Brainstorm

Add Group field in order to allow grouping of contacts.

this should allow to:

• configure different ringtones for each group.
• block calls from specific groups.
• Auto-reply with sms or sent to voicemail

Being able to group contacts would be useful.

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

• Default (nothing set specifically)
• At the group level (over rides default if set)
• At the contact level (overrides group ring if set)

sometimes you may want easy and fast access to the phone call function. for example when outside, on the move, with gloves on your hand and possibly only one hand free.

enabling custom-sized speed dial buttons on the desktop would make it easier to conveniently call someone. it could be a simplified version of the contact shortcut: same picture, tapping on the shortcut triggers one pre-defined action (in this case a phone call).

this is for cases when you need to make a call with one hand and without much fiddling.

when in phone app, shaking should trigger specific actions. what about shaking triggering a suggestion to call one member from a pre-defined group? shake again and the next person is suggested. when you find the person to call, put the phone to your ear and the sensor will trigger the call function.

Store and Handle prefered numbers Information from VCARDs in Contacts Application and handle it in the Phone Application.

When you chose a Contact, there should be a little Star or something else for you prefered number of the contact during selecting the Number to call.

Apart from the ability to group and apply certain actions (e.g. block, different ringtone, divert etc) for contacts stored in the device, a similar functionality could exist for all unknown numbers.

Ideally this can be done by allowing the use of filters.

For example, one should be able to set up a group concisting of all numbers that are not in contacts and start with +4112345*. Then name that new group as "SomeGroup" and configure to use this ringtone and display message when the phone receives a call from this group.

The options could be:

Advanced group setup:

* new group / modify existing group

* include numbers already in your contacts? yes/no

* group numbers (not) starting with: +1234

* group actions:

** per Profile/Global:

• Block calls

sent to mailbox
reply with SMS
no additional action

• Set ringtone / display message when receive call

- When one of the missed calls in the call list ist selected within the phone app, a menu (list) showing all necessary information for this particular contact should pop up

- the number he/she has tried to reach the user on top of the list, possibly highlighted and preselected

- all the other numbers of this contact will be shown below

this will allow the user to quickly see with which number the caller tried to get in touch, so the user will be able to call back ASAP. In case the user knows that the number his contact called with is a number he/she only uses at his office times, and it is evening already, the user can select one of the caller's details the user think's he/she is available at the moment. this way the user can get back at people without switching through several menus.

Phone pad should have support for speed dial, ie. calling specified numbers after press&hold a digit button in phone pad. Every other Nokia phone has that feature.

Add a possible to mark landline Phone Numbers as "call only" - then there should the SMS Buttons dissapear in all menus to avoid sending a SMS to a Landline Phone instead of a mobile.

In its current state when I want to make phone call I have several choices:

1) Press Power button then select phone.

2) Turn on "Turning Control" in the Phone app.

3) Create a phone app shortcut on desktop. Quit to desktop (either by long pressing task switch icon to desktop or task manager->desktop) and select the shortcut.

4) Have phone app in background when boot-up and select through task manager. 

For me:

 #1 is the most reliable one. Only take two presses, though one is hardware one is software.

#2 is useless since it takes too long to invoke the phone app.

#3 takes 2-3 presses.

#4 I don't want phone app stay in the background... might accidentally call someone....

I thought the unused area in task manager view could be used for easier access to phone app. The goal is to ensure that it takes at most 2 software clicks to reach phone app.

I would suggest that a phone shortcut icon presented on the screen at some of the menu levels, e.g. on the top-right corner at desktop and task manager level. The exact position might differ, e.g. it might sit next to the task switch icon.

Add the possibility to store fax numbers, just like phone numbers and cell numbers:
- fax
- fax (home)
- fax (work)
I know N900 does not currently have any sort of faxing capability, but I think there should be the possibility, at least, to store fax numbers in the address book (just like Nokia Symbian phones)

Like in the N95 8GB, I am very missing the the option to adjust the name of the phone entry. There are only 3 preset options (for example: CELL, CELL (home), CELL (work)). I have many contacts from foreign, where its important for me to know which coutry I am going to call, so I always edited the entry title like "CELL (Greece), or in instance if my contact uses two or three mobile providers, I used "CELL (Orange), CELL (O2), etc...

So the freedom of editing the entry titles would be warmly welcomed. Not only the MOBILE title, but all of them. 

