Here’s a quick example on how the open nature of Symbian OS and the mechanisms put in place by the Symbian Foundation actually work. Sebastian Brannstorm submitted his request to alter the UI of the app launcher (namely a long tap on an icon would bring up an option to remove/delete the application). That feature has now been prototyped and is likely to make it into handsets. More links below.
29% of developers support Symbian, says Millennial Media, with 100% of them supporting iOS. While that sounds like a bad statistic for Symbian, it’s worth examining the data to conclude that this is healthy for a huge number of mobile operating systems. More below...
In All About Symbian Insight 132, we start with a quick reminder that mobile data coverage is not universal, especially in rural areas. Rafe shares news of the V Festival application and the availability of the SugarSync client for Symbian. Ewan brings news of a new Foursquare client for Symbian, which leads to a broader discussion of location check-in services, Facebook Places and location availability. In the latter half of the podcast, David shares some final thoughts on the Nokia C6 and highlights the importance of battery life. You can listen to AAS Insight 132 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Having not mentioned the Nokia N8 for a while now, it's timely to see a great new official gallery of both sample 12mp images (some of which are stunning) and 'still life' press shots of the device in action. The low light 'Night out' one is impressive, taken with Xenon flash. (via John Wiegand-forson)
Nokia today announced that it plans to acquire Motally Inc., a privately held US company, which provides analytics services for mobile websites and applications. In addition to basic tracking and demographic reporting, Motally's main product offers the ability to track user behaviour within applications.
Here's a common scenario. You've acquired a spare battery for your smartphone, either by buying one on purpose or by inheriting one from another device. Yet, in order to charge each, you've got to power the device down and swap cells, effectively using the phone itself as the charger. If, like me, you juggle more than one phone and more than one battery for each, this can get very tiresome. Enter this latest mains battery charger from Mobile Fun, compatible with nearly every Nokia smartphone battery from the last few years and reviewed right here. Summary? It's a slam dunk.
Multimedia content creation on smartphone usually revolves around photos and videos, but what about the humble audio file? Audioboo is a popular audio clip publishing service and has mobile publishing clients for Android and iPhone. However, there is no support for Symbian devices. Never fear though, David Gilson is on the case and, in this how to article, shows us how to publish to Audioboo via Nokia Share Online and Pixelpipe's Audioboo plugin.
One of the most under-rated features of the Nokia N8 is its new email client, in the form of an upgraded version of Nokia Messaging. The Nokia Messaging team, in a blog post and video, talk about some of the key improvements, which include full HTML email support, improved device integration, easier set up and settings configuration, portal address lookup for GMail and Hotmail and improved performance characteristics. Also in N8 related news is the availability of N8 pre-orders through the Nokia USA web store.
Nokia has taken the beta label of its free Symbian Signing program, demonstrating Nokia's long term commitment to lowering costs for developers placing their applications in the Ovi Store. Previously the cost for a developer to sign their first Symbian application was $215, with an additional $15 for every signing instance thereafter. In order to participate in the free signing program developers need only become Ovi Store publishers (necessary to publish content in the Ovi Store), which means paying a one-off fee of €50.
The online service element of Sports Tracker, the application that lets you track exercise activities (workouts) and turns your Nokia smartphone into a GPS sports computer, is now available. The online service allows you to see at a glance information about each activity, easily visualise your workouts, make comparisons and share activities with others via the Sports Tracker website, Facebook or Twitter. Read on for more information and screenshots.
The N8 is now available for pre-order from Nokia's own web stores in France, Spain and Germany. The French store quotes a price of €459 (£380) and availability at the 'end of August', the Spanish store quotes a price of €469 (£389) and availability at the 'end of September', while the German store quotes a price €479 (£397) and availability in the 'third quarter'. The N8 is already available for pre-order in Italy at a cost of €469.
"So what's the best Symbian touchscreen phone to get these days?" is a question I get asked quite a bit. The person asking is unlikely to be a fellow uber-geek so I can't usually say the Samsung i8910 - and the Sony Ericsson phones are something of a mess in terms of usability. Which leaves good 'ol Nokia, famously plagued by problems producing a really high end S60 5th Edition smartphone (remember that the N8 is still - amazingly - still a month away), but who offer a pretty decent line up of add-ons, from Maps to Ovi Store to Music. After not a lot of thought, I'd whittled Nokia's current line-up down to two...
Nokia’s London Developer day has come under the microscope of Marek Pawlowski and he finds not only Nokia’s organisation of the day to be lacking, but also questions the whole idea of App Stores as a sustainable model for all. It's a constructive article, which I hope is taken seriously.
Built into Symbian^3's new Podcatcher software is a link into an online podcast discovery system, which I wanted to showcase - it's a step up from Nokia's clunky old manually-compiled directory, but how good (or bad) is it? With examples and screenshots, I try to point out that even if podcast discovery still isn't perfect, then it's easier than it used to be.
In All About Symbian Insight 130, we start with an update on the ongoing Conspiracy for Good transmedia project. David Gilson then talks us through his first impressions of the Nokia C6. Rafe reports back from Nokia's N8 Developer Day in London, including details of the new Ovi Store client, which is expected to debut on the N8. Finally Steve leads a discussion on Q2's mobile device shipment numbers. You can listen to AAS Insight 130 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
