Linux, Calligraphy, and a serious case of Déjà Vu

By Morten Grauballe
EVP, Platforms and Ecosystem
Red Bend Software

When I lived in Japan in the late 1980s, I had a very enjoyable flirtation with calligraphy. Although I never got beyond the early lessons of drawing bamboo, I did learn the basic Zen principle of “form is void and void is form.” It basically brings forward the simple notion that objects are defined by the space between them and that space is defined by the objects around them. This notion is brought to its forefront in the “Enso,” or Zen circle. The Enso itself is a universal symbol of wholeness and completion, and the cyclical nature of existence.

I mention this here, because I recently had a strong sense of déjà vu taking me back to the 1990s. It was one of those moments which seemed to tie a current event to early steps in my career. At the time, I was working at Symbian and a fierce debate was raging within Symbian for and against two box solutions (i.e. phone and PDA) versus one box solution (i.e. an integrated Smartphone). While 10 years later it seems obvious that the Smartphone would win, it was not necessarily so back then. Remember these were the days of the Palm Pilot.

My flashback started in a cab going to a meeting near Tel Aviv last week. Taking advantage of the low dollar exchange rate, my colleague from the US had brought me Nokia’s Linux-based N810. She handed it to me 5 minutes before getting into the cab. Unable to control my curiosity, I had to power up the device while we were en route. It had a truly stunning display, boot time seemed reasonable, and the UI behaved more or less as I would expect. It soon became clear from the mapping application and the car mount accessory that the device had been designed with navigation in mind. I also managed to pair it over Bluetooth to my trusty E65. I was starting to fall in love. Together with a sleek HSPDA feature phone from Sony Ericsson, this might be it….maybe the two-box solution would work after all.

To test the substance, and not just the looks, I launched the mapping application which, true to its origin of purchase, asked me to choose between a map of Canada and a map of the US. With my Canadian colleague in the back, I managed to pinpoint his house down to the street – not bad, not bad at all!

Once we arrived at our meeting I managed to connect it to the local hotspot. To test whether the two-box solution would work in my native Denmark, I started to download the 176MB map of Scandinavia. As we got through the first couple of items on the agenda, the device finished downloading and was sitting on the table waiting for me to test it. It was a struggle to keep my hands off the device.

Then it started to happen….a strong reversal of fortune. We had a break in the meeting and I immediately tapped on the map icon. Instead of giving me a choice of maps, the mapping application kept crashing. The screen would go white as if the mapping application was launching, but then it would disappear and the desktop would reappear. I tried a reboot. It did not help. I pulled out the battery. It did not help. It soon became apparent that the map of Scandinavia somehow made the mapping application fall over. Not good, not good at all.

At this stage, I better admit the real reason why I had asked my colleague to purchase the N810 in the first place. It was not really to satisfy my own fascination with mobile gadgets – although I had lost track of that in the first exciting hours of my encounter with the N810. The real reason was more business in nature. During a meeting in Redwood City, Calif., Ram Fish, TrollTech’s General Manager for Digital Home Products, had challenged me and my colleague, Guy Agin, to compare our implementation of vRapid Mobile, our software management application, with the implementation of the Debian Package Manager on the N810. I decided to order the device right away. This was the real reason I was now franticly tapping away on the mapping application icon.

While a crashing map application was not good from a usability point of view, it was the perfect opportunity for me to test the software management capabilities of the N810. As mentioned, the application management application is based on the Debian Package Manager which in turn is based on APT, all open source:

“The Advanced packaging tool, or APT, is a user interface that works with core libraries to handle the sometimes difficult process of installing software on Linux. APT simplifies the process of managing software on Unix-like computer systems by automating the retrieval, configuration and installation of software packages.” (www.wikipedia.com)

I powered up the application manager. As I clicked on “Check for updates”, I was relieved to see an update to the mapping application. Eureka…someone had realized the problem and issued a fix. I clicked on the icon and the device displayed the message “retrieving update” and then it happened again. The device let me down. Instead of “installing update,” I got the following message:

“Unable to Install Map Update - incorrect source. Please contact the publisher of this application”

The Debian Package Manager was clearly present, but someone somewhere was not providing the right updates for my device.