Currently you can add only one Note to one contact entry, which is not enough. I suggest to remove this limitation.

Add another field in the contacts list to hold text that describes the person. This field should be shown in every contacts lists.

Currently only last-names and first-names are shown. However, I happen to have people in my addressbook that have the same name. In that case I add a descriptive text at the firstname or lastname fields. There can be an optional field that will hold this descriptive text and will be listed along firstname and lastname. This field can also be used to describe people we don't remember their names (like holding a nickname or a short description)

Every time you need to edit, delete, merge or send a contact, you'll have to open it first

it would be great if a long press on the contact can pop up a menu with the following options

1-Edit

2-Delete

3-Send as business card

4-Merge

5-Mark

Currently it is too easy to forget about SMS, missed call or voicemail notifications as it is easy to dismiss the desktop notification and move on to something else.  This is due to the lack of persistent status or notification icons for the missed event.

The icons would follow the standard icons from Symbian only prettied up a little for Maemo 5.

Some of my contacts share phone numbers, e.g. spouses and family members. I usually keep one combined contact, e.g. David & Julie, but adding online accounts and email addresses into the mix makes this awkward.

When I get an incoming call from a number that belongs to more than one contact, the phone just shows whatever matching contact it finds first. I propose it displays multiple contacts on the screen somehow, or at least does something to indicate the ambiguity.

The phone UI shows a "cell" icon for cell numbers, but does very little to distinguish multiple home/cell numbers. In the "reply" menu that comes up when you click on an entry in the call log, it would be extremely helpful if the original number was highlighted or placed at the top of the list.

Edit: this looks to be implemented for the call log in 51-1. It gives just the one number (phone & sms buttons), and you can click the person's icon for other contact options.

on my n82 ... if i want to make a call from the call log

for each number i have to option to make a voice (cellural/gsm) call or internet call.

currently on n900, if one wants to make a call from the call log to a number it is impossible to chose the way to call that number

eg: i receive a call from a gsm #  (not associated to a contact) ... after some time i want to dial that number ...but using sip or skype it's impossible. one needs to write down the number (as tehre is no copy/paste option) and use dial-pad to input the number and choose the calling type!!!!!

if one receives a gsm call from a contact .... and  wants to return the call using sip or skype ... one cannot chose this from the call log either ... onei needs to make the call from the contact list (if the contact has a sip audio field!)

SOLUTION: a long press on the number shold open a menu with several options:

1) call using: gsm/sip/etc

2) send a message using ....

3) save to contacts

4) see older n- series nokia phones!!!

Incomming calls should always be displayed in portrait mode. The transition animation takes too long and that could be the difference between an anwered and a missed call.

I'm surprised this was over-looked. (Then again, I don't remember any other cell phone with it.)

But if possible: Add Caller ID support for numbers not in contacts list.

(Thumbs down if not possible.)

At the moment you can only enter numbers, '+' and '#' in the phone number fields. It would be much easier to read numbers if all characters are permitted, not just "phone active" characters. Any other characters than ones that are relevant to the phone can simply be ignored. This would allow you to use '(',')', '-' and spaces, in phone numbers, but also let you add text-tags to the phone number. For example, you would be able to enter a US phone number as:

+1 (555) 123-4567

and you can  even add things like:

+1 (555) 123-4567 (Old number)

+1 (555) 123-4568 (Current number)

+1 (555) 123-4569 (Parents)

Or whatever other comment you would like.

Interestingly, the contact and phone apps already allow free-form numbers: I imported a set of vcards from my old phone with comments like this and they work excellently (including retaining the free-form text). However, the phone number entry fields simply don't accept other characters than the telephone characters so I can't enter new numbers with comments. So all this requires is to remove the limiter from the phone number text entry field, and I would be happy!

BTW, the phone number entry field also prevents paste if the clipboard contents has other characters than numbers + and #. Unfortunately it does so silently. It took me a good while before I realized why I couldn't copy-paste a number from an SMS into the phone app (the number had spaces in it).

1. Enable users to create custom user groups (friends, family, work).
2. Enable users to assign special ringtones and alerts to each group
3. Make each group run like a standalone application, that can be added to your desktop. once clicked, you'll see images of contacts the same way they look on the desktop.
4. Make shortcuts available in all apps (contacts, phone, conversation)

Nothing special about first 2 points, but the last 2 are features I have never seen. I used features like "favorites" but didn't like to see my friends, family members and co-workers in the same page or screen.

