So, whatever happened to the promise and lure of the Smartphone (asks The Register)? Andrew Orlowski wonders about the predictions made in 2000; of 15% market penetration, replacing everything from our Sony Discmam to microwave ovens, and heralding the demise of the regular mobile. So, what happened?
Ewan takes the controls of his space hopper and goes a-blasting his way through asteroid fields, space debris and enemy craft in Destiny, a 3D shoot-em-up. Here's the review.
Perhaps the best Carnival of the Mobilists for a while, now live here, courtesy of Michael Mace. And I'm not saying that just because one of our articles was quoted as the best entry 8-). Plenty of good and thought-provoking reading, as always!
I've been revising and reworking my review of Virtual Pool Mobile and, after six months of daily playing, ask the question: with perfect gameplay, immersive graphics, accurate physics and game longevity - is the best S60 game ever?
AAS friend Antony Pranata has been looking at using Mobipocket Reader to gather news offline (i.e. through your desktop) for later reading on your smartphone. Here's his report.
As always, here's the AllAboutSymbian Week in Review. It's been an exciting one in many ways, with the arrival for review of the E70 and N93, both of which should be featured heavily next week. In the meantime, here's what you've missed if you haven't been paying attention over the last 7 or so days....
The Nokia N93 is THE hot convergence smartphone of the moment and kudos to Nokia for loaning us a couple ahead of public availability. We'll have more on the N93 very shortly, but read on for a teaser to whet your appetite.
Interesting to see a nicely balanced article on taking your smartphone (in this case, an E61) on holiday with you, written by Nokia themselves. They make the point that I've made before - handling email on holiday can be more restful and stress-free, not less.
Nokia has released its Q2 2006 financial and sales results. The overall picture is healthy with sales up 22% (78.4m of 230m industry total). In the converged device (smartphone) space Nokia sold 9 million units compared to 6.7 million units in Q2 2005. Nseries device shipments are up 60% from Q1 2006 to 3 million. The converged device segment continues to be the fastest growing area in mobile device volumes.
Interesting to see the Nokia E61 pop up (initially in very positive context) amidst these discussions about what's wrong with Palm, a competitor (mainly) in the USA. Also interesting to note that while Nokia have started making waves in America, Palm have just announced a Treo 700w variant for the UK.
Some Sony Ericsson P990i's are apparently sneaking out into the retail chain around the world, although most distributors now claim 'mid August'. I found this 10MB, ten minute video clip of a retail P990i being through its paces in some chap's bedroom (warning: dodgy, dodgy camerawork!). It seems that there are still bugs and performance issues. And no, AAS have still not heard anything offically from Sony Ericsson...
Two new S60 3rd Edition file managers and one more on the way... and all freeware! Y-Browser was released a couple of days ago, SysExplorer is out today and the developer of the rightly famous FExplorer has apparently just got the N80 and I'll bet a 3rd Edition beta won't be far away.
As part of a series of in depth navigation reviews, Steve Litchfield takes Wayfinder Navigator 6 for a spin on the Nokia E61. With prices starting at 100 Euros and compatibility with S60, UIQ, Series 80 and Windows Mobile, Wayfinder has become a major player in this field.
