When Nokia decided to make Ovi Maps free, including the navigation and route planning, there was a lot of discussion about what this would mean for companies like Tom Tom, who make dedicated GPS units. Well now TomTom’s chief, Harold Goodijn, has announced their intention to have an “App Store” on the units, to go along with the new Operating System software powering the device.
Forum Nokia has released a tool, Flowella, which allows designers and developers to easily create design prototypes (mock-ups of how an application will look), without using a single line of code. Prototypes are built by using images of screen mock-ups and defining links between them (i.e. what happens when you click of a given area). The information is then used to create a Flash Lite application or WRT widget, which can be run on a Nokia phone or in the included simulator.
This week Nokia announced the launch and beta availability of the Nokia Qt SDK, a single 'easy-to-use' software development kit (SDK) for Symbian and MeeGo application development. The SDK is, effectively, an evolution of the Qt SDK, with specific focus on, and support for, Nokia's mobile devices. It provides a complete tool chain for creating, developing, testing, packaging and deploying Qt applications. The SDK is available for both Windows and Linux (Mac support is being investigated) and can be downloaded from the Forum Nokia website. Read on for more details.
As part of their launch communications Nokia have uploaded a series of videos to YouTube showing off some of the key elements on the Nokia N8. Plus there's a video showcasing the N8's design with the help of a hands freestyler and another telling you about Nokia's 'Make My App' competition, through which you could win your own N8 and a trip to London. We have rounded up all these videos up into a single post - read on to see the videos and additional details.
In All About Symbian Insight 115 Ewan, Steve and Rafe share their thoughts on the China bound Nokia C5-01 and Nokia X5 (TD-SCDMA handsets for China Mobile). We also take a detailed look at Nokia's Q1 2010 financial results with discussion of Nokia's Symbian^3 plans. Finally we cover Offscreen's 25 million Ovi Store downloads. You can listen to AAS Insight 115 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
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.
Numo Solutions, the developers of SMS Preview, have announced they have passed the 1 million download mark on Ovi Store. SMS Preview shows a preview of incoming text messages, in a bubble that floats above other screen content, for a user defined period of time. It provides an improvement over the built in 'new message alert', which only tells you that you have received a message. Numo Solutions say that SMS Preview is being used in more than 170 countries on 50 different types of handsets.
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.
With the same caveats as always, mobile advertising company Smaato have released numbers on their mobile advertising platform that show Symbian leading the click through rates of the leading mobile operating systems, and performing well above the average rate.
With over two thirds of users choosing to be billed through their mobile phone account (where available), and 90% of users able to use their own language, it's getting harder and harder for everyone to ignore the Ovi Store. It's on an upward curve of adoption by users, developers and networks, and now welcomes China into the Top Ten list of active countries.
If, like me, you'd like to see the Symbian freeware scene grow and grow, why not take a look at this appeal over on the Symbian Foundation blog? Craig is trying to amass votes so that the idea of a freeware test system can get progressed within the organisation - take a look and add your tuppence worth if you agree that it's a good idea!
comScore have recently published a couple of press releases which contain interesting statistics about smartphone market penetration and mobile platform market share. For example, people are twice as likely to buy a smartphone in Italy than they are in Germany. Symbian's strong position in Europe is shown by market share figures of 47%, 55% and 74% in the UK, Germany and Spain respectively. The figures provide a contrast to the frequently reported US market share figures and demonstrate the degree of regional differentiation.
In our latest video Ian Hutton (Technology Management at the Symbian Foundation and chair of the Feature and Roadmap Council) explains how the Symbian Foundation's roadmap is put together. We learn about how its community driven nature is directed and driven through external package owners and internal technology managers. Ian also talks us through some of the big themes for the next few releases of the Symbian platform including improvements to the user, developer and device manufacturer experiences. Watched as a whole it is also a great introduction to how Symbian is seeking to shape the future of mobile.
Nokia have tweaked the Ovi Store with some changes that should prove popular to most users; clearer information about the content you are browsing, more stars when rating applications, and review devices noted. Read on for more about these changes, including screens and info on a new Ovi Store client.
“Show me the money” is a common refrain when looking at a business, and mobile is no different. Google already reckon the money is in advertising on mobile, hence their move to acquire AdMob (which is currently being scrutinised by competition agencies in the US), and Apple are expected to launch their own product for the iPhone and iPad early in May (see MediaPost for one of many pieces of speculation). So why is mobile advertising so important to the mobile eco-system? Read on for my analysis.