Nokia's unified login system Nokia Account is now working again and accepting new registrations, just click on the "New Account" link below the login form. As we noted before, it's not yet in use by most Ovi services, but the plan is for your Nokia Account username to replace all the separate logins Ovi currently requires. If you want to make sure you get your favourite username, it's worth registering it on Nokia Account now so you're ready for the unification. (Note that the registration only requires an e-mail address OR a phone number, you don't have to give both.)
Nokia today released its 2nd quarter results for 2008. Converged mobile device shipments (S60 phones) were 15.3 million (up from 13.9 million in Q2 2007) including more 10 million Nseries and just under 2 million Eseries devices. Net sales from the services and software division was EUR 119 million (up 42% from Q1 2008). Nokia increased its overall market share to 40%, up from 38% last year and 39% last quarter.
Ah yes, if the E71 wasn't special enough, there's now a gold plated version for you to show off in board rooms across the world. And, surprisingly, it's not that much more expensive, at £550... (via IntoMobile)
Nokia has completed its acquisition of Plazes, a privately-owned start-up company in Berlin. By acquiring Plazes, Nokia "will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features." It's not clear whether this service will be rolled into another service (Nokia Chat?) or developed standalone and rebranded.
Ride across the river with All About N-Gage's Ewan Spence as he takes a far away look at Gameloft's latest trick Brothers In Arms. The review starts with a very direct editorial about the idiocy of having a demo that lasts 20 seconds, though the full game is much longer of course and apparently it's great fun. Is it money for nothing, or is the game too strong?
With the news that Apple have (unsurprisingly) had 10 million downloads from their on-device AppStore in the first weekend of operation, I can't help but reflect back on the continuing disaster that is Nokia's Download! system - read my rant below and see if you agree!
Reports are coming in (e.g. here and the official page here) that the Nokia N78 has just received another firmware update, to v12.046, available over the air or via Nokia Software Update. v12.046 "includes a number of performance improvements including softkey selection, Bluetooth stability, video playback, email sending and alarm clock functions."
Nokia is going to unify its Ovi and other online services using a single login system called Nokia Account. In theory you can already register your Nokia Account username on the official website, though the registration section seems to be down for maintenance right now so you may want to check back later (it did work yesterday and many have already registered). At the moment Nokia Account is only being used by a few services, most notably Nokia Chat, but eventually it will be used by the entire Ovi suite including Ovi Share, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, N-Gage etc. We've mentioned this before in other recent AAS items, but a lot of our readers apparently still don't know about this unification, so we thought it deserved a bit more publicity.
I see PDA Essentials magazine has renamed itself as "PDA Esssentials, Smartphone & GPS"... Anyway, issue 77 of this UK-based newstand magazine, out today, has full reviews of the Nokia E71 and Motorola MOTO Z10, along with a multi-page feature on '10 things to do with GPS on your smartphone' and the inclusion of the Sony Ericsson W960 and the Nokia N82 in a 'budget' group test.
The World War Two action game Brothers In Arms is now available from the N-Gage application's Showroom section. If you're having trouble seeing it, select Options and then Update Now, which should make it appear in the Latest Games section. If you still can't see it, exit N-Gage, open the phone web browser, select Options, then Clear Privacy Data, then Clear Cache, close the browser, start N-Gage up and click on the Available Games section of the Showroom. (Thanks to ccraig for tipping us off about the release)
