
The Nokia N9 Alarm Clock (2014) - rahuldottech
http://nition.momentstudio.co.nz/2014/08/the-nokia-n9-alarm-clock/
======
Nition
I wondered why my old article was suddenly getting new comments. I guess
someone saw my comment yesterday[1].

A few notes:

\- This should have a [2014] tag.

\- The Nokia N9 was released in 2011. There are indeed some other clocks like
this now. A subset of them are explicitly copying the N9.

\- To those complaining about the dial interface, you often don't have to turn
the dials. Since it snaps to the nearest five minutes when you tap, you can
set your alarm in two taps. You do have to spin the dial around to change a.m.
to p.m. though. With the slight vibration as you turn, it feels better on a
touchscreen than you might think.

\- Yes Sailfish has a similar implementation. I used a Jolla Sailfish phone
after my N9 until I eventually broke it. Then I used Sailfish on an Xperia X
but the phone was just too big. There are no Sailfish phones that I can put in
my pocket now; I'm currently using an old iPhone 5C. The vertical scrolly-dial
alarm clock interface sucks.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19595938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19595938)

~~~
Lammy
What about the Xperia X Compact? It’s supported too.

~~~
Nition
It's not officially supported. That and I just don't want to pay for another
new phone. Official support right now is:

\- Xperia X, Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Plus, Xperia XA2 Ultra.

I have seen that there is some community support for the Xperia X Compact
though.

The newest Sony "compact", the XZ2 Compact, is almost as large as the original
Xperia X now too.

    
    
      Galaxy S10+:        158 x 74 mm
      Xperia X:           143 x 69 mm
      Xperia XZ2 Compact: 135 x 65 mm
      Xperia X Compact:   129 x 65 mm
      iPhone SE:          124 x 59 mm
      Nokia N9:           117 x 61 mm
    

I think the perfect phone for me would be an N9/iPhone SE size phone with an
iPhone X-style borderless screen and Meego or Sailfish OS.

------
abdulmuhaimin
Meego could actually succeed if Nokia continue their support. Instead,they
pull their life before it hit the market. And boy, did it do great. N9 to me
was like when first iPhone was introduced, such a revolutionary phone.

I always wonder what the alternate reality is if Nokia continued with Meego
instead of Windows Phone. I know there are Sailfish OS, but the support needed
is huge for a new OS when Android and iOS already dominated the market, and
they cant carry them forward.

Even in modern mobile OS, although they improved, the UX is not as intuitive
as Nokia N9.

~~~
ZuLuuuuuu
I was a fan of Nokia N9, I used it for a year and I absolutely loved it. It
was ahead of its time that's for sure.

BUT, I am not sure whether Meego would have been the better choice over
Windows for Nokia. Creating a 3rd ecosystem requires more than having a better
OS. If you check out Windows Phone reviews, it was also a very good OS.
Windows was more cross-platform than Meego as well. It was ready for phones as
well as tablets and wearables. And it is already the most popular OS on
desktop. It was backed by the giant Microsoft with enormous resources as well
as Nokia's resources. There were a lot of developers who were familiar with
Windows development (C# + XAML)

...And despite all these advantages, even Windows couldn't become the 3rd
ecosystem and thrown the towel after years. And the problem was not the OS
itself, it was the lack of apps. Big names simply didn't bring their apps to a
third platform.

So I think Meego would have gone nowhere even if Nokia chose it over Windows.
Of course we can't know for sure...

------
kurthr
Next, can I have a microwave oven that has just 2 dials? Time & Power

~~~
zokier
I had a samsung microwave like this and the ux was really solid on it. It
literally had only the two dials on it, and the time dial had nice curve so
you could easily set short (<1min) times precisely, and longer times quickly

