One of the cool features of the Nokia N79 and the N85 is a new feature that will automatically poll Nokia’s servers to check for a new firmware update. You can schedule this application to check for a new firmware over any access point, and using different intervals – every week, every other week, or once a month. This is handy, and with the N79 NAM expecting a firmware update, I was happy to test it.
While the application works, it only worked halfway, really. Due to my impatience, I actually opened the application and told it to manually check for a firmware update now, so I can’t really say how well it automatically polls. After a few moments, the application happily alerted me that, indeed, a new firmware update was available. Sweet, and I started looking for the ‘Would you like to download and apply this update now?’ prompt. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found. The phone merely suggested that I hook it up to my computer and run Nokia’s NSU application. What?
What good is it if the software update doesn’t give me the option to download and apply the new firmware right from the phone? Seems like yet another wasted opportunity to create a really cool user experience, to me. I also find it rather limiting that I can only set this thing to automatically check – there’s no push option. I’m not sure of what the technical possibilities are, but it would be far better if Nokia could somehow push a small message to devices when a firmware update is available. This goes back to the possibilities that would be opened up if I could tell my device that I have an unlimited data package.
In any case, I’ve successfully updated the firmware on my Nokia N79, and was relieved to see that, thanks to UDP (User Data Preservation), it was a smooth experience. Nokia’s learning, that’s for sure.
