Anssi Vanjoki was right after all!

Anssi Vanjoki former head of Nokia mobile devices, predicted that smartphones would replace system cameras, and many so called analysts thought it to be a good joke. But today I think he was quite right, I have a number of digital pocket cameras and a Canon EOS system camera. And actually nobody in my family uses the pocket cameras anymore. Though they might have more Mega pixels, they are still lying around unused. The pictures I make with my Lumia 920 are superb, video is crystal clear and even in low light results are great. And due to the build in GPS are images are georeferenced, so you always know where they were taken. This is of great help for professional use, lecturing etc. To carry around a big camera in a city is cumbersome and actually is an invitation for thieves. The only use for a big camera is for quality nature photography. For most other use the smartphone is always ready and with you, you can upload the images directly to Facebook or any other social platform. The Lumia can upload automatically to Skydrive, a feature which is sometimes useful for backup use.

Vanjoki’s prediction became reality, and proves that analysts are too often wrong. 

Improved Nokia Navibation

WP 8 Nokia Maps and Navigation

Nokia Maps changed name to Here Maps and Here Drive Beta. There are new features, and improvements. Positioning seems to be improved, and is much faster and has higher accuracy. Places of interested stored in Maps can now be used in Drive. Maps has now the possibility of indoor navigation, for example floor plans of airports, including plans for the different floors in a building. Over 4600 buildings are available at present. 

Improvements I would like include the possibility to show geotagged images on the map, satellite visibility and accuracy information (GPS, Glonass). 

Nokia Lumia WP 8 series phones have integrated GPS and GLONASS positioning, but can we use it?

The Lumia 820, 822 and 920 use the GLONASS enabled Qualcomm GPS chip. However, it seems that the navigation software is not using this option. Recently Samsung made an application available to enable GLONASS on their Windows Phones (Mango version), the app is called High Fidelity Position, and can be used by other navigation applications to improve accuracy.

So, it seems that we have to wait for Nokia or somebody else to produce GLONASS enabled navigation software.  Let’s hope it comes soon, because at the moment we can not use the full potential of our phones.

AT the moment there is a host of Windows Phone 8 navigation and mapping software, and improved positioning would be much appreciated in urban environments with high buildings reducing satellite visibility.

An interesting WP App is the ESRI ArcGIS mapping software, enabling you to collect data, share with groups, or view online maps and imagery on your phone.

ArcGIS WP 8 App

Lumia 920, improving battery life

I have used my Lumia  920 for some weeks, abroad and in Finland. Battery life was a problem, but now it seems that by switching off the GPS I get roughly two days on one charge, under normal use. The GPS is draining the battery even if you are not using Maps or Navigation.  I also disabled as many background processes as possible, only using Battery Widget and Weather View. I also use only the Facebook App, not the integrated version, but I am not sure about the effect on battery drain. Whats up could also be an issue; I configured my email account to synchronize only once an hour. With these settings I can use the phone for two days, using a full recharge cycle.

Using the GPS abroad works better than my Symbian E7, which needs an external Bluetooth module to fix (or you have to wait for half an hour). The Lumia 920 works without internet connection, although it sometimes fell back to the position of GSM towers, due to poor sky visibility.  However, it functioned well, and also the offline navigation worked as well as one can expect.

Some suggestions for improvements; I would like to have an App to monitor the GPS behavior, I do not know if it is using GPS, Glonass, or both, this would be important to check functionality.  Actually we do not know whether the phone is actually using Glonass or not.

Another App I would like to have is a Tile to switch the GPS on and off, like the ones used for WLAN or Bluetooth. Actually this GPS-switch is available, it has been added to Connectivity Shortcuts App.

Another way to improve battery life is to switch to 2G network, this is likely using less power, and will be useful when traveling, as the phone will constantly try to switch between 2G, 3G and 4G.