In our exclusive interview with project manager Urho Konttori, we learned about the people, thinking and developments behind the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition.

What was the path that brought you to the open-source community?

In high school, I was mostly doing 3D graphics and participating in some hobby game projects. Then I decided it was maybe more on the technical side where you could actually make a living with this, and went to the department of computer science at the University of Helsinki.

Quite soon after, I started to work for a Finnish new media company, Absolutions, working on really exciting projects in the new web-based economy such as green energy certification, stock exchange and content management systems. Of all these, the green energy certification is closest to the heart.

Sometime in 2005, I started to participate more in the open-source community, which eventually led me to Nokia. I bought the 770 device because I thought it was an innovative piece of hardware, and such a bold move for Nokia. This internet tablet idea was so revolutionary for me at the time: you’d have the full desktop experience for web browsing and other activities while on the move. Not the PDA focus for just PIM management, but the real deal. I thought that this was a beginning of a revolution and something I wanted to be part of.

After that, I started quickly to merge with the community, see what they wanted to do, see what I wanted to do. My first thing was that I really wanted to see videos on the device. So I started helping people convert videos to a format that the device is able to show to you. It turned out quickly that most people were not capable of using the commands on the command line, so I started building a UI for people to convert the videos. My first application, Media Converter, was born.

Media Converter was really popular and I got lots of positive feedback from the people, which really encouraged me to continue working with the community. I started digging into the theming capabilities of the device, which were magnificent. I quickly made a new program, Theme Maker, that could quite easily make quite complex themes for the site. It had moderate success, but the community was lacking the artist types at the time, but that seems to be improving now. After those external applications, I started working on applications for the device itself, such as UKMP, a media player, UKTube, a YouTube client, and lately USBControl. They have all been really big successes and probably the biggest reason I’m now working for Nokia.

When did you come to Nokia?

I came to Nokia last autumn, and I was dropped into the frenzy of polishing N810 for release condition. There were excellent people here, and I immediately felt welcome. Obviously, it helped that I had a community background, and they welcomed me as “the guy who made UKMP”.

I was really surprised how very open-source focused these people were. Everyone was always thinking about how they really want to share their work with the community, how they want to improve the quality and experience of the community. Obviously the benefit of the company has to be reflected in what we do.

What is it about open source that has such a big draw to you and your colleagues?

I really feel that technology needs to be open, that this is the kind of place where innovation itself should be reward enough for all the underlying technologies. This is the only way we can make really complex software that everyone is able to use, something that will be possible to be used decades and decades on. So you always have this community improving things and keeping them alive.

For me, it’s really the possibility for everybody to be able to affect the outcome of whatever open-source project is going on, to be able to do work immediately on projects that are close to your heart. For any random third-party developer, if you do good work, it’s bound to be rewarded financially as well. This allows developers to concentrate on what’s interesting to you, and it will lead to good things for you and for others as well.

Can you shed some light on the people involved and the process behind creating the N810?

Most of the people have come here because of our open-source approach to things, which is something you don’t see in almost any other company in the world. Because of that, you have people from really varied backgrounds - we are truly an international unit in here. People are coming from Brazil, Pakistan, Germany, UK, Canada - from everywhere, really. It’s really interesting to listen to everybody’s stories and see their different approaches to problems.

What we have that is really interesting, also, is we have the design unit in the same floor with us. We all work together, and we are able to be much more flexible, more agile, on the things we develop, rather than most big businesses where you have a separation between the designers and people who implement the designs. That’s another thing that’s really great about this organization.

We have dedicated designers who are participating with the development all the way through. We start together project brainstorming with them, we build the initial designs, specifications and they continue the work with us till the day the project is done. We work on the same project with slightly different perspectives. The technological people are looking for how we can implement this, and the designers are looking more at how it will work flawlessly and look great. With this interaction, we can shave off the edges and get the best of both worlds.

When you think of the N810, how do you see people using it?

That’s a really interesting question. When I came here, I was really surprised to see how many people were using the internet tablet. The N810 was a prototype at the time, but people were using it and its keyboard all the time, communicating with others, really using the device. That’s the only way you can really see how you would like things to be done - you cannot design that on a piece of paper. You have to really use the device, get the user experience and see what you can improve. I was really pleased to see that happening here at the offices.

Because of the keyboard, what I use it for - and what I think quite a lot of people will use it for - is the instant messaging. The instant messaging experience is much nicer than any product ever before, because this is always with you and you can chat with your friends whenever. The internet services are now much, much more usable now that you have the keyboard, you don’t have to jump into any special mode to be able to type. So Facebook and all of the Web 2.0-type applications are completely within your reach. What is also nice is reading web pages on the go now that we have a proper keyboard. You have more space on the screen and what is the best thing about it in browsing, is the ability to skip a page down just by pressing the space button. Sounds like a small issue, but it’s a big usability improvement for me. I read a lot of news sites like Slashdot and Blue’s News on it.