Allow dialer to look-up names using T-9 input and numbers, similar to Windows Mobile dialer.

Not sure if this was suggested already, but Visual Voicemail would be pretty sweet.

I think the phone's functioning could be enormously improved by creating a flexible widget for placement on the desktop.

This could feature:

Compact mode: (ie. the top section with the solid border, above and not including the white number box only)

• shows call/sms/email/voicemail status and counts - plus access to these by clicking on respective icons for each
• details of previous call event (eg. missed call) with one-click access to call back missed caller or recall last dialled etc.
• up/down toggle to expand from compact mode

Expanded mode: (ie. everything from above, plus the dashed-bordered section with the dial pad etc.)

• Full numerical (and alpha labelled) keypad
• In call: Dial / End buttons
• Out of call: Dial / Backspace buttons (red long-press to clear all entry)

• In call: Mute / Handsfree buttons
• Out of call: Contact / Call History buttons (with popups or link to relevant system applications)
• Intelligent speed-dial mode: type two digits and send to call - add field in contacts to assign speed dials (or handle this in the widget)

With a simple widget like this you could provide permanent / semi-permanent access to the phone functions, as well as much needed message status indicators (which should flash/pulsate to attract attention, as per user settings of course).  Possibly the widget could be set to appear on all desktops (if the system allows for such a thing).

The widget could be made to auto-expand / collapse to save more time, expand during a call (if desktop is visible).  The widget could also include one-touch buttons for "new SMS" or "new Email" too, something lacking in Maemo which was very useful in Symbian.

I have attached an image of basic design for such a widget.  Something like this could really end the comments about the N900 not being a proper phone and would still fit in with the wonderful flexibility of the desktop system in Maemo 5.

Call duration for each call in call log. Now only all calls lenght is possible to check.

This is a bluetooth profile that would make usability in cars equal to other recent nokia phones.

Support for RSAP will make maemo phones so much more usable for road warriors.

No such profile means no maemo phone for many.

This has been proposed as a brainstorm but it's really a solution:

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/rsap-remote_sim-support_for_n900/

In some cases you would like to clear a single call entry and you do not want to clear all recent call entries.

In Phone app > Recent Calls list

When you click on a call entry the follow new options can be added:

Clear this call entry : Clear the selected call entry

Clear all call entries of this contact : Clears all the call entries of the selected contact

Search contacts with company name so you can easily multiselect people in the same company one after the other when sending a message and to easily find a contact person of a company.

Related brainstorm: http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/search_contacts_with_company_name/

The ability to actually changing/deleting contacts from the "Contacts" Application (which is related to this, phone experience), without actually changing/deleting/merging them with the online service (like MSN contacts.. etc).

The lack of physical/tactile buttons slows down interacting with the phone during critical times such as answering or muting while on a conference call.  If the camera lens is closed, it might make sense to overload the camera shutter button:

• Pressing [shutter] when a call is coming in will answer the call.
• While in a call, pressing [shutter] half-way unmutes.
• When in a call, pressing [shutter] all the way mutes.

Using the two states of this could be particularly useful as when on a conference call I like to be able to ensure that a phone is muted after speaking without needing to look at it (especially if I'm walking outside in the cold).  Physical buttons with tactile feedback are particularly useful here.

(Note that placing the camera on its face will reject a call.   The power button might be another logical button to use for rejecting if the shutter answers.)

Problem: I don't want my phone to make noise and I don't want to be disturbed from buzzing by chat messages.  I do want to know that someone is calling me or sending me a text messages.

Now it's only possible to choose between vibrate or not vibrate - for all forms of incoming communication.  It should be possible to differentiate between a phone call and a chat message.  Proposed solution: vibrate checkbox for every element, just like the volume can be changed individually.

Most phones for the past few years have had the capability to add a ring tone to a specific contact in your address book. This covers even the free phones you can get through a carrier, however, the premiere Maemo device from Nokia cannot do this. I have gotten so used to having per-contact ring tones that helps identify who is calling I am really missing this feature. This one feature keeps the N900 from being a "phone" in my eyes. Nokia needs to add a "Ring tone" field on a contact and be able to play anything the media player can (gstreamer). This functionality should only take a few hours of a Nokia programmer's time.

