Nokia today announced the Nokia Oro, a premium Symbian^3 smartphone. Material used in Oro, which is based on the Nokia C7, includes 18 carat gold plating around the edges, high quality Scottish leather on the back and a single sapphire for the home key. Key hardware features include pentaband 3G radio, 3.5 inch AMOLED screen with toughened glass, 8 megapixel EDoF camera and comprehensive connectivity options. The Nokia Oro comes in a nice box and will be available in Q3 in select markets and cost upwards of €800 before taxes and subsidies.
Over on the Ovi Daily App Blog Ewan has been reviewing Herocraft's Robo. Robo is an action puzzler that sees you use logic the guide a robot around a landscape of boulders, mirrors and lasers; as Ewan notes this is a variation on the classic Sokobahn game. Robo is available for the N8, C7, C6-01 and E7; it can be downloaded for £1.50 from Ovi Store.
Just a couple of weekend links of interest. The Ovi Store publishing team has announced that application update notifications are coming this week in an update of its Ovi Store client, v2.8, initially for Symbian^3 phones only. Quote below, we'll cover this more when v2.8 actually appears. In other news, the folks at phoneArena have pitted the Nokia N8's camera against those in the LG Optimus 2X, the iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S II. Suffice it to say that the N8's unit acquits itself very well, but kudos to the feature compiler for the work that's gone into this detailed comparison.
Following on from the first, second and third episodes, here is the fourth episode of the 361 Degrees podcast. This is a podcast all about mobile technology, created by Ben Smith of Wireless Worker and co-hosted by Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review and Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian. The fourth episode features discussion on NFC - what is it, what does it do and what are some of the issues surrounding its deployment.
As promised, Angry Birds Rio has received a third episode to provide more fun fowl physics and extra game-play for those who've purchased the movie-tie in expansion game. Beach Volley takes place on the Copacabana Beach, and as well as the Marmosets replacing the Green Pigs, you've got new birds to throw, in the shape of Blu and Jewel.
Nokia announcedtoday that it will change its service branding from Ovi to Nokia. This will see the services change from Ovi Service to Nokia Service. For example, Ovi Maps to Nokia Maps. The transition will begin in July and is expected to be completed by the end of 2012 and Nokia says that the rebrand will have no impact on planned updates and improvements to the services.
Just as Pixelpipe's FB Browser landed in the Ovi Store, they have also updated their Gmail Apps Browser which we reviewed in March. With this update, we see two major additions to the line up of Google services on offer; Pixelpipe have added both Google Reader and Google Maps. This means that Google fans can now access six ofcloud services in glorious HTML5 (rendered in QtWebKit) via one application. We also see an update to their dual progress and control bar, which now auto-hides when not needed, giving more space over to the Web apps. Read on for screenshots and more details.
Following from ther Gmail Apps Browser, the team at Pixelpipe have released a second Qt WebKit based application. This time, their attention has turned to Facebook. This app provides an app shortcut that launches directly into Facebook, with its touch optimised interface. Read on for more details and screenshots.
You may recall our recent review of CoverUp. This application solved the long standing problem where the Symbian music player would fail to recognise album art. Sebastian Brannstrom (aka @teknolog), has announced version 2.0 of CoverUp. The new version features a simplified user interface, and the option to load custom images files, in addition the standard image search. Click through for screenshots and more.
Users of the social network for professionals, LinkedIn, will be pleased to hear that an official client has now been released for Symbian. It's available at the Ovi Store, free of charge, and is built with Qt. The client provides access to all the core functions of the social network. Users can view status updates from other users, and post their own, with an option to have the update tweeted. Read on for more details and screenshots.
Nimbuzz may not now have any Skype integration, but it's relentless in adding every other IM feature under the sun. Version 3 arrived last November, bringing a truck load of improvements, and we now have v3.01 bringing another "9 awesome reasons" to upgrade, including better call quality, custom wallpapers and an avatar gallery.
Nokia has, over the last year or so, increased the number of case and accessories it makes for its mid tier and high end device. The latest addition is a set of Angry Birds snap-on covers / cases for its Symbian^3 devices (Nokia N8, C7, C6-01, E7, X7). Ideal for expressing your Angry Birds love and a possible safety-net for those Angry Birds moments when you're phone goes flying towards a wall (accidentally we're sure). The cases should be available from high street and online retailers in the next month or so.
Microsoft today announced plans to acquire Skype, the Internet communications company, for US $8.5 billion. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of both companies and, pending regulatory approval, is expected to be completed later this year. The acquisition sets the scene for closer integration between Skype and Microsoft products, including Windows Phone. Given Microsoft and Nokia's recent tie up, it seems likely that future Nokia products may ship with Skype integration out of the box.
You've got to envy Mike Macias. Like many of us he has a Nokia N8 - but he also works in Long Beach, California, with some fabulous good weather and also the opportunity to photograph things on a huge scale. Boats, cranes.... and sunrises. Here he documents trying to capture the latter especially, though look back in his Flickr stream if you get a moment and you'll see plenty of other fine N8 camera phone photography. The downside of Mike's job? He often has to work some rather odd hours!
IDC has released its set of smartphone shipment figures for Q1 2011. They show that just under 100 million smartphones were sold last quarter. Nokia led the way with 24.2 million smartphones, followed by Apple (18.7m), RIM (13.9m), Samsung (10.8m) and HTC (8.9m). All manufacturers had increased shipments year on year, but by widely varying amounts. Nokia was the weakest (+12%), with RIM (+31%), Apple (+114%), HTC (+229%) and Samsung (+350%) all showing stronger growth.