With the football World Cup 2010 (eh, what, is something happening today?) starting this evening and going on for all eternity a month, you'll be wondering how you can keep track of the goings on in South Africa on your smartphone. Whether out and about or on the sofa, there are plenty of options to keep you informed and entertained. Read on for some suggestions.
A firmware update to the Nokia 5530 is now available. Going from v20 to v30 includes some additional applications, performance improvements, and most significantly, universal kinetic scrolling and S60's latest version of Web. Full details below.
Did you notice the launch of the 5228 yesterday? Hopefully you did, but did you pay it much attention? I suspect that in the rush to cover more exotic devices announced in San Francisco, that the geek circles will have skipped over what could easily be labelled as “yet another 5800 variant”. I just want everyone to stop and think for a moment.
It used to be just receiving a call, or picking up an email via a push SMS (good old email-to-text gateways back in the nineties). Now, to impress people with your phone in the pub, you need something a little bit better - and it tends to be a game. So what should your Symbian-powered touchscreen smartphone be ready to show off when called into action? Ewan and I run through the Top Ten contenders...
The Nokia 5228, a variant of the Nokia 5230 was launched in Germany yesterday, reports Symbian World. The 5228 has the same styling and design as the Nokia 5230 and broadly similar specifications. However it lacks the 5230's 3G cellular radio and integrated GPS. It ships with a range of Ovi services including Ovi Store and Nokia Music Store. The Nokia 5228 will be available in July 2010 at a price of €139 including taxes.
Good news from Furtiv, the makers of plug-ins for Nokia's Share Online application. According to their blog, they have passed the 250,000 downloads mark through the Ovi Store, and are now beta testing plug-ins for MySpace, LinkedIn and TwitPic, due to popular demand. More below.
As part of its promotional activities for the N8, Nokia is releasing a series of overview videos presented by Chris Bennetts, a Senior Product Manager at the company. The second video covers the Photos, Photo Editor and Videos Editor applications as well as USB On-The-Go functionality; rather than just linking to it or embedding it, we've broken this video down in detail to offer you some insight into the N8's photo and video software. Read on for further details.
Nokia have published their “Sustainability Report” for their activities in 2009. As well as highlighting their position as a “World Technology Supersector Leader” by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, it draws attention to a reduction of CO2 by 12% since 2006, and achieving their energy savings target for 2012 three years early.
Around 36 hours ago, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone 4 to the world - excellent build materials on it, but I believe that they - and Nokia - and others - are missing an important trick: what happens when you take your oh-so-portable smartphone out into the world. A world where the birds are singing, the people are smiling and the sun is shining. And you can't see a blessed thing on your smartphone's display. Returning to a theme from exactly a year ago, I compare some recent device displays to prove a very, very important point.
Forum Nokia, Nokia's developer portal, has unveiled a new look for its website. The structure of the site has changed; it is now divided into three key areas: design, develop and distribute - matching the three key parts of mobile application and service development. The website aims to provide access to a wide range of learning resources, tools and technical documents. However there's also an emphasis on helping developers connect with each other, which is achieved through the community section of the site.
The good thing about Ovi Maps 3.3 and 3.4 having a server-side-fed homescreen is that Nokia can add extra services and the application already installed on your smartphone will pick up the changes automatically. Such is the case for Expedia, ahotel-booking service: previously, a similar system (fed by HRS) was only available in Ovi Maps in Germany and Finland, but Expedia should now show up for UK and USA customers.
It’s long been an issue with Nokia users that software features on device ‘a’ don't seem to be present on device ‘b’, and one of the areas pointed out by many is the system of notifications in the 3rd Edition Eseries devices. Now a combined “catcher” for alerts to missed calls, voicemails, arriving messages and emails and upcoming calendar appointments has been released by Nokia Beta Labs for the Nokia N97 and N97 mini homescreen.
Every store has one, and they want every customer to have one. The loyalty card is one of those inventions where everyone seems to win – the customers get special offers and discounts, while retailers build both brand loyalty and market research on shopping habits. And in the modern world, they’re making the jump from your wallet to your smartphone, as Tesco and Subway join the ranks of virtual loyalty cards. Read on for more.
The Symbian Foundation and search engine Baidu have announced a strategic initiative that will see the two companies establish a joint laboratory to stimulate the development of 'box computing' on mobile devices. 'Box c omputing' is Baidu's vision of the future of search - one that allows a more direct presentation of what a user has searched for. In related Symbian China news, Monotype Imaging announced it was contributing the MYuppy Chinese font to the Symbian Foundation. Read on for more.
A post on the Qt blog explains that Nokia is planning to move Qt towards a more open governance model. The move would see the community having shared control over decisions about Qt and its future roadmap. It follows on from the move to the LGPL license and opening up of the Qt contribution process last year. The planning for the move is at an early stage, but the Qt team are keen to have an open discussion with the community about the details and implementation of an open governance model.
