Now that figures from (almost) all smartphone manufacturers are 'in' for Q4 2009, it's possible to look back over the entire year just finished. Was it an 'annus horribilis' for Nokia and for Symbian? Or was it a case of the market heading for a new equilibrium, in the face of new competition? Using figures collated by TomiAhonen Consulting and Strategy Analytics, I deliver my verdict.
After months of struggling with low RAM (in which CellPhoneSoft came up with RAMblow) on the Nokia N97 and N97 mini, we now have firmware for most N97 product codes that has more free RAM and handles memory much better. Still, the appearance of RAMblow, screenshotted, linked and detailed below, may help anyone trying to clear extra RAM for a big game, for those whom the new firmware has not yet been released and for those with other devices with RAM problems.
Nokia Beta Labs has debuted a utility for both S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition phones to enable the editing of words in your phone's predictive text dictionary, a long-awaited function. You are also able to import and export the custom dictionary, meaning you can transfer it from one phone to another. There's a video to explain what's covered and links below.
A hat tip to Andrew Seftel for spotting the Nokia 5230 on Vodafone pay-as-you-go in the UK for £99. This, as far as we know, is the first instance of a non-contract S60 5th Edition smartphone coming in at under £100, a staggering price point. And incredible value given that the 5230 is one of the Ovi Maps Free Navigation handsets. So 3.2" display-equipped touchscreen smartphone and worldwide free navigation all for under a ton, with no contract, no obligations. What do you think?
Just a note that Phones Show 101, out now, has an interesting interview with the CEO of Vlingo, the email/text/search voice recognition system for Symbian, talking about how it works on the likes of the Nokia N97 and the future for voice. There's also my extended take on the hottest new competition for Nokia and Symbian, the Google Nexus One. Can Android 2.1 make up for the hardware shortcomings?
Just a note that Tim Salmon and I went rather overboard on Symbian-powered phones in the latest Phones Show Chat, no. 23, here. Though in theory cross platform, we found ourselves debating Nokia N97 mini, Samsung i8910 HD, Sony Ericsson Satio and even Nokia N85, in the usual mix of review material, Q&A, tips and rants. If you want to subscribe in Podcasting, here's the feed to add.
I have to admit that, like Rita el-Khoury, when I saw the proud boast by a Palm Pre Plus reviewer that they had managed to run 50 apps at once in its 512MB of RAM, I'd thought: well, some Symbian devices of yesteryear and a few from today could match that. Rita's taken the time to demonstrate this on the Samsung i8910 HD, managing 50 apps (and more) at once in only 256MB of RAM. Cool little post. Though I reckon I could get close to 50 on the unmodified Nokia N95 8GB, E90 or E71, for example. Anyone care to try?
Coming on the eve of Apple's big tablet release and Nokia's Q4 09 results announcement, IDC gathered all their numbers, analysts and (ahem) runes and produced a forecast for the smartphone market in 2013. Unusually, for an American data analysis firm, there's surprising understanding of the worldwide scene, with the headline stat being that the smartphone market will exceed 390 million units per year by 2013, with Symbian holding on to its world marketshare lead over the next three years. Quotes from the IDC press release and my own predictions below.
Another writer whose opinions I trust is Rita el-Khoury and here she reflects back on four months with the Sony Ericsson Satio and on the imminent arrival of the new Vivaz. She writes about the evolution of Sony Ericsson's take on S60 5th Edition and Symbian - it seems that she too sees the Satio as a testbed handset (as I'd argue are Nokia's N97 classic, N900 and Samsung's i8910 HD) with the Vivaz being the one that will make an impact on the market.
Everyone has been wondering why Ovi Maps hasn't been offered, for convenience, through the Ovi Store client - and, with the release of the new all-free, official v3.3, that's exactly what Nokia has done, indicating a high degree of confidence on its part. Great to see it heading up the store, anyway, and now merely a download away. And a side note for those for whom this doesn't appear - many other S60 3rd Ed FP2 phones will work fine with Maps 3.3 - just grab the closest version via your desktop and side-load it.
As the Symbian Foundation finish transitioning the OS and its applications over to the EPL (Eclipse Public License), various individuals and companies are responsible for different 'packages' - two such are the Image and Video editors. In the first such move, these two packages have just been transferred from one 'owner' to another. In this case, it's respected company Ixonos who has taken on responsibility and there's an interesting interview with Mikael Laine from Ixonos here on the subject.
Yes, yes, there should probably be no such word as 'webinar' - but Quickoffice is using it anyway, to describe a new series of free video, online seminars centred around their office suite for Symbian/S60. If you have questions about an aspect of Quickoffice, or simply fancy learning a few new tricks, then check out the series. The first one is on January 20th at 8pm GMT (2pm CST) for half an hour. Each webinar will also apparently be recorded and an edited version made available for download later.
Two cracking posts on the Symbian blog today about application development and the story behind the applications. Mobbler, the music tracking web service; and Mobilyze, and in-development app to help patients undergoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Nokia have announced that their Beta Labs are closing the online portion of the Mobile Web Server (MWS) product, launched some two and a half years ago, is closing at the end of this month. By allowing your mobile phone to act as a web server for the content it carried, MWS was an alternative ad-hoc style connectivity option for a number of users. Nokia have stressed that the local parts of the application will continue to work, and are reminding people that not all Beta Lab products have a happy firmware ending.
OK, so I made the last three words up, but the extensively titled Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Games Edition has been sighted by CJ in the USA, equipped apparently with "20 Full version games (10 from Gameloft, 10 from EA Mobile)". It's a nice idea, is available from Nokia USA and only costs $10 more than the standard phone. Even with a number of Java titles, that can't be bad value.