[Under Consideration] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Abstract:

http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...ne_experience/

The thread by matthewcc that started all this: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33551

Related thread on Contact grouping: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33812

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Most standard phones will pick up the network's answer-phone service from the sim card, and install it on 1 on the speed dial.

How does n900 handle the answering service?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Sigh... I get the message "Incorrect number". Guess it didn't come across automatically...

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Hmm, is that more a place to put suggestions as to how to address the shortcomings or just to point out shortcomings?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Hmmm Well, that's one to improve then!

Certainly allowing a 'call answerphone' facility is needed, even if you have to hunt down and enter the number yourself. For that matter, does n900 have a notification if you have messages?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

When I insert SIM in phone automagically configures stuff like voicemail number. As for voicemail, a local voicemail box is usually cheaper, and then you can implement your 'visual voicemail' too.

Example implementation:

1) Phone voicemail is on or off for A or B where A is GSM and B is SIP or VoIP. Can be multiple B. Can eventually even include support for IM phone calls, conferencing, or video chat.
2) If setting is on and phone is called for X seconds, them following is triggered: Phone is picked up, no microphone or speakers are enabled, message making clear voicemail is enabled is played to caller, input sound is recorded, data is flagged as voicemail in log. UI allows user to handle voicemail(s), including: play, reply, delete.

Basically like Eliza only works on Pidgin when its enabled, and when one is away... ;)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

In the UK voicemail is automatically included from your network and usually can't be turned off, though you can record your own message these days.

So any other option is a bit of a nonstarter. Calls to voicemail are either free or part of your 'included minutes' if you're on a plan. I really need n900 to know if someone has left voicemail.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

We can discuss shortcomings here, and when Solutions occur to someone, they need to be added to the Brainstorm item.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

How about a menu of selectable 5 items,

[X] Show All
Or Show Only:
[ ] Incoming calls
[ ] Outgoing calls
[ ] Missed calls
[ ] Voicemail

and maybe multiple selection enabled for the last four?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Well I'm notified by SMS with link to voicemail number if I got voicemail, and receiving SMS works on N900, so...

Yes, I thought of that, but the first option's checkbox directly influence the options under it which must be shown in UI.

Consider:

You have 'Show All' enabled. You show 'Or show only', and now enabling one option in 'Show Only' disables 'Show All'.

...while...

Show All is disabled and being enabled 'Show All' removes functionality of currently enabled and/or disabled checkboxes of 'Or show only'.

Confusing... and what do you do when you disable 'Show All'? Back to filter user had before enabling 'Show All'?

This complexity is not worth it. Its only 4 checkboxes. No need for 'Show All'. No need for 'Inverse'. That is useful if managing a lot of messages in webmail; not case here.

What may be useful is different profiles.

Or a button (instead of checkbox) to Show All. (I don't find it worth it tho, I think different profiles is better solution.)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Another thought: most phones allow me to 'hide number' so that the person I'm calling can't see my incoming number. Does n900 allow that? It's very useful (for example if I have to call clients and only have my personal phone handy - I don't want psychotic folk getting my number. ;) )

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Well a known shortcoming is how the device only has one ringtone for all calls when most phones have a ringtone per person option, or at the very least a ringtone per group (family, friends, work, etc..). That should be an option when editting the contact's details.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

well, I think an extra button for used as a shortcut to:
-"select all" functionality when there are unselected items in "or show only" list (to enable fast return to default view)
-"select none" functionality when there all items are selected in "or show only" list (to enable fast single selections)
would be very useful but if you think it's confusing, I'm just leaving my ideas here :)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Select None makes no sense. Who would want to see in their log nothing at all???

We include a 'Show All' because we establish a user might want to quickly (re)enable showing all (or, clearing the filters).

Hence:

Button 'Show All' (grey if all are flagged)
Checkbox + Buttons as previously described.

[... Show All..........]
[X| Incoming Calls ]
[..| Outgoing Calls ]
[..| Missed Calls....]
[..| Voicemail.........]

Or

Enable filtering shows (with state of checkboxes saved):

[X| Incoming Calls ]
[..| Outgoing Calls ]
[..| Missed Calls....]
[..| Voicemail.........]

Disable filtering greys (with state of checkboxes saved)

[X| Incoming Calls ]
[..| Outgoing Calls ]
[..| Missed Calls....]
[..| Voicemai.........]

[EDIT]On a second thought. Screw it. Such stuff should be indexed by Tracker. Tracker indexes IM logs, documents, images. Why not voice logs? Why that seperate treatment? Might as well make tons of exceptions while purpose is to include backends for Tracker making it more useful. Hence differentiation makes no sense. This also allows easier to search on communication based on other metadata, allowing more fine grained filtering instead of only outcome_of_used_protocol. Such as: Person, Group context (Work, Family, etc). Also allows data of voice to be combined in search with other protocols such as IM or SMS.[/EDIT]

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

A little warning for anyone planning on buying the N900 through MPD on T-Mobile. Calls to your voice-mail are charged at 10p a minute (it calls a 08xx number.) So change your voice-mail number on the phone to your phone number, this way it comes out of your free minutes.

