Nokia has announced a company reorganisation, which it says will increase competitiveness and allow it to deliver innovative products to the market faster. Nokia is planning to introduce a simplified structure for its devices and services business; it will comprise three components: Mobile Solutions, Mobile Phones and Markets. The new structure applies from July 1st 2010. Nokia have also appointed a new CTO, Rich Green, previously at Sun, who has many years of Silicon Valley experience. Read on for further details.
Looking for the third time (in seven years) at ZingMagic's Bridge title, Ewan reviews the latest "Omar Sharif Bridge 2" for S60 5th Edition and touchscreen phones over on our Ovi Gaming site, revelling in the mature game play and the interface that's now even more intuitive. It's also worth noting that it's a lot cheaper now than it used to be, making it a 'must buy' for Bridge lovers.
Normally I sit back and take criticism with a fair degree of annoyance good humour - but there's one subject that keeps cropping up and on which I feel that I'd like to defend myself (and the rest of the AAS team): bias. Firstly, there are accusations of bias towards Symbian-powered phones being better, then bias towards Nokia, then bias towards a particular handset - hopefully my paragraphs below may at least stem the tide of accusation for a while...
Not Symbian-related, but hopefully of interest, especially to long time fans of the Nokia Communicator series, is Sony's re-launch of its VAIO P Series, a clamshell sub-netbook that is claimed to fit in a jeans pocket. Details, images and links below, though the fact that it runs Windows may be a dealbreaker for some, I suspect.
Following on from availability for the Nokia E52, now available over the air is v34 firmware for the Nokia E55 as a 620k download, a minor bug-fix update but worth grabbing anyway as it doesn't affect any of your apps or data. It's also available as a full firmware image via Nokia Software Update, but over the air is so quick that it's the way to go.
Nokia have always talked about how their software and services, via Ovi, are opening up the connected world and the internet to millions of people all over the world – and one of the biggest enablers in this area is the ability for people to use their first email address. Over on the Ovi Blog they’ve highlighted one example in Bangladesh with the Finns rolling out Ovi branded “burger vans” to promote the Ovi Mail service. Read on for some comments.
With summer upon us in the UK and the sun burning down (well, some of the time, at least), I've been somewhat shocked at how bad all of the touch-screen-equipped Symbian-powered smartphones are when it comes to actually being able to see what's on screen clearly. Whether a map, a photo or an important email, surely you need to be able to read your device's screen in all light conditions? With this in mind, I went back to my store of older devices and could then feel another of my famous infamous comparisons coming on.
The Symbian Foundation has made a major new version of the Symbian^3 reference library available for product developers. The previous release was eight months ago and the new version is more comprehensive, more cohesive and has an "open source tool chain to allow us to combine the content with API reference built from doxygen comments in code". There's more on this on Symbian's blog.
You'll have been followingmy adventures keeping the Samsung i8910 HD on the crest of an unofficial hardware wave by installing each of the 'HX' firmwares? Just over a week ago saw the release of what is by far the most adventurous HX release yet. I try to summarise (and comment on) the changelog below, for any other owners of what (for the next couple of months, at least) is still the most powerful Symbian phone in the world bar none.
Nokia has placed a number of full page ads in UK newspapers (see photo, below, in full story) promoting the Ovi Store on what the ad says is 'a big day for news' (it is election day here in the UK). The AP News, Evening Standard and Reuters apps are mentioned by name. The advert is notable because it is one of the few Nokia print ads I've seen dedicated solely to the Ovi Store.
Nokia continued to push both their mapping service and the customisation potential of the smartphone with the release of Own Voice this week, which allows you to record your own vocal package for the turn by turn directions in Ovi Maps. How easy is it to use? Ewan finds out (below)...
Nokia has today released beta versions of Qt 4.7 and Qt Creator 2.0. Qt 4.7 brings a number of important enhancements, including Qt Quick (easy UI creation) and update to Qt WebKit (increased stability and performance). The beta of Qt Creator 2.0 offers an early preview of Quick Designer (a WYSIWYG editor to layout application UI), which is built on top of the Qt Quick technology. Nokia has also released an updated version of the Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian, which aims to ease the installation of Qt-based programs on existing Symbian devices. Read on for further details.
Probably a minor bug-fix update (unless eagle-eyed readers can spot something I haven't), but note that Google Maps for Symbian just got an small bump from v4.1.0 to v4.1.1. As usual, grab it from m.google.com. Google Maps for Android also got a 4.1.1 update a couple of weeks ago, and this was given a big boost by a server-side switch-on of real time route instructions and voice navigation. Here's hoping we're just a few days away from the same being true of Symbian/S60?
