Nokia and Yahoo have announced a global strategic partnership which looks to enhance the companies' respective services across both the PC and mobile devices. Nokia will become the global, exclusive provider of mapping and navigation services across Yahoo service (powered by Ovi) while Yahoo will become the global, exclusive provider of Nokia's Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services. Nokia and Yahoo plan to work on ID federation, the first stage of which will be the ability to use Ovi ID to log into select Yahoo services.
Fired up by the discussions in the Phones Show Chat podcast, one of my listeners, Andy Weekes, took the time to write in a veritable essay on his experiences (ok, mainly frustrations) with Nokia, Symbian and the current competition. Some of his points are very valid, others more arguable, but you'll hopefully enjoy his essay and my (inline) responses below. Comments welcome, some of these topics could run and run!
It’s a subtle tweak, but the addition of live streaming to the mobile web pages for the BBC’s UK National Stations is an important addition. Exec producer JamesSimcock goes into some of the thinking behind the decision on the BBC Internet Blog, but the main reason is user expectation – with more flat rate devices and wi-fi connections, bill shock is no longer the over-riding issue.
In All About Symbian Insight 118 Ewan and Rafe share their thoughts on a visit to Nokia's design HQ in London, the release of Sports Tracker and memory performance on Ewan's X6. The second half of the podcast features an outside broadcast recorded at the recent #NokiaNav event in Richmond. Rafe and Steve are joined Julien Fourgeaud and discuss the event and related accessories and activities. You can listen to AAS Insight 118 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
I was asked a very good question last week: "Why do you stay with Symbian when there's a world of wonder with iPhone and Android?" I have to admit to finding a number of positives in these other platforms, sometimes accompanied by positives in their hardware, but it's true that I do keep coming back to Symbian as the OS powering my smartphone-of-choice. Investigating my own leanings and trying to justify them, here are the top 10 reasons why I stay with Symbian.
Nokia Beta Labs have released a new version of the Ovi Calendar. Ovi Calendar is the online calendar service provided through Ovi.com; users can sync their phone to the calendar and vice versa using Ovi Sync. Calendar 1.6 features support for multiple calendars, and the sharing of these with other Ovi users.
An All About Symbian application, which allows you easy access to the site's latest content, is now available in Nokia's Ovi Store. The application was built using Nokia's new Ovi App Wizard (more on that in a future post) and is based on the RSS content feeds. The content is divided into four channels: All About Symbian News, AAS Insight Podcast, AAS YouTube videos and the most recent AAS tweets. The application is free and is compatible with all of Nokia's Symbian^1 (S60 5th Edition) devices. Read on for further details and screenshots.
HipLogic has been a name that has floated around S60 circles for the last year or so. Ostensibly a Web-aware homescreen replacement, it turns out to be something more ambitious, albeit with a few minor caveats. I set out last week to intercept HipLogic's 'Chief Action Figure', Mark Anderson, and quiz him on the vision behind, and the implementation of, HipLogic on Symbian. Read on for more.
Last week NTT DOCOMO, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Sharp announced a joint agreement to jointly develop a new application platform for mobile phones. The application platform, which will run on both Symbian and Linux and is, effectively, the next generation of the current MOAP platform. However there is a clear intention to offer it to mobile manufacturers world wide; previously MOAP phones have been almost exclusively Japan-only.
Ovi Music Unlimited, which is branded as Comes with Music in some markets, has launched in India. The service, which can only be purchased with a new device, allows unlimited music downloads from the Ovi Music Store for 12 months. Music is DRM protected, but users are able to keep the music after their subscription period has ended. The service has been customised for India with a smaller Ovi Player (desktop client), local content from more than 150 labels and the ability to download music using different PCs.
Sports Tracker isn't the only game in town when it comes to GPS-tracking your workouts. And especially not when it comes to sharing these with others, either for interest sake or to provoke healthy competition. Here, Ewan reviews Endomondo, a largely server-side solution that has a wealth of social features, in addition to the traditional mapping and logging summaries.
In All About Symbian Insight 115 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on the China bound Nokia C5-01 and Nokia X5 (TD-SCDMA handsets for China Mobile). We also take a detailed look at Nokia's Q1 2010 financial results with discussion of Nokia's Symbian^3 plans. Finally we cover Offscreen's 25 million Ovi Store downloads. You can listen to AAS Insight 115 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Google Maps for S60/Symbian just got itself an update to v4.1. No, not free real time navigation - that's still coming for Symbian - but voice searching, along the same lines as its existing Google Search applet. Just hold down the green (Call) key and say what you'd like to search for, etc. There are also minor updates to its Settings menu and a new 'Report a problem' function. Some quotes, links and screenshots below.
What if the Symbian handset manufacturers followed the lead of Microsoft? Slashgear picks up on a Windows 7 architecture guide that gives [proposed] information on what customisations hardware manufacturers and networks can add to the new range of Windows Phone 7 phones. In short, not a lot. Which got me thinking about why the open principles of the Symbian Foundation are in opposition to this rush for conformity.
