N95 Firmware update (v13, v20... whatever it's sup...

Question

Seriously don't hold your breath for too long... Nokia are truly awful at this, they treat the customers who buy their most expensive handsets with such apparent contempt it is nothing short of disgusting.
I bought an N93 which was quickly superceded and completely forgotten about. To this day it is riddled with bugs and problems, as well as lacking so many features which were added to later models of phone when there was no reason other than Nokia not providing an update or releasing the software as individual updates.
The N95 is not much different unfortunately. It is unstable and full of bugs, including frequent crashes, abysmal memory availability and management as well as annoying things like the the system ignoring key presses every so often. For all those people who don't experience any of this, lucky you! There are far too many people who do however...
I'm sure some bright spark will come on here and point out in some way how I'm wrong, that Nokia are too busy working on new phones, that we've had a firmware update or two already for the N95 or something else. The simple fact is that Nokia are marketing the N95 as a computer, even to the point of the having the advertising slogan "It's what computers have become" but in fact they are treating it like a throw away mobile phone. Even Microsoft provide better and more frequent updates to their system than this! And that really is saying something!
What a shame that they have locked down the system so much, there is a tonne of talent out there in the opensource community who could make this potentially amazing platform truly outstanding. Nokia sure as hell don't seem to have the inclination!
When will you get your firmware...? It has been over 4 months now since they last updated the N95-1. I am beginning to get the feeling that this one has just been chucked on the heap as the N93 was... the parallels between the N93/N93i release and the N95/N95-8GB situation are rather strong. After 10 years as a loyal Nokia customer I won't be making the mistake of choosing them again!!
The supposed October 28th deadline has come and gone. I have emailed Nokia 5 times and been ignored, for over 3 months now. I have called everywhere I can and get the stock response "we don't know that" or "we only get told that a few hours in advance". Assuming any of that is actually the honest truth, it makes Nokia look pretty poor in their organisation of information and product support.
The sad fact is that even IF this firmware comes out, the chances of any further updates are extremely slim. Of course you could argue that there is a lack of commercial incentive for this. The N95 platform is so jammed full of technology that it has the potential to last for 4-5 years as a perfectly decent phone and mobile computing platform, with the right system updates of course. The industry makes no bones about the fact that it wants people to upgrade every 12-18 months, it's how they make their money. This is not conspiracy theory, just a sound bit of reasoning as to why we're not going to get a long stream of support for this phone.
I read with interest that Google are launching an open platform and SDK soon. Much as I am wary of google, being the corporate giant that they are, this at least is the beginnings of a truly open platform which hopefully users will be able to work with and improve in the way that manufacturers like Nokia simply don't want to. That is of course until the phone manufacturers who move to this system lock it down like Apple have done with the iPhone and prevent free enterprise and development.
I know we live in a capitalist society, but sometimes consumers are pushed just a bit too far. It is NOT acceptable, nor environmentally friendly to push out and make obsolete technology which costs as much as a reasonable spec entry PC once a year on us.
I doubt Nokia will read this, even if they do it'll just go ignored like all the other complaints from the customers they have let-down like this.

Answer 1

I'm sorry but "be patient" is just not sufficient here. It has been over 4 months and these are some MAJOR bugs in the phone.
Let me detail my day so far with my N95, for those of you who are not familiar with these problems or who think that perhaps this is just a disgruntled customer who has an overinflated sense of importance.
All of this is on an N95 replacement (the first one's earpiece broke) which I have had for under 2 weeks now. It is the latest firmware and there is NOTHING installed on it, it is as it comes...
* Full charge overnight with the phone off.
* Switch the phone on.
* Check my emails (I was sent a small mpeg video (700k) which I download to the phone.
- WiFi connection is lost 4 times and I'm within 3 metres of the aerial. N95 fails to find my access point for as long as a minute after losing the connection, when everything else in my house can see it.
* Check FaceBook mobile in web browser.
* Read BBC news headlines in web browser.
- clicked on 3 minute news video headlines, realplayer loads up, runs out of memory to play the video. Realplayer closes, taking the web browser with it.
* Try to play the video I was emailed. N95 doesn't support uber-standard MPEG files, so...
* Browse the web again, searching for how to play the MPEG.
- someone suggests renaming the file to .3gp to make RP load it. I'm dubious but it's worth a go. I go to the menu to access the file manager. I rename the file and click on it, still no joy.
- I close the file manager and go back to my browser, except not - it closed without warning because the memory ran out (presumably)
* I give up trying to browse the web and lock the phone.
* I need to make a call. I press the buttons to unlock it and mess up the timing (my fault completely)
- I keep pressing the buttons in quick succession in my impatience (which is just pointless I know, but I was in a hurry and fumbling with it).
- Having pressed the buttons about 8 times the phone unlocks but the screen goes dark.
- I press the camera focus/shutter button lightly to "un-sleep" the phone. It lights up for 2 seconds and goes dark again.
- I repeat this 3 times and the phone switches itself off!!
* The phone restarts automatically but once rebooted is slow and laggy, missing keypresses all over the place so I have to switch off then on again... it is normal (as normal as it gets) after this.
* I go to my PC and write this!!!!
Absolutely ALL of this is stuff the phone is supposed to do with its hands tied behind its back. I have not used any 3rd party software and never tried to use more than 2 applications at a time - the N95 IS a multitasking phone and so should handle a lot more than this!!!
This behaviour was present on the previous handset too, on both the firmware versions it had on it during its life. My current handset came with an 8-point service engineer inspection saying it was in full health...
Be patient? Even if I was prepared to mutely wait for 4+ months patiently whilst such dreadful bugs plague the phone, I am an N95 user who is concurrently paying off a contract on an N93 phone, costing me £200 ($400 US) in monthly rental for a phone which became unusable (due to signal issues on the network when I moved house to a different part of the country). Be patient? It is now about 14 months since I got the N93 and just over 12 months since the firmware was updated on that (I quote from the firmware date on my N93). Nokia dropped that one like a hot stone and completely screwed everyone who had bought it. Be patient? You must be kidding me! When Nokia, despite an all-singing-all-dancing website cannot ever be bothered to make even the most non-committal of announcements about firmware on it's own forums, why on earth should I be patient? I understand as a programmer myself all to well that things can slide and problems can delay things, but at this point I can't even find solid information to say there will be another update for this, let alone when it MIGHT arrive or what it will HOPEFULLY include... and as I said in my original post, I have telephoned and been fobbed off and had 5 emails ignored (not including the ones about the N93 which were also ignored). And yes, I did get the received message report from Nokia's own system saying someone would come back to me.
I'm sorry to rant at you, I'm sure it's not your fault but be patient? Just not acceptable any more!