In this press release America Online have become Symbian Platinum Partners. The good thing is it says they are developing their T9® predictive text input for Symbian which I assume will include P800's and other UIQ devices. So hopefully one of the main omissions for some potential P800 owners will soon be addressed. Also they are bringing their Instant Messager and UIQ to the platform as well as some "content-based" services and applications.
Canalys has produced their analysis of the EMEA Q1/2003 sales figures for PDAs and Smartphones. Symbian is still top and extends its lead to 53% of the market compared to 42% in Q4/2002. Total Symbian devices shipped were up to 807,270 from 679,250 in the previous quarter. Windows CE has overtaken Palm based devices with 24% of the market compared to 19%. Nokia retains its 42% market share with Sony Ericsson making up the rest of the Symbian figures with 12%. I think the SE figures are good seeing as the P800 has only recently been availible throughout the EMEA. Orange have 4% of the market which I assume represents the SPV sales. Symbian have 91% of all smartphone sales.
This Monday (28th April) see's the first AAS Pub Meeting. Starting at 7pm (although the AAS Team will be there from mid aternoon in all probability), you can look forward to a talk from Siemens, Prize Draws, members of the Symbian Community, lots of chat, and the occasional drink. Full details (including some of the prizes available) are on the Pub Meet page. See you there!
Where it all began! The man attributed with the invention of the mobile phone has been interviewed here on BBC News Online about the vision he had for mobile communications and the first mobile telephone call ever made from a pavement in midtown Manhattan, on April 3rd, 30 years ago. It's interesting since we live in a society that associates new technology with youth, yet one the visionaries behind it all is now 74. What a guy!
It's our pleasure to announce the lucky winner of a brandnew Nokia 3650 Smartphone: Mr. M. Hartl from Austria! The device will be delivered by postel mail within the next days.
As the time for the AAS Pub Meet at the Dover Castle grows ever closer, we've just had a call from Siemens to say that not only are they sending over a bundle of goodies for the Prize Raffle; but they are also sending Oliver Zechlin, who (if we're very nice) will be giving us a short Presentation on the SX-1 Series 60 phone... maybe even with a pre-production device! You really want to make sure you get to this meeting folks...
If you're subscribed to YS (the sister magazine to All About Symbian) you would have found articles and news all about the Symbian world, plus commentary, a look at the latest software, and a round of what's new on the web. You missed it? Shame on you. Don't miss out again.
Nowadays we only tend to think about Symbian as being an Operating System for smartphones and forget it had its origins in the Psion handheld computers. As its a very quiet time (news wise) because its the run up to the Symbian Symposium I thought I'd post this link. According to this Inquirer article the Psion Series 5 may be revived by Pinnock Organiser Services. It is rumoured that they are in negotion with Psion to produce the machine probably with extra memory, an announcement is expected at the Symbian Exposium.
The Register seems to have some promising thoughts and rumours on OPL Development. Anyone interested in a powerful BASIC like programming language for their Symbian phone (or those just wanting more applications and games) should check it out.
It seems that lies are the order of the day at Microsoft where they have to twist the truth in order to get credit for anything. Poor things, nobody is buying their smartphone so if someone buys a phone that's kind of like their smartphone, only different, Microsoft adds that to the number of SPV sales....
A page dedicated to the first All About Symbian Meeting is now up. Find out exactly where The Dover Arms, so you can work out how to get there on Monday 28th. If you are at all interested in Symbian or just want an interesting evening out please come along! There will be several prizes up for grabs and some guest ‘speakers’ to show you some of the latest stuff for Symbian OS. We can guarantee that there’ll be some face and names you’ll recognise. If you are planning on coming along, why not reply and let us know.
I'm going to be away for a few days. I have a feeling that this may start a storm! I'm attending the Mobius conference run by Microsoft. The conference is being held in Paris and accomodation and travel is paid for by Microsoft. So if I'm a bit quiet for a few days you' know why. Read full story for more.
...to Your Symbian? Because if you did, you missed Issue 3, which has just been sent out to all our subscribers. You missed preview of the newest smatphone, "The Navi." You missed the forum and sofware round-ups. You missed SwitchBlade on Cadbury's Creme Eggs. In fact, you missed everything that happend in the Symbian world for the last two weeks. Don't miss out again!
The Wireless Developer Network has posted an excellent article about the Open Source OPL Project and how our own contributer Ewan Spence started the ball rolling. It says that the Symbian licensees are backing the project and describes how they think it will improve the development opportunities for their products. A full progress report is to be given at the Symbian Exposium at the end of April. OPL is a easy to use Basic like language originally used in PSION handhelds.
