Hopefully you will have seen Steve’s posting about Lucian Tomuta’s video on using Qt to develop apps for Symbian devices. If, however, your computer runs on Linux or Apple you may have run into a small problem, there is no compiler for Symbian apps on these platforms. But never fear, there is a solution. Read on ...
Although popular, Nokia Beta Labs have closed down support for the Nokia Conversation application. With development now at and end, they reckon that having the forum and feedback still open, but without receiving any appropriate response would “be doing a disservice” to the users. Conversation streams will be part of the Ovi Suite and feature in the upcoming N8.
They might have well started flying a kite in lightning, because this is going to raise some eyebrows. Nokia’s latest blog post on the Conversations site starts out with “My name is Ian and I prefer buttons on my mobile phone.” You can probably guess where the conversation is going, because many people believe that the only form for a smartphone is a touchscreen slab. It should be a good debate!
If you've been wondering how to get started in developing serious applications for Symbian and weren't quite sure whether to knuckle down and get into the official C++-based Symbian SDK or head for the new programming wunderkind, Qt (pronounced 'cute'), then have a look at this interview with Lucian Tomuta, also embedded below. He gives an intro and then shows how easy it is to compile and test apps, right onto the phone.
Nokia has released their Q2 2010 results, reporting an operating profit of €295 million, with net sales €10.0billion (up 1% Year-on-Year). Nokia's device and service division's profits were €643 million, down 16% year on year. Margins in devices and services were 9.5% (down 2.7% YoY and down 2.6% QoQ). Converged devices sales (smartphones) were significantly up, at 24 million, compared with 16.9 million units in Q2 2009 (so up 42% YoY) and compared with 21.5 million units in Q1 2010 (up 12%, QoQ). As such, worldwide smartphone marketshare was 41%, stable sequentially and year on year. Full story and comments below.
Steve Litchfield takes Wikitude, the ambitious augmented reality browser for Symbian (plus iPhone and Android) for a spin in his local area. What sort of things can Wikitude help you find and is the app ready for mass market adoption yet? More to the point, just how many spare batteries would you take to pack in order to get through a day of Wikituding in the city?(!)
Guest writer Asri al-Baker reviews SyncLion, a new utility developed by a newcomer to the Symbian application market, Trismer Technology, designed to archive your SMS, MMS, Contacts and Notes into your standard email. Asri tests it to his Gmail setup and admires the innovative folder creation system that keeps this information separate from normal email.
Rafe reviews the updated version 2 of Klomptek's Track and Protect, which he describes as the 'Rolls Royce' of remote security, allowing not only the traditional locking and wiping functions but also super-cool recovery actions like getting the phone to report its own whereabouts to you over the web (even if the finder/thief puts in a new SIM) and taking photos of anyone trying to 'break in'. Read the review for a full breakdown of Track and Protect's capabilities.
One of the interesting points made in this week's Insight Podcast was the large number of applications (primarily in the Ovi Store) that are only targeted at S60 5th Editon devices, leaving behind a large number of 3rd Edition owners. There are also a number of notable incidents where applications or games are even more restricted, to certain handsets. Read on for some thoughts...
Nokia's latest Symbian^1 device, the C6 has appeared on sale at Nokia's UK store. The C6 is a touchscreen phone with side-sliding QWERTY keyboard, featuring the same homescreen widgets as seen on the N97 and N97 mini. It was announced back in April along with the C3 and E5. The emphasis of the April release was to 'democratise' the market by bringing unlocked handset prices down to a more affordable level. Therefore, we're a little surprised at the £289 price tag on the C6. Of course, prices on the Nokia UK store are typically higher than 'street' retail prices, but this is still different from the £230 price tag we expected.
It all started when I updated my Smartphone Grid, deleting a couple of devices which I considered too old to recommend to people. Somewhat foolishly, I used the word 'obsolete' in my Twitter conversations with readers and this led to a (ahem) stimulating exchange of ideas around the whole idea of what happens when a smartphone is no longer sold and/or no longer updated. Read on for my thoughts on the subject of what happens when our beloved devices get to three score years and ten (in machine years!)
In All About Symbian Insight 127, we open with a discussion of Nokia's Terminal Mode, which is seeking to create an industry standard for the next generation of integration between cars and mobile phones. We follow this up with news of the Opera 10.1 beta, a sale of games in the Ovi Store, the announcement of furtiv's support for DropBox, the addition of Maps Reporter to Ovi Maps, and the opening of the Qt Developer Network. There's also a brief discussion of the number of software releases for S60 3rd Edition phones versus S60 5th Edition phones. You can listen to AAS Insight 127 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In leaps and bounds, the term 'smartphone' is being bandied about by manufacturers, analysts, journalists, developers and end users across the world. Which would normally be a good thing, except that there are many definitions, all totally different. What exactly defines a smartphone in 2010? What did it used to mean in 2007? Or 2003? With reports regularly quoting the word, it would be good to all agree what the word means, surely?
Opera have announced a new beta version of Opera Mobile for S60 3rd Edition and S60 5th Edition devices. Version 10.1 boasts a new rendering engine (Presto), new graphics library (Vega), and new Javascript engine (Carakan), all of which are also utilised in Opera's desktop browser. The end result is a significant boost in overall performance. Also new is geolocation support, which allows websites to serve up location specific content. The beta can be downloaded from the Opera website (visit m.opera.com/next on your phone).
A Maps Reporter module has been added to the 'More' menu of Nokia's Ovi Maps. It allows users to submit manual reports about errors in the application's mapping and associated meta-data. These errors can range from a missing street or path, whether a street is suitable for walking, to an incorrect speed limit. You will need to be running the latest version of Ovi Maps (3.04) in order to see the Maps Reporter module. Read on for further details and example screenshots.