Ewan's been looking back to the Apple Newton and forward to Thursday's Apple tablet launch, using these as markers to chart the growth of information sharing in the wider smartphone world. Soup was the past, APIs are the future, he reckons!
Qt is continuing it progress towards becoming the primary development option for third-party applications on Symbian, with the release of Qt 4.6.1. While a minor release, it brings a big step forward by delivery on the binary compatibility promise made to Symbian developers.
In All About Symbian Insight 102 (AAS Podcast 166), the team start with news of Sony Ericsson's Vivaz and its continuous focus HD video capture capabilities. We move on to an in-depth discussion of Nokia's Ovi Maps announcement last week. The final item in this weeks podcast is a quick mention for the new beta version of Ovi Suite. You can listen to AAS Insight 102 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Another writer whose opinions I trust is Rita el-Khoury and here she reflects back on four months with the Sony Ericsson Satio and on the imminent arrival of the new Vivaz. She writes about the evolution of Sony Ericsson's take on S60 5th Edition and Symbian - it seems that she too sees the Satio as a testbed handset (as I'd argue are Nokia's N97 classic, N900 and Samsung's i8910 HD) with the Vivaz being the one that will make an impact on the market.
The social networking application, Fring, has been updated to version 4.1. Notable additions include fast switching of your status (offline, online, busy or invisible), the addition of DTMF tones in VoIP apps, and an improved GUI for their Twitter section. This sits on top of their multi-platform solution that covers not just a wide range of smartphones, but different online services as well. The latest version can be found at Fring.com/download.
There's a certain swashbuckling look to this game, from Electronic Arts. With a chisel-jawed hero and the 'exciting adventure' font on display (plus the all important sequel number), this has all the hallmarks and subtle signals of a Hollywood blockbuster from the 1950s. Which, of course, is an age ago in the motion picture, and is the perfect metaphor for Jewel Quest 3, finds Ewan Spence.
Guest author Matt Radford (of All About iPhone) borrowed my Nokia N97 mini for a few weeks recently. His aim? To see if he could switch to it from his beloved Apple iPhone. Matt was a hardened Symbian user in times past with a love of the S60 2nd Edition-powered Nokia N70, so this was an especially interesting experiment.
Everyone has been wondering why Ovi Maps hasn't been offered, for convenience, through the Ovi Store client - and, with the release of the new all-free, official v3.3, that's exactly what Nokia has done, indicating a high degree of confidence on its part. Great to see it heading up the store, anyway, and now merely a download away. And a side note for those for whom this doesn't appear - many other S60 3rd Ed FP2 phones will work fine with Maps 3.3 - just grab the closest version via your desktop and side-load it.
Last year, David Gilson compared Google Maps and Ovi Maps, controversially finding that Google Maps (for Mobile) had the edge. However, Nokia has now announced that voice guided road navigation for Ovi Maps no longer requires a subscription fee and is available to all. Read on to see how this game-changing move effects the battle of the maps! (Note that this article is a rewrite and does contain some of the original text.)
As the Symbian Foundation finish transitioning the OS and its applications over to the EPL (Eclipse Public License), various individuals and companies are responsible for different 'packages' - two such are the Image and Video editors. In the first such move, these two packages have just been transferred from one 'owner' to another. In this case, it's respected company Ixonos who has taken on responsibility and there's an interesting interview with Mikael Laine from Ixonos here on the subject.
Nokia Conversations has been doing a series of 'Three favourite Nokias ever', asking the question of famous people around the Nokia ecosystem, and it's our humble site-master's turn today. The N95's inclusion was probably a given, but the other two will surprise you. Worth a read!
For anyone who's digging the new Nokia Ovi Suite all-in-one system and who wants to both to live on the bleeding edge and have a say in how Ovi Suite develops, note that v2.1 has been opened up to public beta testing. There are some links and change notes below to help you make up your mind...(!)
Ewan takes a sideways look at the addition of Lifecasting to Ovi Maps this morning - what implications are there for bringing this social element into a mapping and navigation product? And what challenges remain in this area for Nokia? How will this release change the world? Read on in his Lifecasting editorial.
Nokia today announced that it is releasing a new version of Ovi Maps with free walk (pedestrian) and driving (car) turn-by-turn, voice guided navigation functionality. Ovi Maps has global coverage, with 74 countries covered by its navigation services. Maps for all regions will be available, for free, for loading over the air or pre-loading via a desktop computer. Traffic information and city guides, from Lonely Planet and Michelin, will also be made available at no extra cost. There's an initial set of devices, in terms of availability, with more compatible devices to follow. See below.
This is an industry-shifting move; Nokia is essentially changing the economics of the consumer GPS navigation market overnight. It will give its phones a significant differentiator on shop shelves and has long term strategic implications for the future of location services. Read on for further details and analysis.
Sony Ericsson has just launched a new flagship media smartphone, the Vivaz, running S60 5th Edition and a tweaked version of the software in the Satio. It's a smaller device (think Nokia 5800), with 3.2" screen and 'human curvature' design(!) and available in silver, black, blue and 'ruby'. The star feature though is the camcorder functionality, with full 720p video capture and continuous auto-focus, a first in production phones. Stills are at 8 megapixels with single LED flash. Availability is this quarter. Photos, video, specs and more below.
