After three days of delays (FX: looks meaningfully at YouTube's system manager and the programmers of S60 Podcasting), The Phones Show 86 is now online - and available via RSS from the usual addresses. Subjects covered: News, Qwerty phones, my N86 video zoom demo and my verdict on the Samsung i8910 HD. See here for the video, RSS links and more info.
One of my most essential Web Runtime apps, for S60 5th Edition, is Device Info - mainly for showing free RAM, but it does have plenty of other uses. It has now been updated to v2.0, with extra readouts, including IMEI. Grab it here for the 5800, N97 and Samsung i8910 HD. (via Wampyre)
Nokia has released their Q2 2009 results. Profits were down 66% year on year, but this was ahead of market expectations. Nokia cut its prediction for H2 2009 profitability and market share for 2009, which has driven down its share price. However the underlying results are encouraging, given the economic climate, although some concerns remain in the high end of the market. Converged devices sales (smartphone) were up at 16.9 million, compared with 15.3 million units in Q2 2008 and 13.7 million units in Q1 2009. The 5800 shipped 3.7 million units, while Eseries and Nseries shipments were 4.7 and 4.6 million respectively.
Samsung Italy have released a fairly major (I8910XXIG2) firmware update for the i8910 HD (Omnia HD, as it's branded in Italy). The biggest change is to re-enable AAC (8bit 16KHz. mono) as the audio codec for HD video recording. A video example, taken on the new firmware, is posted below.
Over on the Lazarus like Mobile Industry Review, the other Ewan in mobile has posted an ambitious yet simple plan to save the Ovi Store from itself. Simply put, Nokia would create three enclaves of coders (in London, San Francisco and Paris) and give them a monthly stipend of £3,500 and as much coca cola and pizza as they can eat. As long as they code one application every eight weeks, the proposed 100 developers per warehouse get to stay. Total cost? Roughly £2.34 per handset. That's quite high, but this is a fascinating idea that should be taken seriously.
Ovi Contacts, originally Nokia Chat, integrates the standard S60 contact list with a proprietary instant messaging and presence/status system. It has just had an update that brings it close to formal release status and includes much wider compatibilty, including support for the Nokia N97 and 5800 XpressMusic. The next step, presumably, is to start building this into more phones (the Nokia 5630 XpressMusic, Nokia 5730 XpressMusic and Nokia 6720 classic) already have it. Data-phobes should note that Ovi Contacts requires an online connection and will consume a small amount of bandwidth. Maps lookups are integrated into Ovi Maps.
For many people anyway, e.g. here at N97 enthusiast Gerry Moth's. See also his Twitter feed for his comments through the day. Rafe and Tzer2 both have N97s here at AAS and I'll try to get some comments out of them through the day!
Having a busy day, Nokia Beta Labs has formally launched a next-gen Java Runtime for S60 5th Edition and upwards - presumably this will make it into future device firmwares. In addition, version 2.0 is a component which can be maintained in the future independently, through the 'Sw update' system built into each device. The technicalities of the update mean that the installer (a 4MB SIS) includes a routine to modify any already-installed Java MIDlets to work properly with the new runtime. More details below.
Nokia Multimedia Transfer just got itself a profile update - ignore the claimed compatibility in their flash widget - if you update your Mac's Nokia Multimedia Transfer now you'll get the new configurations. It definitely now works with the N86 (screenshot proof below) and the N97.
The Nokia N97, N86 and E75, along with the iPhone 3GS are now in my smartphone-choosing Grid, if you'd care to try your luck. After finding what the Grid thinks is your perfect smartphone, try playing the 'fiddle the preferences so that device X wins' game - it'll while away your Friday afternoon, anyway! 8-)