There has already been a 3rd party USSD app, but it is very technical, and not in the least new-user friendly.

I propose to allow the entering of USSD codes directly into the phone menu.

As of now, the phone will say "Invalid Number" if one were to try to send a USSD code with a leading #.

This is necessary because many people use pre-paid phone services, and USSD is the primary method of checking one's balance.

The reply could be handled in a similar way to SMS and IM messages.

I think it would be good for the notification light to make a pattern when the lens cover is open - I forget sometimes that I opened it.

It would also be good to use the notification light as an equivalent to the hourglass so there is visual feedback that the n900 is working hard, but has registered the click :)

Any time I am making a call, there should be an end call button to hand, maybe via the task manager, or the pop up that give the restore button and connection details etc.

Also a single short press of the power key while in call should disconnect the call.

On previous phones I was able to force show/hide my number on the next call only.

My number is ex-directory so my number is withheld from anyone I call. However, there are some people (family) who I'd like to see my number, and with previous phones I could select to show my number on the next call only before calling them.

This feature is missing from the N900 and I believe it should be implemented.

If I can take my solution #44 to the next level, it would be much better if I could specify showing or hiding my ID per contact.

For example, I would select to always show my phone number when I call my wife or my brothers. Similarly, someone who is not ex-directory may want to hide their number whenever they call a customer or an ex who they don't want calling back or something. All it needs is an extra field within the contacts database where this option can be saved.

This would allow me to simply call my contacts without having to select 'show my number on next call' every time.

Note that it is possible to do this already by including the appropriate code (I believe it's *31#) before the number. However, I have found that if you include this code with the stored phone number, then other features such as SMS, Skype, etc will not work. It is much cleaner (and proper) for the phone to add the code accordingly.

One of my favorite phone capabilities from Symbian was how they said the calle id out loud on incoming phone call. Having this feature would make it easy to identify a caller without taking your phone out of the pocket or searching for it if it's not with you right then.

Swiping:

One of the recent upgrades to Symbian phones such as Nokia 5800 was:

When the phone is locked and an incoming call causes it to start ringing, the display lights up and the caller ID/contact is shown. At the bottom of the screen, a green arrow repeatedly extends in a left-to-right direction and under it a red arrow extends in a right-to-left direction. The motion is intended to show the user that the screen must be swiped in the relevant location to perform the action. The same "swiping" notion is used to snooze or stop alarms

Currently when this phone rings in your pocket, it is easy to accidentally touch the screen while taking it out of your pocket and end up selecting an option you don't want (accidentally accept/reject the call)

Flipping:

Another feature from the latest Symbians: if the phone is face up on your desk and it starts to ring, turning it over so it is face down will silence the ring. The same is true for silencing an alarm. If the phone is face down already, it will ring. It is intended that the ring can only be silenced after reviewing the screen to see who is calling/what is alarming

This topic falls into the general remit of Portrait Mode and has been reasonably beaten to death in talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=31173 so I'm surprised I didn't find it here as hand held phones are usually held in portrait mode.

Note that this topic is specifically talking about a text input method, not portrait mode. Every phone I've ever had, has had the common feature that it can be held securely in one hand, and its core features used with one thumb. My hands are larger than average but I cannot use the N900 with just one hand because I cannot hold it, or move my thumb far enough and with sufficient accuracy to make one-handed text entry viable I believe the feature that would single-handedly(no pun intended) make more *users* (ordinary people who buy devices like the iPhone, not linux developer-tinkerer types) feel comfortable with the N900 would be to have a 3x4 alphanumeric dial pad keyboard with 2abc, 3def, 4ghi ... buttons and T9 style predictive text entry.

Apps can remain landscape; this solution is not discussing apps. It's no problem rotating the phone in-hand to read a conversation, but when tapping into a text entry field, to have a standard 3x4 phone keypad appear if the phone is held portrait would bring the device closer to being a phone than any other aspect for the majority of users. Bigger buttons are more thumb friendly, and that's core to one-handed operation. Text entry can also be much faster on these boards than on a tiny qwerty

Note that some work on this by way of examples seems to have been done, googling Hildon Onehand brings some discussion.. The Hildon Onehand example shows a 3x4 pad in either portrait or landscape, but I get the impression that the example exists as a guide for implementation into an app, and I'm promoting here that a system-wide, app-independent 3x4 text entry device be made available.

