I find Nokia viNe a unique and interesting way of sharing experiences with other people. It’s quite a cool concept, seeing all your geo-tagged photos, music and videos plotted along a route on a map. For example, it shows where I took this photo of an Old Chang Kee stall, at which point I listened to “Angel in the Night” by Basshunter, and where I took the video of the TunnelTV. It’s a totally different way of telling a story. It’s interesting for me to see the actual route the MRT takes on the map and not just seeing a moving dot, and how far a certain place from my house really is.

One more thing that could be interesting about this program is when users start sharing their vines, they could form a social network (or maybe a web on the map) consisting of people of the common interests. Connecting people – is it not?

There are a lot of great possibilities with Nokia viNe, but there is a drawback. When using the application, the battery drains a lot faster. I could drain the battery on a single charge on a single day just by using the camera (with geo-tagging enabled), music player, Nokia viNe running on the background, and my usual SMS, phone calls, email, and maybe a good 15 minutes of gaming. While this could be solved with a spare battery or a travel charger, it’s still not good getting cut off from an important call just because of all these things running simultaneously.

All in all, a great experience despite some niggles. I might get it for my N82 if possible. I like going to new places and I think this is the way to do it.

Using the Nokia viNe was simple as clear instructions were given on how setup the account.

After logging on, I tried the music trial and updating was fast as the actual music files were not uploaded.

As for the Singapore experience, big mistake because the photos were taken in 5-megapixel resolution and when I tried to update, wow, it really took some time.

For food pictures, I shot them in 0.8 megapixel resolution and updating was indeed faster.

Nokia vine is simple to use but it is more for people who walk around and take public transport. For people who are driving, it’s kind of dangerous as you need to watch out for MIB when trying to record.

One thing I found strange is that comments can’t be added.

Nokia viNe is a fabulous, innovative application that allows me to upload and record my daily activities. It functions like a personal diary so I can upload my pictures, music etc. anywhere, anytime of the day conveniently.

After registering for the Nokia viNe experience, everything was pretty smooth sailing. I could take photos at random after I start recording the vines. Items recorded could be uploaded at my convenience, recording could be paused, and it allows me to continue on recording from where I left off.

Some cons are that using the Nokia viNe application is quite taxing on the mobile phone’s battery. Uploading files when using wireless could also sometimes freeze halfway through the transfer.

Overall, I would say that Nokia viNe is a wonderful program to be equipped with; it captures nostalgic memories that can be viewed in future.

The Nokia viNe program is an interesting and simple concept. Using the program is like writing a diary but this time round, words are replaced by pictures and moreover, the pictures taken are geo-tagged. Thus, it could act as a reminder of where this picture was taken.

Using the Nokia viNe program on the N96 was a walk in the park for me. Perhaps due to my being a Nokia user for several years, the Nokia viNe program can be easily accessed after enabling the short cut key on the home screen.

I had no problem using the Nokia viNe program on the N96 but I did experience some problem when I was uploading my pictures to the Nokia viNe website. It could be due to the laggy web server or the quantity of my pictures. As a result, one of my themes could not be uploaded successfully despite numerous tries over a week. At first , I thought it could be that I uploaded too many pictures at one go thus lagging the web server, so I tried to upload using only 2 pictures at a go but all was in vain. The upload was successful on my N96 but the pictures were not uploaded on the website. Only the title of my theme was present.

Overall , I had fun taking pictures all around the island and am really glad to be one of the lucky first few to experience the Nokia viNe .

First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for giving me this opportunity to review the Nokia N85, and most importantly, the Nokia viNe software (“viNe”).

Using the Nokia viNe software, I tested the viNe software by testing them in accordance with the themes pre-set for this competition. These themes are:-
- Music;
- Singapore;
- Food; and
- Unlimited

Music
My first day of usage began with the music. The night before, I placed a total of 814MB of MP3’s in the mobile phone. The sound quality was excellent even though I was using the stock earpieces. I also tried using the loudspeakers in the phone and I was not disappointed.

Singapore, Food and Unlimited
I went to various places and snapped up pictures of yummy-licious food from the common market @ Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, the finer dining at Tung Lok Signatures (see pictures in vine), from the indoor shots to the outdoors. I also took some pictures in the night too! The result…The camera was very responsive. Taking pictures and tagging it to the viNe software was very easy and requires no user interferences. A click of a button and the picture / video is now tagged alongside with the location.

Conclusion
1) All in all, the viNe experience totally allows me to share my pictures, clips and my experiences instantly through the viNe software. I could inform friends about the latest songs I was enjoying, the current trends while doing some retail therapy, or taking snaps of the hottest chick that just walked past me. It would be even better if this could be linked directly to Facebook so that all my trips would be recorded instantly.

2) Tagging pictures to the location will allow me to reminisce about the good old days with friends, colleagues, etc. With Chinese New Year round the corner, it will also allow me to geo-tag all the pictures and videos with my relatives too.

