Time Out, best known for its events listings and city guides, has been added to Ovi Maps. The location aware listings are found under the 'More..' section of the main menu (similar to the recently added Qype and Expedia hotel booking). The key benefit of Time Out is its focus on short duration events (e.g. a concert that's on for a single night) and its detailed reviews of events, venues and related services. Time Out listings in Ovi Maps currently cover Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon, London, New York, Singapore and Sydney.
The BBC has begun to roll out the latest version of iPlayer, its on-demand and live TV system, for selected S60 3rd and 5th Edition Nokia phones. The new version, 3.0, moves away from its stand-alone widget origins to become a simple widget shortcut, which opens the browser and loads the BBC iPlayer mobile website. However, the core functionality on offer: live streaming, catch-up streaming and download for TV and radio remain the same. Screens and more below.
As part of Nokia's 'Open for Ideas' event, I had the opportunity to attend the Tampere Innovation Experience @ Demola day, which included a showcase more than 40 research projects that had been guided by open innovation principles. I teamed up with The Really Mobile Project's Ben Smith to shoot three videos of NRC (Nokia Research Centre) demos. The first video covers the Nokia Image Space research, with a demo of the Image Space mobile client on a Nokia N900.
Ewan surveys the freeware multi-service chat and calling client, Nimbuzz, from from its big v2.4 update. Logging you in and integrating contacts from multiple social networks and chat systems is its speciality and it sounds like it did Ewan proud. It's also not only for multiple mobile platforms, but also for just about every S60 phone currently in use, so there really is no excuse for not keeping it installed and ready for action.
Speaking at the MobeyForum conference, Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki has reaffirmed the company's commitment to NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. Starting from 2011, Nokia's global Symbian smartphone portfolio will begin to include NFC functionality. However it may, or may not, be included in all country variants. NFC is a short range (~10cm), high frequency wireless communication technology; the major uses are likely to be in Bluetooth pairing, reading RFID tags (e.g. smart posters), mobile ticketing (e.g. London's Oyster system) and mobile payment (contactless payment).
SPB Mobile Shell, which received a rapturous welcome in the Symbian world a few weeks ago - for those that had enough RAM to run it - has had a major update. V3.5.5 uses 10MB less RAM (i.e. half that of the launch version) and also adds a media player widget. The full changelog is below.
As part of the invitation to spend a morning with the Nokia N8 (ok, quite a lot of N8s - in various colours and states of readiness) on Monday, I grabbed Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging supremo, to chat about the device and specifically its media capture capabilities. See below for the video interview and accompanying notes - there are several interesting points which I hadn't appreciated before.
Zahir Mahmood is, I suspect, a big Phones Show fan, partly because he links to my video podcast, but also not least because he's come up with his own take on the idea of postulating a number of smartphone use cases and then delivering a winner (or, in his case, a winner, a mid-level alternative and a budget suggestion) for each. His use cases are 'Photography and media capture', 'Entertainment and games', 'Office and work' and 'Internet world'. So familiar territory for me then, but his choices are both interesting and very Symbian-relevant.
With a greater focus on video in upcoming smartphones, and editing on the device coming into the public consciousness, there’s going to be a lot of amateur footage around that could be improved. So let’s see what the BBC’s Multimedia trainer, Rama Sharma suggests, as she shares her advice on shooting video on pocket sized devices.
Mark Skrebels, Senior Release Manager at the Symbian Foundation and Chairman of the Release Council, posted a short tweet today noting that Symbian^3 has been declared functionally complete. This is an important milestone for the Symbian Foundation as it marks the first time this point has been reached for a fully open source release and the time at which Symbian^3 is considered ready for community 'use'. Read on for more.
Nokia today issued a press release downgrading its outlook for Q2 2010 in the critical Devices and Services area. Nokia now expects both its net sales and margins to be at the lower end or slightly below earlier predicted ranges (6.7-7.2 billion and 9-12%). It says this is due to competitive environment, especially at the high end of the market, a shift in product mix to lower margin devices and the recent depreciation of the Euro. Nokia will issue full Q2 results on July 22nd.
Multiple IM client application Nimbuzz has been updated to v2.4. This client now has closer ties with your smartphone’s address book, adds kinetic scrolling throughout the interface for touch enabled devices, has finer options to control Twitter update, and the ability to limit usage while roaming. More below.
Nokia Conversations are running a poll to find out how users backup the data on their phones. Of course, some of the options are for Nokia's own services, although it's good to see plenty of scope in the options for third party solutions. Now could be a good time to cast your vote if you've had a bad experience with the likes of Ovi Sync. More below, including some constructive criticism for the pollsters!
With the imminent arrival of both the Apple iPhone 4 and the Symbian-powered Nokia N8, I thought it high time to pitch the two head to head. In fact, while doing so, why not widen the comparison to include the other non-Nokia Symbian flagships, the Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung i8910 HD, both of which have similar specifications, plus throw in the Android flagship (in the UK) as well - the HTC Desire? The result is hopefully a comprehensive cross-section of the top end smartphones of 2010.
IM and voice network specialist app Skype is now available on the Sony Ericsson S60 handsets. Usable over WiFi or cellular data connections, you can download the application direct to your handset by visiting skype.com/m in your browser. Skype is, of course, also available for many Nokia S60 devices via the Ovi Store.