[https://www.thewrightbuy.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1...](https://www.thewrightbuy.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/1000x1000/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/s/ms23f301eas_samsung_microwave_c.jpg)

~~~
rossng
I have the same and it's easily the best interface I've ever used on any
microwave. I am always baffled by the ones with two dozen buttons. Who on
earth uses all those modes? Even more infuriating is when they actually make
it _harder_ to enter the time you want by doing something insane like only
having a 'one minute' and a 'ten seconds' button that you have to press
repeatedly.

If someone could make washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and TV remotes
with similarly decluttered interfaces I would be very happy. I even find
fridges hard to use! Most of them seem to have a scale (e.g. 1-5) of buttons
for the fridge temperature. Who can tell me (without looking in the manual)
which end of that scale is 'cold' and which is 'warm'? They never label
whether it represents power or temperature.

------
Gravityloss
I found the alarm clock quite annoying to use. Usually I want to set an exact
time. A slider, be it round or linear, is better suited to tuning something
while watching for feedback.

That's how faders are used on physical sound mixers as well. You slide it
until you hear what you want.

On Meego switching between apps was way way smoother than android though.

~~~
bruxis
What an interestingly different interpretation from my own experience.

I found the ability to have two dials like this made it extremely easy to jump
to a quartile of time (say 0-3 hour mark, 0-15 minutes) and then precisely
tune in on the exact hour or minute.

I wish more UI was this intuitive and powerful.

The time selector on iOS (haven't used Android in a quick minute) is
absolutely dreadful by comparison.

------
m4rtink
Sailfish OS had the same alarm clock widget since lauch (~2015), which is not
surprising given that many ex-Nokia people who worked on the N9 created the
Jolla company and started Sailfish OS.

In any case this is how it looks like on my Sony Xperia X running officially
supported Sailfish OS 3:

[https://imgur.com/a/oNZgORn](https://imgur.com/a/oNZgORn)

------
koala_man
To me, the time of day is four digits counting up.

The Android version of this instead makes me choose two points on three
concentric circles (am+pm+minutes). It's neither helpful, useful, nor
familiar.

If someone wanted you to enter phone numbers this way to mimic rotary dials,
they would be laughed out of the room.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I completely agree. I'm not sure if there is a word for this, but I think of
it as "design should match the way your brain says it". I.e. may brain says
"6:15 AM", and I imagine that in my head exactly how I write it, not some
weird combination of circular dials. In fact, when I _see_ those weird
combinations of circular dials on the Android clock I always feel like I need
to "translate" between my mental vision of seeing "6:15 AM" and rotating an
unintuitive dial.

~~~
jfim
Might be an age thing, but the circular dial is completely intuitive if you've
learned how to read an analog clock at a young age.

Unlike the widget described in the article, it doesn't snap in 5 minute
increments for the minutes, which makes it a bit more finnicky, but otherwise
6:15 am is just a tap at 6 (south) and 15 (east).

~~~
ge0rg
The Android widget is a huge design fail. If you accidentally touch the wrong
hour, or get into PM instead of AM, you have no way to correct. It became
bearable to use once I forced myself to always swipe the hours and minutes
until it read the right value, and to lift the finger then.

It's still not as bad as the Samsung and iOS vertical dial with 60 options,
though.

My old Symbian phone (pre touch) allowed to just type the desired alarm time
on the keyboard. I could blindly set an alarm. Those were the times...

~~~
jfim
I just tried it again on Android 9 (Pie), and as you say, it's definitely
crappier if you're using AM/PM (my local settings have it on 24 hour time
display), since there's an extra tap required for AM/PM and one could miss it
and set an alarm for 6 PM instead of 6 AM. This may be more intuitive to
someone used to a 12 hour locale.

That being said, in the alarm clock dialog, if you add a new alarm, there's a
button that allows the user to type in the time using a keyboard (there's a
keyboard icon to the bottom left), the first tap allows you to select the hour
(shows both 0-12 and 13-23 if the locale is set to 24 hour clock), another tap
will select the minute. If you're on 12 hour clock, you may need to change
between AM/PM by tapping it. Tapping either the minute or the hour will allow
changing that value.

Other than having the 5 minute snap on tap (as TFA points out, who really
wants an alarm at 6:01 or 5:59?), it seems as if it allows all possible
interactions, where the user can pick whatever input modality they want.

------
greenice
> And of course, you can turn the phone off at night and it still turns itself
> on in the morning for the alarm.

I have missed this feature ever since smartphones became popular.

How come this isn't a standard feature of each smartphone by now? Are there
any technical limitations?