3) However, having said all the above, the viNe software is not without its problems. I encountered some occasional hiccups when I was uploading the images, videos and songs data. I am not too sure what could have caused that but it could be due to some technical glitches which happened while the network connections are unstable (9 viNes were uploaded but only 3 could be seen).

4) Another thing I would like to point out would be to enhance the viNe program by allowing the software to connect to the internet through USB. This could really improve the upload speed tremendously by not using the wireless protocol.

To me, Nokia viNe is a brand new experience in blogging and sharing of information. It is an interesting and fun way to tell your friends what you have been doing, the things you have seen, and where have you been. The program automatically saves all the photos you captured during your travels and pin points them on the map so your friends can find it with ease. It is fun to use for both leisure and work. As a professional in the Real Estate industry, it allows me to share property information (eg. property location with photos) with my colleagues and clients.

However, the main drawback is the slow uploading. The program is still very unstable, and at times I need to retry a few times or reset the phone before the upload is successful. In addition, when running the program, the battery life is drained rapidly.

Throughout the course of the trial, I was more than impressed with the features of Nokia viNe.

I am a person who loves to travel, discover and try new and exciting things. I normally capture pictures and videos of my adventures with my Nokia N82 and upload them to sites such as Facebook and Flickr directly from my phone. Nokia viNe adds a whole new dimension to the above by capturing my trail of pictures and videos, and where they was taken. Uploading a viNe trail is as simple as selecting the trail and clicking the upload button. Everything can be done in one shot, hassle-free.

However, I didn’t like that you can’t add more than one tag to the media. The map loading time is also too long.

Overall, Nokia viNe is easy to use and has a simple but effective interface.

Nokia viNe is an interesting application as it allows me to record what I’ve done on a journey and share it with my love ones. I’m quite surprised that it can shows photos, videos and music that I’ve listened to and taken during my whole journey. The only difficulty that I’ve encountered was some of the pictures or vines that I’ve created seem to be lost and I have to redo the whole lot again. Uploading speed will depend on the size such as amount of photos/videos) of the vine.

I have trialed the Nokia viNe application and there are a lot of really good functions, like geo-tagging. The application is also user-friendly and not much of a hassle to use. However I have encountered some issues with uploading the vines onto the Nokia viNe site. Sometimes, the uploading progress stays stuck at 0%. I’m not sure if this is due to my network connection or an issue with the site itself. Other than this glitch, I am generally satisfied with the app.

Nokia viNe – I started to use the application with minimal information given to me and I found that I was able to record a vine with ease, with the exception of uploading to the net.

The Nokia N85, is a phone, camera and video recorder all it one, the good thing about adding this Nokia viNe app is like having a digital diary tagging your photos or videos with specific locations.

Overall, I find the application very user friendly. You can even opt to upload only specific pictures or videos, instead of uploading the whole vine.

I would probably use this application for a tourist/ travel journal, as it will reduce the problems one might have while trying to recall or where you took that photo. It also allows you to pause the app when you are idling too long without much activity.

You’re supposed to be able to upload your vines onto the net to be viewed by others but unfortunately I could not do this. I tried a number of times to upload but the progress keeps getting stuck at 25%.

My initial idea for a vine was “My work As A Quantity Surveyor”, but this was unfortunately shortened to “My Journey to Work” as the battery ran out on me. My vine shows the places I pass through on my way to work as well as pictures of me at the office, feeding my “Nine Spine Dragons” at my office rooftop compound.

The new Nokia viNe service, with its innovative approach of narrating stories to your family, friends or even users from all over the world, is a breath of fresh air for me. Using the GPS function, it allowed me to record my journey as ‘vines’ and geo-tagged the photos or videos I took and the music I listened to throughout my journey. This nifty application then allowed me to upload my vines onto the Nokia viNe site. However, there were times I experienced difficulties uploading my vines, which I suspect could be due to the Nokia viNe’s site server. After several attempts (which didn’t take long), I managed to get them uploaded successfully. This is one aspect Nokia should look into to improve user experience with the Nokia viNe. More often than not, users will not opt to try the application again if it takes up their time, even it’s easy to use.

Nokia viNe should consider allowing users to narrate their experience within their vines for better clarity to users who are viewing it. This will definitely enrich the user experience while viewing the vines in the Nokia viNe site. For example, by allowing an outlet for experience sharing or comments, it would be beneficial to both food enthusiasts who want to share the good food haunts they discover all over the island and users who are searching for ideas.

All in all, it’s a nifty and easy-to-use application that can be further improved on. It could potentially be a great application if more thought is put into it. It’s a great idea, but the execution is sadly flawed.

