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Top Story: AAS Insight 93 - SEE 2009, Q3 Canalys, N-Gage
In All About Symbian Insight 93 (AAS Podcast 157) we discuss the Q3 smartphone figures from Canalys and Rafe explains that Fujitsu and Quic have joined the board of the Symbian Foundation. We move on to a retrospective of SEE 2009 with discussion of the media reaction (which send Rafe into rant mode). We finish with thoughts on N97 PR 2.0 and the closure of N-Gage (sniff). You can listen to AAS Insight 93 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Top Story: Rafe's SEE 2009 walkabout (part 1)
SEE 2009 (Symbian Exchange and Exposium) is Symbian's annual big show. In the video below you can join me on a walkabout around the show floor at SEE 2009. I share my impressions and analysis in an unscripted, one-take, walk and talk. As well as covering many of the Symbian related consultancy and developer tool companies there's also a quick look at the Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung stands.
Top Story: Review: Opera Mobile 10 (beta)
As we posted earlier this week, Opera has released Opera Mobile 10 in beta form, a full S60-native alternative web browser to the S60 Webkit version. Ewan's been trying it out on some of his favourite sites and here's his illustrated review. Comments welcome. He'll be revisiting Opera Mobile 10 when the app finally comes out of beta.
Top Story: Review: the Nokia N97 mini - part 0!
Yes, a full retail Nokia N97 mini is at AAS Towers and I'm currently scribbling away on the ol' parchment to bring you a full review for next week. Just to wet your appetite though, here's my detailed N97 mini image gallery, with comments by Rafe and myself. With slimmer form factor and higher use of metal, I'd sum up my impressions of the device after a day as 'feels like the N97 that the Eseries team would have come up with'. More, much more to come next week.
Symbian aim for 'Satisfaction'
The third party community support site, GetSatisfaction, is fairly well known. It transpires that there's now an official (as in manned by Symbian employees) Symbian sub-community here, hopefully worth bookmarking should you 'need to ask that awkward question'.... Early days, of course, so the numbers are small but I'm sure it will grow.
The Nokia N97 v20 firmware Q&A
On Tuesday evening, I took part in a Nokia first - bloggers from round the world were invited to a (virtual) meet with the people behind a device's firmware, in this case Frank Zillikens, the Lead Firmware Developer, and Catalin Gheorghiu, a member of the technical team responsible for the recent firmware upgrade, both for the huge v20 update for the Nokia N97. Clinton Jeff, also attending, has taken the time to produce a nice summary of the questions and answers. Note that more questions were actually asked and that Nokia said they'd get back to us with answers in due course.
Ovi Maps inside buildings - coming soon
Forum Nokia Kevin Sharp has produced a nice summary of Nokia's plans for Ovi Maps in terms of in-building navigation (think malls, airports, etc.), collating material from several recent events, much of it from Michael Halbherr, VP of Social Location. It's a good read, although the paragraph about Nokia collecting 'cell learning' data from our phones gave my privacy nerve a little prod. Comments welcome if you can expand on what Nokia is (or isn't) doing here!
Q3 Smartphone Sales figures now out
Canalys' Q3 worldwide smartphone sales figures have been published. Headline figures are that the entire smartphone market grew by 4% year on year, with Nokia's S60 smartphone sales growing by 6% year on year and with their world market share now also up to 40%. RIM are in second place worldwide, with 21% (and impressive 40% year on year sales growth) and Apple are in third place with their iPhone with 18% (6.7% year on year sales growth). Down in marketshare are HTC and 'others'. However HTC's figures hides an increase in Android shipment and a decrease in Windows Mobile shipments.
BBC iPlayer widget gets big upgrade to v2.5
For compatible devices, the BBC iPlayer widget just got a big update from version 1.6 to version 2.5 (hat tip to Nokia Users). Speed and formatting are much better, and there are improvements in encoding and N97 homescreen widget support. More information, including some screenshots, in the full story.
EyeMags, easy mobile content creation, adds S60 Touch support
EyeMags, a service for generating personal content applications for mobile phones, has today added support for S60 5th Edition phones such as the Nokia 5800, Nokia N97 and Sony Ericsson Satio. EyeMags, using a web-based creator, allows anyone to create their own cross platform (JME, iPhone and Symbian) 'snackable' mobile content application containing a mixture of text and pictures. Read on for further details.
Nokia N86 8MP to N97 mini: The reluctant baton hand-over?
In which I muse on the seemingly unstoppable handover in all parts of the phone world from traditional phone form factors to large touchscreens and wonder, in particular, just how far the Nokia N97 mini actually is a step forwards from the last (and best) of the mainstream S60 3rd Edition line, the Nokia N86 8MP...