~~~
Nition
The top answer here has some info re hardware support:
[https://together.jolla.com/question/174903/alarm-doesnt-
wake...](https://together.jolla.com/question/174903/alarm-doesnt-wake-up-
xperia-x-sailfish-x)

I also miss it, as I use my phone as my alarm but there's no other reason for
me to leave it on at night.

------
billfruit
What I find is that most alarm clock apps do not have features like to wake up
to radio(FM/streaming), wake up to a preset/randomized playlist or podcasts,
gradual increase in alarm volume(android stock app allows a volume ramp up,
but its ramping duration is too short).

~~~
dsego
My wife's Xiaomi phone has some woman speaking Chinese every morning (not sure
what she's saying, we don't speak it), which reminds me, need to find a way to
turn it off.

~~~
skripp
She's telling you the time and weather. Depending on the circumstances she
will add some tips like "Put on sunscreen", "bring an umbrella" or "put on a
mask to protect against pollution". First time I heard the latter one I was
like "I'm living in one of these dystopian sci-fi films I love so much...".

edit: To get rid of it, just change the alarm sound. It's nothing special,
just one of the options.

------
Rerarom
This is from 2014. The Android alarm clock now has roughly the same design.

~~~
nextos
Somehow, but the end user experience is very different.

I own both an N9, which I still use as an alarm clock, and a Pixel.

The N9 alarm clock is incredibly smooth, and intuitive. You never over or
underturn clock hands. Whereas I have seen lots of people, particularly my
dad, struggling with the Android counterpart.

The N9 was an incredibly well designed product in most respects. I
particularly miss the small screen with a curved glass that integrated so well
with single-hand gestures (up to minimize app, down to close, left and right
to move to next or previous window-card).

Maemo/MeeGo are, in some ways, the BeOS of the mobile world.

~~~
nickpeterson
I like to imagine an alternate reality where Nokia, Rim, and Palm combined.

~~~
z3t4
Imagine if Microsoft would have embraced Meego instead of killing it, and
focused more on business and quality apps. If you see a large wave, you should
surf it, not try to make it change direction. But sometimes you have to make
the wave, way out in the ocean where it will barely be noticed, but once it
hits shallow water everyone else will be caught off guard.

------
Sharlin
I'm still angry that internal politicking at Nokia killed Meego. The N9, in
2011, seriously felt like a phone that had arrived from the future, or another
timeline where everything is more elegant than in ours. Nokia simply should
not have been able to come up with a phone with such polished user experience.
But they did, and then they threw it away and instead bet on a completely
wrong horse.

~~~
profalseidol
Must be the incentive to innovate.

------
divan
This.

After using Nokia N9 (and Nokia N950) for 1.5 years and switching back then to
iOS, I almost couldn't believe how crappy iOS alarm experience was (and still
is!) in contrast to the overall polished UI.

I also enjoyed a lot the swipe based navigation between screens and closing
apps by swiping them app – this concept was so much ahead of it's time. Now
it's in iOS and Android as well.

Whoever worked on Meego/Harmattan UI – you are geniuses. Just know that your
work was very much appreciated even if underrated by mainstream.

------
Wowfunhappy
I loved my Nokia N9. Everything about the UI _felt_ really good. I would
switch back if they refreshed the hardware, app support be damned. Although,
now that Android and iOS integrate so many more swipe gestures, it's possible
the advantages would be less pronounced.

I know most of the same developers went onto make Sailfish, but I've tried
that and the UI doesn't feel nearly as good. :(

~~~
joecool1029
> Everything about the UI felt really good.

It wasn't just the software UI, but the hardware felt good and gestures felt
natural on the device. It was the first time I used a phone and felt like the
hardware and software were made for each other from the start. iOS and Android
phones always felt like they were incrementally trying to get there, but never
started there.

Everything since has sucked for usability.

~~~
Nition
The way the screen curved and flowed smoothly into the rounded edges worked
particularly well with the swipe-based interface (namely the edge swipes).

