP nor Vista.
Ricky can you provide a bit of assistance to me ? I am going to buy an N95 8GB BUT im worried that the 8GB internal memory will slow down the phone and make it sluggish. Is it so ? is it also with the N81 8GB ???
Hi, Ricky
Yes, It’s possible that something went unusually wrong with my firmware update process. But the thing is, I followed Nokia’s instructions *exactly* and I still had that experience. And after it was done, my phone was bricked, so there was no way I could try it again.
I’m not the only N95 user who’s experienced difficulty or severe problems with the firmware update process. I’m not the only person who has not found it to be intuitive. I’m also not a PC user — but I’m also not a techno-newbie by any means. I have updated firmware on many other devices, and it’s never been such a hassle as it was for the N95.
So I know for a fact, from my experience, is that for me it was a very time-consuming, clunky, and worrisome process that ultimately ended in failure. And this was using Nokia’s firmware updater, on an XP laptop, following Nokia’s instructions exactly. I can’t speak for other people’s experience, except to say that I’m far from the only person who’s had this trouble.
I will say I described to the Nokia support rep how the firmware update process went and he did not indicate to me that I’d done anything wrong, or that it was an unusual experience.
After the phone bricked and I spoke to Nokia, I learned it was possible I might not get it back from them before my refund window from Amazon would have closed. That just seemed to foist too much risk onto me, so I gave up — returned everything. So I couldn’t troubleshoot the update process further.
- Amy Gahran
Amy, to me it sounds it could _also_ be Windows, not Nokia, that is to blame. Its not like Windows is known to be the most reliable and bug free thing on earth…
Viipottaja — Yep, it’s possible Windows could be to blame. Yet another reason for a Mac-friendly update process.
That said, the Nokia rep did ask me to describe how my firmware update process went, and did not indicate that anything about it was unusual. In fact, I got the impression from him that problems with that process are common.
So yes, it’s possible that my experience was unusually difficult. But at the time I did not get that impression from Nokia, or from the other N95 users I spoke to after the event. Nearly everyone I spoke to either strongly disliked Nokia’s update process, or experienced actual problems with it, or feared and avoided it altogether (and often accepted reduced options/functionality as a result).
Also, Nokia’s own reps mentioned that they’ve heard of bricking problems related to firmware updates, and some of those reps actively discourage users from doing the update except as a last resort. (My friend Beth Kanter recorded a Nokia rep telling her exactly that.)
I’m glad that others here have not experienced Nokia’s update process as a problem. But there are others who have been having a very different experience. Something is definitely amiss here — either in the process itself, or in communication and support about the update process.
- Amy Gahran
- Amy Gahran
Amy, yep, the problem is that a Mac friendly update process would help.. err.. about 4% of people at best.
When you get these “impressions” from Nokia reps (it would be good if you were a bit more specific about what gave you that impression), why don’t you ask them straight on how common these kinds problems are and see what they tell you. Interesting experiment, although I wouldn’t expect them to give a straight answer.
This is great news, a little late but I was starting to think we might not get an update at all.
Amy, I think you have a few good points - Nokia’s update process is nowhere near as straightforward as the one for say, the iPhone, but like the other commenters here I haven’t personally experienced any problem when upgrading.
In regards to your comments on Mac support, all the software features (Message center, Nokia music center, Sync) work fine using VMware on my Mac. Not the perfect solution, but it works. I haven’t tried a firmware update yet but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work.
@Amy I think that all of the red N95-3 phones came with the latest firmare (mine definitely did).
I’d agree that newly manufactured phones should ship to vendors with the latest firmware. However, if those vendors sell phones that they have in stock after Nokia issues a firmware update I’m not sure Nokia can be held responsible (unless, of course, Nokia itself was the direct vendor).
the new firmware is out now.just updated mine
v20.2.011
Hello, just so you know, the newest version of the n95-3 firmware has just been released. The version number is 20.2.011
I just updated my firmware from v11 to v20 , and I got really great features but really bad ones too. The phone shut down and turn on is faster, but when I open apps the get really slow.Also the Yellowpages search engine is not longer avialable.But Now I have New Apps In my Phone
Firmware was released May 26, 2008! V20.2.011
I love my Nokia N95 and with or without firmware updates, it does whatever it does really well.
Having lived in three continents (Asia, Europe and North America), my personal view as to the problem with firmware upgrades is that many parties are at fault. Nokia is certainly guilty of not managing / communicating the firmware releases better.
That said, I place most of the blame on the screwed up USA telecoms industry (of which the regulators have a huge blame). It is a dumb system where different operators are on different types of networks / standards and phones from one operator cannot be used in another (this has nothing to do with unlocking). And instead of following the GSM standards set by the rest of the world, US, as per past tradition (e.g. adoption of metric system), insists on going her own way such that even GSM phones designed for European networks work suboptimally here (e.g. different high-speed data access). So, not only is the US internally conflicted, it chooses to be in conflict with the rest of the world (sounds familiar?).
So while I am angry with Nokia sometimes, I can see why they would spend most of their effort on the largest base of users rather than pandering to the warped US market.
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