One for the UK readers of All About Symbian to set their video recorders for (or download the show afterwards with the iPlayer Mobile Client): BBC 4 tonight at 9pm is showing "The Life and Death of a Mobile Phone," looking at what our humble tool goes through from construction and use, through to the recycling at the end of its useful life.
In All About Symbian Insight 89 (AAS Podcast 151), Rafe and Steve talk about the recent release of version 20 firmware for the Nokia N86 8MP. Rafe and Ewan report back from Over the Air (OTA) where they listened to presentations on Symbian approach to evolving UI and Nokia's Qt strategy. There's also discussion about Nokia's acquisition of Dopplr. You can listen to AAS Insight 89 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In theory, the best deal around in the UK for a mobile phone contract is currently being offered by the mobile virtual network run by supermarket chain Tesco – for a flat monthly fee of £30 the advertising offers you “unlimited” calls, text and data. That's an attractive package, especially for those of us on a budget. It might have a lot of small print, but unlimited is where the industry should be heading. Let me explain...
Nokia's night-life-optimised red 5730 XpressMusic gets its final verdict from me in this, part 2 of my All About Symbian Nokia 5730 review, looking at its software bundle and its camera and multimedia. I also give a summary of the device: "There is absolutely no doubting the functionality quotient of the Nokia 5730 Xpressmusic - there are buttons for everything and more applications that most geeks could comfortably embrace."
Yesterday's heads up from Google about a local search update left us scratching our heads. It was a redesign of the layout, as well as adding some category support, but fundamentally it was a tweak to the existing local search that's available in any city around the world by punching in http://www.google.com/m/local into your phone's web browser. Still, it got the blogs writing about the product again... read on for my thoughts!
Juniper Research, a telecoms analyst firm, recently released a report on Mobile Open Source Operating Systems, which predicts open source platforms will remain predominant and that, by 2014, Symbian handset shipments will increase from 87 million to 180 million per year, with Android and Limo adding 40m/year extra and taking the open source total to 220 million/year. Such analyst reports are educated guesses, but it does provide an antithesis to the 'Symbian is doomed' line that was popular, in some quarters, earlier this summer and a good jumping off place for some further platform thoughts. Read on for more.
Streaming video service Qik has added in support for Twitter and Facebook into the mobile phone client. Thanks to Oauth (a process that allows one website to authenticate you to another website), you can sign in with either your existing Qik account or your Twitter login details. Qik already posts a link to your Facebook or Twitter accounts if you have this set up, but you can now read the comments from Facebook under your Qik videos, collating them all in one place.
The consumer-focussed sister phone to the successful Nokia E75 has now appeared and I've been exploring what's different, what's good and what's bad. Is the 5730 really a case of 'fashion over functionality'? Or is it one of the most feature packed, and yet relatively cheap smartphones in the world? There are several surprises here, some good and some bad, but overall I came away impressed.
One of the biggest changes coming to the Symbian world over the next few years is the inclusion of Qt into new devices. Starting with the Symbian^2 platform, Qt will be in our smartphones and providing a new Developer Platform choice for programmers (and come Symbian ^4 it's going to be powering the UI as well). A recent presentation at Over the Air laid out Nokia's plans...
The Nokia N86 8MP has received its v20 firmware upgrade a full week or so ahead of schedule, with v20.115 now available over the air (*#0000# on your homescreen) and via Nokia Software Update. There's a changelog below, but all you need to know is that this preserves user data and is a must-have - it's 8MB, large for an over the air update, takes over five minutes to apply and updates getting on for 6% of all OS files and modules. Read on.
Nokia is continuing to evolve the desktop version of its Ovi Maps service: the latest 'release' sees the ability to add 'Good Things' (user generated Points of Interest - PoIs) to the map. The functionality is aimed at allowing you to share interesting locations with the world, be it the location of your favourite coffee shop of the venue for an upcoming gig. In order to see and to add your own Good Things you will need to upgrade to the latest version of the Ovi Maps browser plug-in (via Symbian-Guru). Read on for more.
Just a quick note that programme 6 of my Phones Show Chat audio podcast is now live, in which Tim Salmon (of this parish) and I natter about N97 hardware issues, Ovi Suite problems, how Android is licensed and then I rant about smartphone batteries. If you're interested, here's the RSS feed. And the iTunes one.
Rafe reports back from the recent (September 2009) Ovi Developer Day in London, with details on all the main speakers and the issues raised (and responded to). Rafe notes in particular (and welcomes) a sea change in Forum Nokia's attitude to developers. There are also a number of interesting facts and stats about the Nokia Ovi Store.
Nokia Beta Labs has today introduced an 'Ovi Mail Setup” application', allowing anyone to sign-up for an Ovi Mail account directly from a S60 device. The same utility is being built into the upcoming E72 and into the new N97 firmware. If you already have an Ovi account then it will provision Ovi Mail and configure the email client already on the device.
Steve has already shared some comparison thoughts on the Nokia 5730, a QWERTY side slider with a music focus, and will be following up with a full review shortly. In the mean time here's my comprehensive Nokia 5730 XpressMusic gallery, with accompanying commentary, which shows you round some of the key points of this mid tier phone.
