Just as with Symbian's Smartphone Show itself, the AllAboutSymbian Pub Meet, held the night before, seems to get bigger and better every year.
Maybe the numbers attending were similar (around 80), but that's more a function of how many could squeeze into the room at once. The 'bigger and better' here is mainly to do with the prizes on offer and the (not that) formal content.
As usual(!), I was first to arrive (I hate travelling in rush hour, so got to London early) and set the room up. There was a huge widescreen TV set up overhead at one end and I was disappointed that I couldn't use my TV-out cable from the N93 to play back live video through it - it seems the pub have hard wired everything for remote control. Ah well.... at least I had my interactive T-shirt to show off, which Ewan used to good effect as a 'Clap-o-meter' through the evening!
People started to arrive from 6pm and most were friends from last year. Rafe, Ewan and I had brainstormed a quick trivia quiz and these proved a good ice-breaker while people started to chat. 7pm came and went and there were still less than 20 people present, a nice vibe but very quiet. 7.30pm thankfully saw a huge influx of people coming in from work or from other 'do's, in anticipation of the now famous pub meet prize draw.
The talk section was supposed to start at 8pm but there was a good buzz going on and Ewan still seemed to be totting up quiz scores, so noone minded running a bit late. There were plenty of machines to fiddle with in the mean time, from a good selection of UIQ 3 devices to my and Rafe's N93s, plus E61s, E70s, N73s.
Finally, we got to 8.30 and the main event. Ewan Spence showed why Rafe pays him his six figure salary (I'm not saying in which currency!) with his usual tour-de-force performance as meeting compere and general focus point. There was a little of the usual banter and the announcement of the quiz winner before he introduced Rafe for the 'State of the Union' talk.
Both Rafe and I are really quite shy and not really public speakers, but Rafe was able to get in mentions of visitor stats, the new server, plans to expand into audio and video in the near future, plus all the thank yous that are customary. One thing he forgot to mention but which he won't mind me mentioning here, is the new writer on board, 'krisse', who couldn't make the meet, due to living in Finland. We've already seen some high quality round-up articles from krisse and there's more to come. The AAS team firmly believe that unique content is the way to keep the site improving and growing. If you have any comments on what we're doing right (or wrong) then please email rafe at allaboutsymbian.com...
Next up was Sony Ericsson, who had half-promised to turn up in 2004 and 2005 but who had never made it. In 2004 because there was nothing to really show us that was new, I guess, and in 2005 because the new P990i was in such fragile experimental state that it would have been ripped apart in usual voracious AAS style... 2006 was thankfully different, with Lars from Sony Ericsson confident enough with the M600i, P990i and W950i to bring them all along for playing with. He introduced each model briefly and talked about his company's strategy in expanding on the UIQ 3 base now that it was (almost!) stable, before opening himself up to questions.
Then followed an interesting 10 minutes or so of back and forth questions, although most of the hard-hitting ones were saved for firing at Lars later in the evening, on a one-to-one basis. Thanks, Lars, for being a good sport and for hanging around so long. And, mainly, thanks for turning up, you did Sony Ericsson's credibility a lot of good in the Symbian OS world.
(Incidentally, both Lars' and Rafe's talks were recorded and will pop up on AAS in the very near future, just in case you wondered exactly what they said!)
And so to the prize draw, with the star attraction being the Nokia N93, or at least a voucher for it, since the unit itself had been delayed and was still in transit from Finland! The 'Mystery Star Prize' (ooooh), much sought after and then ridiculed in past years, turned out, surprisingly, to be a Nokia E61 communicator, which was gratefully accepted by the next draw winner, despite Ewan's attempts to talk them into going for an assortment of books and mints instead...
The draw over, it was left to chat and generally demo smartphones until closing time, with the pub virtually kicking the last of us out at 11.30ish. The best pub meet yet? Comments welcome!
Thanks to all the sponsors, who helped with room rental and prizes:
