Through the Nokia Conversations site comes the news today that Nokia has finally noticed that the S60 calculator needs a facelift and an improvement in speed and usability. It took a software update to the iPhone to make them notice that the S60 Calculator hasn’t been touched since the beginning of the century, but well, as Machiavelli once said “the end justifies the means” so we won’t bother with the how/when/why/what as long as we get what we ask for.
As James mentions it, the guys over at Nokia decided to port the existing S40 Calculator to S60, instead of coding for a new one, since they noticed that the S40 calculator is fast and efficient. The application is now in Alpha Labs, meaning it’s sort of on the doorstep of Beta Labs, waiting to be pushed to the public and tested in real-time.
How does that S40 calculator function? Well as far as I remember from my very very old 6610 days, the * key worked as the function key, and pressing it repeatedly would insert the following + – / * functions. Correct me if I’m wrong. It isn’t as fast and intuitive as Calcium for example, oh how I wish they would work on something like that, but it also isn’t as slow as the current S60 Calculator.
Well, we should be grateful that they noticed it in the first place, now how ’bout lookin’ at dat Calendar application people? And while doing that, could you also drop a new line or two of code in the Messaging and the Contacts applications?
Anyway, what do you guys think? Do you believe that anything faster than the current S60 Calculator cuts it, or do you think that Calcium is still the way to go? What other applications would you like to see revisited, and what functionality would you like them to bring?
