Nokia has released their Q1 2010 results, reporting an operating profit of €488 million, with net sales €9.5 billion (up 3% YoY). Nokia's device and service division's profits were €831 million, up 52% year on year. Margins in devices and services were 12.1% (up 1.3% YoY and down 5% QoQ). Converged devices sales (smartphones) were 21.5 million, compared with 13.7 million units in Q1 2001 (up 57% YoY) and 20.1 million units in Q4 2009 (up 3%). As such, worldwide smartphone marketshare was 41%, up 1% sequentially and 3% year on year. Full story and comments below.
Google Maps for S60/Symbian just got itself an update to v4.1. No, not free real time navigation - that's still coming for Symbian - but voice searching, along the same lines as its existing Google Search applet. Just hold down the green (Call) key and say what you'd like to search for, etc. There are also minor updates to its Settings menu and a new 'Report a problem' function. Some quotes, links and screenshots below.
A java game that's essentially a cross-platform port. Doesn't sound promising, does it? Yet UniWar confounds the sceptics by being, in Ewan's words, 'faultless'. Whether playing alone or in online multi-player mode, the game looks great and has all the options and gameplay mechanics needed. Now available in the Ovi Store for both S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition phones, here's the full UniWar review here on our Ovi Gaming site
.
Offscreen Technologies, who have released a wide portfolio of games, applications and eBooks on Ovi Store, have announced that their content has been downloaded more than 25 million times. Offscreen has focussed on providing content for Nokia's touchscreen devices, including the Nokia 5800, N97, X6 and N900. They currently have around 100 titles in the Ovi Store; some of the applications, including Level Touch, Bright Light Touch and Labyrinth Lite Touch have been downloaded more than a million times each. More below.
After a few sporadic sightings yesterday, the full roll out of firmware version 50.0.005 for the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music has begun. The popular touch-screen device receives kinetic scrolling in the application menu, an updated version of Ovi Maps (free navigation and location sharing), minor updates to a number of other applications and the usual bug fixes and performance updates.
In All About Symbian Insight 114 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on Nokia's announcement of the Nokia C6 and Nokia E6. We also shares news of Sony Ericsson's Q1 2010 results, the renewal of Sports Tracker, firmware updates for various phones and Numo Solution's Ovi Store success. You can listen to AAS Insight 114 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
On Friday Sony Ericcsson announced its Q1 2010 results, which saw the company reports its first profitable quarter since Q2 2008. While sales fell 19%, to €1.4 billion, the average selling price increased to €134 (from €120 a year ago). Bert Nordberg, President of Sony Ericsson, highlighted the positive impact of the company's cost cutting program and the launches of the Symbian powered Vivaz and Android powered Xperia X10.
In a blatant attempt to overthrow me as 'chief AAS case reviewer'(!), Ewan takes on SCreate's Executive Wallet Case for the Nokia X6. Thankfully, he's as fussy as me when it comes to wanting a great case and this one seems to fall distinctly short in a few areas. Watch this space for more X6 case reviews from the bearded one.
There's a wonderful article up on CrunchGear at the moment by Devin Coldewey, entitled the The User’s Manifesto: in defense of hacking, modding, and jailbreaking, in which the author presents a very intelligent and well-reasoned analysis of the scene, pointing out all the legal pros and cons from every angle. True, the article is USA-centric and doesn't mention Symbian, but all the same points apply equally to the modding scene on our devices in the rest of the world (e.g. my own i8910 HD HX adventures). Worth a read.
VisionMobile is currently conducting a survey of mobile developers to understand the current state of mobile development and look at future trends. VisionMobile are looking for developers willing to participate in short phone interview or an online survey, with a chance to win prizes for taking part. The study is being funded by O2's Limtus and consequently the key results will be made publicly available.
Spinning a mini-game out of SPB Brain Evolution to form Quads, one has to wonder if the result justifies its existence as a full title - but Ewan seems to think it does. With added extras and gameplay modes, Quads is a lovely combination of luck, strategy and arcade puzzling, as you'll see in his review over on Ovi Gaming.
New in the Nokia Ovi Store is Sports Tracker, from Sports Tracking Technologies (STT). STT is the company founded by Ykä Huhtala, Jussi Kaasinen and Antti Sorvari, who originally created Sports Tracker for Nokia as part of a Nokia Research project, to spin the concept out into a separate company. For those that remember the old Sports Tracker, this has all the usual track and workout logging facilities, plus mapping, courtesy of OpenStreetMap (and loaded ad-hoc) and extras like a countdown to sunset, plus additional export options. Links, comments and screens below.