It would be nice to know what number the N900 tries to use for voice-mail when you use a T-Mobile sim.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Sorry, I have seen my fault. I deleted this message. Sorry.
Without your reply nobody will remind! :D

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Does Helmuth's idea about the grouping of contacts fit here?

I would like also to configure different ringtones to each group and also block calls from groups certain times. Basically, to give an example, I would like to block all calls from work when I'm on holidays and block all calls except from my family group when in a meeting.

Thx

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Hmm... so i think it also doesn't fit here.
Contacts are a seperate Programm. Should I start a new Brainstorm?
There could also be different Ideas... (only Groups, Tag Clouds, and so on)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

There's certainly synergy with Contacts, as I noted earlier, so yeah there won't always be clean divisions between Brainstorms. I think we can address improvements to calling Contacts here for sure.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Profiles based on:

• Time/date (calendar-based)
• Location (GPS-based)
• Group (user-defined/sorted by user)
• Person (user-defined/sorted by user)
• Current task (hmmm.. as last resort definition. During driving or meeting, for example)
• ...?

Different ringtone is just what deviates from default. There is so much more than ringtone.

• Auto-reply or voicemail
• Urgency (overrides certain settings)
• Notify silent via LED and/or vibrate (don't notify via LED when asleep)
• ...?

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Yes, it does.

Settings -> Phone -> Send my caller ID

• Yes
• No
• Let network choose

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Being able to group contacts would be useful.

As for ring tones, have them set at 3 levels:

1. default (nothing set specifically)
2. At the group level (over rides default if set)
3. At the contact level (over rides group ring if set)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Here on Vodafone pay-as-you-go, voicemail minutes appear to cost the same as calls, that is 20p/minute...

I have a Three USIM ready with much better terms, the Vodafone PAYG is just a cheap thing to keep me going until I have an N900 to put the USIM into :-)

(Hope they fix the "not compatible with Three USIMs bug soon!)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

As I said, it could be used to make single item selection with less clicks than removing multiple unneeded selections if that button is implemented the way I described.

Hmm. What about taking 2 different approaches to logs as simple "call log" and advanced "global log"?

Simple call log should use single selection at a time (radiobox logic) to eliminate the need for confirmation of multiple selections by either pressing another button or touching unused areas of the screen.

(●) Show All
(..) Filter Incoming
(..) Filter Outgoing
(..) Filter Missed
(..) Filter Voicemail

Advanced global log should use multiple selection at a time (checkbox logic) since data will be aggregated from lots of sources (as in S60 now) user should be able to perform advanced & custom filtering (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33486: similar topic)

(..) Show All
(●) Filter
Criteria:
....[..] Voice Calls
....[..] VoIP Calls
....[X] SMS
....[..] IM
....[..] Voice Mail
....[..] E-mail
....[..] Data connections
....[..] WiFi
Direction:
....[..] All
....[X] Incoming
....[..] Outgoing
....[..] Missed
....[X] Number/Contact/Contact Group

Show all could save state of selected checkboxes, but I prefer this should be optional (since I think I'd like to make new selections everytime I want to go advanced)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

I'm locked into Orange on a contract for a while (still paying for the mistake that was the c905). My voicemail can't be turned off, and the calls come out of my allowance. As I never get anywhere near using my allowance at the moment (calls are a low priority for me, and the c905 is 'broken' in that respect anyay) that means free. I have dug through and found the voicemail number, and added it to contacts for syncing. Now I need to know whether n900 notifies of a message left - which I probably shan't know for sure till I hold the device in my sticky paws.

Not that it matters much to me but I gather n900 doesn't have speed dial? or voicedial? Both of those might fit into thei category of improvements.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

you mean a notification for a voice message in your carrier's voicebox? the n900 knows nothing about that, so it can't inform you. the carrier has to send you a sms that you have messages waiting. (at least that's the way it works with all the carriers i know, perhaps it's different in the uk)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

My carrier sends some sort of signal: a symbol appears on the phone as long as I have unread messages. As soon as I read and delete them, the little envelope symbol disappears: works in symbian,palm and SE OS to my certain knowledge.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

@ Kathy, yes it is clear different ISPs in different countries use different methods. According to Wikipedia voicemail:

However many people do have to pay for using voicemail (PAYG or having free minutes in subscription or not). Having the stuff local allows for much more versatile configuration, and allows even to centralize VoIP (e.g. Skype)/SIP voicemail to be combined with GSM voicemail.

When I had an answering machine on my home line I never had to dial some special number to hear my voicemails. They were recorded local. It really makes little sense to save them remotely, and _if_ saved remotely it makes sense to fetch them from the server and then decide what to do with them. Imagine your mail server asking you if you really want to download the spam or delete it then telling you how many messages remaining meanwhile you're paying for the seconds to listen to this artificial nonsense wasting your time; that is voicemail on GSM. Although perhaps deserves a seperate topic (Brainstorm) to fix the issue has been discussed before on t.m.o.

