Symbian today publish its first set of 2008 results, which showed shipments of 18.5 million devices in Q1, a year on year increase of 16.5%, a figure which suggests a flattening of device shipments. This takes total Symbian OS device shipments to 206 million. There was also a 92% growth in consultancy service revenue to £4.8 million driven demand for services from 'a broader and deeper range of customer mobile phone products in the pipeline'.
I reported last week that GooSync was testing Contacts sync with GMail Contacts - it just came out of beta and now anyone with a GooSync Premium account can do the same contact sync. Do note some of the caveats from my original article though.
MobiMate recently added extra real-time flight information and facilities to their flagship traveller's app WorldMate Professional. Luckily our own Ewan knows a thing or two about travel utilities and so I threw the app in his direction. The result? We now have ourselves another (though fairly rare) All About Symbian 'MegaApp'. Here's the full review.
Another fortnight, another show - Smartphones Show 59 just went live, with hands-on reviews of the Communicator wannabe, the Asus M930, and the Black Nokia N82. Plus how to add photo overlays to your smartphone-shot video footage on an Apple Mac.
Yep, it's all in the latest All About Symbian Insight podcast, number 25. Specifically, we look at the Asus M930 vs the Nokia E90, the Cost of SMS and a discussion around messaging costs, Maps on Ovi, Nokia's new Music PC application, and some top software picks.
A few black links for you: PiZero has released a great set of new SVG themes, all based around the colour black - plus his stealth theme is apparently imminent, which will be even blacker! And Al over the Nokia Blog has published an insightful look at his first week with the new Black Nokia N82. More blackness at The Symbian Blog, where Vaibhav has put up a detailed head to head between the black Nokia E90 and N95 8GB. Phew, someone turn the light on, please....
In this feature article on location based search services and software (also known as searching the world around you) Steve gives a round up, with real world examples, of the current state of the market. With options from Nokia, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Yell he asks what software or service options performs best? Read on to find out.
Nimbuzz, the all-in-one communication software which we mentioned a few weeks ago, has now formally launched. In addition to its own network, Nimbuzz supports instant messaging and voice calls for Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and Jabber. Recent additions include support for true VoIP when making voice calls on S60 devices. The functionality is used when you use NimBuzz to make a voice call to one of your IM contacts. Read on for screens and more.
Just a short note that we've heard that Nokia Software Update will be down for 24 hours, as from 19:00 GMT tomorrow (Saturday). Presumably it's something to do with fixing Windows Vista compatibility, let's hope for a problem free solution on Monday!
With the concept of over-the-air syncing hotter than ever (e.g. GooSync), thanks to the guys at SMS Text News for the scoop that Vodafone just bought Zyb, another of the top SyncML hosts on the 'net. Keeping your PIM data in the 'cloud' is obviously something Vodafone now gets and for which it has got plans. Good news for everybody.
Guest writer 'Snoyt' takes us expertly through the wonderful world of music compression, to explain how you can get thousands of music tracks on your smartphone, efficiently and in CD quality, using the eAAC+ codec rather than bog standard ol' MP3... Who needs an Apple iPod?
Did you know that Nokia has a free recycling scheme for all their hardware? Here's the UK page, but there's probably one for each country. Never mind travelling to a Nokia Care Point either, you just pop the hardware in a jiffy bag and send it to the free address. This was spotted by the Nokia Conversations team, talking about the similar USA page. Of course, there's always eBay - whereby the kit will actually get used again and you make a few dollars... but for the rest, there's now Freepost!
GooSync's beta test for full Contacts sync through to Google Contacts just went live. It's a closed beta, so please don't email me for extra links or privileges. Below, I've tried to illustrate how it all works and some of the implications of syncing with the big G. The beta test, if the Tasks beta was anything to go by, should last a month or so.
Fun in the world of Linux Mobile OS today as Google's Android sees too potential partners, Verizon and Firefox makers Mozilla, put their weight behind the LiMo Foundation (reports BetaNews). Having hardware, software and suppliers working on your ecosystem is key to any mobile endeavour, and it is perhaps one of the quiet strengths of Symbian that so many companies are involved in Symbian OS, and all publicly pulling in the same direction.
As Denis Norden might say, file this one under "Useful things we hadn't noticed until now", and apologies to those who had already seen this: the Ovi Share service has a support forum including Troubleshooting, Mobile, Developer and Feedback sections, which replaces the old Twango boards. As long as you've already logged into Ovi Share using your usual username, an identical forum username will be created automatically when you first visit. If you need to get there within Ovi Share, there's a teeny-tiny "Forums" link at the bottom of the screen.
