One of the interesting points made in this week's Insight Podcast was the large number of applications (primarily in the Ovi Store) that are only targeted at S60 5th Editon devices, leaving behind a large number of 3rd Edition owners. There are also a number of notable incidents where applications or games are even more restricted, to certain handsets. Read on for some thoughts...
It all started when I updated my Smartphone Grid, deleting a couple of devices which I considered too old to recommend to people. Somewhat foolishly, I used the word 'obsolete' in my Twitter conversations with readers and this led to a (ahem) stimulating exchange of ideas around the whole idea of what happens when a smartphone is no longer sold and/or no longer updated. Read on for my thoughts on the subject of what happens when our beloved devices get to three score years and ten (in machine years!)
The relationship between the network and manufacturer has always been one of the more opaque areas in the history of the mobile phone – and as the demands of modern smartphones push the capacity of the networks, the discussions and bartering on both sides continue behind closed doors. Which sometime open a little bit. Wired author Fred Vogelstein has posted a detailed look at the marriage of AT&T and Apple. See below for a quote.
While it has been around for some time, Nitobi’s contribution of PhoneGap to the Symbian Foundation is another small piece of the jigsaw for connected developers. PhoneGap is a framework that allows developers to work in HTML and Javascript, but still talk to the more advanced hardware in a modern smartphone. The PhoneGap API’s will now be available as part of the extensions to the Symbian Web Browser.
In leaps and bounds, the term 'smartphone' is being bandied about by manufacturers, analysts, journalists, developers and end users across the world. Which would normally be a good thing, except that there are many definitions, all totally different. What exactly defines a smartphone in 2010? What did it used to mean in 2007? Or 2003? With reports regularly quoting the word, it would be good to all agree what the word means, surely?
David Gilson explores the relative benefits of native applications and cloud applications, both from a consumer point of view, and from the point of view of the developers who ultimately supply our applications. Will the cloud replace the traditional app?
As a follow-up to Apple's emergency iPhone 4 press conference yesterday, in which Steve Jobs claimed that all smartphones suffered from similar reception problems when held tightly (and also erroneously quoted Nokias as having "stickers on the back that say 'Don't touch here'"), Nokia has apparently responded with a statement, quoted below.
In all the talk of user interfaces, promises, updated software and hardware, there is one other area that Nokia need to look at. Making the Nokia name one that everyone is the world is happy to be associated with. How can they do that? Here are some thoughts.
What's the next step for mobile phone and car integration? One option is Nokia's Terminal Mode technology, which proposes an industry standard for the integration of mobile phones (and their applications) into the car environment. Nokia has developed Terminal Mode in conjunction with CE4A (Consumer Electronics for Automotive) and recently held the Terminal Mode Summit at their Espoo offices in Finland. This gives us a good opportunity to review what Terminal Mode is about and what progress has been made to date. Read on....
The popular misconception about camera phones is that the higher the spec level, the better the photos you'll take. While I'll accept that there is correlation there, another big factor is the skill (or, more accurately, imagination and common sense) of the user. In truth, you don't have to own the current top-rated camera smartphone costing megabucks in order to turn out pleasing photos. Check out the sample photos at the top of this feature - I've got a mini-quiz for you...
Last week Qt quietly rolled out the public beta its new developer website, Qt Developer Network, which aims to provide a one-stop portal for Qt developers and consolidate resources that were previously spread across the main Qt website. It also provides a more vendor neutral destination for developers than Forum Nokia, something that could be important in helping drive adoption of the Symbian and MeeGo platforms by manufacturers other than Nokia.
Here's some Wednesday coffee break reading: you'll remember Steve Jobs claiming in 2007 that the original iPhone was five years ahead of the competition? Now AT&T's CTO has been bragging that "in the past 3 years, the US has been the clear leader when it comes to phones, design, operating systems and applications." Like a red rag to a bull - top industry analyst Tomi Ahonen here rips into the claims and points out the innovation from Japan and Finland, among others. His metrics also point to the USA now rising to 19th in the world in terms of mobile adoption and technology, now level with, ahem... Portugal. Grab a hot drink and treat yourself!
There's been a lot of noise on the internet this week about issues in the smartphone world. And while the initial reading of all these words is to tell a story, it's actually more about controlling the PR message and protecting a brand (and ergo sales) of software and hardware. There's a lesson in all of this for Nokia and the Symbian Foundation. You've either got it, or you haven't. And right now Symbian and S60 don't have it. Read on...
In an article written some 15 months ago, just after the first S60 5th Edition smartphone had appeared (the Nokia 5800), I went in depth into the pros and cons of resistive versus capacitive touchscreens, pronouncing both technologies as being equally valid, but for different use cases. We're now mid 2010 and it's clear that capacitive technology is winning out, for mid and high priced smartphones at least. So what's changed? Who moved the goalposts?
Forum Nokia recently took the covers of Forum Nokia Projects (projects.forum.nokia.com), a free service providing online project hosting for collaborative software development, documentation, or any other project. The service is built on top of the open source Trac software and is fully integrated with Forum Nokia. The service includes the usual tools such as source-code browser, wiki, forums, tickets and support for three version control systems (SVN, Git, and Mercurial).
