In All About Symbian Insight 120 Rafe reports back on the first part of his trip in Finland to find out about Nokia's approach to innovation. Rafe and Steve then discuss the Nokia-Yahoo partnership announced this week, the release of Nokia Messaging for IM for Nokia's S60 5th Edition phones, the game Creebies and an interview with Symbain's Lee Williams that suggested the first Symbian^3 phone will arrive from an Asian manufacturer (rather than Nokia in the form of the N8). You can listen to AAS Insight 120 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
The initial website for this years annual Symbian show recently went live. They reveal that SEE 2010 will take place in Amsterdam at Beurs van Berlage on the 9th and 10th of November. On the site you can find the basic information about the event and register your interest in attending as well as find out more about sponsor and speaker opportunities. SEE 2010 could be the venue for the first substantive look at the new UI of Symbian^4 and will set the scene for the Symbian ecosystem as it moves towards what is likely to be very busy 2011.
Nokia Conversations, the official blog of Nokia, is now available in Spanish as Nokia Conversaciones. The blog will be produced by a team working in Bogota and Miami and aims to find the most interesting stories from Nokia's Latin American operations, with the best stories also be translated and shared on the global (English) blog. The site was officialy unveiled in front of 50 bloggers at the NokiaTalk blogging event.
Here in Norway for Eurovision week (culminating in the final tonight), the last 7 days have been rather hectic for me, but one I always enjoy (others may disagree). Reporting from the Eurovision Song Contest is a great test of mobile connectivity and productivity. So what have I been using at the biggest television show on the planet? I've been finding a number of S60 5th Edition apps invaluable and hope that some of them will help others venturing abroad with their smartphone. Read on for some old favourites and some new additions.
Nokia Messaging for IM is now available in beta for Nokia's touch devices including the Nokia N97 and N97 mini. The client has been completely redesigned with a focus on 'an efficient user experience'. The aim of Nokia Messaging for IM is to offer a 'desktop like IM experience on your Nokia device'. Features include support for Ovi, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk, custom status messages, full avatar support and homescreen integration (N97 and N97 mini only).
You may remember that, 18 months ago, Christmas 2008, I wrote a feature: Robustness, the Forgotten Factor, in which I gave my estimates of the most (and least) robust of the (then) current crop of smartphones. As we head into summer in the Northern hemisphere, I thought an update to the 'chart' might be in order, just looking within our Symbian-powered world this time. See below for my illustrated listing and then leave your comments!
Earlier this week, as part of Nokia's 'Open for Ideas' event, I spent some time at Nokia's Espoo offices in Finland. At one end of the building there's a Nokia Experience lounge where you can see all of the latest products and get demos of the latest services. Here's a quick visual look at some of the products and services being showcased. We've got much more to come from the 'Open for Ideas' event, which was about understanding Nokia's approach to innovation.
It's your 1990's Tamagotchi taken into 2010 - Creebies sees you looking after the welfare of multiple kritters and their island, with mini-games and a complete 3D virtual environment to wander around. Ewan's rather taken by the title and pronounces it perfect both for casual and long-term gaming here in his Creebies review for our Ovi Gaming site.
Another in All About Symbian's tutorial series for absolute beginners to Symbian-powered smartphones, here are the things a newcomer to the Nokia X6 really needs to know. If this is you, then read on. If you have a friend with an X6 then do them a favour and print off this article on their behalf! Note that 80% of the content is common to our other tutorials, for the 5530 and 5230 - each article is customised to suit each device's quirks.
SPB Software launched SPB Mobile Shell a few minutes ago, a favourite of many on other mobile platforms, for Symbian, specifically for S60 5th Edition smartphones (and presumably compatible with Symbian^3 in months to come). Highlights of this replacement front-end are multiple customisable homescreens, widgets for tasks, agenda, weather (etc), photo contacts, app lau
ncher, full kinetic scrolling, adaptive skins and support for OpenGL and a (somewhat mind-blowing) 3D carousel. Video, more details, links and screens below. Comments welcome once you've tried the trial version!
It seems CorePlayer (among other apps) has new competition on S60 - JulyPlayer is now available, in (very) early version 1 form, for both S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition and claims to play an impressive list of video formats. Trial versions let you test file compatibility and full versions are $10. It's early days though and both the interface and player performance looked like they could do with a lot of feedback from you guys (via their new forums) and subsequent iteration. See below for some screens. Comments welcome if you've tried it yet.
In All About Symbian Insight 119 Steve, Ewan and Rafe share their thoughts on NTT DOCOMO's latest MOAP-S (Symbian phones) and Gartner's Q1 figures for mobile phones. The second half of the podcast includes news of Ovi Maps 3.04, Google Latitude API (leading to some thoughts on the future of location services) and Ewan's and Steve's summary thoughts on the Nokia X6. You can listen to AAS Insight 119 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
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!
One of the big changes that Comes with Music has on the average user is that any musical track is just a few clicks away, and Nokia want to see how this treasure trove of music changes user habits by recruiting “20 heavyweight music lovers” who’d like to try out Comes with Music.
