One of the more widely reported stories from MWC yesterday was the launch of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), with a number of networks and manufacturers (including Verizon, Orange, Samsung and LG) promising to “unite a fragmented marketplace by involving players from all related industries”. Sounds a dream come true, but like many similar initiatives, this is unlikely to succeed, I reckon. Read on.
Wild Ducks is a Symbian Foundation project that aims to demonstrate how the recently open sourced Symbian platform can run on open hardware. The project uses the popular Beagle Board as the main board which, together with a modem and few other components, gives you everything you need to make a phone. This allows anyone to build their own Symbian based phones with off the shelf hardware. Over two videos we talk to Arunabh Ankur to get the details on the project and take a look at the project's hardware running Symbian^2. Read on for more.
Python for S60 has been in a state of flux for oh so long, with multiple forks and levels, but it seems we can put all that behind us now with the formal release of the big shiny v2.0 - the dev kit was released today. You may have noted that we reported on PyS60 being made available via Sw update on some 3rd Edition FP2 devices (and above) a month ago. This new kit represents all the other bits developers (and users) might need to write in Python. The announcement, quoted below, also mentions that the source code is being donated to the Symbian Foundation.
In All About Symbian Insight 104 (AAS Podcast 168), Rafe and Steve start with a quick look ahead to Mobile World Congress and then round up a number of small news items, including multiple firmware updates (N97 mini, X6, 5730, E52), details of a new version of the Ovi Store client, information on Greystripe and the Ovi Store and the lowdown on 1.4 million Ovi Maps downloads. In the second half of the podcast we discuss the big news that the the open sourcing (EPL) of the Symbian platform (40 million lines of code) has been completed four months ahead of schedule. You can listen to AAS Insight 104 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
While you can argue about what the numbers actually mean, it’s nice to see that the main players in mobile browser are all feeding back changes to the WebKit open-source project. Alongside Nokia (and Trolltech), Apple, Google and RIM are all contributing in some form, as shown in Evan Martin's blog post to the Chromium web
David Gilson recently performed a big feature on Twitter applications on Symbian and S60. Mind you, thanks to the feedback of AAS readers, he has now expanded his survey to now cover an eye watering seventeen Twitter options for S60 users wanting to get more out Twitter. Gulp. Read on!
Something of an oddball in the mobile world, Snaptu is a Java application that attempts to provide a cosy environment into which you can bring a plethora of online services (Flickr, Facebook, TV listings, News, etc). Ewan, as the main reviewer, wasn't too impressed by the limited functionality within each service or by the clunky Java text input. I was somewhat more positive, as you'll see from my 'PS' - but your comments welcome - are you a Snaptu fan?
Continuing our coverage of Symbian EPL news we offer this video were we talk to Chris Davidson, a Program Manager at the Symbian Foundation, about the journey to EPL. Chris talks about the processes involved in the transition, some of the challenges and the opportunities for device manufacturers and developers. We've also added an extra bonus video where Chris explains the #symbiancountdown and the story behind it.
Today the Symbian Foundation announced that it has completed the move to open source. The platform, which runs on more than 330 million devices and has been developed over the last 10 years is now freely available to all under the EPL (Eclipse Public License). The process, which was delivered four months ahead of schedule, is the largest transition from proprietary code to open source in software history.
The completion of the open source transition marks a critical milestone for Symbian as it seeks to build the enablers for the future of mobile, based on openness and innovation. Read on to view our video interview with Lee Williams and for further information.
Today Greystripe, a mobile advertising network, announced ad network support for Nokia's Ovi Store. Greystripe enables developers to automatically add pre-load and exit 'screen' rich media adverts to their games applications via a self-service web portal. This should result in an increased number of ad-supported (free) games and applications in the Ovi Store. Additionally Greystripe is migrating 1,200 Gamejump.com Java titles into Ovi Store.
In All About Symbian Insight 103 (AAS Podcast 167), the team start with news of Nokia's Q4 results, which saw an encouraging 5% upswing in smartphone market share (QoQ). We then discuss the Apple iPad news, which leads into a discussion of the importance of service ecosystems. Finally there's news of Skyfire and listener questions on advertising subsidies and dual boot devices. You can listen to AAS Insight 103 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Just a note that Phones Show 101, out now, has an interesting interview with the CEO of Vlingo, the email/text/search voice recognition system for Symbian, talking about how it works on the likes of the Nokia N97 and the future for voice. There's also my extended take on the hottest new competition for Nokia and Symbian, the Google Nexus One. Can Android 2.1 make up for the hardware shortcomings?
According to Nokia Beta Labs, though curiously not according to my Windows Vista laptop, there's a shiny new beta of Ovi Suite 2.1 available - according to my logs, the change is from v2.1.0.78 to 2.1.0.82. Do bear in mind this is still definitely classed as a beta, so please feedback any problems via the Beta Labs page. There's a changelog below, should you need convincing to update.
Popping up in the Ovi Store is a native Symbian S60 widget for the social network Brightkite. As the service is based around your location, “checking in” on a mobile device is one of the key actions – previously you could use the website to let everyone know where you are, but this is a much more elegant solution.
David Gilson and Panashe Ngwerume review the new Rseven online sync and backup service, uncovering a number of browser compatibility issues that the developers need to address. They find the beta-status Rseven understandably immature from a functionality standpoint, requiring more development in order to deliver its aims and ambitions in a modern multi-platform environment, but Panashe in particular calls the service a 'gem', implying that there's great potential here for the future.
