Support pages (including manuals, flash demos and much more) for the Nokia N93 and 5500 Sport have appeared on Nokia Europe's web site. Support pages usually mean the devices are shipping.... somewhere in the coverage region, at least! Thanks to Symbian Freak for the heads-up.
It seems that Flash Lite mini-games are starting to appear. Ewan's been trying out an example, Office Frenzy, and finds similarities to the Game 'n' Watch toys of the 1980s...
Nokia's Chief Designer has a tough job ahead of him, with Nokia's styling cues in many a recent phone called into question - especially when compared to the likes of the Motorola RAZR. Business Week have spoken to him about his new job, stopping designers going to far, retaining the traditional elements, and making ringtones as distinctive as opening a Zippo.
Just a short note for UK residents that PDA Essentials magazine, for which I write most of the Symbian OS content, has had a major face lift (starting at issue 51, which is out today) and now has Symbian as a more or less equal platform (with Palm OS and Windows Mobile) at last. Issue 51 has a 'Focus on S60' intro piece, maybe worth pointing friends and colleagues at the magazine in WH Smiths?
Steve and Rafe have been thinking about the reach of S60 smartphones, wondering if many users need to know about S60 itself and justifying the low sales of many third party applications, before concluding that the platform itself is more for operator and manufacturer benefit.
ShoZu the photo and video uploader for mobile phones is now available for S60 3rd Edition devices such as the Nokia N80, N71 and N91. ShoZu allows you to send media to Flickr and similar photo and video sharing services. Several improvements have been made to the server side of ShoZu including support for more services (MetaWeblog API and FTP) and more flexible email support.
Nokia's rather nice (and free) Mobile Search tool is now available for S60 3rd Edition devices, listing the N71 and N80 in its compatibility list now, although our friends over at the E series blog show it working fine on the E61, so it's a good assumption that it'll now work on just about anything....
Symbian today announced that over 10 million mobile Symbian OS powered phones have shipped in Japan as of the end of May 2006. Since 2003 (FOMA F2051) 35 different models from 6 handsets vendors (Fujitsu, Mitsubuishi, Sharp, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson) have been brought to the market. Sales on Symbian phones in Japan represent about 11% of Symbian's total shipments of 89 million phones.
Symbian OS 9.3 has been announced, whose highlights include shorter start up times, better performance, native support for Wi-Fi, PushToTalk and USB 2.0 (previously these were added in by licensees) and FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) upgrades. Symbian OS 9.3 is likely to be used in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. The first OS 9.3 phones will be announced shortly. The full press release follows.
