Every so often you find yourself in a situation where you wish "If only my phone could do this..." because it lacks the necessary hardware for a task. In a slightly tongue-in-cheek editorial, AAS takes a look at hardware features which are not available on modern mobile phones but perhaps should be. As always comments are very welcome in the thread below, especially your own suggestions for potentially useful phone features.
Along with a couple of other invited guests, I was privileged to get full access to Nokia's testing labs at Farnborough this morning. Two teaser photos are below the break, but there's lots more to come, once I've digested and edited all the raw video and photos I took for All About Symbian. Watch this space!
Yup, the infamous Carnival has reached 150, so congratulations all round. It's hosted at AAS favourites Mippin too, so double the reason for a link of interest here!
With the Sony Ericsson C905 arriving for review in The Phones Show, I couldn't resist doing a quick head to head between it and the Samsung INNOV8 - and the Nokia N82, for good measure.], so that I could evaluate the differences between 8mp and 5mp in the real world. The C905 is undoubtedly the phone with the stills camera of highest specification at the moment - but how good is it? Is it worth overlooking the many other factors involved in choosing a camera-phone/smartphone?
Ah yes, there's always a tingle of excitement when someone shows off a whole new form factor, especially one which combines full width qwerty keyboard, wide screen and, in this case, touch PDA mode and dedicated gaming keypad as well. Presenting the iCEphone - maybe a form factor that would suit the future of Nokia's Communicator line? Comments welcome! (via Unwired view)
In AAS Insight 48, we talk about the launch of the new 'Facebook phone', the INQ1, we chat about the Nokia N96 and the new E63, plus we cover Qt, the cross-platform environment that Nokia bought recently. If you want to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In which I muse on how far we've gone backwards in many ways, in the last 15 years... and introduce a device with 5.3" wide screen, instant response, comprehensive office suite and staggering battery life.... Am I the only one to get misty eyed over this sort of thing?
In a statement issued on Friday Nokia updated it outlook (view of the mobile market) for Q4 2008 and 2009. Nokia expects Q4 sales of all mobile phones to be lower than initially expected at around 330 million. It expects its own market share to be the same or slightly up. For 2009 Nokia is expecting volumes to be down compared to 2008 (i.e. less mobile phones will be sold in 2009 than in 2008). Both these changes are attributed to 'continuing overal economic slow down'.
On Tuesday and Wednesday this week (19th-20th) Forum Nokia goes to Budapest for two events: a Developer Day and Code Camps on S60 5th Edition Touch UI and Web Runtime widgets. At the beginning of December it is the turn of Barcelona which has S60 5th Edition Touch UI and Mobile Web Code Camps. Both events are free to attend; all you need do is register on the Forum Nokia web site. I'll be in Budapest for both days of the Forum Nokia event, please do look out for me, introduce yourself, chat about the Symbian ecosystem and show me any applications or services you may be working on.
Following on from cell tower positioning, GPS and Wi-Fi-based positioning (see previous news item), we now have 'indoor positioning', using dedicated transmitters in shopping malls, airports, etc. Here's a video demo of indoor positioning, courtesy of Nokia's Way We live Next project (nb. link is to file in MP4 format)
Ewan gets all financial and peers into his strategic crystal ball, reckoning that the Symbian OS ecosystem will weather the current financial crisis, even it parts of it will get a little 'battered'... He looks at the manufacturers, the big software houses and smaller developers - the challenges and opportunities are slightly different for each.
I couldn't resist a link-of-interest over to this story about Mojo Mobility, who have demonstrated a non-contact charging method for mobile phones at up to 4W transfer at 70% efficiency. Never mind USB charging, hopefully we won't need charging cables at all a few years from now? (via Tech-on)
In the final part, number eight, of my Camera Nitty Gritty series, I look at some of the top smartphone cameras again, but this time looking at their video capture potential, covering the Nokia N82, N93, E90, the Samsing INNOV8, the Sony Ericsson K850i and the HTC TyTN II. Obviously just a snapshot of the phone video capture world but hopefully nonetheless interesting. Your comments welcome if you can add any comparisons of your own!
Just flagging up a new video entrant into the world of mobile. Mobile Divide is a new interview-based site covering all mobile OS, but with its first spot featuring Jonathan Greene, an unashamed S60 fan. Worth adding to your RSS feeds anyway, it seems complementary to my own Phones Show.
At last month's Smartphone Show, Ewan collared Symbian's David Wood for a chat about the Symbian Foundation and his role in it. And yes, also sneaked a peek at the smartphone David uses (a Nokia E61i) and the software which he had installed, for another in the 'Desert Island Desktop' series.
