Several people around the internet received information from Nokia’s WOM World that the Nokia Email Beta would be updated today. Oddly enough, we at Symbian-Guru got no such notification. In any case, we figured we’d better wait to pass on the news until the update was actually available, which is today. The update supposedly brings support for new devices (such as the N82 and FP2 devices), as well as support for multiple mailboxes, which was one of the most often heard requests.
I say ‘supposedly’ because as of 12:48pm CDT (GMT -6:00), I and a handful of others on Jaiku and HowardForums are unable to get said update. Davis Fields, of the Nokia Email Beta team, chimed in on HoFo, letting us know that the update is being rolled out regionally across the world, and that everyone should be able to see said update by tomorrow morning (Saturday, October 11th). Great, thanks.
Some users are reporting that the phone client actually prompted them to download the update, while others were forced to login on the website and resend an installation SMS. I’ve done both, aiming to install on my Nokia E90, which was updated yesterday, and was sent a link to download the same version that’s been sitting on my N95-3 for the past month or so.
To the Nokia Email Team – it’s incredibly frustrating and user-UNfriendly to roll out an update gradually, to specific regions. It only serves to confuse users, who are now not sure exactly how they will be notified of said update, and wastes their time by causing them to investigate whether or not the update is available. Let’s hope that in the future, this practice is eliminated, as it only drives people *away* from the service, not towards.
While we’re on the topic, this installation SMS process is extremely unfriendly, as well. Why not eliminate the pre-setup portion and just offer a static download link, straight to the .SIS file? It’s frustrating for users to be able to ‘send’ a download link that may be instantaneous, or may take a few hours to arrive. If I’ve sent myself the SMS, it means that I have that specific time set aside for the installation and setup, and I may not have the time later on in the afternoon to deal with it.
If you’ve gotten the updated version, let us know where you’re located, so we can have an idea of what areas are covered yet. If you’re in the U.S., based on the past, it’s likely safe to assume that we’re towards the bottom of the list.
UPDATE: First off, it appears as though everyone is now seeing this new version, which is great. Also, I’ve been in touch personally with Davis Fields, who is heading this thing up, which is, again, great. It’s nice to see two-way communication on these new services. To be truthful, I’m a *huge* fan of this Nokia Email Beta. It’s much more visually friendly than the built-in nonsense, and I *really* love that I can set it to automatically download the entire message when using IMAP, rather than just the header.
