If there’s one thing that the iPhone brought to spotlight to Nokia S60 users like me is the pain behind the access points. Even if you have unlimited data plans you will suffer. I read last week about a tool that helps prioritize the access points, but I think this is such a basic issue for a “Internet Connected” device that should be ways to allow this specific profile to have a nicer experience.

The problem: There’s no consistency, no prioritization and no smart ranking on the access points usage in s60 today (at least I am using a e71, don’t know if this has been solved in the S60 fp2)

How: The phone seems to remember (not in all applications) all the defined access points.

Example: If I try to upload one of my photos to flickr this is what I get:

Sharing online access point choose dialog

It shows in chronological order the last access points I have “set”. The problem is: it stores even access points that I never managed to use (like failed connections all time)

How should it be: At least not remembering failed connections would be quite nice, but not a HUGE problem like the post title says. The bad thing comes after, if by accident you choose a failed access point, that the signal is not present, you will get a nice and beautiful :
“Network Error 30180-”
Bug happens, I have no problem with that, specially being responsible for some software. The problem here is that such a important use case doesn’t end well.

Solution: Just present the user again with the select the access point screen, saying that the connection didn’t work. Also not presenting an access point if the signal is not present would be quite nice and I believe specially simple to do, if user’s wifi is turned on.

This is the most common problem across the interface, but if you try other apps, you will find the inconsistency:

Opening the browser

Please observe that now you have an option “Search for Wlan” that makes total sense, since your phone is a Wifi device. If you go back to the other screenshot, where I am trying to post an image to the web you will see that it doesn’t have the seach for wifi. And there’s wifi signals on the place. even ones already configured!

Ok, as a “unlimited” internet data plan user, I will define a default access point:

Defining a default access point

Ok, so for the next 2 hours I will be in the airport lobby, I have an wifi account. Done, now my “Vex” access point is there, and I access the internet whenever I want without needing to confirm anything. Then I fly out of the wifi coverage. Try to connect, what should happen I ask you? An error of course. But after that? Well I should get a dialog, “please select another access point” no. Not in Nokia phones. It’s your problem if you didn’t want to be warned and defined a default access point. Go there in the settings. press softkey (to bring the menu you need to press it twice) then 8 times “down” until reach the “settings”, it will open … a settings… MENU! Then click again on “General” and you get to the access point option. Click and select a new default, or put it again on “always ask”.

the define an access point screen

Of course, after a small observation, you see that someone thought about it:
Theres a faster option: You can bring the menu (twice the softkey) then go down until you reach the option “Tools” and inside it you have as the second option: “Change connection”. This is faster and it will bring you another dialog :

The

Please, bare in mind one thing:
- The user has gone through a more than 5 steps to reach an option called: Change connection. Because? He wanted to change it’s connection. So when he reaches the “decision” point, what’s more important? to tell now what he is doing, and he knows that because it’s not an obvious decision… or to actually show what he is looking for: new available access points (and if possible: valid ones?)

No, somebody decided that half of the dialog should be eaten by the title telling the user what he is doing. Come on, if an GUI is going to treat the user as a dumb one, be consistent, but if the GUI is making the life of the user already a hell at least make it as straightforward hell as possible. If you still want to treat a S60 user as a dumb one, at least show that message just the first time.

Anyhow, so I continued to wonder: How can I just use the device, with unlimited connection and when there’s wifi available it presents me the option while connecting to actually change to the wifi one? Why do I have to set “default” access points for several web services (like the simple posting to web ones) even when I don’t need to do so? Why can I have a centralized settings for that, and an unified UI guideline to present the SAME dialog all over?

No, if you try watching a streaming video the pops the Real player (that comes pre-installed!) you will face the same:

Real Player settings menu

First the menu is called “Network” and not “General”

Real player settings, Network

Where I cannot choose “always ask” like in the previous one, and where I NEED to define an access point or it will just not work. Nice.

Conclusion:
This is one of a series of post I want to make to show what I was trying to explaing in the Nokia Tube comments: The problem is not with Symbian itself. The problem is not saying that S60 software is this or that, worse than this or that. The point is really the lack of an unified experience. The lack of respect for the user decisions or even the lack of options for the real internet user.

This makes the Nokia devices much less compeling when using the internet than the rival iphone. Why? Not that the iphone doesn’t have errors and problems in that matter, but they started with something that gave them the advantage over Nokia (that built on top of the past, when data plans were expensive) :

- The assumption is that the user has unlimited data. So he doesn’t need to set up or choose anything to browse.

this is so powerful. And gives the chance to the whole iPhone chain of use to use the simple pattern:

Try to connect… is there available wifi arounds? If yes, present then. if not… gracefully goes to the Edge / 3G connection.

It almost happens in the S60 when you use the “Search for Wlan” option on the homescreen, but then dies there, as each other application will ask for connection, and probably in different ways.

Solution? It’s quite simple(ha! it never is, but theres one and it’s doable,at least if you think of symbian as a powerful flexible OS) and makes one understand what’s the difference between the old style phones and the new phones, for the internet-savvy user:

There’s at least one solid connection. Use it. Then give options.