So what I see people doing more on this device than any other Nokia device before is going for the Web applications and being able to use those just as well as with a laptop, but with a device that only weighs 200-something grams - it’s mindboggling. I’m also excited about watching movies in even better quality, even better than on the iPhone. The N810 has a bigger screen and better resolution.

What’s new with video?

One of the big things with previous releases was that the Flash support was not adequate; for example, YouTube was completely unusable. That’s why I made the UKtube in the first place. Now, on the latest N810, you can watch any YouTube video just as you would on the desktop. There is also Canola, a media player developed by INDT, which has really nice usability and support for plugins. You can easily subscribe to your favorite podcasts, video podcasts as well and be able to then watch your favorite news on the bus to work.

What else can people expect from the latest N810?

You can create wonderful applications, which I’m really looking forward to getting from the community in the future. Especially now that we have great Python bindings and the support for Web Run-Time, the community should find it very easy to create the same kind of applications that Apple is doing on their dashboard.

You should be able to get a nice Facebook integration to the desktop, which I think a lot of people will appreciate when it comes out.

Another thing we have been working on - that I have been part of since I joined Nokia - is on-the-air updates of the device. We can finally allow people to update without the need to connect the device to your computer and flash the device. Not many people could vision your average man or woman doing that. Instead, you will just get the notification icon of the update, like on Windows or Mac. You click to install the update. A few minutes pass and you have a fresh new operating system - no data lost, no hassle for the user. I think it’s really magnificent. I dare to say that it’s the first time it’s been so easy on any Nokia product.

At the same time, we want to extend this to the community as well. So any community developers who are using repositories to deliver their applications - which is pretty much everybody - they will now be able to update their application just by updating the latest version of their application in their repository. Of course, we recommend using the Nokia community repository at the maemo.org site.

For the developers this relieves a bit of the burden of letting your users know of the update. This way everybody who is using your application will get the notification, like, blink blink! Do you want to install the update? Yes, please. That’s it.

Also for the convenience of the end users, we make it easy with an Update All button. When you click on that, it downloads updates to all of your applications at the same time. For the convenience reasons the check is also made only once a day.

Where do you see WiMAX going, both as a technology and a cultural experience?

With WiMAX, you have truly mobile internet with you all the time, so you’ll be able to use it in entire cities that are covered with new Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as traditional applications like Skype and instant messagers, you can stay connected to your friends and important things all the time.

I think it will be a great thing for all the commuters on public transport - you’ll be able to read your email, check news on the internet, chat with your friends and do all the things you usually could only do at home or at work.

I also think people will use devices in more places than anywhere before. Between the wireless connectivity and the GPS capabilities the device has, it would be much easier for, say, a taxi company to track where their drivers are and direct more cars to the hotspots when they emerge. This is a great device for business use as well, as development is so easy. Just a few lines of code and you have the GPS coordinates on a variable, just a few more and they are pushed through the WiMAX network to your central server.

Where can N810 users go to find other likeminded people, learn more about the device and continue this collaborative spirit online?

There’s a great community site, maemo.org, where you can get development advice. I would also recommend Internet Table Talk, which is a great community-hosted site mostly focused on providing forums and wikis. It’s the best place to meet the end users as well as other developers. As a new developer, definitely don’t be shy to use the IRC at irc.freenode.net, channel #maemo. You have hundreds of developers there discussing their related projects. Chances are whatever problem you have, somebody has probably conquered it there before you. You just ask it, somebody spends ten seconds writing a reply to you, and you save hours of completely unnecessary work. So you should definitely go there if you’re a starting developer. They are more than welcome to help you out. All the community wants in return is your help and involvement in the future.

What about someone who’s in the position you once were, active in the open-source community, creating applications. Where would you go to share your work?

I really suggest using the maemo.org/downloads section. You just register there and you’ll be able to get screenshots of your application, write a description and see how many people download it. And you’ll be getting some publicity from Nokia if it’s a good application. Also, garage.maemo.org will be able to host source code repository, bugzilla and forums for you, which is really great if you want to do a long-term project where multiple developers are collaborating together. Then, of course, I suggest using the Nokia Distribution Repositories, which are at repository.maemo.org. By using those, you’ll be able to utilize our truly great update framework that I was discussing earlier.

Internet Tablet Talk is such a great place, having end users and developers mixing together and discussing issues. If you are a developer, it’s a great place to let people know of your work (always post screenshots!). If you are an end user and want some kind of application, just spawn a new thread and say, I’d really like this to happen. Maybe somebody takes a hint and makes it happen!

The community is such a wonderful thing that just by wishing, you could actually make it happen. That what still draws me to it today. It’s all about the community – developers and end users alike.

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