In All About Symbian Insight 77 (AAS Podcast 137), there is news of Truphone's extended support for Nokia and the 5800 continues its best selling streak. Rafe talks about Nokia and Intel's strategic tie up and reports back from the launch of the HTC Hero. Ewan shares news of AdSense for applications, which leads to a general monetisation discussion. You can listen to AAS Insight 77 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
After being struck by an informed comment by Symbian's Executive Director, Lee Williams, that the touchscreen market would top out at about 30%, i.e. that at least 70% of phones will continue to be keypad or qwerty-driven, I wanted to get to the bottom of which smartphone keyboard, in the Symbian world, at least, was the best, in terms of size, feel, capability and efficiency. Oh, and I wasn't allowed to include any obsolete models... [Ouch.]
The Nokia N97, N86 and E75, along with the iPhone 3GS are now in my smartphone-choosing Grid, if you'd care to try your luck. After finding what the Grid thinks is your perfect smartphone, try playing the 'fiddle the preferences so that device X wins' game - it'll while away your Friday afternoon, anyway! 8-)
Almost sixty official games graced the original N-Gage platform, so why aren't Nokia taking the proven hits from that era and bringing them back to the front? Here on Ovi Gaming, Ewan looks back and chooses five that are ripe for re-invention. Why not take a trip down memory lane with him and then ask Nokia very, very nicely...?
With the advent of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, Steve Litchfield reprises an old rant with a look at how the current crop of 2008/2009 smartphones fare on a sunny day. Does your phone turn into a hand mirror or can you see what's going on? Featured here are seven popular screen types, showing how well - or how badly - they do.
In this Insight, Rafe, Steve and Ewan talk about the Nokia N86, a visit to Symbian, N-Gage Games (Dance Fabulous and Pinbusters) and general reaction to the N97.
"Oh dear. Spore as a gaming brand is close to a legend. Created by Will Wright, and released last year to great critical acclaim, you'd think that popping the genetic engineering life-sim onto a mobile would be a sure-fire hit. Err, no." And so begins Ewan's review of this latest N-Gage title here on Ovi Gaming. Spore Origins includes all the elements needed but fails miserably in its basic gameplay and interface.
It's been in every S60 phone since the first 7650 came out of Espoo... and it's still delivering for Nokia. Has Java really saved Nokia, asks Ewan Spence? From N-Gage support to bedroom coders, Ewan's clearly on a big Java high!
It's a hardware spectacular for The Phones Show 83, now out, with news of new Symbian OS smartphones, a long video review of the HTC Touch Pro, with head-to-head section against the Nokia N97, plus a demo-focussed tour around case makers Proporta, down in Brighton. If you want to pick the show up via RSS, here are the QVGA (for phones) and VGA (for desktops) feeds.
I can feel the onslaught of accusations of bias already - but I don't care. In this feature, I present a hands-on head to head of the Nokia N97 and HTC Touch Pro 2, two tilt-screened qwerty smartphones with almost identical form factor. In theory a good match for each other, in practice the fight turns into a runaway rout, as you'll see. Summary: the N97 is imperfect. The Touch Pro 2 is so far short of perfect that it has disappeared over the horizon....
Ewan Spence trials the official Orange Nokia 5800 'Comes with Music' package - how well does CwM work, what exactly is included and what are the gotchas? From missing tracks to catalogue inconsistencies to DRM frustrations, it's clear that CwM has a long way to go, but Ewan still reckons that Nokia deserve credit for getting this far and that the mass market will enjoy the experience.
After ditching the notion that a perfect mobile phone can exist and lugging around a slew of devices, can the new N97 finally convince guest writer Justin Berkovi that the perfect phone DOES exist? In light of the Palm ‘Pre’ and new iPhone 3GS how does the N97 match up?
As mobile phone sales have exploded and handset prices have tumbled, even people in the poorest parts of the world usually either own a mobile phone or have easy access to one in their community. The latest estimates from CGAP suggest that by 2012 there will be 1.7 billion people who have access to a mobile network but not a physical bank, and that the developing world's mobile banking sector may be worth US$5 billion by then. Could banking be the way forward for network operators who don't just want to be "dumb pipes"? And could this be a key weapon in the war against poverty?
Ovi Store has been updated again, and it seems the latest content push has added about 79 new titles to Ovi as well as more apps and other content. The list of new games is below, and you can see these for yourself by going to store.ovi.com and selecting the "Any Phone" option, then "Games", then "Newest - Oldest" from the drop down menu. By our reckoning Ovi Store has around 350+ different titles now available, with lots more still waiting to be added for various technical reasons. Note that not every game works on every phone, so if you select a particular model on Ovi Store you probably won't see every game on offer. As always, you can find out more about Ovi Store on our Unofficial FAQ page.
It's official - Tomi Ahonen is Rafe Blandford and I claim my £5.... Industry luminary Tomi is famed for his mobile-related books and essays and here goes into interesting (but extensive) detail on the history of the smartphone and why the US market is different to the Rest of the World. Can Nokia ever crack the USA? Will RIM or Apple take over everywhere else? Tomi echoes many of the conclusions that Rafe has come to in recent podcasts and I guarantee you'll find yourself nodding in agreement.