Attached image is borrowed from https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4178

When there is a call coming in, a first and/or last names are displayed. Showing also a company name (or possibly any other configurable field from contact) would allow to better recognize which customer is calling if one does not remember the name.

The ability to automatcally retry failed call attempts (with a delay that backs off up to a maximum limit in between attempts) would be great and has been on every phone I've had in the last 10yrs (even if they were all Nokias).

It should be a menu point for sending mms by default on the Phone because every new Phone can send and retrive mms but the N900 doesn't support this normal feature for now.

And i know there is an app called fmms. But this app doesn't work for me with sending a Picture, only text works. And for text i use sms.

Sure can this be a problem of the app fmms. But i think there is no must to install an external app for doing a very normal thing.

(This is a slight rewording of solution #27)

It should be possible to simply paste arbitrary clipboard contents into the dialing pad of the phone app with a call in progress and have just the relevant characters retained and sent as DTMF tones - ie: whitespace etc should simply be ignored.

This is a vital feature for interacting with many phone based services, eg: phone banking, calling cards etc...

N900 does not completely implement Caller Id feature.

CallerId features has two types..
1. Single Data Message Format (Caller Number only)
2. Multiple Data Message Format (Caller Name and Caller Number)

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID (dont miss to read section Operation about SDMF & MDMF)

N900 does implement SDMF but does not seem to support MDMF.

Currently if it shows the Name from address book if it exist or it does nto show anything.

Solution: lookup Addressbook for name, if not found in AB show the Name provided by the network provider.

Similarly N900 shows DNIS@IP for incomming VoIP calls ignoring the CallerName and adding IP to DNIS/CallerId.

Instead of "1234567890@123.123.123.123" it should show number only "1234567890" and lookup name in AB and show name or display Name provided from network.
For identification of Network or type of calls e.g. GSM, SIP, Skype, etc. it should simply show a differnt Icon to distinguish between the calls from multiple network providers.

When I have a missed call, it would be great if I, in one action, could add a task to the calendar, so I remember to call back.

Actually, i would be useful to have that option after finishing a call too, so that I could be reminded that I need to call this person back later.

This is an expansion of #10.

When I add a number to a contact, the Contacts application will provide one button for each phone account plus one SMS button for each of the numbers. For example, Contact A has two numbers (home and cell), and I have a SIP account on my phone. The result will be six buttons (3 channels (phone, SIP, SMS) x 2 numbers):

- Phone Home
- SIP Home
- SMS Home
- Phone Cell
- SIP Cell
- SMS Cell

In my case, I need to dial some access codes on my SIP account. For example, whereas I have to dial +1 555 765 4321 to reach someone via phone, I will have to dial 9 1 555 765 4321 on my SIP account. An easy solution is to define another contact entry with the correctly prefixed number. This will result in even more combinations of buttons.

Therefore, we need to be able to select which of the channel/contact combinations should be offered as a button in the Contacts application.

P.S. The ability to define a single prefix as part of the SIP account is not sufficient, I need different prefixes for different regions on the planet.

It would be great to be able to dial not only the incoming phonenumber from missing call list. When I receive a call from a contact it shows the picture of the person. When I try to call this person back it would be nice to be able to select the other stored phonenumbers for this contact in redialmenu.

Would be very nice if your phone profile from normal / silent would be able to be scheduled / linked in with the calendar so your phone would automatically go silent during a scheduled event.

Although this is a calendar enhancement, (and I posted it as such in the Calendar updates) the reason I mention it here is this app should also alllow

- override to let SMS / Phone calls through from chosen contacts. ie incase of emergency so you can override the phone going silent from certain numbers ONLY. This way once your calendar is linked to make your phone silent etc you can still get "emergency" calls and SMS knowing if you do get a call it is an emergency as all other numbers / SMS' to you would not get through during the time of the event duration.

You may not use the override too often but sometime there are calls you MUST be able to pick up and this would allow only those to get through if selected.

When someone is calling you, you pick up the device, shake it and it will answer the call, then during the call, if you shake it again, it will end the call.

If possible also include gesture recognition, so you can flick in different directions for activating different functionalities, like muting your mic when you flick it to the right etc.

Offer the option of always using the speaker byt default in voice calls .

If possible, add a suboption to decide the behavior while a bluetooth headset is connected (so you could for example always use the speaker, but if there is a headset connected, use it instead)