According to the latest research from Gartner, MobHappy reports via ITPro, smartphone sales are up 75% from 2005 worldwide, with Nokia accounting for 42% of the entire mobile device market, or over half of all converged devices.
Good news for everyone planning to be at next week's All About Symbian Pub Meet. Second prize (after the Mystery Star Prize) will be a Nokia N93 - this is your chance to get your hands on the latest media phone from Finland. Thanks to Nokia for supplying the device.
Video podcast The Smartphones Show 16 has just gone live, with a hands-on review of the Sony Ericsson P990i, a brief promo of the Nokia N95 and a preview of upcoming Windows Mobile 5 rivals. The podcast is playable on any PC, Mac, Symbian OS 9 smartphone, iPod or PSP.
Steve muses over the whole PDA taking over your life thing, thanks to micromanagement of your own time and the many intricate apps. Why is your smartphone different, and why is less the new more? Find out as he proclaims (a bit too loudly for my liking) that he's not a geek.
A demo of Nokia's upcoming next gen game System Rush Evolution is now available for download from the N93 software support page. It will install and run on other S60 3rd Edition phones, not just the N93. Unfortunately it's unplayably slow on the E61 I tested it on, presumably because the E61 doesn't have the N93's 3D graphics accelerator chip. If that's the case, then we can probably expect a slew of new 3D-accelerated S60 models to appear early next year in time for the launch of Nokia's Next Gen games.
Kudos to Andy Abramson for assembling the biggest and best tips page for the Nokia N91 hard-disk music smartphone - everything you ever needed to know about keeping this very different device going... (via Darla).
In the first of a series of UIQ 3 application reviews, Steve gives the top-down racer Dreamway a run for its money. Worth a look for all smartphone owners, actually, as it's also available for all S60 and previous UIQ devices.
Orange and Nokia today announced that they would be working together to customise S60 for Orange signature devices. S60 is one of Orange's preferred software platforms. The Orange signature device program includes those devices which express or enhance the Orange brand and lifestyle with an emphasis on high end devices.
Thanks to WOM's N95 site for the heads up on plenty more photos and video of the Nokia N95, including a very interesting walkthrough of how the integrated GPS receiver and mapping software works. Also a link to a new user Nseries video blog.
Just in case you missed them, I've been quite impressed by Alessandro Pace's introduction and getting started with development articles on the subject of Flash Lite, a new way of producing content for some (but currently not all) Symbian OS smartphones.
SmartphoneWare's Full Screen Caller comes under Ewan's scrutiny in his review. It's fair to say that he wasn't bowled over by the utility. See what you think and feel free to comment!
