Continuing a long run of success, Nokia has scored again with the N86 8MP at the annual TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) awards. The N86 won in the 'Mobile imaging device' category - perhaps a little premature given that the device hasn't hit the streets in production form, maybe Nokia has been handing prototypes to the 'right' people? Previous winners in the category were the Nokia N82 (2008) and N95 (2007), so at least it does seem as if the judges have got their heads screwed on straight.
Slightly erroneously (see below), but at least it's informing them! As shown (again) below, Nokia Software Update, recently updated, now informs users of the main benefits of installing specific firmware updates. As well as the simple numeric enhancement, users now get plain English 'this is why you should update' prompts. Add in the recent use of official Nokia press releases to push major firmware updates and the slow but steady stream (e.g. here) of general minor update articles and it seems that Nokia's update servers are really cranking into gear.
MobileTinyURL has launched, a way of creating mobile-friendly (i.e. avoiding too much character multi-touch) URLs for phones. The service is free and works for all content types, not just for HTML pages. Will it catch on - comments welcome!
Nokia today released its Q1 2009 results. Nokia had net sales of EUR 9.3 billion, down 27% year on year and down 27% sequentially (down 24% and up 25% at constant currency). Nokia sold 13.7 million converged (S60) devices, down from 14.6 million in Q1 2008 and 15.1 million in Q4 2008, of these 5 million were Nseries and 3 million were Eseries. An individual device highlight was the 5800 which sold 2.6 million units. Nokia's industry outlook sees similar device volumes and market share for Q2, but expect overall conditions to improve in the second half of the year
Fans of my ad-hoc, freeform encyclopaedia of trivia should note that the 2009 edition, v2.4 of Trivopaedia is now online, in Mobipocket or iSilo versions for all PDAs and smartphone platforms. There's also a raw, 1MB, uncompressed online version, should you feel the need. If you fancy help tidying up the code or adding data, please get in touch!
Well, the dates for this year's Symbian Smartphone Show have been set, as has the venue. 27-28 October, at Earls Court 2, in central London (the same venue as the 2008 event). Mark it in your diary NOW. But, curiously, the name itself hasn't been finalised yet. With the new status of the Symbian Foundation, David Wood muses on the official SF blog and asks for suggestions for the name and indeed the general themes for the event. Why not chip in?
It's time for another editorial bemoaning the fact that as Symbian OS gets older, and fancier ways are added for the manufacturers to transition between screens, some of the greatest functionality is removed. This week I want to point out the sorry tale of taking screenshots on your smartphone. Settle down for another 'once upon a time'...
The Phones Show 79 went live just now, with some extended news, thoughts on the T-Mobile G1 and a demo of Slingplayer Mobile on the N95 8GB. Comments welcome as usual.
In this developer feature we preview Nokia's upcoming Developer Summit 2009, which being held in Monaco at the end of this month. It is the first event that brings all aspects of development for Nokia devices together and Srikanth Raju, head of marketing for Forum Nokia, offers some insight.
Nokia Easy Meet is a mobile collaboration tool, which has been put together by NRC (Nokia Research Centre) as a research prototype, and made available to end-users via Nokia BetaLabs. Easy Meet allows you to easily share and view content around a given subject (meeting). For example, it could be used to share a PowerPoint slide slow during a voice conference call. The advantage of Easy Meet, compared to many other solutions, is that mobile users are able to fully participate in the viewing and sharing of content.
In All About Symbian Insight 66 (AAS Podcast 124) we talk about the N-Gage platform's newest addition - Worms World Party. Then there's discussion of Google Maps 3.0.1, BBC TV streams, device colours. We finish with a discussion of the joys of older devices. You can listen to AAS Insight 66 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
To coincide with the first shipments of the Nokia E75, Forum Nokia released the Nokia E75 plug-in for Carbide.ui and the Eseries SDK plug-in for the S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 SDK. There was also some apparently gloomy news about developer intentions to port location enabled applications to Symbian.
The self styled TechnoMiser has posted his list of recommended freeware applications for Symbian OS, and whle there are a lot of familiar names in the mix it's still worth checking out to make sure you've got your handset in the best shape for software. It's also a good companion to Steve's Top 20 Freeware and Top 10 Commercial Applications for S60 Fifth Edition.