Symbian UI concept video from SEE 2009
At last week's Symbian Exchange and Exposition, Lee Williams (Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation) showed, during the keynote, a concept video of what a future Symbian UI might look like. The video shows a typical use case: accepting an invite to a party via Facebook and, the next day, attending the party. There's a glimpse of a new look homescreen, complete with social web integration, navigation and mapping features enhanced by augmented reality functionality. Read on to view the video and my comments.
microUSB marches on, Symbian theme, Horizon app store launches
It's.... another compendium of interesting links that I really wanted to flag up for attention here. Firstly, the ITU (the telecoms bit of the UN) has joined the American CTIA in agreeing on microUSB as the cable standard for phones for the future. Note that most Symbian-powered phones already use this. Secondly, there's a new, official Symbian Foundation theme (screenshot and d/l link below), which I'm determined to try out. Finally, Symbian's Horizon app-recommendation programme has gone live and is worth bookmarking.
Powerboat Challenge sums up N-Gage
And so the final N-Gage game slips out the harbour. Perhaps Nokia were hoping for a quiet maiden voyage for Powerboat Challenge? Whoops. Despite a solid game structure and good enough graphics, this title just - in Ewan's words - isn't fun. Read the illustrated review here on Ovi Gaming.
Opera release beta of Opera Mobile 10 for S60
Opera have released a beta version of Opera Mobile for S60 smartphones. Sporting the same user interface as the recently updated Opera Mini, Opera Mobile provides an alternative browser to that built into the majority of handsets, and first impressions on the beta are good. Highlights include an easy to navigate tabbed browsing experience, a number of thumbnails cropping up to aid navigation, and a lot of performance tweaks. Read on for more.
Nokia's Savander on Ovi and the USA
There's a great and interesting interview here with Nokia's Niklas Savander by the USA's 'CNET', talking about Ovi, app stores and Nokia's lack of penetration in the USA market. Well worth a read and helps understand where Nokia is coming from.
Google Mobile Search adds voice, and multi-language too
Google's S60 'portal' search utility, 'Google Mobile App' just got itself an update to v2.03(8), bringing voice searching - and it works rather impressively. Bring up the S60 3rd Edition utility in the usual way (e.g. by pressing 'C' on the homescreen) and then press and hold the green call key to speak your search string. Some screenshots, videos and links below.
TouchCalc beta testers wanted
Tamoggemon Software has just flagged up a new S60 5th Edition scientific graphing calculator, TouchCalc, and we've agreed to put the call out for beta testers - there are a couple of screenshots below to give you an idea. If you've got a science background, a S60 5th Edition device and a little spare time for contributing to a new shareware project, can you drop Tam a line at tamhan@tamoggemon.com ?
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Symbian Software
TIP: Check out our feature article on recommended software for some of the best commercial software available for your phone.
Relaxus - Tunes for relaxation and a good night sleep (Symbian)
Relaxus generates a fine collection of Sounds of Nature, Melody Tunes, and Brainwave Tunes to help you relax at your desired setting.Horse Log for Symbian
Looking for something to simply keep track of all your horses? Horse Log will do just that. Checkout this cool apps to manage the Horses.Contact & Activity Manager for MS CRM (Hosted/OnPremise)
MS Dynamics CRM Mobile Client for Contact & Contact related activity management. Includes Phone call, Meeting recording, Email and other app integration for activity captureLivePVR Professional Recorder for S60 3rd Edition
No beep Phone Call Recorder, Meeting, Audio, Voice Mail Recorder with HotKey, Auto-start, Auto Backup. Files named with Caller ID, Direction, Date & Time of Call and Meeting.LivePVR Professional Recorder for S60 5th Edition
No beep Phone Call Recorder, Meeting, Audio, Voice Mail Recorder with HotKey, Auto-start, Auto Backup. Files named with Caller ID, Direction, Date & Time of Call and Meeting.Agent Log for Symbian
Looking for something to simply keep track of all your tasks? Checkout this cool utility to manage your day to day task and activities! SMS and email data export options.LivePVR Phone Call Recorder for S60 5th Edition
No beep Phone Call Recorder, Meeting notes, Voice recorder with playback, HotKey, auto-start, WAV & AMR format. File name with Caller ID, Date & Time of Call and Meeting.WellGuessNum
use your brain and guess 4 digit number. very very fun and famous game.My Electrical Calculator for Symbian
39 Incomparable Electrical Calculators with Formula and Multiple Units. Accurate Calculation with Unit Conversion. Professional User-Interface enables easy and quick calculation.
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