In a somewhat more generic article than usual, Symbian's David Wood talks about the importance of not overlooking basic organiser functions in today's smartphones. Here's his latest Insight article.
Presenting the latest Q2 smart mobile device figures from analysts Canalys: Smartphone sales up 75% year on year; Symbian OS powers 67% of units worldwide, Windows Mobile second on 15%; standalone handheld sales down 33% year on year; Nokia sell almost six times the number of smartphones as their nearest competitor. Read on for the full Canalys press release.
Rafe's been chatting to Colin Mercer, the man behind the Nokia-sponsored 'All About N91' blog (no, nothing to do with AAS, depite the name). An interesting and open blog with no corporate agenda? A good way to bring developers, journalists and users together?
Travis Boatman (formerly Jamdat, now part of EA after their accquistion) sat down with MobileIndustry.biz to talk about the mobile gaming space on phones and what the major probelms are (along with what EA is up to). In short? The networks and distribution mechanisms haven't kept up with key developments in other areas.
So, whatever happened to the promise and lure of the Smartphone (asks The Register)? Andrew Orlowski wonders about the predictions made in 2000; of 15% market penetration, replacing everything from our Sony Discmam to microwave ovens, and heralding the demise of the regular mobile. So, what happened?
Perhaps the best Carnival of the Mobilists for a while, now live here, courtesy of Michael Mace. And I'm not saying that just because one of our articles was quoted as the best entry 8-). Plenty of good and thought-provoking reading, as always!
AAS friend Antony Pranata has been looking at using Mobipocket Reader to gather news offline (i.e. through your desktop) for later reading on your smartphone. Here's his report.
As always, here's the AllAboutSymbian Week in Review. It's been an exciting one in many ways, with the arrival for review of the E70 and N93, both of which should be featured heavily next week. In the meantime, here's what you've missed if you haven't been paying attention over the last 7 or so days....
Interesting to see a nicely balanced article on taking your smartphone (in this case, an E61) on holiday with you, written by Nokia themselves. They make the point that I've made before - handling email on holiday can be more restful and stress-free, not less.
Nokia has released its Q2 2006 financial and sales results. The overall picture is healthy with sales up 22% (78.4m of 230m industry total). In the converged device (smartphone) space Nokia sold 9 million units compared to 6.7 million units in Q2 2005. Nseries device shipments are up 60% from Q1 2006 to 3 million. The converged device segment continues to be the fastest growing area in mobile device volumes.
Nokia's Chief Designer has a tough job ahead of him, with Nokia's styling cues in many a recent phone called into question - especially when compared to the likes of the Motorola RAZR. Business Week have spoken to him about his new job, stopping designers going to far, retaining the traditional elements, and making ringtones as distinctive as opening a Zippo.
Just a short note for UK residents that PDA Essentials magazine, for which I write most of the Symbian OS content, has had a major face lift (starting at issue 51, which is out today) and now has Symbian as a more or less equal platform (with Palm OS and Windows Mobile) at last. Issue 51 has a 'Focus on S60' intro piece, maybe worth pointing friends and colleagues at the magazine in WH Smiths?
Steve and Rafe have been thinking about the reach of S60 smartphones, wondering if many users need to know about S60 itself and justifying the low sales of many third party applications, before concluding that the platform itself is more for operator and manufacturer benefit.