I’m waiting to see a better Nokia viNe. =)

The Nokia viNe application, upon hearing what it could do and what its usage entails in chronicling the little events in our lives, intrigued me to no end. Here was a program that could potentially detail the explicit adventures I had in my daily life! There goes the need to blog. Even more exciting, I realised that it had the potential to track my journey across countries, showcasing to my family and friends, and the world, what I was experiencing, first hand. This application, if it fulfilled its full capability, could be the tool of the future, the main arm of communicating with many people at once what one was doing/feeling/experiencing. However, I knew that these advances could be a long way off, and anyway, I only had the Nokia trial set for a week.

It would be simpler to begin with the flaws I experienced, mainly because I do not want to taint, at the end of this review, what was actually a remarkable program for myself. One of the flaws I experienced was that the upload of the viNe to the Nokia website tended to hang, though it would recover after a restart of the program. Also, uploading videos did not work out for me, as several attempts at uploading the same viNe hung at 98% for 3 hours before I gave up.

Another gripe I had was that, for me at least, the program consumed so much battery life. I was unfortunately unable to viNe a spectacular concert I had the privilege of attending at the end of a long day. I also found the application slightly tedious to use as I had to open the application, turn it on (start recording) and turn it off (stop recording). If I had forgotten to do so, I would have either missed out a chance to viNe or viNed for too long. I also experienced instances where the journey was not recorded properly. The geo-trail for one of my journeys was not tracked, but my recorded media ended up stacking themselves into my end destination. These bugs inherent in initial programming, however, are to be expected. They might cause early adopters to feel bored with its flaws, when the novelty of the program wears off.

One major flaw I felt that the program had is that it is made for the elites. Only certain phones will be able to fully appreciate what the program has to offer, and these are the phones with better cameras, larger phone memory capacity, the ability to geo-track and have the latest technology to fully utilize the program’s functions. One last piece of objective feedback comes from something my sister told me. She said that the program borders on the narcissistic, because who might want to know everything about your journey but you?

However, notwithstanding the negative feedback I have given, the program won me over with the things it could and did accomplish. I, for one, object to my sister’s point of view. Looking online at the viNes of other users made me realise that my journeys sometimes overlap those of other people’s. It made me feel closer to a stranger somehow, as if we were sharing an invisible bond that linked us together. I knew his story, and he knew mine. In this way the online viNe community made me feel like I was part of a bigger network, that I may have touched other lives in my movements, even if I did not know it. In other ways, it was almost like living vicariously through a stranger, experiencing with him his moments in life.

In a less esoteric, philosophical viewpoint, it was very interesting personally to track my own journeys and be able to catalogue the best things about them. Memories that were tacked on to the experience of listening to a particular song with a special person, or reliving the sights I saw on a specific journey, or remembering what I ate where and with whom could be enjoyed again with visual cues to what I had experienced. It was refreshing to be able to record down all these aspects and being able to relive them again, especially the music cues at the different places I was at. Also, the online viNes allowed me to track down new places to dine, discover new music and see parts of Singapore that I never knew existed. These provide me with visual cues and incentives to visit and try out these experiences for myself.

What would have made this program even more enjoyable for me would be the inclusion of several aspects that would make the viNes more personal. Other than fixes for the bugs mentioned, there is the issue of tediousness in running the application (as I mentioned earlier, it was with constantly having to turn the application on and off). I would have liked a setting that allowed the viNe to start recording automatically with the start of a media application, such as the camera or the music player. An auto-off feature would have been very much appreciated as well, perhaps designed to turn off after a set amount of time (5 minutes perhaps?) of idle activity from all media applications.

I would have also loved the option to blog or at least caption (or even give separate tags to) each piece of media captured, at the same time that they were happening. It would have been more personal to see my thoughts on a song, or how good the food at a certain place tasted, or to warn people of the incidence of mosquitoes in the area. The idea of real-time blogging of random thoughts of the moment also appeals to me, as I may be having a philosophical conversation with myself on my way to/at my favourite place in Singapore that I would have liked to pen down but have no outlet to do so. A related point would be the inclusion of a mood indicator, to let people know that I am happy/sad/angry at any point of my journey.

Also, allowing the online community to comment on my viNes and vice versa would allow greater interaction and build the viNe page into a comprehensive community, and a huge social network whose collective experiences people could take advantage of. One last suggestion would be the ability to search for, track and add friends so that it would be simpler to find them and view their viNes. When the program kicks off, I can imagine the many geo-tracks made by many people and it would be difficult to find one specific track belonging to a friend.

Even with its flaws, the Nokia viNe program shines with its potential. Many reviewers on other sites have questioned the logic of such a program, but the opportunity of having real-time sharing (and hopefully blogging) ability is really quite appealing to people like myself who would like to extend our experiences to friends and family. With enough time to mature, I am very sure that the Nokia viNe application would appeal to and be adopted by many users around the globe as their main method of sharing their photos, musical tastes and their encounters with the world.