In our latest AAS podcast, Insight 105, Steve and Ewan discuss the news and announcements from Barcelona, including the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro, Symbian^3, Skype for 5th Edition, Nokia's Maemo/Moblin deal, Windows Phone 7 Series Pocket Pro Mobile (or something like that) and anything else which we thought of interest and relevance.
With the mobile industry gathered in Barcelona, MWC Day 1 is underway. In this post, we'll be bringing you live coverage from Nokia's event. The event kicks off at 10:30am GMT and we'll be covering both the press conferences and some of the follow up events and interviews.
Peter-Paul Koch, writing on the QuirksBlog, shares the results of a usability test comparing 10 different phones. What's most interesting is that the user in question might be considered the 'average' user rather than a tech-influencer (as is typical in online media). Consequently many of the observations offer insight into what matters in the real world compared to rarefied atmosphere of the 'media bubble'. Read on for more.
Qt 4.6 was released by Nokia this morning. This is the first full release version of Qt to natively support Symbian and Maemo 6. Also released today is the second technology preview for Maemo 5, which enables (partial) common development between Maemo and Symbian for the first time. Additionally a technology preview of new Qt APIs, from the Qt Mobility project, has been released; these cross-platform APIs provide common mobile related functionality such as location, contacts, messaging and bearer management.
There are a few people in the mobile ecosystem whose opinion I make sure to listen to. Mark Guim has been around the block almost as long as I have and here provides a (month) long term review of the Nokia N900, running Maemo 5, of course. If you're currently using an N97 (for example) and had been wondering whether the grass was greener on the other side, his review should answer your questions. Summary? If you live in the browser, you'll love the N900 - if you live in apps and media, then best stick with Symbian and the N97.
Over the next two day I'm at Nokia's The Way We Live Next event, which 'features presentations and demonstrations from Nokia and our ecosystem partners, showing how Nokia are connecting and building the communities of the future'. You can follow along via our live coverage below or via @aas.
Bah, who need planes, taxis and hotels? You can watch the presentations from Nokia World in the comfort of your own living room or office, thanks to Nokia's events team, with a live page to bookmark and then keep an eye on throughout tomorrow and Thursday. The first keynote kicks off at 8am BST, 9am CET, so you might want to set an alarm if you're in the UK! See also the main AAS Twitter account, which is worth following and which will be feeding you updates straight from Rafe's keyboard....
Nokia has announced the Nokia N900, a Maemo 5-powered device. Maemo 5 is the evolution of Nokia's previous generation of Internet Tablets and aims to occupy the space created by the convergence of mobile phones, laptops and the Internet. The N900 features a horizontal slider design with a three line QWERTY keyboard, a 3.5 inch WVGA (800 x 600) touch screen, ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz processor with 256MB of RAM (and 768MB of virtual memory), 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, tri-band WCDMA and WiFi connectivity, integrated A-GPS, 3.5 mm AV jack (audio and TV-out), and 32GB of flash storage and a microSD card slot. The N900 will be available in select markets from October 2009 at a cost of €500 before taxes and subsidies. Read on for further details and comment.