Vodafone in the UK is ready to launch their 3G Content Service this Christmas (reports The Sunday Times). Now the handsets are here (see our preview of the 6630) the Vodafone portal promises Video Clips, music through deals with Sony and Warner, and a wide range of mobile Java Midp games. And the gamble? A £20 billion investment in the technology. Every other network is watching with a keen financial interest...
Slipstream, in a double header news release, announced not only that it's powering a Download Accelerator for Opera's next major release, but has also signed up to join the Symbian Platinum Partner to promote its data compression and acceleration technology to the Symbian OS Platform. Opera already have a nice market for their proxy based acceleration service, and we'd expect v7.6 of the browser to build on this with Slipstreams help.
According to Reuters Nokia will start using hard disks in their devices next year. Reuters refers to Apple's iPod as the first portable music player to incorporate a hard disk. Which might be a logical comparison seeing as smartphones are used by many as a portable music/video player these days. And as smartphones are becoming more and more capable of handling multimedia content, the demand for storage will surely increase.
If you've never ventured into our Forums, then you may be surprised at the conversations you'll find. With the launch of the 7710 yesterday, there's been a lot of discussion on the 7710 widescreen Smartphone and the 9500 Communicator. Bassey makes his arguments for his favorite device on this thread, and it's all down to the interface...
Yes, those who know me (Steve Litchfield) will probably note that I have a small vested interest in the Palmtop User journal (I write much of the Symbian content). They've upped their front page special offer to include free copies of issues 7 and 8, plus issues 1 to 6 on CD, in addition to issue 9 with the normal 6 issue subscription. Catch the offer at Palmtop.
Ewan's been busy thinking about some of the easier ways to program your smartphone and make them do things that you need them to do. In this first article, he looks at using a spreadsheet to help you, the basics of spreadsheets, and your first 'application' on a Communicator, Series 60 or UIQ device.
Infosyncworld reports that Nokia and Sony Ericsson have joined the SD Card association! Reports about Nokia joining had emerged earlier already, but now SE has joined too. This is a remarkable move by SE, since they always were dedicated to Sony's Memory Stick Duo.
OK, we are sailing away with this photo contest! We want you best Boat photos (taken on a Symbian Phone). Please upload your photos to the Photo Contest 17 page. Vote will start on 7th November 2004 to pick a winner. Winners Photo is displayed on Main Gallery page and can select next category.
Appforge, the company behind the technology that allows users to program their Sybmian Smartphones (and Palm OS and MS powered phones) using MS Visual C# or Visual Basic, has updated the Crossfire Runtime and Programming Suite. It now includes support for the Motorola A1000. Crossfire 5.5 will be available to purchase on Nov 1st, for $1,000.
Borland are offering a free download of its C++ BuilderX 1.5 Mobile Edition, which features timesaving tools, wizards, and GUI form and menu designers. It's available for UIQ and Series 60 after filling in a short survey on the Borland site.
A few more details are coming out regarding Nokia's Preminet digital store (reports Telephony Online). Nokia will be looking to take between 10% and 20% of any shareware registration fees as thier cut (no word on the Operators margin), and Preminet will launch with just over one hundred certified items, with a mix of Series 40 and Series 60 Java games, Series 60 C++ native applications
Not exactly Symbian, but an interesting read is this article in Business 2.0. It looks at the Firefox web browser, a web browser who's lead developer Blake Ross decided to 'take back the web from Microsoft.' So one man can make a difference.
Long time PDA enthusiasts will be aware that Palm Gear cornered the market for Palm OS shareware many moons ago, and still retains an excellent share of that market. Now, with the launch of Symbian Gear, the parent company of Motricity is squaring up to Handango (and now Nokia) in a battle for your registration fees. I wonder if the end user (or even the Developer) will see some tangible benefits?