------
Geee
Also, what was going on with the tactile feedback on the N9? Pressing the
virtual keys felt almost real. I've not touched anything similar since then.

~~~
distances
This is still one of my pet peeves on non-N9 devices. There's a device that
got it right, and it's still not copied over.

N9 truly was a beauty when it came out. Of course it's a bit underwhelming now
with the dated hardware, but I the UI (and tactile feedback..) still holds up
after all these years.

------
angott
It's crazy how similar this was to the new Clock app introduced in iOS 10
(2016).

------
Bud
I actually see various aspects of this with rather poor design. The most
glaring thing is the minute hand on the clock, which is so thin as to be
nearly invisible. This is made worse by it being white on a light-grey
background, and even worse by the fact that its shape doesn't match with the
hour hand, which has rounded ends. This is a very hard clock to read. The
three hands also don't give the impression that they rotate around a common
center point. The day-of-week indicator is also tiny, and hard to read, again
because of the mixed greys. 50% grey displayed on a background of around 30%
grey isn't elegant; it's just hard to read. The indicator for which day(s) of
the week the alarm is set is even worse; nearly invisible.

------
lucb1e
So like most Android ones these days? I don't find any of these features
special. The only noteworthy difference is that the clock is not shown on my
current alarms screen and I'm happy to be able to have the extra screen real
estate as I have dozens if not hundreds of alarms so I don't have to set it
every day again but can just scroll down to the right time and flip a few
switches.

------
DeepYogurt
For what it's worth I had an n9 and I did not particularly like the alarm
clock design. Most of the UI felt somehow wrong to me.

------
codeulike
The Android (v9) alarm clock is somewhat like this, Hour and Minute are
selected with two nested rotary dials.

------
baby
This makes me think of the "bed time" iOS clock which is confusing me every
time I try to use it.

------
wl
Manipulating dials on displays is not good design, whether it's with a mouse
or on a touchscreen.

~~~
tuukkah
I can see how it's flawed with a mouse, but why is it bad design on a
touchscreen? I haven't seen a better time picker.

~~~
disqard
I think the comment is getting at the fact that a knob/dial actually has a
physical affordance (being grabbed and twisted), which is absent on a smooth
glass surface. Hence, aiming to create interactive dials on a touchscreen is
an inherently challenging endeavor.

~~~
tuukkah
I suppose the main solution in N9 was to make the dial big enough (not unlike
a rotary telephone dial) as opposed to a small knob that you would wish to
grab and twist.

------
fortunajs
I'm still wondering why when setting an alarm clock on locked screen iPhone by
swiping up and opening the app from Control Center there is a lock icon
instead of current time.

------
tannhaeuser
Sorry to kindof hijack - I was just about to "Ask HN" but failed - my post
would show as regular submission rather than Ask. So I'm posting my question
here instead.

Modern Android devices are becoming useless for me, as they won't connect to
my car hi-fi nor Linux (neither as mass storage nor MTP device - what a
clusterfuck). All I really need is a browser, email client, local storage, MP3
(no streaming), and _maybe_ navigation. Preferably not a large phablet. A good
touch display is a plus. Doesn't have to be cheap. Does anybody know of a
decent device doing the above, and nothing else?

~~~
bArray
Hmm, possibly the WiPhone could be of interest:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-
ph...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-phone-for-
hackers-and-makers)

It doesn't do everything you need, but it certainly has the potential to if
you are willing to put the time in.

------
agumonkey
this is where android is ultra lame.. the amount of papercuts for the mundane
tasks..

------
tambourine_man
I’ve used something like this on recent cheap Androids and it’s a bad idea.

I had to help the person setting it up and it took a while to understand it
myself.

You have to consider that right before falling asleep a person is not at their
top cognitive capacity. And waking up on time can be really freaking
important.

So don’t get smart with alarm clocks.

------
ausjke
was searching for an alarm clock for school age kids:

1\. no cellphone based alarm, they will abuse it if cellphone is in bedroom
sometimes.

2\. no $15 dollar alarm clock from Walmart, which you have one setting for
Mon-Fri, another one for Sat-Sun, but you have to manually switch them on
Friday/Sunday night otherwise you will be waked up at a wrong time.

Is there a smart alarm clock, not smart as an Android phone, but smarter than
the legacy models? Our calendar/alarm varies more these days and I need find
an alarm in the middle of legacy and cellphone.

~~~
VectorLock
If I was going to downvote or flag your comments it would be because your
question seems related to the post in the the most tangental way possible then
you start making accusations about someones mental health that you have zero
knowledge about because you got down-voted.

