Nokia is currently transforming itself from a hardware company to a hardware+services (solutions) company. At MWC 2010, we spoke to Tero Ojanperä, EVP of Services, in order to get an insight into current progress. Over a wide-ranging interview we cover a number of topics around Nokia's service strategy including how Ovi fits into Nokia's software platform strategy, the thought processes that led to free navigation, the importance of services compared to phone hardware, getting content onto the Ovi Store, the importance of partners and much more.
In this interview, recorded in Barcelona at MWC 2010, we talk to Christof Hellmis, Director Navigation & Routing Solutions at Nokia, about Ovi Maps and Nokia's location strategy. It is clear that location has an enormously important role to play as a key enabler in the future of mobile - and this piece will give you an insight to Nokia's viewpoints and attitudes. We cover the story behind the recent release of the Ovi Maps 3.3 with free navigation, potential future improvements to Ovi Maps, the Ovi Developer SDK, future directions and much more.
Thanks to CJ for the heads-up that Emoze, the third party push email aggregator that preceded Nokia Messaging, has just opened up its 'Pro' version for free. You can read more about it below and on the Emoze Blog but essentially you get rich HTML, multiple accounts, Gmail, Hotmail and Facebook support, plus a lot more.
According to the official Ovi Blog, the enormous HRS system is beginning to appear in the homescreen of Ovi Maps 3.3 (and beyond), offering hotel searching by proximity to your current location, with navigation to a hotel handled within the application. There's also integration with other phone functi
ons, to allow real time availability checking and booking. Initially HRS is appearing in just Germany and Finland, but other countries should see this rolled out quite soon too. Some quotes and screens below.
How long would it take you to find some who has “made a success” out of an application store for any mobile device? Not long, I would think, because these stories are picked up and passed around to “prove” that App Stores work. A case in point is this post on Into Mobile, highlighting the success of an app for Google Android with 6,500 paid for
downloads, earning $13,000. But is that the way forward? Read on for my thoughts.
As I wrote six weeks ago, work has been progressing to convert the old open source Escarpod podcast catcher into an application that can be part of the (also open source) Symbian^3 operating system. Now, exclusively, with kind permission, I have much more on the app, appropriately just called 'Podcatcher'. Read on for a detailed walk through, screenshots and a link to download it for yourself, to help test it on existing devices. Note that Symbian^3 itsel
f won't appear on devices until at least the summer, but at least we now know that it'll have podcasting functionality, a relief to many in the Symbian ecosystem, including me!
In part 3 of our MWC interview with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, we discuss the future. How "for the great masses of the world, the first computer they will have will be an extension of the phone based on Symbian". How MeeGo's rich contextual crossing of the real and virtual world will use a map-based user interface and will create "the possibility for people to live in the media."
In the second half, we hear about the three "buckets" (types) of competitors, the importance of open standards and ecoystems, and a three-fold answer to how we should judge Nokia's future business performance (KPIs).
In part 2 of our MWC interview with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, there is discussion of how moving Symbian into the Symbian Foundation stops the platform being "fractioned by individual product programs [within Nokia]". We also touch on whether there is a future for the 'Nokia N95 form factor' smartphone.
In the second half, Anssi Vanjoki talks about Nokia's software strategy and how the common elements of Qt and common Web Runtime provide a unifying layer between Symbian and MeeGo. He then touches on the importance of open source as a new 'software making model' for Nokia moving forward.
In All About Symbian Insight 106 (AAS Podcast 170), Rafe, Ewan and Steve look back on Mobile World Congress 2010. Rafe shares his views on a number of subjects including the Symbian Foundation news, Nokia's software strategy (Symbian and MeeGo) and the Qt developer story, Windows Phone 7 Series and more. Steve and Ewan manage to communicate some of their views too and fire a few rapid fire questions at Rafe. You can listen to AAS Insight 106 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
David Gilson dips into his wallet to subscribe to the tenner-a-month Spotify Premium, giving him streaming and download access to just about all the DRM-ed music he'd ever want from Spotify's servers. Is it ultimately worth it and how good (or limited) is the mobile (S60) client? Find out in David's detailed Spotify Premium review.
At Mobile World Congress, I sat down with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, to talk about the Nokia N97. The highly anticipated device was released last summer and while it has been a commercial success for Nokia, it has been subject to a great deal of criticism from consumers for its software and underpowered hardware.
With the release of version 20 and 21 of the firmware, many of the software issues have been resolved. In the video, Anssi Vanjoki acknowledges the issues and explains how Nokia has learnt important lessons, which have been fed into the process of creating Symbian^3 and Symbian^3 devices. He says that "we have taken the learnings and when Symbian^3 comes out you can rest assured it will be perfect".
Rafe introduces All About Symbian's and Mobile Industry Review's video coverage of Mobile World Congress 2010. Over the next five weeks we'll be bringing you more than 70 videos covering a wide variety of subjects including interviews, walkabouts, stand tours, handset demos, developer profiles, software showcases and much more. This video provides an introduction to MWC and describes some of the forthcoming content.
Wordpress bloggers will be interested in the Open Sourced blogging client being developed for Maemo and Symbian using Qt. The blog for the client can be found here, along with the relevant downloads for the latest version. The software is still being developed, but you can get the latest builds and contribute to the project at dev.nokia.wordpress.org.
According to the official Ovi blog, the deployment of Nokia Ovi Suite 2.1.0.87 started yesterday, containing "many new improvements, bug fixes and features", including Ovi.com and Mozilla Thunderbird contacts sync, video transfer and playback and support for device application updates. You can get the new version from within an older version(!) or from here. This replaces the old PC Suite and other variants.
