As suspected, (Norman John is reporting that) Nokia is holding its own partner event in Barcelona in February, within walking distance of Mobile World Congress. Open just for the 15th and 16th, Nokia promise that "invited guests can relax on comfy sofas, enjoy delicious food and drinks as they discuss the industry and network with their peers". And, no doubt, a few tasty new Symbian-powered smartphones? We'll see.
In this, part 2 of my Nokia E72 review, I look at its camera functions, multimedia handling and general applications, before rounding it up. Is it fully useable and does it measure up to the 2009 competition? See also part 1 of the E72 review, looking at its hardware and performance.
There are only a handful of point and click adventures on the S60 5th Edition smartphones - Zeus Quest from Crazysoft makes a welcome addition to the genre, with you taking on the role of the ancient god Zeus as he returns to Earth to try and save the planet from its current drifting state into disaster. Ewan has a crack at Zeus Quest and reports back.
You may remember my 'choosing the phone that sucks the least' mantra from a while back? It seems that AAS-friend Ben Smith has come up with similar thoughts. In choosing an 'enterprise' phone (i.e. one optimised for getting work done and which an IT dept will support) to recommend to a friend or colleague, he manages in this article to dismiss just about all the current contenders. With all the current high end smartphone activity, it seems to use that no one model has got even close to being perfect...
When it comes to S60, we are fortunate to have a choice of which mapping application we use, but which is best? Is it Ovi Maps (née Nokia Maps), with its worldwide pre-loaded maps, voice navigation and PC integration, or is it Google Maps with the power of Google search, high-res satellite imagery and the perfect price? David Gilson has been testing both, and here reports on his findings.
Smaato are a name you've probably never heard of - even if you're a developer. Yet, if the latter, it's a name that should be well and truly on your radar - Smaato serve up over 3 billion ads each month, in both mobile applications and in mobile web sites. I found all this out when I interviewed Ragnar Kruse, Smaato's founder and serial entrepreneur, a few days ago in London, just after the Heroes of the Mobile Screen event and not that long after Google bought out Admob, one of Smaato's partners - an aspect I was keen to chat about. The full 20 minute video interview is embedded below - recommending watching for all, but especially for developers.
SPB Software has launched a glitzy new take on the weather forecast genre, with an interactive 3D globe and various weather animations, plus an N97 homescreen widget. More details and screens below.
Ewan Spence looks back with a practised eye on Ten Things that Nokia could have done with their Regent Street flagship store in order to have made it a success... Can you add to the list? What did the Apple store do right and Nokia do wrong? (and you're not allowed to say 'Sell iPhones'...)
In part 2 of our Nokia Booklet 3G review, Rafe looks at its performance, offers a quick overview of the software and draws some overall conclusions. Part 1 covered the design and hardware of the Nokia Booklet 3G. And... please try and keep the comments on topic this time - we're covering this because it's of genuine interest/curiosity, not because it runs Symbian.
Zany mobile geek Jon at TehkSeven has been popular for a while with miscellaneous videos, including stress testing the Nokia N97 and N900, but he's now launched his own thrice-weekly mobile news video show, 'Phoneage' (YouTube channel link). Covering all platforms, it's fun and it's quick, at about 3 minutes per show. A competitor to The Phones Show? Not really, the latter is fortnightly, longer and more feature-based. So I'm happy to recommend the newcomer as an additional subscription for you.
Tomi Ahonen's writings are always worth a read, especially when they're short enough that you can spare to time to read them(! unlike many of his essays...) Here he makes the good point that mobile bandwidth is a finite resource and that we're fast approaching a tipping point where bandwidth may actually become more expensive and not less, due to to the increased airwave contention.
It's all very well having huge screens, tens of thousands of applications and even virtual and physical qwerty keyboards, but there's plenty you can do without typing a single character using Google's humble new Mobile App, using voice recognition on a vanilla, cheap S60 3rd Edition phone. Here are a few ideas - you might be very surprised!
In All About Symbian Insight 98 (AAS Podcast 162), we discuss the weeks news including closing Nokia Flagship Stores, Skype for Symbian Beta and Nimbuzz's Twitter integration. We also discuss some of the information that came out of Nokia's Capital Market Day, Steve's interview with Lee Williams (Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation) and offer insight into future Ovi Store developments. You can listen to AAS Insight 98 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Today seems to be the day for firmware upgrades, as the Nokia N85 gets a small jump to v31.002. Downloadable over the air (*#0000# on your handset as always), we always recommend a backup before you do this, even though in theory everything will remain untouched!
How do you find your way around the London Underground? With a printed map or this little Java app from mxData? Ewan considers the latter and, despite a low score, decides it's definitely worth installing. Here's his review of the freeware Tube Map.
