For completeness (and, yet again, to prove to ne'ersayers that I'm not in anybody's pocket), The Phones Show 90 is now out, with almost no Symbian content whatsoever (it's mainly about the HTC Hero). However, just to keep this news item on topic, Phones Show Chat 4 is also out, and this has large chunks of Nokia E71, Opera Mini 5 and musings on new qwerty phones.
It's coming close to the one year anniversary of Nokia's all you can eat music service, “Comes With Music”, and that birthday is pretty important to those who picked up the first wave of devices from The Carphone Warehouse. Because the 'all you can download' part was only ever going to last a year... so the flow of bits and musical bytes is about to run out for the early adopters. Or is it? Read on for my thoughts.
A new release of the Java-hosted Opera Mini is always a big event. This is a beta launch, but still extremely interesting, with Opera Mini 5.0 adding smooth font aliasing, multiple browser windows, a password manager and much better support for touchscreen phones. On the downside, the application is larger, at 220kb (still small in the overall scheme of things, though), and custom form and editing fields mean that you can't now copy and paste text in and out of the application. I was going to produce a walkthrough of the new features, but there's absolutely no point because our good friend Stefan has already done this in good detail. You can get Opera Mini 5.0 by going to mini.opera.com/beta in Web on your phone.
Are bulging App Stores overrated? Whichever Symbian-powered phone you own (or even if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, etc), could you manage with only three third party (i.e. add-on) applications? And if so, which ones would they be? Steve Litchfield conducts a spot survey and ponders a few personal theories...
While watching an interview recorded at the Gnomedex conference over the summer, I was struck with a statement from Micah Baldwin. In talking about the startup environment online with Jolie O'Dell, and specifically social networks, he said that any market can comfortably take three major players in the space. And given the crowded nature of the Smartphone OS market, do we have three clear heavyweights?
Now in it's tenth year, the World Mobile Phone Throwing Championship has been won by Pauli Kosunen, throwing his unspecified handset over 79 metres - roughly equivalent to an olympic level discus throw. In the women's competition the Finn's also saw success as Keikki Hamalainen threw her phone 37 metres, and the junior prize went to a 43 metre throw from Verneri Aleksejev. Unfortunately the final prize went to Japan, as Team Happi took that back to the Far East from the Far North.
In show 87 in our Insight podcast series, the AAS team discuss the Ovi SDK and Ovi Maps API, plus we talk about Ovi Maps 3.3.54, Nokia Messaging (Social/Instant), Ovi Suite 2.0, N97 software version 2.0, updates for other devices (including the 5800), plus we answer a reader question about the Nokia N97 mini.
Long term readers of All About Symbian will know that I'm a sucker for eBooks on my mobile phone, and Steve was quick to point out that a number of titles had popped up as standalone eBooks in the Ovi store from OffScreen Technologies (a veritable factory of little utilities in the store) and would I like to take a look at them and see if this is the right way forward? Read on...
For completeness, Phones Show Chat 3 is now online, and thanks to Tim Salmon, we've now got show notes for the three shows so far. There's also now, as of this morning, an official iTunes feed for the podcast, for convenience, as well as the main RSS feed. Comments welcome, as usual. Note that this audio podcast is cross-platform, so it's not totally Symbian-safe(!) Coverage also includes Android, iPhone and lots of N900/Maemo references.
In a report surely to be widely read by networks around the world, Strand Consulting have summed up the iPhone effect on a network's bottom line, but I think it goes a lot deeper. The standout line is "Not one (operator) has increased its market share, revenue or earnings as a result of introducing the iPhone." But then networks have never been about one product. They've been about offering the right device, to the right people, at the right time, for the right price. Let me explain.
After the morning keynotes and interviews at Nokia World 2009, I decided to take a quick look round the 'experience lounge' at Nokia World. Following on from part 1 of the video, the tour of the show floor continues in part 2. You'll see the Nokia X6, Nokia X3, Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5230, Bounce Evolution running on the N900 and more software and services. There's also a quick look at some of the show floor features including a Twitter screen and side theatres.
In All About Symbian Insight 86 (AAS Podcast 148), Rafe, Steve and Ewan talk about the devices unveiled at Nokia World. Symbian devices include the Nokia N97 Mini and the capactive sreen enabled Nokia X6. There are also mentions for the X3, N900 and Nokia Booklet, plus some general discussion on Nokia World. You can listen to AAS Insight 86 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC), the world’s largest mobile network operator, and the Symbian Foundation has announced "an agreement to collaborate on a series of key initiatives to improve the mobile ecosystem in China and to stimulate the development of the market for CCMC’s locally developed 3G network standard, TD-SCDMA". There's also a new Symbian Chinese website for locals to check out. Some extracts from the press release below.
After the morning keynotes and interviews at Nokia World 2009, I decided to take a quick look round the 'experience lounge' at Nokia World. In the video below you can join me on my first tour round the show floor, where I share my first impressions and analysis. You'll get a feel of the atmosphere on the show floor and there's a quick overview of some of Nokia's new service solutions, the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia Internet Stick (CS-18) and some third party software.
The newest (err... first) addition to the Symbian Foundation's Goodies page is unfortunately not Tim Brooke-Taylor, but a Twitter powered screensaver. From an initial look at the screensaver, it pulls in any mention of Symbian on Twitter, and pops it into an on-screen comic-like bubble. For once the Symbian Foundation's wacky artwork theme is put to good use!