Thanks for your post, I think you're on the right way for getting the UI right.

However IMO one engine should be used (Tracker) with a backend for the protocols (SMS, VoIP, GSM, ...). With flags a shortcut can be made. Like for example: tracker --search backend=gsm filter=none. From there, one can modify the filter or use more backends. My point is: why use different search program or different UI when using different protocol (VoIP or IM different than GSM or SMS)?

Instead, make it unified, like the profiles don't care about protocol you use to communicate with either; they store them all. Then the 'gsm communication log' should use the frameworks as the 'general communication log'. If yes, why not simply use the same interface with default options which make sense from the protocol used (e.g. log called from GSM goes by default for GSM but allows more)?

One problem is 'Missing' has different context in IM/SMS/e-mail than in VoIP/SIP/GSM, and I'm not sure how to solve this because there is no authentication in IM/SMS the other side has read the message.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Very convergent approach, thanks :)

Now I understand that if we had a permanent DIAL/SEND key on the screen (or a HW key like in most phones) which could directly be assigned to "fast" log (only voice calls are shown like in most phones) separate UIs would be consistent, but since we don't have such a key versus we shouldn't have two seperate UIs for one job. That's alright. I have a few more ideas:

[ Calls ] [ Filter ] [ Sort ]

Three keys in a tab, just above listed events.

• Calls (or whatever it can be called): remove any previous filters and apply "voice" only. Permanent action. Could display "Return" while other filters are applied since this will be default behaviour of call list.
• Filter: speaks for itself.
• Sort: speaks for itself.

Items in filtering menu applying fixed (maybe configurable via editing a file?) and reasonable presets of filters should be solution to this problem. My "reasonable" preset list would be:

• Incoming: Incoming (Voice Calls + VoIP Calls + Video calls + SMS + MMS + IM + Voice Mail + E-mail)
• Outgoing: Outgoing (Voice Calls + VoIP Calls + Video calls + SMS + MMS + IM + Voice Mail + E-mail + EDGE/3G + WiFi)
• Missed: Missed (Voice Calls + VoIP Calls + Video calls + Voice Mail)
• Text: All (SMS + MMS + IM + E-mail)
• Data: All (EDGE/3G + WiFi)
• People: All (Voice Calls + VoIP Calls + Video calls + SMS + MMS + IM + Voice Mail + E-mail) for selected/highlighted number/contact/group
• Advanced: Open a dialog and let user select prefered filters and directions.

In fact, I don't have any real idea how current list behaves. Sorry if I have duplicate/inappropriate ideas.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

There's been some EXCEPTIONALLY productive discussion on this and I am getting ready to corral it into Solutions unless someone beats me to it.

Thanks all!

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

I'm shure you won't forget the Group wish for the Contacts (and also the diferent ringtones for each Group)

I thought a Tag Clound could be even betten than seperate Groups. Some Contacts can Overlap. And sometimes you will see Groups at twice or set ringtones to a group of them. Only set Filters with the Tag Cloud. In my opinion the usability could be more consistent with a Tag Cloud like at the Photos and Images. (mostly the same code, the same syle and so on) :rolleyes:

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

We need qwerty12 to hack a fourth option, "Custom caller ID" :D

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

I'm not shure. I don't think we NEED this. :D

But it is possible that wee need a second Brainstorm treath seperated for the Contacts in the future...
A posibility to edit the text of the Data Fields would be nice. So I've got also SMS messages from Contacts with a old Mobile Number. So at the Symbian System I've stored the former numbers also in the Contact (with a customized Text: "Mobile (OLD)" - at the Maemo Contacts you can only Chooce between "Mobile", "Mobile (home)", "Mobile" (work), "Phone" and "Phone (home)".
And there is no customized Fields for other kind of numbers possible, are'nt I right?
At example I need only: "Work" for my Collegs in the Company.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Ah yes, calls from "707-531-9009" will be the "Sent from iPhone" of the Maemo world.

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

I'm half-tempted to dial that and see what it is... :eek:

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

Well, a number in California for I know not what, but also for a adolescent with a calculator it's...

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

LOL.

:p

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

I apologize for the delay in posting Solutions. I have just been extremely swamped. Normally I have brief periods of availability where I can sneak in such things, but the Brainstorm page has been updating so slowly that I can't do that.

I will try to find time as soon as possible to provide updates, but in the meantime anyone is welcome to post solutions to this Brainstorm.

EDIT: except ragnar (kidding :p)

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

We're starting a call from the Contacts. And I don't want to create a extra new treath so i think it fits here enought:

What about the Fields in the Contacts application? I think there are not enought. It should be possible to add some with own Description. And also the possibility to Add more than a Single "Web Page" or a Single "Note".

In the View "All contacts" you can only Choice between several Views of First and Lastname or Nickname. More posibilitys would be nice. :rolleyes:

Re: [Idea sandbox] Improving the Maemo 5 phone experience
 

This is already possible. I have several contacts with two or three "Web page" fields.