Luckily, I was already aware of the possibility to update the firmware with the provided USB cable. If I could not use the application manager to fix my problem, I would perform a complete reflash. That should do the trick!

Off I went to my usual Nokia software update site, http://europe.nokia.com/softwareupdate. I typed in the software version and the code identifying my device. I tried three times and every time I got the same answer: “Code not recognized.” Hmm, very strange.

When in doubt, launch Goggle! So I did and typed in “N810 software update.” I did get a Nokia site, but https://www.nokiausa.com/A4686323. In hindsight, it is obvious I should have gone to the US site instead of the European site, but when you are dealing with software management usability is everything. Consumers just want it to work. One button press on the device to get the right software - that would be the perfect experience.

I managed to find the link to the latest update and was also happy to see that the software updater on my PC for the E65 was working with the N810 as well. The update went well, although I am still amazed that Nokia prefers to issue the user a warning dialog around the removal of the battery instead of having a fail-safe mechanism that can track and recover the reflashing process. Being one minor mistake away from bricking your device is not a comfortable position to be in.

Getting excited to finally test the mapping application, I powered on the device once more and tapped on the mapping icon. The screen went white and up popped a dialog: “Cannot install – no memory card available.” I ripped the packaging apart to find a memory card, but there was none there. This is when it dawned on me that the new firmware had actually been designed for the N810 WiMAX edition which presumably comes with a memory card. The Maemo team had decided to make the software version, called OS2008, available for the N810 as well. No one had however been testing backwards compatibility of the mapping application.

This was the exact point where I was brought back to my early Symbian days. It was abundantly clear that I was caught in the cyclical nature of existence. Back then, we were trying to ship EPOC (original name for Symbian OS) release 5 for the Psion 5. This is over 10 years ago, but I still remember how excited I was about the touch screen, the responsiveness, and the applications on the device. I also remember the grueling process of having an entire contact database deleted due to a defect. I remember the reflashing process, when a new version came out. I remember applications not working due to compatibility issues…..another reflash!

The N810 was bringing out the exact same feeling of excitement combined with the incredible disappointment of things not working. 10 years had passed in the mobile industry and very little had changed in terms of the software experience.
Reflecting further on this, it is interesting to observe that we actually have completely new technologies to help us, like the Debian Package Manager, but the cause of the problem is clearly not technology. It is in fact in the business processes that surround the technology.

I am sure that the Scandinavian maps were working when Wayfinder was testing them in their labs in Sweden. I know that I was a happy user of Wayfinder back in the days when I had a SonyEricsson P800. Somewhere between Nokia and Wayfinder, the configuration of the software (or maybe hardware) was changed and we ended up with a defect no one had managed to identify. It took me less than half a day to find it.
I am also sure the right update for the map applications exists somewhere. This is not a technical problem. For some reason, the wrong update was uploaded to the server. I am not sure whether the Maemo team got the wrong update or whether someone uploaded it incorrectly to the server. The end-result was an unhappy user.

Finally, I am sure the Maemo team had good intentions when they decided to make OS2008 available for my device. I am also sure they tested the software on the N810. For some reason, the mapping application was not tested properly. Probably because it was not part of the firmware, but rather an add-on application residing on a separate drive.

Just like “form is void and void is form” in Zen philosophy, end-user experience of technology is defined by the business processes that surround it and the business processes are in turn defined by the technology. As my experience shows, the artists of the mobile industry are so focused on the object that they forget the spaces between the objects. We therefore end up with mobile devices that can best be described as almost completely black canvasses where you have to look very hard to identify the bamboo in the picture.

From an end-user experience perspective, it does not make sense to distinguish between software in the firmware and software in the R/W file system. For the consumer, a software application is a software application. They do not care about the drive it is residing on, or whether it was supplied by Nokia or WayFinder, or which installation and management technology is being used to get it to the device. In the eyes of the consumer, each application (or software component) should be managed in the same way, tested the same way, and updated the same way, irrespective of the underlying technology being used.

We have all the technology elements to make mobile software management a treat for the customer – now, let’s leave plenty of space for the business processes and make sure we have an experience that delights the customer.