One of the smaller announcements made in conjunction with the Nokia N79 and N85 was that of a new application, dubbed ‘Nokia LifeviNe’ (we’re not sure why the N is capitalized). From the information and screenshots we were given at the launch, it looked like just a prettier, finally renamed version of Nokia SportsTracker. While the application is not actually available (why announce it, then? It’s an app, for pete’s sake), Ms. Jen, who we’ve linked to before, but has now apparently joined on to contribute at DarlaMack.com, has been given the unique opportunity to test drive the new application.
Also, apparently due to some licensing issues, it’s been renamed to just NokiaviNe, so, er, yeah. You can check out plenty of screenshots and thoughts from Ms. Jen over at Darla’s site. If you don’t recall, Ms. Jen was one of the Urbanistas, bloggers whom Nokia sent around the world, armed with an N82 (they actually each had 3-4 devices) loaded up with Nokia SportsTracker, to track their travels and snap pictures and whatnot along the way. Brilliant campaign, since the Nokia N82’s tagline was ’storytelling rediscovered.’
However, the more I’ve been thinking about this LifeviNe NokiaviNe application, the more I don’t see the point at all. To be clear, I understand what it does: you’re supposed to run it on your phone constantly, and it tracks the path you walk/drive/run/fly/etc. and tags any media (photos, audio clips, videos) with the geographic coordinates using GPS. That way, at the end of your trip, you have a visual trail that you can look back through, etc.
While the application use scenario makes sense for workouts, training, and the like, I can’t see the benefit if I’m traveling. If I’m traveling, I’m likely mobile, right? Obviously. Like, COMPLETELY mobile, relying heavily on my phone for pretty much everything. That means that my battery power becomes an incredibly valuable commodity. It’s different than when I’m out to run errands at home, where I know I’m going to be back near a power source, and for extended periods of time. So….in order to use this application, I’m expected to sacrifice my precious battery life to have an application constantly running in the background that’s constantly using my phone’s GPS receiver, which in turn uses data (cause who doesn’t have A-GPS turned on?), as well as taking my usual amount of photos and videos and whatnot. Right…
My next question, then, is what benefit does this give me? I have a trail that I can post somewhere so that others can see exactly where I walked, where I took my photos, where I caught that hilarious video clip, and even what music I was listening to at the time. How is that a benefit to me? As Ms. Jen points out, I’m not even uploading this to my own server or anything – I’m uploading it to Nokia’s server. Given that I can use Location Tagger, or on most newer Nseries, the built-in geotagging function to tag my photos, which I can then upload to Flickr or Share on Ovi, where I have control, I’m not sure I follow the benefits of LifeviNe NokiaviNe.
Am I off my rocker here, or have you been thinking the same thing? Why, when I’m completely mobile and reliant upon my phone, would I voluntarily sacrifice precious battery power for something that’s only going to benefit a few other people, when I can accomplish mostly the same goal with significantly less battery? More importantly, is it accurate to say that having LifeviNe NokiaviNe running in the background uses more power than running Location Tagger or the geotagging feature?
Hopefully that’s one thing that Ms. Jen can take a look at in her testing.
